Quotes about murder
page 14

I. F. Stone photo
Narendra Modi photo

“Take the cases of Kerala or Kashmir, Bengal or Tripura, it will not come in the media. Some people have selective sensitivity. Hundreds of workers have been killed only for political ideology. In Tripura, workers were hanged. In Bengal, murders are still on. In Kerala too … perhaps, in India only one political party has faced such killings. Violence has been given legitimacy. This is a danger before us.”

Narendra Modi (1950) Prime Minister of India

May 2019. Quoted from BJP workers killed in Bengal for their ideology https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/bjp-workers-killed-in-bengal-for-their-ideology-says-pm-modi-tmc-calls-allegation-baseless/articleshow/69525655.cms Times of India
2019

Stephen King photo
Daniel Ortega photo
Ernst Röhm photo
Pythagoras photo

“As long as Man continues to be the ruthless destroyer of lower living beings, he will never know health or peace. For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love.”

Pythagoras (-585–-495 BC) ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher

Attribution to Pythagoras by Ovid, as quoted in The Extended Circle: A Dictionary of Humane Thought (1985) by Jon Wynne-Tyson, p. 260; also in Vegetarian Times, No. 168 (August 1991), p. 4

Pandit Lekh Ram photo
William March photo
Iain Banks photo
Ferenc Puskás photo

“Look at that little fat chap. We’ll murder this lot.”

Ferenc Puskás (1927–2006) Hungarian-Spanish association football player

An unidentified, overconfident English player upon seeing Puskás before their England v Hungary (1953) encounter. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/18/sports/soccer/18puskas.html?_r=1&ref=obituaries&oref=slogin

Richard Wright photo
Mike Rosen photo

“Television is to news as a bumper sticker is to Shakespeare. I remember hearing an analogy once that went something like that. Your typical nightly, 35-minute TV news broadcast is a headline service with pictures. Five minutes of police-blotter reporting - fires, murders, car accidents, etc.”

Mike Rosen (1944) American political pundit

five minutes of human-interest stories and small talk, five minutes of weather, five minutes of sports, ten minutes of commercials, and maybe a minute or two for business, science, politics, and affairs of the world.
July 3, 1998 Denver Post column

Ali Khamenei photo
Teal Swan photo
Rudyard Kipling photo
John Wayne Gacy photo

“Taking my life will not compensate for the loss of the others. The State is murdering me.”

John Wayne Gacy (1942–1994) American serial killer and torturer

Final words before execution by lethal injection. Quoted in Kozenczak, Joseph R.; Kozencz, Karen M.; The Chicago Killer: The Hunt for Serial Killer John Wayne Gacy (2003), Xlibris US, pg. 253

G. K. Chesterton photo

“…If ever I murdered somebody," he added quite simply, "I dare say it might be an Optimist."
"Why?" cried Merton amused. "Do you think people dislike cheerfulness?”

"People like frequent laughter," answered Father Brown, "but I don't think they like a permanent smile. Cheerfulness without humour is a very trying thing."
The Innocence of Father Brown (1911) The Three Tools of Death
The Father Brown Mystery Series (1910 - 1927)

E.E. Cummings photo

“An artist doesn't live in some geographical abstraction, superimposed on a part of this beautiful earth by the nonimagination of unanimals and dedicated to the proposition that massacre is a social virtue because murder is an individual vice. Nor does an artist live in some soi-disant world, nor does he live in some so-called universe, nor does he live in any number of "worlds" or in any number of "universes."”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

As for a few trifling delusions like the "past" and "present" and "future" of quote mankind unquote,they may be big enough for a couple of billion supermechanized submorons but they're much too small for one human being.
Re Ezra Pound (p. 69)
i : six nonlectures (1953)

George Ball (diplomat) photo
Imru' al-Qais photo

“I passed by the sentries on watch near her, and a people desirous of killing me;
If they could conceal my murder, being unable to assail me openly.”

