“A murderer is regarded by the conventional world as something almost monstrous, but a murderer to himself is only an ordinary man…. It is only if the murderer is a good man that he can be regarded as monstrous.”

— Graham Greene , book The Ministry of Fear

Bk. 1, ch. 7, sct. 1
The Ministry of Fear (1943)

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 "A murderer is regarded by the conventional world as something almost monstrous, but a murderer to himself is only an or…" by Graham Greene?

Graham Greene 164

English writer, playwright and literary critic 1904–1991

Related quotes

“In the mid nineteenth century, the typical murderer was a drunken illiterate; a hundred years later the typical murderer regards himself as a thinking man.”

Colin Wilson (1931–2013) author

Introductory Essay, p. xiv
The Encyclopedia of Modern Murder 1962-1983 (1983)

“A man lusts to become a god … and there is murder. Murder upon murder upon murder. Why is the world of men nothing but murder?”

David Zindell book The Broken God

Source: The Broken God (1992), p. 278

“Man has no right to kill his brother, it is no excuse that he does so in uniform. He only adds the infamy of servitude to the crime of murder.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English Romantic poet

Article 19
"Declaration of Rights" http://knarf.english.upenn.edu/PShelley/declarat.html (1812)

“I'm concerned about justice. I'm concerned about brotherhood. I'm concerned about truth. And when one is concerned about these, he can never advocate violence. For through violence you may murder a murderer but you can't murder murder. Through violence you may murder a liar but you can't establish truth. Through violence you may murder a hater, but you can't murder hate. Darkness cannot put out darkness. Only light can do that.”

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

1960s, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? (1967)
Context: I say to you today that I still stand by nonviolence. And I am still convinced that it is the most potent weapon available to the Negro in his struggle for justice in this country. And the other thing is that I am concerned about a better world. I'm concerned about justice. I'm concerned about brotherhood. I'm concerned about truth. And when one is concerned about these, he can never advocate violence. For through violence you may murder a murderer but you can't murder murder. Through violence you may murder a liar but you can't establish truth. Through violence you may murder a hater, but you can't murder hate. Darkness cannot put out darkness. Only light can do that.

“A man shouldn't die with no understanding of why he's been murdered”

Matthew Stover book Heroes Die

The Acts of Caine, Heroes Die (The Acts of Caine: Act of Violence) (1998)
Heroes Die (1998)
Context: It's customary, at times like this, to say a few words. A man shouldn't die with no understanding of why he's been murdered. I do not pride myself on my eloquence, and so I will keep this simple.

“Tools arm the man. One can well say that man is capable of bringing forth a world; he lacks only the necessary apparatus, the corresponding armature of his sensory tools. The beginning is there. Thus the principle of a warship lies in the idea of the shipbuilder, who is able to incorporate this thought by making himself into a gigantic machine, as it were, through a mass of men and appropriate tools and materials. Thus the idea of a moment often required monstrous organs, monstrous masses of materials, and man is therefore a potential, if not an actual creator.”

Novalis book Blüthenstaub

Fragment No. 88
Blüthenstaub (1798)

“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)

“A murderer is only an extroverted suicide.”

Graham Chapman (1941–1989) English comedian, writer and actor

“One man must not kill. If he does it is murder. Two, ten, one hundred men, acting on their own responsibility, must not kill. If they do, it is still murder. But a state or nation may kill as many as they please, and it is no murder. It is just, necessary, commendable and right. Only get people enough to agree to it, and the butchery of myriads of human beings is perfectly innocent.”

Adin Ballou (1803–1890) American minister

How Many Does It Take

“But the moment he holds them [slaves] as property, however kindly he may treat them, he is a man-stealer, whom the apostle classes among ‘murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers.’”

William Lloyd Garrison (1805–1879) American journalist

Letter to Gerrit Smith, (Feb. 7, 1835), The Letters of William Lloyd Garrison, vol. 1, Walter M. Merrill, edit., Belknap Press-Harvard University Press, 1971, p. 445

“A murderer is regarded by the conventional world as something almost monstrous, but a murderer to himself is only an ordinary man…. It is only if the murderer is a good man that he can be regarded as monstrous.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Graham Greene 164

Related quotes

Related topics