129 Quotes About Violence

In a world where the prevalence of violence impacts individuals across various spectrums of society, it is essential to cultivate dialogues that promote understanding, peace, and reflection. Quotes about violence, spoken by thinkers, leaders, and survivors, offer profound insights and spark meaningful conversations. They challenge us to consider the roots and repercussions of violent actions, urging us toward a more compassionate and empathetic existence. This collection of the top 129 quotes about violence brings together powerful words that illuminate both the darkness and the hope that surrounds this complex issue. Whether you seek solace, inspiration, or a deeper comprehension, these quotes provide a thought-provoking journey into the human condition.

1. “Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.” - Isaac Asimov

2. “I don't want unnecessary violence, sergeant," said Blouse."Right you are, sir!" said the sergeant. "Carborundum! First man comes through that door runnin', I want him nailed to the wall!" He caught the lieutenant's eye, and added: "But not too hard!” - Terry Pratchett

3. “You can't talk about fucking in America, people say you're dirty. But if you talk about killing somebody, that's cool.” - Richard Pryor

4. “Thou shalt not be a victim, thou shalt not be a perpetrator, but, above all, thou shalt not be a bystander.” - Yehuda Bauer

5. “Our age not only does not have a very sharp eye for the almost imperceptible intrusions of grace, it no longer has much feeling for the nature of the violences which precede and follow them.” - Flannery O'Connor

6. “The human psyche has two great sicknesses: the urge to carry vendetta across generations, and the tendency to fasten group labels on people rather than see them as individuals. Abrahamic religion mixes explosively with (and gives strong sanction to) both. Only the willfully blind could fail to implicate the divisive force of religion in most, if not all, of the violent enmities in the world today. Without a doubt it is the prime aggravator of the Middle East. Those of us who have for years politely concealed our contempt for the dangerous collective delusion of religion need to stand up and speak out. Things are different now. ‘All is changed, changed utterly.” - Richard Dawkins

7. “Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence. In other words, it is war minus the shooting. (in "The Sporting Spirit", Tribune, GB, London, December 1945)” - George Orwell

8. “If somebody says 'I love you' to me, I feel as though I had a pistol pointed at my head. What can anybody reply under such conditions but that which the pistol holder requires? 'I love you, too'.” - Kurt Vonnegut

9. “Humm humm haaa. Rahmumm humm haaaa," intoned Opal, finishing her chant. "Peace be inside me, tolerance all around me, forgiveness in my path. Now, Mervall, show me where the filthy human is so that I may feed him his organs.” - Eoin Colfer

10. “Gewalt ist die letzte Zuflucht des Unfähigen.” - Isaac Asimov

11. “The violence between women is unbelievable...women try to make each other crawl so that their knees are bleeding.” - Tori Amos

12. “You better watch out. You better not cry. You better not pout, I'm telling you why,Cause Santa Clause might put a cap in your ass.” - Craig Ferguson

13. “Extreme violence has a way of preventing us from seeing the interests it serves.” - Naomi Klein

14. “Man is born violent but is kept in check by the people around him. If he nevertheless manages to throw off his fetters, he can count on applause, for everyone recognizes himself in him. Deeply ingrained, nay, buried dreams come true. The unlimited radiates its magic even upon crime, which, not coincidentally, is the main source of entertainment in Eumeswil. I, as an anarch, not uninterested but disinterested, can understand that. Freedom has a wide range and more facets than a diamond.” - Ernst Jünger

15. “In the preface of "The Rifles" "Another rule we followed was never kill an animal that we were not going to use for food or clothing." Barnabas Piryuaq"Well, in those high latitudes we found such quantities of seals and walruses that we simply did not know what to do with them.There were thousands and thousands lying there; we walked among them and hit them on the head, and laughed heartily in the abundance which God had created." Jan Welzi 1933. ” - William T. Vollmann

16. “Honey, no offense, but sometimes I think I could shoot you and watch you kick.” - Raymond Carver

17. “The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. My original soul seemed, at once, to take its flight from my body; and a more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrilled every fibre of my frame.” - Edgar Allan Poe

18. “Moderate strength is shown in violence, supreme strength is shown in levity.” - G.K. Chesterton

19. “The people who burned witches at the stake never for one moment thought of their act as violence; rather they thought of it as an act of divinely mandated righteousness. The same can be said of most of the violence humans have ever committed.” - Gil Bailie

20. “Everyone in prison has an ideal of violence, murder. Beneath all relationships between prisoners is the ever-present fact of murder. It ultimately defines our relationship among ourselves.” - Jack Henry Abbott