Imru' al-Qais (501–544) Arabic Poet

The Sacred Books and Early Literature of the East, Vol. 5, p. 22
Poetry, Couplets
Source: https://archive.org/details/sacredbooksearly05hornuoft/page/18/mode/2up The Sacred books and Early literature of the East, Vol. 5, p. 22

William Lloyd Garrison photo

“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

T.S. Eliot photo
Priti Patel photo

“Capital punishment [could] serve as a deterrent. I do not think we have enough deterrents in this country for criminals – let’s not forget that murders, rapists and criminals of that nature choose to commit the crimes that they commit.”

Priti Patel (1972) British politician

Said during a Question Time debate. Quoted by the Independent. Priti Patel MP: Who is the new Treasury minister who supports death penalty and rejects plain packaging for cigarettes? https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/priti-patel-mp-who-is-the-new-treasury-minister-who-supports-death-penalty-and-rejects-plain-9608096.html (15 July 2014)
2014

“Between 1939 and 1945 the Nazis systematically murdered as many as 200,000 mentally ill or physically disabled people whom they stigmatised as 'life unworthy of life.'”

Michael Burleigh (1955) American historian and writer

This covert and complex series of operations was known as the ‘euthanasia programme.’

Death and Deliverance 'Euthanasia' in Germany, c.1900 to 1945,Cambridge University Press, 1994, p. i

Barry McCaffrey photo

“We tortured people unmercifully. We probably murdered dozens of them during the course of that, both the armed forces and the CIA.”

Barry McCaffrey (1942) United States Army general

Quoted in State-Sanctioned Torture in the Age of Trump https://truthout.org/articles/state-sanctioned-torture-in-the-age-of-trump/, by Marjorie Cohn, Truthout (23 January 2017)

J.B. Priestley photo
Guy P. Harrison photo
Bruno Heller photo
James Thomson (B.V.) photo
Leo Tolstoy photo
Leo Tolstoy photo
Adin Ballou photo
Adin Ballou photo
Kendrick Lamar photo
Diadochos of Photiki photo
J. Howard Moore photo
J. Howard Moore photo
Matthew Stover photo
Nikos Kazantzakis photo
Joe Biden photo

“The murder of George Floyd launched a summer of protest we hadn’t seen since the Civil Rights era in the ‘60s — protests that unified people of every race and generation in peace and with purpose”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

20 April 2021 https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/04/20/remarks-by-president-biden-on-the-verdict-in-the-derek-chauvin-trial-for-the-death-of-george-floyd/
2021, April 2021

Arthur C. Clarke photo

“That’s what I think they’re doing, eating themselves alive. They murder in the name of God and blindly destroy the very ecosystem that sustains them.”

“People are people.” Bert shrugged.
“What you’re really saying is that people are animals,” Crane replied. “And I say to you, it doesn’t have to be that way. We can make a civilization, a real civilization, built on real understanding of ourselves and our universe.”
Source: 1990s, Richter 10 (1996), Chapter 20, “Shimani-Gashi” (p. 362)

David Trimble photo

“One of the great curses of this world is the human rights industry. They justify terrorist acts and end up being complicit in the murder of innocent victims.”

David Trimble (1944–2022) Northern Irish politician

Human Rights' Other Face : http://www.rediff.com/news/2004/mar/10rajiv.htm: 10 March 2004 , Rediff.com. . Quoted in S. Balakrishna, Seventy years of secularism. 2018.

Mani Shankar Aiyar photo

“No one can imagine an India without Islam and Muslims... If there is any need to sacrifice, I am also part of that. Now let’s see whose hand has more power, us or that murderer”

Mani Shankar Aiyar (1941) Indian politician

Narendra Modi
Quoted in https://www.opindia.com/2020/01/mani-shankar-aiyar-shaheen-bagh-anti-caa-pakistan-visit-katil/ and in Nupur Sharma, Delhi Anti-Hindu Riots 2020 (2020).

