Quotes about violence
page 16

“As we counter this ideology, a key part of our strategy must be to tackle both parts of the creed – the non-violent and violent. This means confronting groups and organisations that may not advocate violence – but which do promote other parts of the extremist narrative.”

David Cameron (1966) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

2010s, 2015, Speech on extremism (20 July 2015)

Parting

“This situation has gotten to the point where it appears that the leadership of the Democratic Party is rushing headfirst towards historical fascism, embracing not only socialist interventionist ideology and collectivistic metaphysics, but encouraging uncivility that has incited mob-like violence that harkens back to Nazi street firebrands.”

L. K. Samuels (1951) American writer

Source: Killing History: The False Left-Right Political Spectrum and the Battle between the ‘Free Left’ and the ‘Statist Left', (2019), p. 116

Appearance

“In a head-on clash between violence and power, the outcome is hardly in doubt. Nowhere is the self-defeating factor in the victory of violence over power more evident than in the use of terror to maintain domination, about whose weird successes and eventual failures we know perhaps more than any generation before us. Violence can destroy power; it is utterly incapable of creating it.”

Hannah Arendt book On Violence

On the subject violence and power. Source: On Violence, published in 1970. As quoted by Scroll Staff (December 04, 2017): Ideas in literature: Ten things Hannah Arendt said that are eerily relevant in today’s political times https://web.archive.org/web/20191001213756/https://scroll.in/article/856549/ten-things-hannah-arendt-said-that-are-eerily-relevant-in-todays-political-times. In: Scroll.in. Archived from the original https://scroll.in/article/856549/ten-things-hannah-arendt-said-that-are-eerily-relevant-in-todays-political-times on October 1, 2019.

Failure, Success, Victory, Self-confidence

“Now it can become clear to man that freedom and peace of the nations can only come when as Jesus and his followers, and in our time above all Tolstoi advised, they choose to fully abstain from any violence.”

Gustav Landauer (1870–1919) German anarchist

Letter from Landauer to Martin Buber 1914, quoted in Martin Buber's Life and Work, vol. I by M. Friedman 1981, pp. 251-252

Peace, Freedom, Time

“A goal can only be reached if the means are in consonance with its essential nature. One will never attain non-violence through violence.”

Gustav Landauer (1870–1919) German anarchist

Letter from Landauer to Martin Buber 1901, quoted in Martin Buber's Life and Work, vol. I by M. Friedman 1981, p. 251

Nature

“What other paths were there? His studies had shown him that revolution and evolution were the only ways that societies ever truly changed. Revolution and evolution, built of a mix of education and violence and politics and compromise and self-interest and self-preservation. Certainly, history showed that rigid societies, like ancient dinosaurs, always died. The Confed was the biggest dinosaur ever, and while it was already dying and had been doing so for a long time, it would take many years before it finally fell. Any empire which had to hold its citizens in check with military force was far down the road to destruction. Which brought up another thought: what would replace the dead beast when it began to rot? What parasite would emerge from the corpse to try and breed itself into superiority?”

Steve Perry book The Man Who Never Missed

Source: The Man Who Never Missed (1985), Chapter 15 (p. 132)

Education, Way, History, Study

“Any type of violence initiated by one intelligent being against another was wrong. Killing violence was worse than any other kind. How could it be condoned? In his brief moment of cosmic bliss, Khadaji had seen the value of intelligent life. Man and his self-created mues were alone in the galaxy as evolved intelligence. Certainly, there were artificials—computers and genetically altered animals—but no aliens had been discovered above the level of an unaltered dog. It was a big galaxy, plenty of room for every human or neo-human, it wasn’t necessary to kill any of them!”

Steve Perry book The Man Who Never Missed

Source: The Man Who Never Missed (1985), Chapter 15 (p. 131)

Life, Dogs, Intelligence, Animals

“We arrived at five great Epochs of the Earthly Life of the Human Race, which are the only possible Epochs thereof, and thoroughly exhaust the whole of this Life:–First, That in which human affairs are governed by Reason as Instinct without violence or constraint. Second, That in which this Instinct has become weaker, and now only manifests itself in a few chosen Individuals, and thereby becomes an External Ruling Authority in reference to all the rest. Third, That in which this Authority is thrown off; and, with it, Reason in every shape which it has yet assumed. Fourth, That in which Reason in the shape of Science appears among men. Fifth, That in which Art associates itself with this Science, in order to mold Human Life with a firmer and surer hand into harmony with Science, and in which the ordering of all the relations of Man according to Reason is, by means of this Art, freely accomplished, the object of the Earthly Life attained, and our Race enters upon the higher spheres of Eternity.”

Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) German philosopher

Source: The Characteristics of the Present Age (1806), p. 64

Life, Men, Art, Appearance

“About Suicide attacks; because the 9/11 bombers did suicide attacks, all sorts of theories came out like those about virgins in heaven. This bizzare thing happened where suicide attacks were equated with Islam. No one bothered researching the Tamil Tigers and the Japanese Kamikaze bombers. No one blamed religion when they carried out suicide attacks and rightly so because no religion teaches violence.”

Imran Khan (1952) Prime Minister of Pakistan

Speech at the United Nations General Assembly, 2019

Religion, Suicide

“The nervous tension of the public mind could not have been more strikingly illustrated than it was by the alarm resulting from the talk of a small band of men who called themselves anarchists, and proposed to terrify the American people into adopting their ideas by threats of violence, as if a mighty nation which had but just put down a rebellion of half its own numbers, in order to maintain its political system, were likely to adopt a new social system out of fear.”

Edward Bellamy (1850–1898) American author and socialist

Source: Looking Backward, 2000-1887 http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25439 (1888), Ch. 1.

Men, People, Fear, Idea

“This anthology proves that there is nothing new about the realization of the connection between our treatment of non-humans and of each other. Clear minds down the centuries have seen that the violence man shows to man is inextricably linked to the violence we have inflicted upon other species and our shared environment.”

Jon Wynne-Tyson (1924) British writer

"Preface", in The Extended Circle: A Commonplace Book of Animal Rights (1989)

“None of these authors have advocated violence. But their warnings of impending Islamic takeover – a concept that is widely dismissed as implausible in conventional scholarly and political circles – sometimes carry an urgency that might seem to invite angry responses.”

