Quotes About Violence

Weapons themselves can tempt a man to fight.

The spearhead sliced right through to the flesh, And when Diomedes pulled it out, Ares yelled, so loud you would have thought Ten thousand warriors had shouted at once, And the sound reverberated in the guts of Greeks and Trojans, As if Diomedes had struck not a god in armor But a bronze gong nine miles high.

Trojans and Achaians, who like wolves sprang upon one another, with man against man in the onfall.

so as the great Achilles rampaged on, his sharp-hoofed stallions trampled shields and corpses, axle under his chariot splashed with blood, blood on the handrails sweeping round the car, sprays of blood shooting up from the stallions' hoofs and churning, whirling rims—and the son of Peleus charioteering on to seize his glory, bloody filth splattering both strong arms, Achilles' invincible arms—

What are they here —violent, savage, lawless? or friendly to strangers, god-fearing men?

As inhuman fire sweeps on in fury through the deep angles of a drywood mountain and sets ablaze the depth of the timber and the blustering wind lashes the flame along, so Achilleus swept everywhere with his spear like something more than a mortal harrying them as they died, and the black earth ran blood.

As there are no trustworthy oaths between men and lions, nor wolves and lambs have spirit that can be brought to agreement but forever these hold feelings of hate for each other, 265  so there can be no love between you and me, nor shall there be oaths between us, but one or the other must fall before then to glut with his blood Ares the god who fights under the shield's guard.

With that he hurled and Athena drove the shaft and it split the archer's nose between the eyes— it cracked his glistening teeth, the tough bronze cut off his tongue at the roots, smashed his jaw and the point came ripping out beneath his chin. He pitched from his car, armor clanged against him, a glimmering blaze of metal dazzling round his back—

But Hector, stooping, shunn'd the stroke of death. Withdrawing then their weapons, each on each They fell, like lions fierce, or tusked boars, In strength the mightiest of the forest beasts.

To you, sedition, violence and fighting are the breath of life. What if you are a great soldier - who made you so but God?

So the gods pulled alternately on the rope of this violent and evenly balanced battle, to make it taut over the two sides. The rope was indestructible and no one could break it; but it broke many men.

Sprachs, und entsandte den speer; ihn richtete Pallas Athene Grad am aug in die nas; und die schimmernden zähne durchdrang sie; Auch die zung and der wurzel entschnitt das gewaltie erz ihm, Daß die stürmende Spitze am unteren Kinne hinausfuhr. (Ilias; fünfter Gesang V. 290-293)

I too seemed destined to be a man of fortune once and a wild wicked swath I cut, indulged my lust for violence, stalking all on my father and my brothers. Look at me now, And so, I say, let no man ever be lawless all his life, just take in peace what gifts the gods will send.

Pero aquel que se siente tocado por mi lanza no tarda en expirar. Su esposa se desgarra las mejillas, quedan sus hijos huérfanos y enrojece él la tierra con su sangre, y se corrompe, y hay en torno suyo más aves de rapiña que hembras gemebundas

The modern growth of Islam is the coalescence of a superorganism drawn together by the magnetic attraction of a meme. But this meme has an advantage: The social body it is trying to pull together has existed as a unified social beast in the past. The old reflexes of solidarity are still there, waiting to be aroused. The meme of the new Islam is not laboring to generate a small and fragile embryo. It is simply attempting to awaken a sleeping giant. VIOLENCE IN SOUTH AMERICA AND AFRICA

Crosses and gallows - that deadly historic juxtaposition.

How can you have a war on terrorism while war itself is terrorism!

Since the Indians were better woodsmen than the English and virtually impossible to track down, the method was to feign peaceful intentions, let them settle down and plant their corn wherever they chose, and then, just before harvest, fall upon them, killing as many as possible and burning the corn. . . . Within two or three years of the massacre the English had avenged the deaths of that day many times over.

the atmosphere of war brutalizes everyone involved, begets a fanaticism in which the original moral factor is buried at the bottom of a heap of atrocities committed by all sides.

It was an old lesson learned by governments: that war solves problems of control.

Why will you take by force what you may have quietly by love? Why will you destroy us who supply you with food? What can you get by war?

I am convinced that imprisonment is a way of pretending to solve the problem of crime. It does nothing for the victims of crime, but perpetuates the idea of retribution, thus maintaining the endless cycle of violence in our culture. It is a cruel and useless substitute for the elimination of those conditions—poverty, unemployment, homelessness, desperation, racism, greed—which are at the root of most punished crime. The crimes of the rich and powerful go mostly unpunished.

The U.S. government did not seem to recognize that its punitive foreign policies, its military installations in countries all over the globe, might arouse anger in foreign countries, and that anger might turn to violence.

There is the past and its continuing horrors: violence, war, prejudices against those who are different, outrageous monopolization of the good earth's wealth by a few, political power in the hands of liars and murderers, the building of prisons instead of schools, the poisoning of the press and the entire culture by money. It is easy to become discouraged observing this, especially since this is what the press and television insist that we look at, and nothing more.