21. “There is a comfort in conformity, a security in control, that is appealing. There is a thrill in domination, and we are all secretly attracted to violence.” - Tom Robbins

22. “The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion […] but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.” - Samuel P Huntington

23. “I can assure you that no kingdom has ever had as many civil wars as the kingdom of Christ.” - Montesquieu

24. “The fact that religions, which usually have at their core a promotion of tolerance and peace, have been exploited to carry out violence clearly indicates that individuals and groups have not discovered the true "peace message" that is inherent in almost every religion. (by Cilliers, Ch. 3, p. 55)” - David R. Smock

25. “The violent subjugation of the Palestinians, Iraqis, and Afghans will only ensure that those who oppose us will increasingly speak to us in the language we speak to them—violence.” - Chris Hedges

26. “If there is some corner of the world which has remained peaceful, but with a peace based on injustices the peace of a swamp with rotten matter fermenting in its depths - we may be sure that that peace is false. Violence attracts violence. Let us repeat fearlessly and ceaselessly: injustices bring revolt, either from the oppressed or from the young, determined to fight for a more just and more human world.” - Helder Camara

27. “If we can use an H-bomb--and as you said it's no checker game; it's real, it's war and nobody is fooling around--isn't it sort of ridiculous to go crawling around in the weeds, throwing knives and maybe getting yourself killed . . . and even losing the war . . . when you've got a real weapon you can use to win? What's the point in a whole lot of men risking their lives with obsolete weapons when one professor type can do so much more just by pushing a button?'Zim didn't answer at once, which wasn't like him at all. Then he said softly, 'Are you happy in the Infantry, Hendrick? You can resign, you know.'Hendrick muttered something; Zim said, 'Speak up!'I'm not itching to resign, sir. I'm going to sweat out my term.'I see. Well, the question you asked is one that a sergeant isn't really qualified to answer . . . and one that you shouldn't ask me. You're supposed to know the answer before you join up. Or you should. Did your school have a course in History and Moral Philosophy?'What? Sure--yes, sir.'Then you've heard the answer. But I'll give you my own--unofficial--views on it. If you wanted to teach a baby a lesson, would you cuts its head off?'Why . . . no, sir!'Of course not. You'd paddle it. There can be circumstances when it's just as foolish to hit an enemy with an H-Bomb as it would be to spank a baby with an ax. War is not violence and killing, pure and simple; war is controlled violence, for a purpose. The purpose of war is to support your government's decisions by force. The purpose is never to kill the enemy just to be killing him . . . but to make him do what you want him to do. Not killing . . . but controlled and purposeful violence. But it's not your business or mine to decide the purpose of the control. It's never a soldier's business to decide when or where or how--or why--he fights; that belongs to the statesmen and the generals. The statesmen decide why and how much; the generals take it from there and tell us where and when and how. We supply the violence; other people--"older and wiser heads," as they say--supply the control. Which is as it should be. That's the best answer I can give you. If it doesn't satisfy you, I'll get you a chit to go talk to the regimental commander. If he can't convince you--then go home and be a civilian! Because in that case you will certainly never make a soldier.” - Robert A. Heinlein

28. “Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor.” - Robert A. Heinlein

29. “Learn this now and learn it well. Like a compass facing north, a man’s accusing finger always finds a woman. Always. You remember that, Mariam.” - Khaled Hosseini

30. “If everyone who had a gun just shot themselves, there wouldn't be a problem.” - George Harrison

31. “Modern warfare wasn't supposed to have this much blood in it. The weapons were supposed to cook everyone neatly, like eggs in their shells. (Mark Vorkosigan's first experience with warfare, on seeing Miles Vorkosigan splattered before him)” - Lois McMaster Bujold

32. “We are effectively destroying ourselves by violence masquerading as love.” - R.D. Laing

33. “There are certain verses in the Quran which convey injunctions similar to the following: 'Kill them wherever you find them.' (2:191) Referring to such verses, there are some who attempt to give the impression that Islam is a religion of war and violence. This is total untrue. Such verses relate in a restricted sense, to those who have unilaterally attacked the Muslims. The above verse does not convey the general command of Islam. (pp. 42-43)” - Wahiduddin Khan

34. “Not all Muslims become involved in acts of violence. Yet all might be held culpable. THis is because that section of Muslim--in fact, the majority--who are not personally involved, neither disown those members of their community who are engaged in violence, nor even condemn them. In such a case, according to the Islamic Shariah itself, if the involved Muslims are directly responsible, the uninvolved Muslims are also indirectly responsible. (p. 91)” - Wahiduddin Khan

35. “Violence is not only impractical but immoral.” - Martin Luther King Jr.