Anders Behring Breivik (1979) Norwegian mass murderer

Doug Saunders, ‘Eurabia’ opponents scramble for distance from anti-Muslim murderer[11 http://dougsaunders.net/2011/07/norway-breivik-geert-wilders-mark-steyn-bruce-bawer/], the Globe and Mail, 2011-07-26 ; Other

“The Essence of War is Violence. Moderation in War is Imbecility.”

John Fisher, 1st Baron Fisher (1841–1920) Royal Navy admiral of the fleet

p. 75. https://archive.org/stream/cu31924027924509#page/n104/mode/1up Records (1919) https://archive.org/stream/cu31924027924509#page/n0/mode/1up

War

“We will have even more successful and even more fruitful movements. Radical, merciless, pro-violence views will be wiped out and we will make this world a place like Heaven on Earth insha’Allah.”

Harun Yahya (1956) Turkish author

The world will be an abode of peace, it will be a festive place.
20 April 2013.
A9 TV addresses, 2013

World, Making love, Success

“There is perhaps no example of any conquest in which the natives have been so completely excluded from all share of the government of their country as in British India…. Foreign conquerors have treated the natives with violence, and often with great cruelty, but none has treated them with so much scorn as we…”

Swathi Thirunal Rama Varma (1813–1846) Maharajah of Travencore

Sir Thomas Munro, in his letter to the Governor-General Lord Hastings in 1817, quoted in "The Monarch musician"
About Swathi Thirunal

Country

“The war between the two fan clubs stopped only about 15 years ago. We both told them to stop after there were stray incidents of violence on both sides. Considering fans have killed each other for our distinguished predecessors, MGR and Shivaji Ganesan, our fans can be considered pacifists (laughs). I went ahead and set a new precedent. I turned my fan club into a social service organisation.”

Rajinikanth (1950) Indian actor

Kamal Haasan, on the role of their fiercely possessive fans, in "I'd do anything Rajni asks me to: Kamal Haasan (14 December 2011)."

War

“We should be committed to ending this spate of gun violence and criminality. We should stop allowing the progressive, socialist left to manipulate us for the sake of their insidious ideological agenda. The problem is simple — doing that takes courage, and the left tends to define courage with examples such as Bradley Manning or Bowe Bergdahl. Real courage, however, is shown by those who don’t merely follow the trend or status quo, but who stand up for that which is right and truly just — and don’t kneel.”

Allen West (politician) (1961) American politician; retired United States Army officer

2010s, I'd like to see MORE football player protests — NOT less (27 September 2017)

Courage, Problem

“A party philosopher who was interested in historical research and had no idea of the violence which his philosophy was inciting in the twentieth century.”

Alfred Rosenberg (1893–1946) German architect and politician

Robert H. Jackson [citation needed]

Idea

“Hinduism is a religion of violence. All Hindu gods killed their enemies and became heroic images. This is the only religion in the world where the killer becomes god. Whom did they kill? From Brahma to Krishna, those who were killed were Dalitbahujans. Now these images and the stories and narratives and everything is out there in the civil society. Now, because of this, the consciousness of worshipping the killer or worshipping violence did not give any space for human rights. So my question is the human rights discourse must start with an anti-warrior position.”

Kancha Ilaiah (1952) Indian scholar, activist and writer

"The State of Dalit Mobilization : An Interview with Kancha Ilaiah" in Ghadar Vol. 1, No. 3 (26 November 1997) http://www.proxsa.org/resources/ghadar/v1n2/ilaiah.html.

God, World, Religion, Question

“Sometimes we try to justify this unsavory business on the cynical ground that by rationing out the means of violence we can somehow control the world’s violence. The fact is that we cannot have it both ways. Can we be both the world’s leading champion of peace and the world’s leading supplier of the weapons of war?”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

"A Community of the Free" address at the The Foreign Policy Association NY, NY (23 June 1976); this is often paraphrased: We cannot be both the world’s leading champion of peace and the world’s leading supplier of the weapons of war.
Pre-Presidency

War, World, Peace, Way

“Once you grasp the staggering differences between black and white neighborhoods, it becomes much easier to explain a whole realm of phenomena. Take the achievement gap between middle-class black students and their white peers. It’s easy to look at this and jump to cultural explanations—that this is a function of black culture and not income or wealth. But, when we say middle-class black kids are more likely to live in poor neighborhoods, what we’re also saying is that they’re less likely to have social networks with professionals, and more likely to be exposed to violence and crime. This can have serious consequences. Youthful experimentation for a white teenager in a suburb might be smoking a joint in a friend’s attic. Youthful experimentation for a black teenager might be hanging out with gang members.”

Jamelle Bouie (1987) American columnist and political correspondent

Down and Out, 2014

Youth, Wealth

“We have come to the point where we are able to say to those who will even use violence to block us, we will match you capacity to inflict suffering with our capacity to endure suffering. We will meet you physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will, and we will still love you. We cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws, because noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. And so throw us in jail, and we will still love you. Bomb our homes and threaten our children, and, as difficult as it is, we will still love you.”

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

1960s, Address to Cornell College (1962)

Love, Children, Making love, Law

“I say to you in very honest terms that there are some things in our social order and in the world to which I’m proud to be maladjusted, and I would hope the men of good will will be maladjusted to these same things until the good society is realized. I never intend to adjust myself to segregation and discrimination. I never intend to become adjusted to religious bigotry. I never intend to adjust myself to the madness of militarism and the self-defeating effects of physical violence.”

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

1960s, Address to Cornell College (1962)

Men, World, Hope, Self-confidence

“I once thought the greatest sin of war was violence. It isn't. The greatest sin is it requires good men to become practical.”

Pierce Brown book Dark Age

Source: Dark Age (2019), Ch. 1: Till the Vale; Darrow

Men, War

“On the contrary, violence is often caused by a surfeit of morality and justice, at least as they are conceived in the minds of the perpetrators.”

Steven Pinker (1954) psychologist, linguist, author

p 139
The Better Angels of our Nature (2011)

Justice

“To be gazed at is one danger; to be manhandled is another. Women as a rule are unfamiliar with violence, they have not been through the tussles of childhood and youth as have men; and now the girl is laid hold of, swept away in a bodily struggle in which the man is the stronger. She is no longer free to dream, to delay, to maneuver: she is in his power, at his disposal.”

