Fear And Violence Quotes & Sayings

There are two possible responses to a world suddenly gripped by terror and contention. There is the Moseley way: get mad and get even. But as the course of King Philip's War proved, unbridled arrogance and fear only feed the flames of violence. Then there is the (Benjamin) Church way. Instead of killing him, try to bring him around to your way of thinking. First and foremost, treat him like a human being. For Church, success in war was about coercion rather than slaughter, and in this he anticipated the welcoming, transformative beast that eventually became, once the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were in place, the United States. — Nathaniel Philbrick

Civilization must stand up and combat the current collapse of governance, the rise of violence, and the spread of chaos and fear in many parts of the world. — Rudy Giuliani

upon all the doors of my defenses, chasing out my expectations of civilization and letting in the fear of anarchy and barbaric violence. — Dean Koontz

War was so many things, and not the least of which confusion. What was wrong? What was right, for that matter?
Was killing right or wrong? Brave or cowardly? Human nature or unnatural behavior of creatures too smart for their own good?
Loyalty, betrayal, hate, love, fear, friendship, teamwork, violence. War was connected to all of these. Hard work, sadness, suffering, discipline, chaos, questions, few answers, strategy, bravery, foolishness, death, life.
And both winning and losing were only two small aspects of the word war. — Kenzie Kovacs-Szabo

The good repent on knowing their sin; the evil become angry when discovered. Ignorance is not the cause of evil, as Plato held; neither is education the answer to the removal of evil. These men had an intellect as well as a will; knowledge as well as intention. Truth can be known and hated; Goodness can be known and crucified. The Hour was approaching, and for the moment the fear of the people deterred the Pharisees. Violence could not be triggered against Him until He would say, 'This is your Hour. — Fulton J. Sheen

If we do not take this road of dialogue and understanding then I fear for the next generation. There are enough people preaching hatred, which encourages violence. We are living in times when technology, biology and chemistry have created the possibility of killing in large numbers. And, unfortunately, the cruelty and killing are often justified through a distorted interpretation of religion. — Akbar S. Ahmed

possible topics around which the currents of speech may flow: Death and the danger of death: violence, fighting, sickness, fear, dreams, premonitions and communication with the dead. Sex and relations between the sexes: dating, courtship, proposals, marriage, breaking off relationships, affairs, intermarriage. Moral indignation: assignment and rejection of blame, unfairness, injustice, gossip, violations of social norms. — William Labov

For the first time, I realize that it's not just the king who appears inhuman.
I do too.
The ferocity of the scar that runs down my cheek, the tightness of my jaw, the look in my eye - I'm no natural thing. Murder and violence have made me this way. Loss and war have made me this way.
I look like a savage.
A savage queen. One who doesn't need a crown or even a weapon to appear powerful.
I see it now - this world's faith in me. It's not just that I am an anachronism; the harshness of my face speaks to these people who have only ever known war.
No wonder the West wants me gone.
A century has gone by, and yet even after all that time I am still something to fear. — Laura Thalassa

In a healthy individual, a broken bone that has healed properly is strongest where it was once broken. You have not lost any life, Henry told himself. You will still get your fair share of years. Yet the quality of his life changed. Once you've been struck by violence, you acquire companions that never leave you entirely: Suspicion, Fear, Anxiety, Despair, Joylessness. The natural smile is taken from you and the natural pleasures you once enjoyed lose their appeal. — Yann Martel

5. Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful consumption, I vow to cultivate good health, both physical and mental, for myself, my family, and my society by practicing mindful eating, drinking, and consuming. I vow to ingest only items that preserve peace, well-being, and joy in my body, in my consciousness, and in the collective body and consciousness of my family and society. I am determined not to use alcohol or any other intoxicant or to ingest foods or other items that contain toxins, such as certain TV programs, magazines, books, films, and conversations. I am aware that to damage my body or my consciousness with these poisons is to betray my ancestors, my parents, my society, and future generations. I will work to transform violence, fear, anger, and confusion in myself and in society by practicing a diet for myself and for society. I understand that a proper diet is crucial for self-transformation and for the transformation of society. — Thich Nhat Hanh