36. “the story is not a pretty one. there is violence in it. And cruelty. But stories that are not pretty have a certain value, too, I suppose. Everything, as you well know (having lived in this world long enough to have figured out a thing or two for yourself), cannont always be sweetness and light.” - kate dicamillo

37. “Violence is born of the desire to escape oneself.” - Iris Murdoch

38. “Peoples do not judge in the same way as courts of law; they do not hand down sentences, they throw thunderbolts; they do not condemn kings, they drop them back into the void; and this justice is worth just as much as that of the courts.” - Maximilien Robespierre

39. “The most awful tyranny is that of the proximate Utopia where the last sins are currently being eliminated and where, tomorrow, there will be no more sins because all the sinners will have been wiped out. p. 22” - Thomas Merton

40. “The things people say of a man do not alter a man. He is what he is. Public opinion is of no value whatsoever. Even if people employ actual violence, they are not to be violent in turn. That would be to fall to the same low level. After all, even in prison, a man can be quite free. His soul can be free. His personality can be untroubled. He can be at peace. And, above all things, they are not to interfere with other people or judge them in any way. Personality is a very mysterious thing. A man cannot always be estimated by what he does. He may keep the law, and yet be worthless. He may break the law, and yet be fine. He may be bad, without ever doing anything bad. He may commit a sin against society, and yet realize through that sin his true perfection.” - Oscar Wilde

41. “You can take the barbarian out of the tavern, but he can take the blood out of your body.” - Greg X. Graves

42. “Our incredible bewilderment (wilderness separation) blinds us from seeing that our many personal and global problems primarily result from our assault of and separation from the natural creation process within and around us. Our estrangement from nature leaves us wanting,and when we want there is never enough. Our insatiable wanting is called greed. It is a major source of our destructive dependencies and violence.” - Michael J. Cohen

43. “Confession is an act of violence against the unoffending.” - Tom Stoppard

44. “Kate faced the crowd. They were just eyes and teeth to her, just spit and voices. It was a moment, even, before they became people: a man with one blind eye, another whose neck was thick with lumps and weeping wounds of scrofula. The poorest of the market.At Kate's feet, Drina. Her scarf and shirt were torn open.” - Erin Bow

45. “In violence there is often the quality of yearning - the yearning for completion. For closure. For that which is absent and would if present bring to fulfillment. For the body without which the wing is a useless frozen ornament. ("A Short Guide To The City")” - Peter Straub

46. “In a way, what Tarantino has done with the French New Wave and with David Lynch is what Pat Boone did with rhythm and blues: He's found (ingeniously) a way to take what is ragged and distinctive and menacing about their work and homogenize it, churn it until it's smooth and cool and hygienic enough for mass consumption. Reservoir Dogs, for example, with its comically banal lunch chatter, creepily otiose code names, and intrusive soundtrack of campy pop from decades past, is a Lynch movie made commercial, i.e., fast, linear, and with what was idiosyncratically surreal now made fashionably (i.e., "hiply") surreal [...] D. Lynch is an exponentially better filmmaker than Q. Tarantino. For, unlike Tarantino, D. Lynch knows that an act of violence in an American film has, through repetition and desensitization, lost the ability to refer to anything but itself. A better way to put what I just tried to say: Quentin Tarantino is interested in watching somebody's ear getting cut off; David Lynch is interested in the ear.” - David Foster Wallace

47. “You see Carter, people are two things: greedy and cruel. So we have a perfect set-up here. The greed part - a kid pays a buck for a chance to win a hundred. Plus fifty boxes of chocolates. The cruel part - watching two guys hitting each other, maybe hurting each other, while they're safe in the bleachers. That's why it works, Carter, because we're all bastards.” - Robert Cormier

48. “violence is an evil thing, but when the guns are all in the hands of the men without respect for human rights, then men are really in trouble.” - Louis L'Amour

49. “People have a greater tolerance for evil than for violence. If crooked gamboling, thieving and robing are covered over folks will tolerate it longer than out right violence, even when the violence may be cleansing.” - Louis L'Amour

50. “The fiendlike skill we display in the invention of all manner of death-dealing engines, the vindictiveness with which we carry on our wars, and the misery and desolation that follow in their train, are enough of themselves to distinguish the white civilized man as the most ferocious animal on the face of the earth.” - Herman Melville