Simone de Beauvoir book The Second Sex

Bk. 2, Pt.. 3, Ch. 3: Sexual initiation. p. 427 (1974 Vintage edition)
The Second Sex (1949)

Women, Men, Youth, Dreams

“To Iranian President Rouhani: NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE. WE ARE NO LONGER A COUNTRY THAT WILL STAND FOR YOUR DEMENTED WORDS OF VIOLENCE & DEATH. BE CAUTIOUS!”

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

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1021234525626609666 Donald Trump on social media, Twitter

Death, History, Suffering, Country

“On this black asphalt of violence, drugs turn your son into a walking corpse and your daughter into a merchantilistic prostitute!”

Luiz Carlos Alborghetti (1945–2009) Italian-Brazilian radio commenter, showman and political figure

Original: (pt) Neste asfalto negro de violência, as drogas transformam seu filho num cadáver ambulante e sua filha numa prostituta mercantilista!
Original: (pt) Source: [9 December 2009, Morre Luiz Carlos Alborghetti, dono do bordão 'bandido bom é bandido morto', https://extra.globo.com/tv-e-lazer/morre-luiz-carlos-alborghetti-dono-do-bordao-bandido-bom-bandido-morto-209786.html, Portuguese, Extra, Editora Globo S/A, 31 March 2019]

Daughters

“We gaze petrified at the hieroglyphs of the invisible, as they too stand motionless or only slowly change against the background of a nocturnal sky. We watch forces that slumbered within us, waiting stubbornly and patiently for millennia, even from the beginning of time. These forces explode into the violence and gleam of colours; they open spaces and engender the forms of the worlds. The forces of the cosmos are awakened within us. They lead us outside of time to join in their celebration dance and they do not let go of us. They do not stop – because not even they believed that it was possible to attain 'such happiness.'”

Michel Henry (1922–2002) French writer

Art is the resurrection of eternal life.
Michel Henry, Seeing the invisible: On Kandinsky, Continuum, 2009, p. 142
Books on Culture and Barbarism, Seeing the Invisible: On Kandinsky (1988)

Happiness, World, Change, Time

“By willing endurance we cause suffering to pass. Evil becomes a spent force when we put up no resistance. By refusing to pay back the enemy with his own coin, and preferring to suffer without resistance, the Christian exhibits the sinfulness of contumely and insult. Violence stands condemned by its failure to evoke counter-violence.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi

Source: Discipleship (1937), Revenge, p. 142

Failure, Suffering, Evil

“Jesus is no draughtsman of political blueprints, he is the one who vanquished evil through suffering. It looked as though evil had triumphed on the cross, but the real victory belonged to Jesus. And the cross is the only justification for the precept of non-violence, for it alone can kindle a faith in the victory over evil which will enable men to obey that precept. And only such obedience is blessed with the promise that we shall be partakers of Christ's victory as well as his sufferings.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi

Source: Discipleship (1937), Revenge, p. 142

Men, Faith, Suffering, Evil

“Jesus bluntly calls the evil person evil. If I am assailed, I am not to condone or justify aggression. Patient endurance of evil does not mean a recognition of its rights. That is sheer sentimentality, and Jesus will have nothing to do with it. The shameful assault, the deed of violence and the act of exploitation are still evil. … The very fact that the evil which assaults him is unjustifiable makes it imperative that he should not resist it, but play it out and overcome it by patiently enduring the evil person. Suffering willingly endured is stronger than evil, it spells death to evil.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi

Source: Discipleship (1937), Revenge, p. 142

Death, Making love, Suffering, Evil

“Non-violent resistance activities cannot succeed against an enemy that is able freely to use violence. That's pretty obvious. You can't have non-violent resistance against the Nazis in a concentration camp, to take an extreme case...”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Chronicles of Dissent, December 13, 1989 https://web.archive.org/web/20000829081348/http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/interviews/db-8912.html Quotes 1960s–1980s, 1980s

“Government violence is not the result of violent revolutions, but the product of government itself. Any movement that leaves the State intact will fail in ending the oppressions we are fighting against. A nonviolent movement that replaces one government with another—and this is the greatest victory a nonviolent movement has ever achieved in the history of the world—ends up betraying itself, allowing Power to change its masks without addressing the fundamental problems of society. Nonviolence as an analytical tool has no means of understanding this kind of defeat—the kind that looks like victory.”

Peter Gelderloos (1982) American anarchist

Source: "The Failure of Nonviolence" (2013) https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-gelderloos-the-failure-of-nonviolence, Chapter 2. Recuperation is How We Lose

World, History, Understanding, Problem

““Violence” was a euphemism for a threat to the ruling order and its illusion of social peace, with which the class struggle, the brutality of patriarchy, and the murderousness of colonialism are hidden. The newspapers did not talk about violence when cops killed strikers, when landlords evicted families, or when poor people died of hunger. They talked about violence when workers went on strike, when tenants stopped paying rent, when street vendors refused to surrender their wares to the cops.”

Peter Gelderloos (1982) American anarchist

Source: "The Failure of Nonviolence" (2013) https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-gelderloos-the-failure-of-nonviolence, Chapter 1. Violence Doesn't Exist

Hunger, People, Family, Peace

“We are all forced to participate in a society that is held together by structural violence, and rewarded for our participation with various privileges, though these privileges are spread unevenly across society. Given that those who use some form of visible, antisocial violence are often the least likely to enjoy the privileges of structural violence, there is no feasible way to determine who is violent and who is not.”

Peter Gelderloos (1982) American anarchist

Source: "The Failure of Nonviolence" (2013) https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-gelderloos-the-failure-of-nonviolence, Chapter 1. Violence Doesn't Exist

Way

““Violence” is whatever the person speaking at the moment decides to describe as violent. Usually, this means things they do not like. As a result, the use of the category “violence” tends towards hypocrisy. If it is done to me, it is violent. If it is done by me or for my benefit, it is justified, acceptable, or even invisible.”

