Quotes about killing (3996 quotes, page 40)

“Information is like a bank. Some of us are rich. Some of us are poor with information. All of us can be rich. Our job, your job is to rob the bank. To kill the guard…”

Genesis P-Orridge (1950) British musician and writer

“It seems to me that the more Christian a country is the less likely it is to regard the death penalty as immoral. Abolition has taken its firmest hold in post-Christian Europe, and has least support in the church-going United States. I attribute that to the fact that, for the believing Christian, death is no big deal. Intentionally killing an innocent person is a big deal: it is a grave sin, which causes one to lose his soul. But losing this life, in exchange for the next? The Christian attitude is reflected in the words Robert Bolt’s play has Thomas More saying to the headsman: 'Friend, be not afraid of your office. You send me to God.'”

Antonin Scalia (1936–2016) former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

For the nonbeliever, on the other hand, to deprive a man of his life is to end his existence.
God’s Justice and Ours https://web.archive.org/web/20120311230630/http://www.firstthings.com/article/2007/01/gods-justice-and-ours-32, 123 First Things 17. (May 2002). Adapted from remarks given at Pew Forum Conference on Religion, politics and death penalty.
2000s

God , Soul , Country , Penalty

“And therefore just as a brigand caught in broad daylight in the act cannot persuade us that he did not lift his knife in order to rob his victim of his purse, and had no thought of killing him, we too, it would seem, cannot persuade ourselves or others that the soldiers and policemen around us are not to guard us, but only for defense against foreign foes, and to regulate traffic and fetes and reviews; we cannot persuade ourselves and others that we do not know that the men do not like dying of hunger, bereft of the right to gain their subsistence from the earth on which they live; that they do not like working underground, in the water, or in the stifling heat, for ten to fourteen hours a day, at night in factories to manufacture objects for our pleasure. One would imagine it impossible to deny what is so obvious. Yet it is denied.”

Leo Tolstoy The Kingdom of God Is Within You

Source: The Kingdom of God is Within You (1894), Chapter XII, Conclusion—Repent Ye, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at Hand

Hunger , Imagination , Night , Pleasure

“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

People , Men

“Cats kill far more birds than men. Why don't you have a slogan: ‘Kill a cat and save a bird?”

Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (1921) member of the British Royal Family, consort to Queen Elizabeth II

Source: At a project to protect turtle doves in Anguilla in 1965. https://www.womanandhome.com/life/news-entertainment/prince-philip-quotes-63435/

Cats , Bird , Men

“It is impossible for me to express my loathing and horror of the practice men have of killing things for pastime so-called 'hunting,' or 'sport. No one but a barbarian can engage in such pursuits, or can look upon them or know of them without pain and indignation. It makes me want to fight and cry whenever I think of them. And when I see men engaged in such execrable activities (the crippling, killing, and terrifying of whole communities of innocent and happy beings, shooting them down in cold blood, and with hellish enthusiasm), my feeling is that I must stop them at all hazards. And there have been times, when I have come upon men engaged in these fiendish doings, when I would have shot them down if I had been armed, the enormity of their crimes has come over me with such vividness and power.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: The New Ethics (1907), The Perils of Over-population, pp. 157–158

Sport , Pain , Time , Happiness

“Do you see? There exists a kind of knowledge that is without love. It does not purify the psyche in any way, but kills it, as it lacks the love that is the head, the body, and very root of all virtue.”

Gregory Palamas (1296–1359) Monk and archbishop

Source: Holy Hesychia: The Stillness that Knows God, p. 33

Way , Love , Making love , Knowledge

“A carnivorous animal is not an ideal animal, and never can be. The life of a carnivorous animal is a perpetual onslaught. Every meal is a murder. Eating is not the harmless activity it is to one who sits down to fruit and grains. The carnivore must kill somebody, or have somebody else do it for him, in order to eat. It cannot be otherwise. And an animal whose life is one unbroken succession of such necessities, whose stomach is the grave of hundreds and thousands, and even of tens of thousands, of his fellow-beings, may be meritorious in other respects — may preach the Golden Rule, decry war, give money to the missionary, and rail at the rich — but so long as he continues to fill himself every few hours with the blood and vitals of others, he is not only not an ideal animal, but has in reality no just claims on life. Flesh is a painful form of nutrition for any organism, but it is especially so for man, because it is unnecessary, and because man makes so many pretensions and occupies a position in the world of such exceptional responsibility.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: The New Ethics (1907), The Food of the Future, pp. 131–132

Money , Pain , Success , War

“Only by proving that we are superior to the savages, not only through our power to kill them but through our entire way of life, can we control them as they are now, in their present stage; it is necessary for their own well-being, even more than ours.”