Ignorance leads to fear, fear leads to hate, and hate leads to violence. This is the equation. — Averroes

I was cyber-bullied before all those Myspace-related suicides, so my school principal wasn't really impressed when my mom complained about what was happening to me on my Xanga blog and on AIM chat.
"Get your life sorted out, you fucking scitzo [sic] dyke tranny bitch," one comment might say.
Another comment would say something like, "I know she's reading this, she's so pathetic."
And, perhaps most frightening of all: "I'm going to fuck you up until your mother bleeds. — Nenia Campbell

In the dream of the planet it is normal for humans to suffer, to live in fear, and to create emotional dramas. The outside dream is not a pleasant dream; it is a dream of violence, a dream of fear, a dream of war, a dream of injustice. The personal dream of humans will vary, but globally it is mostly a nightmare. If we look at human society we see a place so difficult to live in because it is ruled by fear. Throughout the world we see human suffering, anger, revenge, addictions, violence in the street, and tremendous injustice. It may exist at different levels in different countries around the world, but fear is controlling the outside dream. — Miguel Ruiz

Reportage is violence. Violence to the spirit. Violence to the emotional sympathy that should quicken in you and me when face to face we meet with pain. How many defeated among our own do we step over and push aside on our way home to watch the evening news? "Terrible" you said at Somalia, Bosnia, Ethiopia, Russia, China, the Indian earthquake, the American floods, and then you watched a quiz show or a film because there's nothing you can do, nothing you can do, and the fear and unease that such powerlessness brings, trails in its wash, a dead arrogance for the beggar on the bridge that you pass every day. Hasn't he got legs and a cardboard box to sleep in?
And still we long to feel. — Jeanette Winterson

There is a corner in every human heart made to be filled with hatred, fear, and violence. It is our common curse. — William Rivers Pitt

The first mindfulness training: reverence for life Aware of the suffering caused by the destruction of life, I am committed to cultivating the insight of interbeing, compassion, and learning ways to protect the lives of people, animals, plants, and minerals. I am determined not to kill, not to let others kill, and not to support any act of killing in the world, in my thinking, or in my way of life. Seeing that harmful actions arise from anger, fear, greed, and intolerance, which in turn come from dualistic and discriminative thinking, I will cultivate openness, nondiscrimination, and nonattachment to views in order to transform violence, fanaticism, and dogmatism in myself and in the world. — Thich Nhat Hanh

In the Eroica and other pieces of his middle years, Beethoven hailed the enlightened leader, the benevolent despot, the military spirit. Now for him the military spirit is nothing but destruction. By the end of this section the bugles are raging, the drums roaring, the choir crying Dona pacem! in terror. Now we understand what Beethoven meant by "prayer for inner and outer peace." The inner peace is that of the spirit. The outer peace is in the world. The fear and trembling in the Missa solemnis is not the fear of losing salvation in eternity; it is the human, secular fear of violence and chaos. — Jan Swafford

Someone once asked me if I knew the feeling of fear. Oh, I knew fear. Well, really speaking I never feared any fucker at that time; I've got to be honest. But I knew fear, the fear of losing! There was never any fear of combat! My father instilled that fear in to me and that was what drove me on to win ... the fear of what was to come after you went home saying you'd lost! — Stephen Richards

Ignorance is king. Many would not profit by his abdication. Many enrich themselves by means of his dark monarchy. They are his Court, and in his name they defraud and govern, enrich themselves and perpetuate their power. Even literacy they fear, for the written word is another channel of communication that might cause their enemies to become united. Their weapons are keen-honed, and they use them with skill. They will press the battle upon the world when their interests are threatened, and the violence which follows will last until the structure of society as it now exists is leveled to rubble, and a new society emerges. I am sorry. But that is how I see it. — Walter M. Miller Jr.