Peter Gelderloos (1982) American anarchist

Source: "The Failure of Nonviolence" (2013) https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-gelderloos-the-failure-of-nonviolence, Chapter 1. Violence Doesn't Exist

Personality

“We have become blind to the alternatives to violence. This involves us in a sort of official madness, in which, while following what seems to be a perfect logic of self-defense and deterrence, we commit one absurdity after another: We seek to preserve peace by fighting a war, or to advance freedom by subsidizing dictatorships, or to "win the hearts and minds of the people" by poisoning their crops and burning their villages and confining them in concentration camps; we seek to uphold the "truth" of our cause with lies, or to answer conscientious dissent with threats and slurs and intimidations. … I have come to the realization that I can no longer imagine a war that I would believe to be either useful or necessary. I would be against any war.”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

"A Statement Against the War in Vietnam" an address at the University of Kentucky (10 February 1968) http://books.google.com/books?id=-hHNuLumg8wC&pg=PA68 The Long-Legged House (1969)

War, People, Truth, Peace

“I propose hermeneutic communism: non-dogmatic communism, weak communism. Only this can save us. [Is is] without essences, without absolutes to be realized at all costs. It is only an ideal of equitable society, a society that progressively weakens violence like dialectics.”

Gianni Vattimo (1936–2023) Italian philosopher, politician

"Only Weak Communism Can Save Us" (2013)

Communication

“Congress leaders have been intimidating me and threatening me with physical violence. I am deeply grateful that the Supreme Court has noted the violence against me and my wife.”

Arnab Goswami (1973) Indian news anchor

https://www.opindia.com/2020/04/arnab-goswami-grateful-supreme-court-interim-protection-congress-fir/ https://www.aninews.in/news/national/general-news/grateful-to-sc-for-upholding-constitutional-right-to-report-broadcast-arnab-goswami20200424155249/ https://www.newsx.com/national/arnab-goswami-deeply-grateful-to-sc-for-defending-his-freedom-of-expression-says-congress-filed-over-150-firs-to-intimidate-him.html

“Between friends and enemies, there is no question of freedom, only violence and subjugation. This is the reality of politics, a reality that liberals often do not dare to face.”

Jiang Shigong (1967) Chinese legal and political theorist

《乌克兰宪政危机与政治决断》 ["Ukraine's constitutional crisis and political decisions"] (2004), translated by David Ownby in Rethinking China's Rise, p. 27

Question, Reality, Freedom

“It's nonsense to talk about the war on Islamic terrorism as a clash of civilisations. The distinction is between civilisation and chaos. Whatever people may claim - and the desire to cut through the political processes can be very powerful - there is never any justification for violence.”

Michael Burleigh (1955) American historian and writer

As quoted in “Michael Burleigh: The reluctant guru,” John Crace, The Guardian, March 10, 2008 https://www.theguardian.com/education/2008/mar/11/academicexperts.highereducationprofile

War, People

“I have always criticised violence in my speeches but the way the trouble in just two per cent of the area is blown up and used against us should be countered. Arundhati Roy paints Gujaratis as rapists and then goes scot-free by apologising. Isn't it an insult to Gujarat?”

Arundhati Roy (1961) Indian novelist, essayist

Narendra Modi Interview given to Rediff, "'The BJP is unstoppable'" http://www.rediff.com/news/2002/aug/27inter.htm (27 August 2002).

Way, Painting

“Ask questions stubbornly, very proud men who seeing themselves right without knowing anything about the matter. This shows lack of piety, a tendency to ranting, a weak mind, and excessive vanity. [...] If you hear, or read writing (you object to), do not react with violence until you have proof that what is expressed is wrong. Do not accept that with the enthusiasm of the credulous man either until being wholly convinced of that. In both situations you blind yourself and drift away from truth… Act like a person who has no preconceived views, one ready to know and accept what is right and reject what is wrong.”

Ibn Hazm (994–1064) Arab theologian

ibid, 116

Men, Truth, Question, Reading

“I don't think either one of them literally want to incite violence. But they have to realize that when they tell people to get up in your face, that there are some crazy unstable people out there. There are truly people who have anger issues. The guy that shot over two hundred rounds from a semi-automatic weapon at us at the ballfield, was an angry guy. He was a guy that would go down to the city council and yell and scream and get angry and red in the face. He once hit a neighbor with the butt of his gun. He had all of these anger issues. But then when people stoke that and say "get up in their face", "go to Washington."”

Rand Paul (1963) American politician, ophthalmologist, and United States Senator from Kentucky

He showed up at the ballfield that day, and as he started shooting at us he yelled "This is for healthcare!", and then when they were finally able to kill him in his pocket was a list of five or six conservative republicans that he came there intending to kill. So instead of saying "get up in their face", we should say let's have constructive dialog. Let's forcefully present our position in a verbal way and in an intellectual way. 2018-10-10 Rand Paul: There Will Be an 'Assassination' If Left Doesn't Ratchet Down the Rhetoric Discussion on Fox and Friends http://insider.foxnews.com/2018/10/10/rand-paul-there-will-be-assassination-if-left-doesnt-ratchet-down-rhetoric https://video.foxnews.com/v/5847225479001/?#sp=show-clips

People, Guy, Thinking, Anger

“Unless the intensity of our defense of life matches the ferocity of the assault against it, we allow a greater violence to grow exponentially until an earth once teeming with life becomes a mass graveyard, a battered wasteland, and a toxic cesspool. Then, when it is finally too late, the unfortunates who remain will grasp what the radicals tried to convey: what the logic of growth and capitalism finally wrought, the colossal failure of human vision and will, and the complicity of pacifism with the greatest violence of all.”

Steven Best (1955) American activist

Source: The Politics of Total Liberation: Revolution for the 21st Century (2014), Chapter 3 "The Paralysis of Pacifism: In Defense of Militant Direct Action" (p. 78)

Life, Failure

“The exposure of violence is perceived by the privileged as the origin of violence.”

Sara Ahmed (1969) Australian and British academic

Source: "An Affinity of Hammers" (2016), p. 28

“A continually reaffirmed thesis of communism is that its objectives cannot be realized without ruthless violence nor within the framework of a constitutional order.”

Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) American journalist and radio broadcaster

Source: "Let the Record Speak" 1939, “The Truth about Communism” https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015051180423&view=1up&seq=5 (1948), pp. 14-15

Communication

“One of the most dangerous words is 'extremist'. A person who commits acts of violence is not an 'extremist'; he is a criminal. If he commits those acts of violence with the object of detaching part of the territory of the United Kingdom and attaching it to a foreign country, he is an enemy under arms. There is the world of difference between a citizen who commits a crime, in the belief, however mistaken, that he is thereby helping to preserve the integrity of his country and his right to remain a subject of his sovereign, and a person, be he citizen or alien, who commits a crime with the intention of destroying that integrity and rendering impossible that allegiance. The former breaches the peace; the latter is executing an act of war. The use of the word 'extremist' of either or both conveys a dangerous untruth: it implies that both hold acceptable opinions and seek permissible ends, only that they carry them to 'extremes'. Not so: the one is a lawbreaker; the other is an enemy.The same purpose, that of rendering friend and foe indistinguishable, is achieved by references to the 'impartiality' of the British troops and to their function as 'keeping the peace.'”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

The British forces are in Northern Ireland because an avowed enemy is using force of arms to break down lawful authority in the province and thereby seize control. The army cannot be 'impartial' towards an enemy, nor between the aggressor and the aggressed: they are not glorified policemen, restraining two sets of citizens who might otherwise do one another harm, and duty bound to show no 'partiality' towards one lawbreaker rather than another. They are engaged in defeating an armed attack upon the state. Once again, the terminology is designed to obliterate the vital difference between friend and enemy, loyal and disloyal.Then there are the 'no-go' areas which have existed for the past eighteen months. It would be incredible, if it had not actually happened, that for a year and a half there should be areas in the United Kingdom where the Queen's writ does not run and where the citizen is protected, if protected at all, by persons and powers unknown to the law. If these areas were described as what they are—namely, pockets of territory occupied by the enemy, as surely as if they had been captured and held by parachute troops—then perhaps it would be realised how preposterous is the situation. In fact the policy of refraining from the re-establishment of civil government in these areas is as wise as it would be to leave enemy posts undisturbed behind one's lines.
Source: Speech to the South Buckinghamshire Conservative Women's Annual Luncheon in Beaconsfield (19 March 1971), from Reflections of a Statesman. The Writings and Speeches of Enoch Powell (1991), pp. 487-488

War, World, Peace, Help

“Have you ever wondered, perhaps, why opinions which the majority of people quite naturally hold are, if anyone dares express them publicly, denounced as 'controversial, 'extremist', 'explosive', 'disgraceful', and overwhelmed with a violence and venom quite unknown to debate on mere political issues? It is because the whole power of the aggressor depends upon preventing people from seeing what is happening and from saying what they see.The most perfect, and the most dangerous, example of this process is the subject miscalled, and deliberately miscalled, 'race.'”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

The people of this country are told that they must feel neither alarm nor objection to a West Indian, African and Asian population which will rise to several millions being introduced into this country. If they do, they are 'prejudiced', 'racialist'... A current situation, and a future prospect, which only a few years ago would have appeared to everyone not merely intolerable but frankly incredible, has to be represented as if welcomed by all rational and right-thinking people. The public are literally made to say that black is white. Newspapers like the Sunday Times denounce it as 'spouting the fantasies of racial purity' to say that a child born of English parents in Peking is not Chinese but English, or that a child born of Indian parents in Birmingham is not English but Indian. It is even heresy to assert the plain fact that the English are a white nation. Whether those who take part know it or not, this process of brainwashing by repetition of manifest absurdities is a sinister and deadly weapon. In the end, it renders the majority, who are marked down to be the victims of violence or revolution or tyranny, incapable of self-defence by depriving them of their wits and convincing them that what they thought was right is wrong. The process has already gone perilously far, when political parties at a general election dare not discuss a subject which results from and depends on political action and which for millions of electors transcends all others in importance; or when party leaders can be mesmerised into accepting from the enemy the slogans of 'racialist' and 'unChristian' and applying them to lifelong political colleagues...In the universities, we are told that education and the discipline ought to be determined by the students, and that the representatives of the students ought effectively to manage the institutions. This is nonsense—manifest, arrant nonsense; but it is nonsense which it is already obligatory for academics and journalists, politicians and parties, to accept and mouth upon pain of verbal denunciation and physical duress.We are told that the economic achievement of the Western countries has been at the expense of the rest of the world and has impoverished them, so that what are called the 'developed' countries owe a duty to hand over tax-produced 'aid' to the governments of the undeveloped countries. It is nonsense—manifest, arrant nonsense; but it is nonsense with which the people of the Western countries, clergy and laity, but clergy especially—have been so deluged and saturated that in the end they feel ashamed of what the brains and energy of Western mankind have done, and sink on their knees to apologise for being civilised and ask to be insulted and humiliated.Then there is the 'civil rights' nonsense. In Ulster we are told that the deliberate destruction by fire and riot of areas of ordinary property is due to the dissatisfaction over allocation of council houses and opportunities for employment. It is nonsense—manifest, arrant nonsense; but that has not prevented the Parliament and government of the United Kingdom from undermining the morale of civil government in Northern Ireland by imputing to it the blame for anarchy and violence.Most cynically of all, we are told, and told by bishops forsooth, that communist countries are the upholders of human rights and guardians of individual liberty, but that large numbers of people in this country would be outraged by the spectacle of cricket matches being played here against South Africans. It is nonsense—manifest, arrant nonsense; but that did not prevent a British Prime Minister and a British Home Secretary from adopting it as acknowledged fact.
Source: The "enemy within" speech during the 1970 general election campaign; speech to the Turves Green Girls School, Northfield, Birmingham (13 June 1970), from Still to Decide (1972), pp. 36-37

People, Nature, Dependency, Perfection

“The most unrighteous judgment was passed upon me in the House that was ever heard of...against the most positive evidence that it was possible in any case to give. ... I am made a sacrifice to the violence of a party and entirely innocent.”

Robert Walpole (1676–1745) British statesman

Source: Letter https://historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1690-1715/member/walpole-robert-ii-1676-1745 (c. January 1712). On 17 January 1712 the case against Walpole for bribery was heard in the House of Commons and he was voted by a majority of more than 50 to have been guilty of "a high breach of trust and notorious corruption". By further votes he was committed to the Tower of London and expelled from the Commons.

Housing

“The evil of storytelling is you’re trying to make the audience complicit in murder — Kill the guy! Jump him! And then once you’ve done it, it’s like, I’ve killed this guy, now what? If you do that kind of violence in a show like this, you have to bring the audience along with you and then question their judgement.”

