“All violence is an attempt to replace shame with self-esteem.”
“Keep in mind the roots of violence: Lust, envy, anger, avarice, and vengeance...the taproot...the killer s ultimate and truest motivation...is the hatred of truth...the hatred of truth is a vice. From it comes pride and an enthusiasm for disorder.”
“We are all artificial and have been unnaturally changed by violence and unwholesome conditioning.”
“All violence demands reform, and all violence desperately begs to be healed.”
“We live in a culture of violence.”
“A picture in a book, a lynching. The bland faces of men who watch a Christ go up in flames, smiling, as if he were a hooked fish, a felled antelope, some wild thing tied to boards and burned. His charred body gives off light--a halo burns out of him. His face is scorched featureless; the hair matted to the scalp like feathers. One man stands with his hand on his hip, another with his arm slung over the shoulder of a friend, as if this moment were large enough to hold affection.”
“We are all a part of a culture of violence that dominates every aspect of our lives.”
“Since the human mind is the primary weapon of the human being, it is also therefore the primary and most significant instrument of violence.”
“Modern consumer life is a form of extreme passive violence against all people.”
“We have been trained by a culture of violence and we are all agents of passive violence.”
“Comme une envie de lui faire du mal… beaucoup de mal. Il n’a jamais ressenti ça vis-à-vis d’une fille. Il ne comprend pas, mais c’est plus fort que lui, des idées plus brutales les unes que les autres forcent son esprit, des scènes atroces se succèdent où les cris de la jeune fille excitent son imagination. Les battements de son cœur s’accélèrent, il tremble comme un junkie en manque.”
“Allah-U-Akbar (God is great) is the most frightening word, because it always reminds me that someone is committing crime;specifically murder.”
“I was not frightened as they were, for the very violence of his threats showed how weak he was.”
“The way I’d put it,” said Makin, “is that Rike can’t make an omelet without wading thigh deep in the blood of chickens and wearing their entrails as a necklace.”
“Violence never really deals with the basic evil of the situation. Violence may murder the murderer, but it doesn’t murder murder. Violence may murder the liar, but it doesn’t murder lie; it doesn’t establish truth. Violence may even murder the dishonest man, but it doesn’t murder dishonesty. Violence may go to the point of murdering the hater, but it doesn’t murder hate. It may increase hate. It is always a descending spiral leading nowhere. This is the ultimate weakness of violence: It multiplies evil and violence in the universe. It doesn’t solve any problems.”
“GUNS ARE NOT THE ISSUE. WE ARE.”
“All authority is quite degrading. It degrades those who exercise it, and degrades those over whom it is exercised. When it is violently, grossly, and cruelly used, it produces a good effect by creating, or at any rate bringing out, the spirit of revolt and individualism that is to kill it. When it is used with a certain amount of kindness, and accompanied by prizes and rewards, it is dreadfully demoralising. People, in that case, are less conscious of the horrible pressure that is being put on them, and so go through their lives in a sort of coarse comfort, like petted animals, without ever realising that they are probably thinking other people s thoughts, living by other people s standards, wearing practically what one may call other people s second-hand clothes, and never being themselves for a single moment.”