I've thought often about why - why?! - anyone, especially other women, would try to disrupt feminist work that combats violence. What in the world could be the point of that? The only reason I've come up with, and I think it makes sense, is fear of becoming that "impure" woman. — Jessica Valenti

Ironically, the worship of of death as a strategy for coping with our underlying fear of death's power does not truly give us solace. It is deeply anxiety producing. The more we watch spectacles of death, of random violence and cruelty, the more afraid we become in our daily lives. — Bell Hooks

Randomness and lack of warning are the attributes of human violence we fear most, but you now know that human violence is rarely random and rarely without warning. — Gavin De Becker

We must realize that violence is not confined to physical violence. Fear is violence, caste discrimination is violence, exploitation of others, however subtle, is violence, segregation is violence, thinking ill of others and condemning others are violence. In order to reduce individual acts of physical violence, we must work to eliminate violence at all levels, mental, verbal, personal, and social, including violence to animals, plants, and all other forms of life. — Satish Kumar

You know that Republicans will yell about the evils of partisanship whenever anyone tries to make a connection between the rhetoric of Beck, Limbaugh, etc. and the violence I fear we're going to see in the months and years ahead. But violent acts are what happen when you create a climate of hate. And it's long past time for the GOP's leaders to take a stand against the hate-mongers. — Paul Krugman

Don't need to remind any of you what Tarkin did at the end of the war when there weren't Jedi around to keep a lid on the violence and retribution. We wouldn't be aboard this ship otherwise. The Emperor is going to win-now the populations of the galaxy until the only ones left are the ones he can control. And he and Vader and Tarkin are going to accomplish that with an army of steadfast recruits who might as well be clones for the little independent thinking they do, weapons that haven't been seen in more than a thousand years, and fear. — James Luceno

In fact I didn't think about fear much at the time. I felt angry about everything that was happening around me: the violence of the dictatorship and the violence of society. — Hassan Blasim

We may win a battle, but if in doing so we have planted thousands of seeds of hatred and fear..the war is not over- only the present conflict has ceased. There will be no peace as long as we react to violence with violence. — Martin Luther King Jr.

The Road is not a record of fatherly fidelity; it is a testament to the abyss of a parent's greatest fears. The fear of leaving your child alone, of dying before your child has reached adulthood and learned to work the mechanisms and face the dangers of the world, or found a new partner to face them with. The fear of one day being obliged for your child's own good, for his peace and comfort, to do violence to him or even end his life. And, above all, the fear of knowing - as every parent fears - that you have left your children a world more damaged, more poisoned, more base and violent and cheerless and toxic, more doomed, than the one you inherited. It is in the audacity and single-mindedness with which The Road extends the metaphor of a father's guilt and heartbreak over abandoning his son to shift for himself in a ruined, friendless world that The Road finds its great power to move and horrify the reader. — Michael Chabon

I know it hasn't been easy for you here - and I've been a significant part of your challenges, as well. But Claire, I do know something of the world - I have been in it for hundreds of years, and although technology changes, people are little different, then or now. They are afraid, and they use that fear to excuse their own actions - whether it is theft of hatred, violence or murder. People bond themeselves into families and groups for protection, and srtangers ... strangers are always at risk. - Myrnin — Rachel Caine

A belief in feminism is a belief in personal freedom - the freedom to live a life free of fear of violence, to select a fulfilling career and be compensated fairly, to choose when to start a family, to marry whom you love. I want everyone, regardless of gender, to live a life free of restriction or fear, able to pursue their own personal brand of happiness and fulfillment. — Aisha Tyler

We've all seen the headlines implying that people with PTSD are dangerous. We must not resort to thinking, due to fear, that a person with PTSD equals a ticking time bomb. The stigma surrounding PTSD is so negative. It arouses concerns and provokes whispers and worried glances. People don't understand it at all. They assume I'm a potential powder keg just waiting for a spark to set me off into a rage, and that's just not true, about me or any person with PTSD. I have never physically assaulted anyone out of anger or rage. I'm suffering with it and people are afraid to ask me about it. — James Meuer