Bruno Heller (1960) British screenwriter

The Mentalist Finale Interview https://ew.com/article/2011/05/26/the-mentalist-finale/ (May 26, 2011)

Making love, Guy, Question, Evil

“Our laws are being disregarded right and left. The mobs are out. The police are being subjected to violence. Intimidation and violence are contrary to the law of the land. It should be condemned by every responsible citizen. We have the finest police force in the world. It is under the Queen that they defend our laws, and it is under the Queen that we should support them.”

Alfred Denning, Baron Denning (1899–1999) British judge

Speech to Justice, London (28 June 1977), quoted in The Times (29 June 1977), p. 4

World, Law, Support

“The institutions of democracy will be gradually and, if possible, imperceptibly withdrawn. The Press will become a better and better directed and drilled servant of the capitalist class. All other methods of disseminating information, notably the cinema and the wireless, will be more and more consciously monopolized. Power may be gradually withdrawn from a democratically elected Chamber (cf . Reform of the House of Lords in Britain) or alternatively the franchise may be gradually curtailed (cf. the proposals of the British Conservative party for withholding the franchise from persons in receipt of poor relief). At the same time, the habitual regime of police violence will be increased (cf. the present heavy sentences on working-class militants in Britain passed almost openly, not for any specific offence but because the accused were working-class militants, as notably in the case of Arthur Homer; the increasing use of terror in all American wage disputes ; the police regime in France, etc., etc.). This method applies the principle of " the inevitability of gradualness " to the introduction of an open capitalist dictatorship.”

John Strachey (1901–1963) British politician and writer (1901-1963)

Source: The Coming Struggle for Power (1932), p. 268

Democracy, Time, Housing, Personality

“Nobody has been able to come up with the source where I allegedly said the outrageous thing that has been attributed to me. My name is being misused, but not in Norway or Sweden or Denmark where my position on violence in the name of religion or culture is so well known that it would be absurd to attribute a defense of rape to me.”

Unni Wikan (1944) Norwegian anthropologist

25 April 2007 protest of misattributed quote below

Religion

“The word ‘violence’ is being systematically remade to conform to their worldview. Looting and arson aren’t violence, they argue. And yet physical violence directed at their opponents is also not violence but rather ‘self-defense.’”

Andy Ngo (1986) American conservative journalist and social‐media personality

Source: Unmasked: Inside Antifa’s Radical Plan to Destroy Democracy (2021), p. 17

Self-confidence

“Violence is a bit like antibodies. Small doses build up until you can reject and be immune to the most horrific events.”

Bernard MacLaverty book Cal

Source: Novels, Cal (1983), Ch.5 - p.127

“What's more American than violence?”

Edward Abbey book The Monkey Wrench Gang

Hayduke wanted to know. "Violence, it's as American as pizza pie.
The Monkey Wrench Gang (1975)

“The Communists say that there are the only two means of establishing communism. The first is violence. Nothing short of it will suffice to break up the existing system. The other is dictatorship of the proletariat. Nothing short of it will suffice to continue the new system.”

Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891–1956) Father of republic India, champion of human rights, father of India's Constitution, polymath, revolutionary…

On Communism, Thoughts of Dr. Baba Saheb Ambedkar https://books.google.com/books?id=6nolAQAAIAAJ, p. 107

Communication

“Revenge is the philosophy of dictators and mob bosses... used to keep others in line with threats of economic ruin, violence, or worse.”

David Cay Johnston (1948) Investigative journalist and author

It's Even Worse Than You Think (2018)

Revenge

“We are encouraged to think of acts of police violence more or less in isolation, to consider them as unique, unrelated occurrences. We ask ourselves always, “What went wrong?””

Kristian Williams (1974) American historian

and for answers we look to the seconds, minutes, or hours before the incident. Perhaps this leads us to fault the individual officer, perhaps it leads us to excuse him. Such thinking, derived as it is from legal reasoning, does not take us far beyond the case in question. And thus, such inquiries are rarely very illuminating. The shooting of Oscar Grant, the beating of Rodney King, the arrest of Marquette Frye, the killing of Arthur McDuffie — any of these may be explained in terms of the actions and attitudes of the particular officers at the scene, the events preceding the violence (including the actions of the victims), and the circumstances in which the officers found themselves. Indeed, juries and police administrators have frequently found it possible to excuse police violence with such explanations. The unrest that followed these incidents, however, cannot be explained in such narrow terms. To understand the rioting, one must consider a whole range of related issues, including the conditions of life in the Black community, the role of the police in relation to that community, and the history and pattern of similar abuses. If we are to understand the phenomenon of police brutality, we must get beyond particular cases. We can better understand the actions of individual police officers if we understand the institution of which they are a part. That institution, in turn, can best be examined if we have an understanding of its origins, its social function, and its relation to larger systems like capitalism and white supremacy.
Rights, riots and police brutality, 2020

Thinking

“The whole underside of our society has always been violence and still is. Churches, laws--everybody seems to think that man is a noble savage. But he's only an animal. A meat-eating, talking animal. Recognize it. He also has grace and love and beauty. But don't say to me we're not violent.”

Sam Peckinpah (1925–1984) American film director and screenwriter

Playboy, August 1972

Love, Making love, Law, Beauty

“Not with violence, but with words.”

John Bosco (1815–1888) Italian Roman Catholic priest, educator and writer

“We will not shy away from engaging in the hard work to take on the damaging legacy of slavery and our treatment of Native Americans, or from doing the daily work of addressing systemic racism and violence against Black, Native, Latino, Asian American and Pacific Islander, and other communities of color.”

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

21 March 2021 https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/03/21/statement-by-president-biden-on-the-international-day-for-the-elimination-of-racial-discrimination/ 2021, March 2021

Color, Communication

“If history was any guide, those best at violence might end up ruling over everyone else.”

Neal Stephenson book Seveneves

“Five Thousand Years Later” (p. 684)
Seveneves (2015), Part Three

History

“In this world where selfishness and violence make noise, we value love.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) In questo mondo dove egoismo e violenza fanno rumore, diamo valore all'amore.
Source: prevale.net

Love, World, Selfishness

“One who practices psychological violence against others is usually a devious, damned cowardly and disgustingly treacherous person.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Colui che pratica violenza psicologica contro gli altri di solito è una persona subdola, dannatamente codarda e disgustosamente infida.
Source: prevale.net

Personality

“Another great entity standing behind the Christ is the Spirit of Peace or Equilibrium. He is overshadowing the Christ, in a very similar way to the way the Christ overshadowed and worked through the disciple Jesus in Palestine. He works very closely with the law of Action and Reaction, and His function is to transform the prevalent discord, confusion, chaos, turmoil in the world into its opposite, so that we shall enter an era of tranquility and peace - in exact proportion to the present discord. The violence and hatred of today will be transmuted into goodwill, and again, in exact proportion to the intensity of the hatred and violence. This is the great Law of Action and Reaction functioning. The law stated is that action and reaction are equal and opposite, and this great Cosmic Entity, the Spirit of Equilibrium, is working now through the Christ, producing the transformation of the world.”