51. “Our nation was born in genocide when it embraced the doctrine that the original American, the Indian, was an inferior race. Even before there were large numbers of Negroes on our shore, the scar of racial hatred had already disfigured colonial society. From the sixteenth century forward, blood flowed in battles over racial supremacy. We are perhaps the only nation which tried as a matter of national policy to wipe out its indigenous population. Moreover, we elevated that tragic experience into a noble crusade. Indeed, even today we have not permitted ourselves to reject or feel remorse for this shameful episode. Our literature, our films, our drama, our folklore all exalt it. Our children are still taught to respect the violence which reduced a red-skinned people of an earlier culture into a few fragmented groups herded into impoverished reservations.” - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

52. “It isn't very nice to admit, but domestic violence has its uses. So raw and unleashed, it tears away the veil of civilization that comes between us as much as it makes life possible. A poor substitute for the sort of passion we like to extol perhaps, but real love shares more in common with hatred and rage than it does with geniality or politeness.” - Lionel Shriver

53. “If a violent person wishes to attack us, let us send him a gentle phrase as this will defuse his violence.” - Samael Aun Weor

54. “The moon fled eastward like a frightened dove, while the stars changed their places in the heavens, like a disbanding army. 'Where are we?' asked Gil Gil. 'In France,' responded the Angel of Death. 'We have now traversed a large portion of the two bellicose nations which waged so sanguinary a war with each other at the beginning of the present century. We have seen the theater of the War of Succession. Conquered and conquerors both lie sleeping at this instant. My apprentice, Sleep, rules over the heroes who did not perish then, in battle, or afterward of sickness or of old age. I do not understand why it is that below on earth all men are not friends? The identity of your misfortunes and your weaknesses, the need you have of each other, the shortness of your life, the spectacle of the grandeur of other worlds, and the comparison between them and your littleness, all this should combine to unite you in brotherhood, like the passengers of a vessel threatened with shipwreck. There, there is neither love, nor hate, nor ambition, no one is debtor or creditor, no one is great or little, no one is handsome or ugly, no one is happy or unfortunate. The same danger surrounds all and my presence makes all equal. Well, then, what is the earth, seen from this height, but a ship which is foundering, a city delivered up to an epidemic or a conflagration?' 'What are those ignes fatui which I can see shining in certain places on the terrestrial globe, ever since the moon veiled her light?' asked the young man. 'They are cemeteries. We are now above Paris. Side by side with every city, every town, every village of the living there is always a city, a town, or a village of the dead, as the shadow is always beside the body. Geography, then, is of two kinds, although mortals only speak of the kind which is agreeable to them. A map of all the cemeteries which there are on the earth would be sufficient indication of the political geography of your world. You would miscalculate, however, in regard to the population; the dead cities are much more densely populated than the living; in the latter there are hardly three generations at one time, while, in the former, hundreds of generations are often crowded together. As for the lights you see shining, they are phosphorescent gleams from dead bodies, or rather they are the expiring gleams of thousands of vanished lives; they are the twilight glow of love, ambition, anger, genius, mercy; they are, in short, the last glow of a dying light, of the individuality which is disappearing, of the being yielding back his elements to mother earth. They are - and now it is that I have found the true word - the foam made by the river when it mingles its waters with those of the ocean.' The Angel of Death paused. ("The Friend of Death")” - Pedro Antonio de Alarcón

55. “Tanith frowned. Did people still go on DATES any more? She was sure they did. They probably called it something different though. She tried to think of the last date she'd been on. The last PROPER date. Did fighting side by side with Saracen Rue count as a date? They ended up snuggling under the moonlight, drenched in gore and pieces of brain - so it had PROBABLY been a date. If it wasn't, it was certainly a fun time had by all. Well, not ALL. But she and Saracen had sure had a blast.” - Derek Landy

56. “Christians, indeed, have a special obligation not to forget how great and how inextinguishable the human proclivity for violence is, or how many victims it has claimed, for they worship a God who does not merely take the part of those victims, but who was himself one of them, murdered by the combined authority and moral prudence of the political, religious, and legal powers of human society.” - David Bentley Hart

57. “Among peoples who possess a highly developed pugnacious instinct we find the greatest progress in the arts, sciences, social and political organization, commerce and industry. The instinct takes the milder form of rivalry which is the motive force of the great portion of the serious labors of mankind.” - Holly Estil Cunningham

58. “Those who get in the way of love's path will be kicked by horses.~Kyoya” - Bisco Hatori

59. “But before he could either comfort me or commit further acts of violence upon my person, I spun away from him and made my drama queen moment complete by running away.” - Rachel Hawkins

60. “It is not what you can do for your country, but what you can do for all of mankind.” - Mike Norton