Henry Morton Stanley (1841–1904) Welsh journalist and explorer

Source: Leopold II, Het hele Verhaal, Johan Op De Beeck Horizon, 2020 https://klara.be/leopold-ii-aflevering-6 ISBN 9789463962094 Stanley writes this on his first expidition commissioned by King Leopold II of Belgium after describing with horror the horrible scenes of atrocities and cannibalism that take place in Congo.

Way , Life

“You must kill if you expect to survive.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

"No you don't," Miles put in. "Most people go through their whole lives without killing anybody. False argument.
Vorkosigan Saga, Brothers in Arms (1989)

“I'm not living,
I'm just killing time”

Thom Yorke (1968) English musician, philanthropist and singer-songwriter

True Love Waits
Lyrics, A Moon Shaped Pool (2016)

Time

“You were a treasonous pussy if you had second thoughts about killing and dying for plain and simple reasons.”

Tim O'Brien book The Things They Carried

The Things They Carried (1990), On the Rainy River

“Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will.”

Suzy Kassem (1975) American writer

Motivational , Deep , Success , Inspirational

“The ancient roots of the Church of Kyiv here, on the shores of the gray Dnieper, produce a new sprout. We have been killed and crucified many times, but our roots are alive.”

Petro Loza (1979) roman-catholic bishop

World's youngest Catholic bishop consecrated in Ukraine https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/43277/worlds-youngest-catholic-bishop-consecrated-in-ukraine (January 14, 2020)

Time

“Dust to dust by the broken dreams of the humanity,
you ain't got a lot to say, the words are sad,
now, our companion, the pains of the heart
The indifference kills with no shame or concern, killing me,
killing you, watch the end of the blessing, for the blind in the heart war has taken its tax. He has wrapped us in black wings
and one day, the sun stopped, the rain stopped falling,
the flowers didn't look high,
the sky emptied of stars
then a tear dripped from the heart and became our breath
we need a sacred tear,
before the fall.”

Alexis Karpouzos (1967)

Source: https://allpoetry.com/alexis_karpouzos

Star , Flowers , Indifference , Tear

“Only five days on this benighted world, and already total strangers are trying to kill me.
Sadly, it wasn’t even a record.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Cryoburn (2010), Chapter 1 (p. 4)

World

“Pretend to be friendly. Eat with them. Laugh with them. When they are sated and trust you, attack them, kill all their men and kidnap their women and children!”

Cornstalk (1720–1777) Native American in the American Revolution

Plan of attack at the Muddy Creek Massacre.

Children , Women , Men

“Revenge is never good it kills our soul and it poisons”

Pietro Nabhan

Soul , Revenge

“The doctors said they've never seen a body kill the Coronavirus like my body. They tested my DNA and it wasn't DNA. It was USA.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Reportedly said by Trump after he was hospitalized with COVID-19, following an outbreak of the disease in the White House; the quote actually originates from an image featuring a fabricated subtitle overlaid on a video released by the President while he was in Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-coronavirus-kill-body/
Misattributed

“But in the end one needs more courage to live than to kill himself.”

Albert Camus book A Happy Death

A Happy Death (1971)

Courage , Deep

“Killing of innocent people with no just cause is against the teaching of Islam.”

Salah Al Budair (1971) Imaam at Masjid al-Nabawi

Spilling of innocent blood is against Islam – Saudi Imam https://www.pressreader.com/nigeria/daily-trust/20160330/281616714503807 (30th Mar 2016)

People

“When you're sitting at home or living at a slower pace and you see that Black folks in your community are attacked, killed, murdered by vigilantes and by the police, you wake up, you rise to action, and you rise quickly.”

Opal Tometi (1984) Nigerian–American writer, strategist and community organizer

Black Lives Matter Was Always Designed to Be a Global Movement, Vice] (7 July 2020)

Home , Communication

“If you wanted to get yourself killed, there was no better way than to think you knew all the tricks. It took experience to make you realize that the universe could always pull another one out of the bag and throw it at you.”

Charles Sheffield book Resurgence

Source: The Heritage Universe, Resurgence (2002), Chapter 8, “Theories, Theories, Theories” (p. 84)

Universe , Thinking , Way

“If you are stupid they’ll humiliate you, if you’re wise they’ll hate you, if you’re beautiful they’ll kill you, and nor the virtues nor the weaknesses of a woman are ever forgiven. Men are blind of rage for being born as monsters, for not being capable to be loved and to love themselves.”

Menotti Lerro (1980) Italian poet

Brunella, Act II, scene ii.
Theater Quotes

Hate , Beauty , Stupidity , Rage