Luís Gama photo

“Under the law, the crime of murder perpetrated by the slave on the person of the master is justifiable”

Luís Gama (1830–1882) Brazilian lawyer, poet, abolitionist and journalist

Subtitle of the article "Aos escravocratas" written by Raul Pompeia. Newspaper "ÇA IRA", August 19, 1882. Source: Benedito, Mouzar (2011). Luiz Gama - o libertador de escravos e sua mãe libertária, Luíza Mahin https://www.expressaopopular.com.br/loja/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/luiz-gama.pdf 2 ed. São Paulo: Expressão Popular. Page: 59. ISBN 85-7743-004-9.

Opal Tometi photo

“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)

Al-Tabari photo

“The morning after the murder of Ashraf, the Prophet declared, "Kill any Jew who falls under your power."”

Al-Tabari (839–923) influential Persian scholar, historian and exegete of the Qur'an

Source: Tabari 7:97

Henry Miller photo
J. Howard Moore photo

“We preach the Golden Rule with an enthusiasm that is well-nigh vehement, and then freckle the globe with huge murder-houses for the expeditious destruction of those who have as good a right to live as we have.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: " The Unconscious Holocaust https://archive.org/details/theunconsciousholocaust-jhowardmoore", Good Health: A Journal of Hygiene, Vol 32, Iss. 2, 1 Feb. 1897, p. 75

Gilbert O'Sullivan photo

“I never thought I'd see the day
when murder would become so commonplace.
Hardly a minute ever goes by
without a murder taking place. And why?
Well, for a start, the punishment's not hard:
they sentence you to life but you're out in no time.”

Gilbert O'Sullivan (1946) Irish singer-songwriter

"Talking of Murder" (song)
Gilbert O'Sullivan, "Talking of Murder" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a327hRmOEes (song on YouTube)
Song lyrics

John Thomas Flynn photo
Nikita Vasilyevich Smirnov photo

“Once in the darknet, you can buy anything you want, even in the dark side, you can order a murder.”

Source: https://promdevelop.ru/economy/darknet/

John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton photo

“A time came when the Catholics, having long relied on force, were compelled to appeal to opinion. That which had been defiantly acknowledged and defended required to be ingeniously explained away. The same motive which had justified the murder now prompted the lie. Men shrank from the conviction that the rulers and restorers of their Church had been murderers and abetters of murder, and that so much infamy had been coupled with so much zeal. They feared to say that the most monstrous of crimes had been solemnly approved at Rome, lest they should devote the Papacy to the execration of mankind. A swarm of facts were invented to meet the difficulty: The victims were insignificant in number; they were slain for no reason connected with religion; the Pope believed in the existence of the plot; the plot was a reality; the medal is fictitious; the massacre was a feint concerted with the Protestants themselves; the Pope rejoiced only when he heard that it was over. These things were repeated so often that they have been sometimes believed; and men have fallen into this way of speaking whose sincerity was unimpeachable, and who were not shaken in their religion by the errors or the vices of Popes. Möhler was pre-eminently such a man. In his lectures on the history of the Church, which were published only last year, he said that the Catholics, as such, took no part in the massacre; that no cardinal, bishop, or priest shared in the councils that prepared it; that Charles informed the Pope that a conspiracy had been discovered; and that Gregory made his thanksgiving only because the King's life was saved. Such things will cease to be written when men perceive that truth is the only merit that gives dignity and worth to history.”

John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton (1834–1902) British politician and historian

Source: 1860s, The Massacre Of St. Bartholomew (1869)

Larry Niven photo
Victoria Woodhull photo

“Every woman knows that if she were free, she would never bear an unwished-for child, nor think of murdering one before its birth.”

Victoria Woodhull (1838–1927) American suffragist

In an article in the West Virginia Evening Standard (1875) expressing her moral opposition to abortion

Frank Lloyd Wright photo
Patrick Kavanagh photo