When we excuse homophobia as a matter of opinion instead of treating it as a destructive social illness, we invite fear to explode into violence ... If we are ever to scrape the black rot of prejudice from the heart of our nation, we must stop excusing those who give it expression and even excuse. The next time someone dares to say, "Just because I don't approve of homosexuality doesn't make me a bigot," we must all answer back, "Yes, it does. Not only does it make you a bigot, it makes you a criminal, a danger to me, my family, my community, my city, and my country. — Harvey Fierstein

[I]t's impossible to evade the fact that Endless War will inevitably degrade the citizenry of the country that engages in it. A country which venerates its military above all other institutions, which demands that its soldiers be spoken of only with religious-like worship, and which continuously indoctrinates its population to believe that endless violence against numerous countries is necessary and just - all by instilling intense fear of the minorities who are the target of that endless violence - will be a country filled with citizens convinced of the virtues and nobility of aggression. — Glenn Greenwald

Nothing in our society-with the exception of violence and fear-has been more effective in keeping women in their place than the degradation of the menstrual cycle. — Christiane Northrup

What is the meaning of it, Watson? said Holmes solemnly as he laid down the paper. What object is served by this circle of misery and violence and fear? It must tend to some end, or else our universe is ruled by chance, which is unthinkable. But what end? There is the great standing perennial problem to which human reason is as far from an answer as ever. — Arthur Conan Doyle

So many of the models of courage we've had, ones that are still taught to boys and girls, are about going out to slay the dragon, to kill. It's a courage that's born out of fear, anger, and hate. But there's this other kind of courage. It's the courage to risk your life, not in war, not in battle, not out of fear ... but out of love and a sense of injustice that has to be challenged. It takes far more courage to challenge unjust authority without violence than it takes to kill all the monsters in all the stories told to children about the meaning of bravery. — Riane Eisler

Miguel," he said, when he felt my defenses weakening, "the conflict you speak of exists in the human mind, and it is not actually a conflict between good and evil; it is a conflict between truth and lies. When we believe in truth, we feel good and our life is good. When we believe in things that are not true, things that encourage fear and hatred in us, the result is fanaticism. The result is what people recognize as evil - evil words, evil intentions, evil actions. All the violence and suffering in the world is a direct result of the many lies we tell ourselves. — Miguel Ruiz

Many historians have noted an interesting phenomenon in American life in the years immediately after a war. In the councils of government fierce partisanship replaces the necessary political coalitions of wartime. IN the great arena of social relations -- business, labour, the community -- violence rises, fear and recrimination dominate public discussion, passion prevails over reason. Many historians have noted this phenomenon. It is attributed to the continuance beyond the end of the war of the war hysteria. Unfortunately, the necessary emotional fever for fighting a war cannot be turned off like a water tap. Enemies must continue to be found. The mind and heart cannot be demobilised as quickly as the platoon. On the contrary, like a fiery furnace at white heat, it takes a considerable time to cool. — E.L. Doctorow

Dance with all the might of your body, and all the fire of your soul, in order that you may shake all melancholy out of your liver; and you need not restrain yourself with the apprehension that any lady will have the least fear that the violence of your movements will ever shake anything out of your brains. — Lola Montez

I am profoundly fascinated by cruelty, fear, horror and death. My films show my preoccupation with violence, the pathology of violence. — Fritz Lang

Such terrifying powers we possess, but what a sorry lot of gods some men are. And the worst of it is not the cruelty but the arrogance, the sheer hubris of those who bring only violence and fear into the animal world, as if it needed any more of either. Their lives entail enough frights and tribulations without the modern fire-makers, now armed with perfected, inescapable weapons, traipsing along for more fun and thrills at their expense even as so many of them die away. It is our fellow creatures' lot in the universe, the place assigned them in creation, to be completely at our mercy, the fiercest wolf or tiger defenseless against the most cowardly man. And to me it has always seemed not only ungenerous and shabby but a kind of supreme snobbery to deal cavalierly with them, as if their little share of the earth's happiness and grief were inconsequential, meaningless, beneath a man's attention, trumped by any and all designs he might have on them, however base, irrational, or wicked. — Matthew Scully

