“All the hideously calculated hypocrisy of men when they commit a murder in the name of justice.”

—  Peter Ustinov , Romanoff and Juliet

Act I
Romanoff and Juliet (1956)
Context: The only one who's always punctual is Death … whatever the time he always strikes his knell at the first streak of dawn … and believe me, he knows what he's doing. How I hate the dawn! It's the hour of the firing squad. The last glass of brandy. The ultimate cigarette. The final wish. All the hideously calculated hypocrisy of men when they commit a murder in the name of justice. Then it's the time of death on a grander scale, the hour of the great offenses … fix your bayonets boys …gentlemen, synchronize your watches … in ten seconds time the barrage starts … a thousand men are destined to die in order to capture a farmhouse no one has lived in for years... And finally dawn is the herald of the day, our twelve hours of unimportance, when we have to cede to the pressures of the powers, smile at people we have every reason but expediency to detest … A diplomat these days is nothing but a head-waiter who's allowed to sit down occasionally.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 27, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "All the hideously calculated hypocrisy of men when they commit a murder in the name of justice." by Peter Ustinov?
Peter Ustinov photo
Peter Ustinov 59
English actor, writer, and dramatist 1921–2004

Related quotes

Andrea Dworkin photo

“A commitment to sexual equality with men is a commitment to becoming the rich instead of the poor, the rapist instead of the raped, the murderer instead of the murdered.”

Andrea Dworkin (1946–2005) Feminist writer

"I Want a Twenty-Four Hour Truce During Which There Is No Rape" http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/dworkin/WarZoneChaptIIIE.html (1983).
Context: I want to see this men's movement make a commitment to ending rape because that is the only meaningful commitment to equality. It is astonishing that in all our worlds of feminism and antisexism we never talk seriously about ending rape. Ending it. Stopping it. No more. No more rape. In the back of our minds, are we holding on to its inevitability as the last preserve of the biological? Do we think that it is always going to exist no matter what we do? All of our political actions are lies if we don't make a commitment to ending the practice of rape. This commitment has to be political. It has to be serious. It has to be systematic. It has to be public. It can't be self-indulgent.

Francis Bacon photo

“The general root of superstition : namely, that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss; and commit to memory the one, and forget and pass over the other.”

Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, and author

Sylva Sylvarum Century X (1627)
Source: The Collected Works of Sir Francis Bacon
Context: It is true that may hold in these things, which is the general root of superstition; namely, that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss; and commit to memory the one, and forget and pass over the other.

Albert Pike photo

“Hypocrisy is the homage that vice and wrong pay to virtue and justice.”

Albert Pike book Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry

Source: Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871), Ch. III : The Master, p. 73

Brandon Sanderson photo

“The difference between good and evil men is not found in the acts they are willing to commit—but merely in what name they are willing to commit them in.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Bands of Mourning

Leonardo Da Vinci photo

“The time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look on the murder of men.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath
Ron Paul photo

“Given the inefficiencies of what DC laughingly calls the 'criminal justice system,' I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal…[W]e are constantly told that it is evil to be afraid of black men, [but] it is hardly irrational. Black men commit murders, rapes, robberies, muggings, and burglaries all out of proportion to their numbers.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

1992, quoted in [1978-1996: Texas Representative Ron Paul’s Newsletters Contain a Host of Bigoted Claims and Observations, History Commons, http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a7896paulnewsletter#a7896paulnewsletter]
Disputed, Newsletters, Ron Paul Political Report

Robert G. Ingersoll photo

“Blasphemy is a padlock which hypocrisy tries to put on the lips of all honest men.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

Blasphemy lecture delivered at Brooklyn, N.Y., prior to Ingersoll's departure for Europe, February 22d, 1885 (reproduced at pg. 105 https://books.google.com/books?id=4O1cDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA105&lpg=PA105&dq=Blasphemy+is+a+padlock+which+hypocrisy+tries+to+put+on+the+lips+of+all+honest+men.&source=bl&ots=I7KMCNvJ0B&sig=xOulmfPwJpuZQWqe8dBvtiJ_lms&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiiuuaE6ZreAhWyOn0KHdsaAd8Q6AEwAHoECAcQAQ#v=onepage&q=Blasphemy%20is%20a%20padlock%20which%20hypocrisy%20tries%20to%20put%20on%20the%20lips%20of%20all%20honest%20men.&f=false).

George Bernard Shaw photo

“When a man wants to murder a tiger he calls it sport: when the tiger wants to murder him he calls it ferocity. The distinction between Crime and Justice is no greater.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

#62
1900s, Maxims for Revolutionists (1903)

Alice Sebold photo

“My name is Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered.”

Alice Sebold book The Lovely Bones

Source: The Lovely Bones

Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“There is another side called justice. And justice is really love in calculation. Justice is love correcting that which revolts against love.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

Montgomery Bus Boycott speech, at Holt Street Baptist Church (5 December 1955) http://www.blackpast.org/?q=1955-martin-luther-king-jr-montgomery-bus-boycott
1950s
Context: Whatever we do, we must keep God in the forefront. Let us be Christian in all of our actions. But I want to tell you this evening that it is not enough for us to talk about love, love is one of the pivotal points of the Christian face, faith. There is another side called justice. And justice is really love in calculation. Justice is love correcting that which revolts against love.

Related topics