61. “Sentencing enhancements won't get police to investigate crimes they don't take seriously to begin with. They won't stop police from harassing trans women on the street because they assume all trans women are sex workers. They won't have any effect against police officers who believe they won't be held accountable. They won't sway the minds of jurors who think 'I killed her because she was trans' is an adequate excuse. Sentencing enhancements will allow them to dole out harsher punishments against the people they think are more deserving. And we already know that the legal system sees people of color, women, sex workers, immigrants, and the homeless as more deserving of punishment. (Tobi Hill-Meyer of COLAGE (Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere), "Disposable People," November 11, 2008, http://nodesignation.com)” - Kay Whitlock

62. “War is not a means but an end. It makes violence respectable and makes sadists look like heroes.” - Mary Horlock

63. “One way, he thought, the whole thing of ring fighting was hurting somebody else, deliberately, and particularly when it was not necessary. Two men who have nothing against each other get in a ring and try to hurt each other, to provide vicarious fear for people with less guts than themselves. And to cover it up they called it sports and gambled on it. He had never looked at that way before, and if there was any single thing he could not endure it was to be a dupe.” - James Jones

64. “I hate and fear violence myself, have always avoided barroom brawls, and tho' I'm a bit of a gun-nut, and a member of the NRA, I never shoot at anything but beer cans and mule deer. (In season.) And seldom hit either, except by accident.” - Edward Abbey

65. “The last thing we wanted was for the Machiguenga to be sad again. Sadness appeared to bring out their violence.” - Tahir Shah

66. “Hi. I'm here to enlist.You can't. You aren't human.You see, little fella, we don't do sociological stuff like "interspeciated workplaces." We're a crack company of space mercenaries. We do "hurting people" and "breaking things."Sounds like my kind of fun.-Schlock & Lieutenant Der Trihs” - Howard Tayler

67. “No! Wait! I've got a better idea...""Your ideas tend to result in unnecessary violence, Sergeant Schlock.""And your point is...""Let's broaden the definition of 'necessary'.” - Howard Tayler

68. “Maxim 6: If violence wasn't your last resort, you failed to resort to enough of it.-The Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries” - Howard Tayler

69. “Maxim 10: Sometimes the only way out is through... through the hull.-The Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries” - Howard Tayler

70. “Maxim 12: A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head.-The Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries” - Howard Tayler

71. “Maxim 37: There is no "overkill." There is only "open fire" and "reload."-The Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries” - Howard Tayler

72. “When the enemy of my enemy is willing to use plasma weapons inside a hotel, I think I can do better than stupid aphorisms, General.-Captain Kevyn Andreyasn” - Howard Tayler

73. “So you're a fellow mercenary, then.""Does this mean you'll afford me some professional courtesy?""Don't ask for that. All it means is that you might get to face the person who kills you. . . But only if it's convenient.” - Howard Tayler

74. “I always ask myself one question: what is human? What does it mean to be human? Maybe people will consider my new films brutal again. But this violence is just a reflection of what they really are, of what is in each one of us to certain degree.” - Kim Ki-duk

75. “To me, the best zombie movies aren’t the splatter fests of gore and violence with goofy characters and tongue in cheek antics. Good zombie movies show us how messed up we are, they make us question our station in society… and our society’s station in the world. They show us gore and violence and all that cool stuff too… but there’s always an undercurrent of social commentary and thoughtfulness.” - Robert Kirkman

76. “[Picasso] loved...women for the sexual, carnivorous impulses they aroused in him. Mixing blood and sperm, he exalted women in his paintings, imposed his violence on them, and sentenced them to death once he felt their mystery had been discharged and the sexual power they instilled in him had dulled... Women were his prey. He was the Minotaur. These were bloody, indecent bullfights from which he always emerged the dazzling victor.” - Marina Picasso

77. “Senseless violence is a prerogative of youth, which has much energy but little talent for the constructive.” - Anthony Burgess

78. “Whatever your objective in life may be, never use violence to get it! Violence belongs to the Land of Evil; once you enter there, your face and your heart is forever sealed with the devilish ugliness of the violence!” - Mehmet Murat ildan

79. “I am glad," he said, "that I do not dwell in your country among such savage peoples. Here, in Caspak, men fight with men when they meet - men of different races - but their weapons are first for the slaying of beasts in the chase and defense. We do not fashion weapons solely for the killing of man as do your peoples. Your country must indeed be a savage country, from which you are fortunate to have escaped to the peace and security of Caspak.” - Edgar Rice Burroughs

80. “No violence, gentlemen — no violence, I beg of you! Consider the furniture!” - Arthur Conan Doyle

