Quotes About Violence

Ranks of men on foot, men with shields, men with weapons, a shield wall that was meant to awe us, and it did. A shield wall is a terrible thing. It is a wall of wood, iron, and steel with one purpose alone, to kill. And this shield wall was massive, a wall of painted round shields stretching wide across the ridge's flat top, and above it were the banners of the jarls, chieftains, and kings who had come to kill us.

A hall-burning," Rorik said bitterly. "Hall-burning?" "It happens at home," Rorik explained. "You go to an enemy's hall and burn it to the ground. But there's one thing about a hall-burning. You have to make sure everyone dies. If there are any survivors then they'll take revenge, so you attack at night, surround the hall, and kill everyone who tries to escape the flames.

Have you ever fought in a battle? I know you burned down my barns, but that isn't a battle, you stinking piece of rat-gristle. A battle is the shield wall. It's smelling your enemy's breath while he tries to disembowel you with an ax, it's blood and shit and screams and pain and terror. It's trampling in your friends' guts as enemies butcher them. It's men clenching their teeth so hard they shatter them. Have you ever been in a battle?

Soldiers were not paragons; they were scarred, vicious men who took delight in destruction.

it's full of Frenchmen who are raping anything that isn't dead and probably things that are dead if they're still fresh

The first stone, thrown by Hellgiver, crashed through the roof of a dyer's house close to St Brieuc's church and took off the heads of an English man-at-arms and the dyer's wife. A joke went through the garrison that the two bodies were so crushed together by the boulder that they would go on coupling throughout eternity.

You are sheep, they are wolves. Your blood will soak the hillsides, your skin will make saddles, your flesh will feed pigs!

They gave death with impunity as they followed a war-maddened Scotsman down an enemy wall that was sticky with blood.

the French had torn away the silverwork, wrenched down the statues, and ripped the triptychs from their frames.

Je n'ai jamais compris comment les guerres pouvaient faire tant de morts quand les chocs frontaux y sont finalement si rares. Je n'ai jamais plus admiré un récit de guerre qu'Hommage à la Catalogne de George Orwell parce qu'il raconte, justement, cette loi de l'attente et de la patience qui est la loi no 1 des combattants. (ch. 12 Les mots de la guerre)

Chez les Tigres noirs du Sri Lanka on entrainait les femmes combatantes qui n'étaient pas vierges à passer une journée avec une grenade dans le vagin. (ch. 2)

I hate the world and almost all the people in it. I hate the Labour Congress and the journalists who send men to be slaughtered, and the fathers who feel a smug pride when their sons are killed, and even the pacifists who keep saying human nature is essentially good, in spite of all the daily proofs to the contrary. I hate the planet and the human race—I am ashamed to belong to such a species.

War grows out of ordinary human nature.

The technique of acquiring dictatorship over what has been a democracy has been familiar since Greek times, and always involves the same mixture of bribery, propaganda and violence.

In Labor movements generally, success through violence can hardly be expected except in circumstances where success without violence is attainable.

On the contrary, every appeal to unconstitutional violence helps in the growth of Fascism. Whatever may be the weaknesses of democracy, it is only by means of it and by the help of the popular belief in it that Socialism can hope to succeed in Great Britain or America. Whoever weakens the respect for democratic government is, intentionally or unintentionally, increasing the likelihood, not of Socialism or Communism, but of Fascism.

Seducing highborn ladies, and raping peasant girls was a lark, but when Piers had suggested murder, he had thought him simply struggling with the frustration of losing for the first time in his life.

To venture ... close (to a lion) on foot ... would mean the sudden shattering of any kindly belief that the similarity of the lion and the pussy cat goes much beyond their whiskers. But then, since men still live by the sword, it's a little optimistic to expect the lion to withdraw his claws, handicapped as he is by his inability to read our better effusions about the immorality of bloodshed.

Do not forget the lives of Your poor people forever. Consider the covenant, for the dark places of the land are full of violence. Psalm 74:19–20

I feel like moderate Republicans, who would support sensible gun violence legislation, are pushed aside by those folks who are absolutely beholden to the NRA.

We, the FBI, don't investigate ideology, no matter how repugnant. When it turns to violence, we're all over it.

I don't find slashing and blood flying everywhere to be scary. I just find it repulsive.

I was brought up when media still kept totally away from violence when it came to children. I don't think it would have made me scared of violence, but I find it repulsive.

I've got a reputation for doing a certain type of film: lads' movies that glamorise violence. The more my reputation as a bad boy grows, the more my life moves away from that.