When unspeakable violence is enacted upon innocents, say, in a school or movie theatre, and the survivors and the families of the victims, in the throes of pain and anguish, want to ask, "Why did this happen?," "How did this happen?," and "What can we do to prevent this from happening again?," and one of the areas they (still we) focus their scrutiny is that of the highly efficient weapons of warfare that are casually available to us citizens of the United States, then we frightened gun owners have the chance to be human and say, "Okay, this is a horrible tragedy. Let's open up a conversation here." Instead, I'm surmising, out of fear, we throw up our defenses and behave in a very confrontational way toward such a conversation , citing the Second Amendment as the ultimate protection of our rights, no matter how ridiculously murderous the firearm, which, unfortunately, makes us look like dicks. — Nick Offerman

Clairey tasted the bile rising up in her throat, could smell the pathetic fear she was giving off, and they
were as familiar to her as waking and sleep, as hunger and thirst. In her time of peace there with Ellis, she had nearly forgotten the taste and smell of it, how her joints became liquid and her mouth became sour. That was what violence did to her. — Tracy Winegar

No amount of logic can usually move a battered woman, so persuasion requires emotional leverage, not statistics or moral arguments ... I have seen their fear and resistance firsthand ... I believe it is critical for a woman to view staying as a choice, for only then can leaving be viewed as a choice and an option. — Gavin De Becker

Fear of black independence and self-determination took a Freudian form: rape hysteria. In one town after another, racial violence was sparked by rumors that a Negro had harmed a white woman. This happened in Washington; Omaha, Neb.; Kansas City, Kan.; Knoxville, Tenn.; Longview, Tex.; and Rosewood, Fla. — Anonymous

What will it profit this country if we ... put our man on the Moon by 1970 and at the same time you can't walk down Woodward Avenue in this city without fear of some violence? — Jerome Cavanagh

This kind of horror has become all too familiar to us. As parents, Cindy and I offer our prayers to the memory of the slain children and ask that God ease the pain of Littleton's suffering families, ... The students of Columbine High School and children everywhere have a basic right to learn in an environment free of fear and violence. We must redouble our efforts to see that this is a reality. — John McCain

There are many shades in the danger of adventures and gales, and it is only now and then that there appears on the face of facts a sinister violence of intention- that indefinable something which forces it upon the mind and the heart of a man, that this complication of accidents or these elemental furies are coming at him with a purpose of malice, with a strength beyond control, with an unbridled cruelty that means to tear out of him his hope and his fear, the pain of his fatigue and his longing for rest: which means to smash, to destroy, to annihilate all he has seen, known, loved, enjoyed, or hated; all that is priceless and necessary- the sunshine, the memories, the future,- which means to sweep the whole precious world utterly away from his sight by the simple and appalling act of taking his life. — Joseph Conrad

Terrorism is an act of violence whose primary purpose is to create fear and, through that, a political result. — George Friedman

I hate and fear violence myself, have always avoided barroom brawls, and tho' I'm a bit of a gun-nut, and a member of the NRA, I never shoot at anything but beer cans and mule deer. (In season.) And seldom hit either, except by accident. — Edward Abbey

The two brothers looked so alike now and their faces seemed to ripple under the weight of powerful emotions. Hatred, love, violence and fear. The crowd stepped back to form a circle, as though they might be caught between falling buildings. — Peadar O'Guilin

To one degree or another, everybody is connected to the Mystery, and everybody secretly yearns to expand the connection. That requires expanding the soul. These things can enlarge the soul: laughter, danger, imagination, meditation, wild nature, passion, compassion, psychedelics, beauty, iconoclasm, and driving around in the rain with the top down. These things can diminish it: fear, bitterness, blandness, trendiness, egotism, violence, corruption, ignorance, grasping, shining, and eating ketchup on cottage cheese. — Tom Robbins

All her violence had drained away, replaced by a fear older and deeper than anything she'd ever experienced. An old, old recognition. Something inside her knew him from a time when girls took skin bags to the river to get water, a time when panthers walked in the darkness outside mud huts. From a time before electric lights, before candles, when darkness was fended off with stone lamps. When darkness was the greatest danger of all. — L.J.Smith