81. “Violence does, in truth, recoil upon the violent, and the schemer falls into the pit which he digs for another.” - Arthur Conan Doyle

82. “We all know that there are language forms that are considered impolite and out of order, no matter what truths these languages might be carrying. If you talk with a harsh, urbanized accent and you use too many profanities, that will often get you barred from many arenas, no matter what you’re trying to say. On the other hand, polite, formal language is allowed almost anywhere even when all it is communicating is hatred and violence. Power always privileges its own discourse while marginalizing those who would challenge it or that are the victims of its power.” - Junot Diaz

83. “I will see my father in every anger.” - Courtney Summers

84. “I’ve seen daggers pierce the chest,Children dying in the road,Crawling things hooked and baited,Rapists bound and then castrated,Villains singed in public square.Yet none these sights did make me cringeLike when my Love cut all her hair.” - Roman Payne

85. “We owe our children – the most vulnerable citizens in any society – a life free from violence and fear.” - Nelson Mandela

86. “In light of all the gun violence in the USA, I'd prefer my democracy unleaded.” - Jayseth Guberman

87. “In her heart she is a mourner for those who have not survived. In her soul she is a warrior for those who are now as she was then. In her life she is both celebrant and proof of women's capacity and will to survive, to become, to act, to change self and society. And each year she is stronger and there are more of her.” - Andrea Dworkin

88. “I chose not to fight it. Eating them...is my revenge.” - J.H. Myn

89. “Wisteria hangs over the eaves like clumps of ghostly grapes. Euphorbia's pale blooms billow like sea froth. Blood grass twists upward, knifing the air, while underground its roots go berserk, goosing everything in their path. A magnolia, impatient with vulvic flesh, erupts in front of the living room window. The recovering terrorist--holding a watering can filled with equal parts fish fertilizer and water, paisley gloves right up over her freckled forearms, a straw hat with its big brim shading her eyes, old tennis shoes speckled with dew--moves through her front garden. Her face, she tells herself, like a Zen koan. The look of one lip smiling.” - Zsuzsi Gartner

90. “Before I met No I thought that violence meant shouting and hitting and war and blood. Now I know that there can also be violence in silence and that it’s sometimes invisible to the naked eye. There’s violence in the time that conceals wounds, the relentless succession of days, the impossibility of turning back the clock. Violence is what escapes us. It’s silent and hidden. Violence is what remains inexplicable, what stays forever opaque...My mother stands there at the living room door with her arms by her sides. And I think that there's violence in that too - in her inability to reach out to me, to make the gesture which is impossible and so forever suspended.” - Delphine de Vigan

91. “Peace requires something far more difficult than revenge or merely turning the other cheek; it requires empathizing with the fears and unmet needs that provide the impetus for people to attack each other. Being aware of these feelings and needs, people lose their desire to attack back because they can see the human ignorance leading to these attacks; instead, their goal becomes providing the empathic connection and education that will enable them to transcend their violence and engage in cooperative relationships.” - Marshall B. Rosenberg

92. “Is this, Miriam wonders, what they call the march of history? And even if she doesn't fully understand, it doesn't mean she can't appreciate the need, the periodic need for some people to resort to gasoline, rags, and matches. Doesn't it always come to this? Isn't history as much about tearing things down as it is about building things up?” - Peter Orner

93. “Revolution does have to be violent precisely because the Pharaoh won't let you go. If the Pharaoh would let you go, the revolution won't have to be violent.” - Michael Hardt

94. “... in a cycle as old as tribalism, ignorance of the Other engenders fear; fear engenders hatred; hatred engenders violence; violence engenders further violence until the only "rights", the only law, are whatever is willed by the most powerful.” - David Mitchell

95. “Challenge a person's beliefs, and you challenge his dignity, standing, and power. And when those beliefs are based on nothing but faith, they are chronically fragile. No one gets upset about the belief that rocks fall down as opposed to up, because all sane people can see it with their own eyes. Not so for the belief that babies are born with original sin or that God exists in three persons or that Ali is the second-most divinely inspired man after Muhammad. When people organize their lives around these beliefs, and then learn of other people who seem to be doing just fine without them--or worse, who credibly rebut them--they are in danger of looking like fools. Since one cannot defend a belief based on faith by persuading skeptics it is true, the faithful are apt to react to unbelief with rage, and may try to eliminate that affront to everything that makes their lives meaningful.” - Steven Pinker

96. “Revolutionary behavior and violence are usually only indulged in when people are at their wits’ end. So social stability depends a lot on how long their wits are.” - George Hammond

