A Quote by Michel de Montaigne
Cowardice is the mother of cruelty.
Related Quotes
Non-violence and cowardice are contradictory terms. Non-violence is the greatest virtue, cowardice the greatest vice. Non-violence springs from love, cowardice from hate. Non-violence always suffers, cowardice would always inflict suffering. Perfect non-violence is the highest bravery. Non-violent conduct is never demoralising; cowardice always is.
I traded cowardice for cruelty; I traded weakness for ferocity.
Cruelty is cruelty, whether it's cruelty to children, to the elderly, to dogs and cats, or to chickens.
The ultimate act of cowardice is the fat-headed wrestling guy sitting behind the frail kid in math class, clipping him on the ear, saying: 'What are you going to do about that, faggot?' That is cowardice. When the bullets start flying past that jock's saucer-shaped ears, that's not cowardice. That's payback.
True patriots believe that freedom from responsibility is selfishness, freedom from sacrifice is cowardice, freedom from tolerance is prejudice, freedom from stewardship is exploitation, and freedom from compassion is cruelty.
No one's perfect," I whisper. "It doesn't work that way. One bad thing goes away, and another bad thing replaces it." I traded cowardice for cruelty; I traded weakness for ferocity.
But then, is there cowardice in the acknowledgment of fear? Is there cowardice in being glad that you lived?
Cruelty is, perhaps, the worst kid of sin. Intellectual cruelty is certainly the worst kind of cruelty.
Now what is it moves our very hearts, and sickens us so much at cruelty shown to poor brutes? I suppose this first, that they have done no harm; next, that they have no power whatever of resistance; it is the cowardice and tyranny of which they are the victims which makes their sufferings so especially touching.
(I)t is simply wrong to confuse cowardice with appeasement. Cowardice is a failing of character. Appeasement is a failure of policy. Stalin appeased Hitler when he signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Stalin was an evil character, to be sure. But cowardice really isn't the first word that comes to mind when thinking of Stalin ' that word is “sexy.” I'm kidding, I'm kidding.
Cruelty, very far from being a vice, is the first sentiment Nature injects in us all. The infant breaks his toy, bites his nurse's breast, strangles his canary long before he is able to reason; cruelty is stamped in animals, in whom, as I think I have said, Nature's laws are more emphatically to be read than in ourselves; cruelty exists amongst savages, so much nearer to Nature than civilized men are; absurd then to maintain cruelty is a consequence of depravity. . . . Cruelty is simply the energy in a man civilization has not yet altogether corrupted: therefore it is a virtue, not a vice.
Tolerance of Cruelty in any form is a degraded state of mind and soul. When we freely allow the massacre and prolonged torture of defenseless creatures, it increases our receptivity to human cruelty and war and steals our humanity, peace and soul. Very little speeds and greases your way to Hell, like animal cruelty.
When humans act with cruelty we characterize them as "animals", yet the only animal that displays cruelty is humanity.
Cruelty would be delicious if one could only find some sort of cruelty that didn't really hurt.
The only thing worse than cruelty is delegated cruelty.
We cannot have two hearts, one for the animals and one for men. In cruelty towards the former and cruelty to the latter there is no difference but in the victim.
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