Benjamin Creme (1922–2016) artist, author, esotericist

The Reappearance of the Christ and the Masters of Wisdom (1980)

World, Peace, Law, Way

“Violence is the great attractor of human history.”

Robert Charles Wilson (1953) author

Source: Burning Paradise (2013), Chapter 29 (p. 278)

History

“Women and children are vulnerable to brutal violence and some have lost everything... We cannot ignore what is happening to the Syrian people.”

Justine Greening (1969) British politician

Syria conflict: UK pledges extra £100m https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25743571 BBC News (15 January 2014) 2014

Women, Children, People

“I always end up working with writers with a twisted sense of humour and a fine sense of warped violence. And that's right up my strasse.”

Steve Dillon (1962–2016) British comic artist

Judge Dredd Interview (2011)

Sense

“I wish that all the ills of society - conformism, laziness, indolence, betrayal, violence, lust, rape - and especially the evils of politics will be represented in the form of an absolute depravity.”

Osamu Tezuka MW

From the Afterword to April 1978 MW , vol. 3, translation by Francesco Nicodemus, Hazard Editions, Milan, 2005, p. 193. ISBN 887502037X

Evil, Betrayal

“I was interested in giving folks like black, poor people who’ve been marginalized, brutalized, an opportunity to have more visibility. Before seven years ago, we could barely get the news to talk about police violence, let alone police death.”

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

How the movement that’s changing America was built and where it goes next, By Jamil Smith, Rolling Stone, (16 June 2020)

Death, People

“Can the hungry go on a hunger strike? Non-violence is a piece of theatre. You need an audience. What can you do when you have no audience? People have the right to resist annihilation.”

Arundhati Roy (1961) Indian novelist, essayist

Arundhati Roy: They are trying to keep me destabilised. Anybody who says anything is in danger https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/jun/05/arundhati-roy-keep-destabilised-danger, (5 June 2011) Articles, Interviews

Hunger, People

“It is very hard to promote and create a society with generations of people that all they have known is violence.”

Charles Daniel Balvo (1951) American archbishop

Nuncio to South Sudan Proposes a Path to Peace https://zenit.org/2014/02/20/nuncio-to-south-sudan-proposes-a-path-to-peace/ (February 20, 2014)

People

“Violence has always been unfortunately embedded in masculinity, this alpha thing.”

Sebastian Stan (1982) Romanian-American actor

Quote

“It's weird; I've been to prison, I've seen the worst sort of violence and negative shit in the streets, but when it comes to putting my heart on the line and letting somebody get to know me in a relationship, it's very difficult.”

Mark Wahlberg (1971) American actor, television producer and rap musician

Source: Chris Heath, The making of Mark, The Observer, Sunday 27 February 2000 http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2000/feb/27/1

Heart

“The only path to take to placate violence is dialogue. Only then will we be able to isolate these extremist groups and become a tolerant country. Now we must seek to be close to our small community and give ourselves strength and encouragement.”

Basile Georges Casmoussa (1938) Catholic bishop

Anti-Christian attacks in Iraq part of brutal strategy, says archbishop https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/17865/anti-christian-attacks-in-iraq-part-of-brutal-strategy-says-archbishop (30 November 2009)

Communication, Country

“Social justice warriors who are fond of governing by hashtag like to say that silence is violence. And we know that because it rhymes.”

Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian

Source: Sen. Chris Coons and Caitlin Flanagan, Natural Immunity, (2021)

Justice, Silence

“The sworn enemies of Hindu society have taken advantage of this enervation of the Hindus. They feel instinctively that threats coupled with some show of violence are sure to frighten the Hindus out of their wits, and make them yield almost anything including precious parts of their homeland.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

Source: Defence of Hindu Society (1983)

Feeling, Parting

“A gorgeous pitless account of love, violence and betrayal.”

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie book Half of a Yellow Sun

Source: Half of a yellow sun (2006)

Love, Betrayal

“What mires me in pessimism is the fact that so much of life is pain and sorrow and willful ignorance and violence, and pushing back against that tide takes so much effort, so much steady fight. It’s tiring.”

Jesmyn Ward (1977) American writer

Source: On having a pessimistic nature in “Jesmyn Ward: ‘So much of life is pain and sorrow and wilful ignorance’” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/nov/12/jesmyn-ward-sing-unburied-sing-interview-meet-author in The Guardian (2017 Nov 12)

Life, Pain, Effort, Fight

“Gender-based Violence is not only a blatant violation of human rights, it has consequences for the victims, their families, and nations as a whole.”

Neo Masisi (1962) first lady of Botswana

Neo Masisi https://allafrica.com/stories/202012040594.html Botswana First Lady Neo Jane Masisi Speech delivered at the virtual launch of the W Summit Impact week 2020 (4 December 2020) Retrieved 5 November 2021.

Family

“Once we begin to see women as humans with as much right to occupy spaces as men. We would have removed the foundation upon which gender-based violence thrives.”

Kiki Mordi (1991) Nkiru "Kiki" Mordi is a Nigerian investigative journalist, media personality, filmmaker,writer and entrepreneur.

Source: https://quotes.ng/mobile/author.php?title=kiki-mordi&id=1159 Kiki Mordi speaking on gender equality

Women, Men

“This law will be strictly enforced to prevent the type of nuisance and violence that happened in the past...It's not possible to have it all—happiness, equality, democracy—without giving us the tools.”