97. “I don’t get you people. You watch the Godfather on television and tons of people are getting shot and stabbed to death, blood splattering everywhere and it is entertaining. But, when they killed a horse, people were outraged.” - Mario Stinger

98. “All authority is quite degrading. It degrades those who exercise it, and degrades those over whom it is exercised. When it is violently, grossly, and cruelly used, it produces a good effect by creating, or at any rate bringing out, the spirit of revolt and individualism that is to kill it. When it is used with a certain amount of kindness, and accompanied by prizes and rewards, it is dreadfully demoralising. People, in that case, are less conscious of the horrible pressure that is being put on them, and so go through their lives in a sort of coarse comfort, like petted animals, without ever realising that they are probably thinking other people's thoughts, living by other people's standards, wearing practically what one may call other people's second-hand clothes, and never being themselves for a single moment.” - Oscar Wilde

99. “They had come for us in the night. Hey had come expecting a lot of blood. They had come with all their gear. Their rubber overshoes and their nylon bodysuits. Their knives, their hammer, their bag of nails. They had come to do a job on us, like they'd done on Morrison and his wife.” - Lee Child

100. “It's despair at the lack of (I'm cheating, I didn't say all these things - but I'm going to write what I want to say as well as what I did) feeling, of love, of reason in the world. It's despair that anyone can even contemplate the idea of dropping a bomb or ordering that it should be dropped. It's despair that so few of us care. It's despair that there's so much brutality and callousness in the world.” - John Fowles

101. “But strength doesn’t always mean brute force. You don’t have to kick ass to be a fighter. Violence doesn’t equal strength. Lead your army by example. There’s a better answer to all this. War isn’t going to solve anything, but it will tear our two worlds apart, and there will be casualties, including humans. There’s nothing heroic about this war. It will lead to a destruction unlike anything you or I have ever seen” - Becca Fitzpatrick

102. “There is nothing wrong with standing back and thinking. To paraphrase several sages: 'Nobody can think and hit someone at the same time.” - Susan Sontag

103. “It’ll turn me into a weapon,’ I say, my voice suddenly loud. ‘All you got to do is curl your hands into fists and you turn into a weapon,’ says Jim. ‘Your body is just another tool. This technology changes nothing; it only amplifies. You decide how to use your tools. Whether to do good or evil.” - Daniel H. Wilson

104. “Join us. Play the game. It will bring you an untold number of rewards and you will finally have some direction and purpose in your lives. Take control of yourselves and those around you. Bend them to your will and all worldly pleasures will be yours...” - Martin Hopkins

105. “Any violation of a woman's body can become sex for men; this is the essential truth of pornography.” - Andrea Dworkin

106. “Not only are animals unable to avail themselves of language to assert their own rights, but many fewer humans have a clear sense of kinship with animals than have a clear sense of kinship with other humans. Among beings with subjective states of awareness, animals are the untouchable caste, those whom human others would rather not acknowledge, let alone render assistance.” - Gary Steiner

107. “He soon recognized the fact that the stimulus proceeded from the idea to be in the power of a woman rather than from the act of violence itself.” - Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing

108. “Evil turned out not to be a grand thing. Not sneering Emperors with their world-conquering designs. Not cackling demons plotting in the darkness beyond the world. It was small men with their small acts and their small reasons. It was selfishness and carelessness and waste. It was bad luck, incompetence, and stupidity. It was violence divorced from conscience or consequence. It was high ideals, even, and low methods.” - Joe Abercrombie

109. “You don't get it boy... this isn't a mudhole... its an operating table. (KRAKKKKK) And I'm the surgeon.” - Frank Miller

110. “And what, brothers, I had to escape into sleep from then was the horrible and wrong feeling that it was better to get the hit than give it. If that veck had stayed I might even have like presented the other cheek.” - Anthony Burgess

111. “He'd shot and beaten people because he couldn't talk to them.Violence was the only language nobody could understand. There were no translators.” - James Meek

112. “We're this big melting pot, but someone turned up the heat too high, and the stew started to burn. Gangs, crime, fights, and fear are now a regular part of our local stew.” - Neal Shusterman

113. “In answer to 'But violence hasn't solved anything!'The hell it hasn't. The application of violence - of killing and a willingness to be killed - on a massive scale is responsible for a lot of solutions. The most recent mass application of violence liberated Kuwait. The most recent mass application of violence on a global scale alone cleansed the world of the Third Reich. Nonviolence and passive resistance did less than nothing to stop Hitler and his henchmen. The Atlantic slave trade wasn't stopped by 'dialogue' or 'passive resistance' or conferences, but by the opened gunports of the Royal Navy; Dachau and Chang-I weren't liberated with pamphlets.” - Markham Shaw Pyle

