A Quote by George Bernard Shaw

Cruelty must be whitewashed by a moral excuse, and pretense of reluctance.

George Bernard Shaw

Quote Topics

Cruelty Excuse Moral Must Pretense Reluctance

Quote Author

George Bernard Shaw
Irish - Playwright
July 26, 1856 - November 2, 1950

The Theatre of Cruelty has been created in order to restore to the theatre a passionate and convulsive conception of life, and it is in this sense of violent rigour and extreme condensation of scenic elements that the cruelty on which it is based must be understood. This cruelty, which will be bloody when necessary but not systematically so, can thus be identified with a kind of severe moral purity which is not afraid to pay life the price it must be paid.

Antonin Artaud

Nothing shocks our moral feelings so deeply as cruelty does. We can forgive every other crime, but not cruelty. The reason for this is that it is the very opposite of compassion.

Arthur Schopenhauer

Excuse me, there's no pretense here. I happen to be genuinely self-absorbed and deeply shallow.

Stephen Schwartz

Misfortune is no excuse for cruelty.

Ned Vizzini

Philosophy is the only excuse God has for his cruelty and vanity.

Kedar Joshi

The moral duty of man consists of imitating the moral goodness and beneficence of God, manifested in the creation towards all his creatures. Everything of persecution and revenge between man and man, and everything of cruelty to animals is a violation of moral duty

Thomas Paine

Perhaps there is no other knowing than the mere competence of the act. If at the heart of one's being, there is no self to which one ought to be true, then sincerity is simply nerve; it lies in the unabashed vigor of the pretense. But pretense is only pretense when it is assumed that the act is not true to the agent. Find the agent.

Alan Watts

In fact, I'm a bit of a slob, but I've always said my excuse, I have a higher sense of order, I can see it where others can't. That's my excuse for slobbery, I must admit, but I think it's a good one.

David Hockney

As a society, we are typically deeply disassociated from animal cruelty, but more than ever, animal protection organizations are telling the backstory. People are being forced, to confront the realities. At the same time, we have an ever-growing understanding of the intelligence and emotional capacities of animals and an acceptance of the principle that animal cruelty is a moral problem.

Wayne Pacelle

Cruelty is cruelty, whether it's cruelty to children, to the elderly, to dogs and cats, or to chickens.

Russell Simmons

We seem to be afflicted by a widespread and eroding reluctance to take any stand on any values, moral, behavioral or esthetic.

Barbara Tuchman

Fatal illness has always been viewed as a test of moral character, but in the nineteenth century there is a great reluctance to let anybody flunk the test.

Susan Sontag

You must keep your honor! You can't speak for the country; you can do little about the national economy or actions of moral weaklings who excuse themselves with the expression, "That is politics; nor can you be responsible for deception in others. But you are responsible for yourself! There are no collective panaceas - only individual ones."

Ezra Taft Benson

If obedience invariably leads to cruelty, disobedience is our moral duty.

Martin Firrell

It seems to me that socialists today can preserve their position in academic economics merely by the pretense that the differences are entirely moral questions about which science cannot decide.