Prayut Chan-o-cha (1954) Thai military officer, junta chief, and politician

Law curbing public assembly takes effect in Thailand (13 August 2015)
Source: [Law curbing public assembly takes effect in Thailand, https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/law-curbing-public-assembly-takes-effect-in-thailand/, 14 August 2015, The Seattle Times, Associated Press, 13 August 2015, https://web.archive.org/web/20201128115005/https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/law-curbing-public-assembly-takes-effect-in-thailand/, 28 November 2020, live]

Happiness, Law, Democracy, Past

“I am asking for everyone at the U.S. Capitol to remain peaceful. No violence! Remember, WE are the Party of Law & Order – respect the Law and our great men and women in Blue. Thank you!”

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

2021, January 2021 Source: 12:13pm tweet https://archive.is/IvpaU on 6 January 2021

Women, Men, Peace, Law

“Disagreement is not oppression. Argument is not assault. Words – even provocative or repugnant ones – are not violence. The answer to speech we do not like is more speech.”

Douglas Murray (1979) British political commentator and far-right activist

Source: The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity (2019)

“There is no mystery about violence. It is the reflexive act of brutes, boors and moral defectives.”

Jack Vance book Night Lamp

Source: Night Lamp (1996), Chapter 3, section 1 (p. 37)

“Except for a few special cases, title to every parcel of real property derives from an act of violence, more or less remote, and ownership is only as valid as the strength and will required to maintain it. That is the lesson of history, whether you like it or not.”

Jack Vance book The Gray Prince

“The mourning of defeated peoples, while pathetic and tragic, is usually futile,” said Kelse.
Source: The Gray Prince (1975 [serialized 1974]), Chapter 16 (p. 159)

History

“Politicians in the city are terrified of political and media backlash for holding antifa and far-left protesters accountable. The local and national media are staunchly on the side of antifa, regardless of their violence against police and property.”

Andy Ngo (1986) American conservative journalist and social‐media personality

Source: Unmasked: Inside Antifa’s Radical Plan to Destroy Democracy (2021), pp. 60-61

“Last night I deleted a tweet because it was widely misinterpreted and distorted by conservative media. "Back of the hand" is an idiom for rebuke. I wholeheartedly condemn violence against women.”

Robert B. Reich (1946) American political economist

21 January 2022 https://twitter.com/RBReich/status/1484223895297089539

Women, Night

“Freedom of expression is one of the foundations of our society. Everyone is free to express their opinion. But our society will never accept indiscriminate violence, and even less towards our police forces.”

Alexander De Croo (1975) Belgian politician

Source: Alexander De Croo (2022) cited in: " Clashes as tens of thousands protest Covid rules in Belgium https://www.malaymail.com/news/world/2022/01/24/clashes-as-tens-of-thousands-protest-covid-rules-in-belgium/2037074" in Malay Mail, 24 January 2022.

Freedom

“We stand in millions against violence, we firmly believe that we cannot let a handful of individuals steal our peace. We cannot allow them to steal our streets and take our city hostage.”

Miguel Ángel Alba Díaz (1951) Mexican Roman Catholic bishop

Source: Bishop Alba: "We cannot allow criminals steal our streets, steal our peace" http://fides.org/en/news/36886-AMERICA_MEXICO_Bishop_Alba_We_cannot_allow_criminals_steal_our_streets_steal_our_peace (3 December 2014)

Peace

“Work for the construction of a more just society, where there are job opportunities for all and fair wages, to avoid the temptation to get easy money. You have to raise your voice: we must not get used to living in a climate of violence, this leads to indifference.”

Miguel Ángel Alba Díaz (1951) Mexican Roman Catholic bishop

Source: Corrupt policemen and climate of mistrust, the Bishop of La Paz denounces the silence of the authorities http://fides.org/en/news/36508-AMERICA_MEXICO_Corrupt_policemen_and_climate_of_mistrust_the_Bishop_of_La_Paz_denounces_the_silence_of_the_authorities (9 October 2014)

Money, Indifference

“Violence and intimidation against our elected representatives are a red line in our democracy.”

Gérard Larcher (1949) President of the Senate (France)

Source: Gérard Larcher (2022) cited in: " 'Unacceptable': France's Macron denounces latest MP assault in Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon https://www.euronews.com/2022/01/10/unacceptable-france-s-macron-denounces-latest-mp-assault-in-saint-pierre-et-miquelon" in Science Alert, 10 January 2022.

Democracy

“[T]he main work of life lies in carrying on worthily the great common task of civilization: to play one's due part in the enterprise of feeding some hundreds of millions of men, in seeing that they are protected against violence and fraud, that they have access to justice, and as far as may be to education, that they have some freedom to pursue life and happiness, and are not cut off altogether from the wonders and beauties of the world and the mind of man. To succeed in doing this is civilization: to fail is the defeat of civilization. For civilization is, ultimately, the process whereby a human society in search, as Aristotle puts it, of a "good life for man", gradually overcomes the obstacles, material and other, that stand in its way and makes man increasingly master of his environment.”

Gilbert Murray (1866–1957) Anglo-Australian scholar

1920s, The Ordeal of This Generation: The War, the League and the Future (1929)
Source: "Peace and Strife as Elements in Life: The Ideal of “Unhindered Activity”", pp. 37-38

Life, Men, Happiness, World

“Taxation imposed in an exaggerate, unjust, or unlawful way violates citizens’ fundamental rights to liberty and private property, and amounts to persecution, which is another name for violence.”

Marco Respinti (1964)

Source: “Exaggerate Taxation is Robbery” https://bitterwinter.org/exaggerate-taxation-is-robbery/

Way

“A just man stand's on the side of the right with such conviction, thát neither the passion of a mob, nor the violence of a despot can make him overstep the bounds of reason.”

Baltasar Gracián (1601–1658) Spanish Jesuit and baroque prose writer and philosopher

Passion

“Violence is the daimonic gone awry. It is "demon possession" in its starkest form. Our age is one of transition, in which the normal channels for utilizing the daimonic are denied; and such ages tend to be times when the daimonic is expressed in its most destructive form.”

Rollo May book Love and Will

Source: Love and Will (1969), Ch. 5, p. 130

Age, Time

“I only believe in peaceful demonstration. I do not support violence
We saw a tremendous amount of voter fraud,”

Marjorie Taylor Greene (1974) American politician and businesswoman from the state of Georgia

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene testifies she doesn't remember her actions leading up to January 6 https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/22/politics/marjorie-taylor-greene-disqualification/index.html (Fri April 22, 2022)

Peace, Support, Fraud

Quotes about violence page 16

Quotes about violence
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