114. “The boldest of the three (thieves) moved suddenly, grabbed Angua and pulled her upright. "We walk out of here unharmed or the girl gets it, all right?" he snarled. Someone sniggered. "I hope you're not going to kill anyone," said Carrot."That's up to us!""Sorry, was I talking to you?" said Carrot. "Don't worry, I'll be fine," said Angua. She looked around to make sure Cheery wasn't there and then sighed."Come on, gentlemen, let's get this over with.""Don't play with your food!" said a voice from the crowd.There were one or two giggles until Carrot turned in his seat, whereupon everyone was suddenly intensely interested in their drinks."It's OK," said Angua quietly.Aware that something was off kilter, but not quite sure what it was, the thieves edged back to the door. No one moved as they unbolted it and, still holding Angua, stepped out into the fog, shutting the door behind them. "Hadn't we better help," said a constable who was new to the Watch. "They don't deserve help," said Vimes. there was a clank of armor and then a long, deep growl, right outside in the street. And a scream and then another scream. and a third scream modulated with "NONONOnonononononoNO!...aarghaarghaargh!" Something heavy hit the door.” - Terry Pratchett

115. “The state calls its own violence law, but that of the individual, crime.” - Max Stirner

116. “The dark-haired girl behind Winston had begun crying out: 'Swine! Swine! Swine!', and suddenly she picked up a heavy Newspeak dictionary and flung it at the screen.” - George Orwell

117. “I admit to a feeling of pride that my father had saved the day yet again, although I also thought that nothing would have been better for me personally than for the mullah to force my father's departure within the hour. Either way, I know now that nothing would have stopped my father from his Jihad. If he could not remain in Afghanistan, he would go to Pakistan. If Pakistan pulled the welcome mat, he would go to Yemen. If Yemen threw him out, he would journey to the middle of the most hostile desert where he would plot against the West. Violent Jihad was my father's life; nothing else really mattered. Nothing.” - Omar bin Laden

118. “Keep in mind the roots of violence: Lust, envy, anger, avarice, and vengeance...the taproot...the killer's ultimate and truest motivation...is the hatred of truth...the hatred of truth is a vice. From it comes pride and an enthusiasm for disorder.” - Dean Koontz

119. “Marxism teaches that exploitation and degradation somehow produce resistance and revolution. It's been hard to say why. What I've learned from women's experience with sexuality is that exploitation and degradation produce grateful complicity in exchange for survival. They produce self-loathing to the point of extinction of self, and it is respect for self that makes resistance conceivable.” - Catharine A. MacKinnon

120. “We'd be the safest country in the world if the world knew we didn't have a gun. Men are not killed because they get mad at each other. They're killed because one has a gun.” - Jeannette Rankin

121. “We are all a part of a culture of violence that dominates every aspect of our lives.” - Bryant McGill

122. “Since the human mind is the primary weapon of the human being, it is also therefore the primary and most significant instrument of violence.” - Bryant McGill

123. “All violence demands reform, and all violence desperately begs to be healed.” - Bryant McGill

124. “I am sometimes asked, "How do you know there won't be a war tomorrow (or a genocide, or an act of terrorism) that will refute your whole thesis?" The question misses the point of this book. The point is not that we have entered an Age of Aquarius in which every last earthling has been pacified forever. It is that substantial reductions in violence have taken place, and it is important to understand them. Declines in violence are caused by political, economic, and ideological conditions that take hold in particular cultures at particular times. If the conditions reverse, violence could go right back up.” - Steven Pinker

125. “If you have the power to hit people over the head whenever you want, you don’t have to trouble yourself too much figuring out what they think is going on, and therefore, generally speaking, you don’t. Hence the sure-fire way to simplify social arrangements, to ignore the incredibly complex play of perspectives, passions, insights, desires, and mutual understandings that human life is really made of, is to make a rule and threaten to attack anyone who breaks it. This is why violence has always been the favored recourse of the stupid: it is the one form of stupidity to which it is almost impossible to come up with an intelligent response. It is also of course the basis of the state.” - David Graeber

126. “Allah-U-Akbar (God is great) is the most frightening word, because it always reminds me that someone is committing crime;specifically murder.” - M.F. Moonzajer

127. “The passive and overt violence waged against the women and children of the world must end.” - Bryant McGill

128. “We are all artificial and have been unnaturally changed by violence and unwholesome conditioning.” - Bryant McGill

129. “I was not frightened as they were, for the very violence of his threats showed how weak he was.” - Erik Christian Haugaard