“I loathe the urchin’s cruelty to the cat, but I will not loathe the urchin. I loathe Hitler’s mass-torturing, but not Hitler; and the money-man’s heartlessness, but not the man. I love the swallow’s flight, and I love the swallow; the urchin’s gleam of tenderness, and the urchin.”

—  Olaf Stapledon

Other texts
Source: The Core, in: An Olaf Stapledon Reader, Syracuse University Press, New York 1997: pp. 266-272.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I loathe the urchin’s cruelty to the cat, but I will not loathe the urchin. I loathe Hitler’s mass-torturing, but not H…" by Olaf Stapledon?
Olaf Stapledon photo
Olaf Stapledon113
British novelist and philosopher 1886–1950

Related quotes

Ayn Rand photo

“…observe that in all the propaganda of the ecologists—amidst all their appeals to nature and pleas for 'harmony with nature'—there is no discussion of man's needs and the requirements of his survival. Man is treated as if he were an unnatural phenomenon. Man cannot survive in the kind of state of nature that the ecologists envision—i. e., on the level of sea urchins or polar bears…”

Ayn Rand book The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution

Source: The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution (1971), p. 136

George Carlin photo

“I love and treasure individuals as I meet them, I loath and despise the groups they identify or belong to.”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

“I feel an intense intimacy with those who have this loathing interest in me. Further than this, I know what they mean, I sympathize with them, I understand them. There should be a name (as poetic as love) for this relationship between loather and loathed; it is of the closest and more full of passion than incest.”

Laura Riding Jackson (1901–1991) poet, critic, novelist, essayist and short story writer

"How it came about?" from Anarchism Is Not Enough (London: Jonathan Cape, 1928)

Abd al-Karim Qasim photo

“I don't want to be the joke of the world, and I don't want to be thought of as another Hitler swallowing up people.”

Abd al-Karim Qasim (1914–1963) Prime Minister of Iraq

As quoted in "Kassem's Corner", Time (July 21, 1961).

Madonna photo

“I've been popular and unpopular successful and unsuccessful loved and loathed and I know how meaningless it all is. Therefore I feel free to take whatever risks I want.”

Madonna (1958) American singer, songwriter, and actress

Anne Rice photo

“Why does shame and self-loathing become cruelty to the innocent?”

Anne Rice book Merrick

Source: Merrick

Vladimir Nabokov photo

“My loathings are simple: stupidity, oppression, crime, cruelty, soft music. My pleasures are the most intense known to man: writing and butterfly hunting.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Strong Opinions

"Foreword", p. 3.
Source: Strong Opinions (1973)

Aleister Crowley photo

“Yea! as I loath, I lust; I prostitute myself to thee, perversely prurient - Wilt thou not make this night the nameless nuptial, the Devil thy Lord and mine at Our Black Mass?”

Aleister Crowley (1875–1947) poet, mountaineer, occultist

Source: Magical Record of the Beast 666: The Diaries of Aleister Crowley 1914-1920 (1972), p. 296

William Shakespeare photo

“My only love sprung from my only hate!
Too early seen unknown, and known too late!
Prodigious birth of love it is to me,
That I must love a loathed enemy.”

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English playwright and poet

Related topics