The continent is full of buried violence, of the bones of antediluvian monsters and of lost races of man, of mysteries which are wrapped in doom. The atmosphere is at times so electrical that the soul is summoned out of its body and runs amok. Like the rain everything comes in bucketsful - or not at all. The whole continent is a huge volcano whose crater is temporarily concealed by a moving panorama which is partly dream, partly fear, partly despair. From Alaska to Yucatan it's the same story. Nature dominates. Nature wins out. Everywhere the same fundamental urge to slay, to ravage, to plunder. Outwardly they seem like a fine, upstanding people - healthy, optimistic, courageous. Inwardly they are filled with worms. A tiny spark and they blow up. — Henry Miller

What do violent individuals fear most? Violence? I should say not! By what do the cruel and selfish feel most threatened? All of them fear nothing as much as they fear love. — Jan-Philipp Sendker

I came to see the streets and the schools as the arms of the same beast. One enjoyed the official power of the state while the other enjoyed its implicit sanction. But fear and violence were the weaponry of both. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

Men imagine that thought can be kept secret, but it cannot; it rapidly crystallizes into habit, and habit solidifies into circumstance. Bestial thoughts crystallize into habits of drunkenness and sensuality, which solidify into circumstances of destitution and disease: impure thoughts of every kind crystallize into enervating and confusing habits, which solidify into distracting and adverse circumstances: thoughts of fear, doubt, and indecision crystallize into weak, unmanly, and irresolute habits, which solidify into circumstances of failure, indigence, and slavish dependence: lazy thoughts crystallize into habits of uncleanliness and dishonesty, which solidify into circumstances of foulness and beggary: hateful and condemnatory thoughts crystallize into habits of accusation and violence, which solidify into circumstances of injury and persecution: selfish thoughts of all kinds crystallize into habits of self-seeking, which solidify into circumstances more or less distressing. — James Allen

What then are we afraid of? Can we have too much of God? Is it a misfortune to be freed from the heavy yoke of the world, and to bear the light burden of Jesus Christ? Do we fear to be too happy, too much deliver from ourselves, from the caprices of pride, the violence of our passions, and the tyranny of this deceitful world? — Francois Fenelon

Hate springs from fear. Violence is released hatred. Behind every hateful crime and act of human brutality is an admission of fearfulness. — Kilroy J. Oldster

Demanding yet denying the human condition makes for an explosive contradiction. And explode it does, as you and I know. And we live in an age of conflagration: it only needs the rising birth rate to worsen the food shortage, it only needs the newly born to fear living a little more than dying, and for the torrent of violence to sweep away all the barriers. In Algeria and Angola, Europeans are massacred on sight. This is the age of the boomerang, the third stage of violence: it flies right back at us, it strikes us and, once again, we have no idea what hit us. — Frantz Fanon

In a feast of fame and talks,
Scandal flashing, raising tongue and brows.
In a blast of bombing and power play,
Fear and death dig more revenge.

In a forgotten continent,
Famine and drought devour lives.
In an unfortunate eye of a rebelling weather,
Crashing homes, leaving many in devastation and desperation.

In a country shaking with violence,
Innocent victims cry for justice and peace.
In a home shaking with turmoil,
Humble patient, hiding voice wants to be heard.

In a tick of a second,
A new breathe of life beats!
To belong in this world.
Constantly changing, decaying or improving?

In a snap of innovation:
Life goes big leap!
Regression somewhere unseen,
But felt in a slow, long run. — Angelica Hopes

If a man is to become fully himself - and this is not something that happens automatically just because you arrive at a particular age - he is going to have to give up some things in the process. Be it drugs, infidelity, childishness, lying, fear of intimacy, violence - none of these things contribute to being a man — Rod Stryker

Extremists and populist movements are exploiting people's fear of those who are not like us. We can see the consequences in the form of terrorism and racially motivated violence. — Kjell Magne Bondevik

Later, I would hear it in Dad's voice - "Either I can beat him, or the police." Maybe that saved me. Maybe it didn't. All I know is, the violence rose from the fear like smoke from a fire, and I cannot say whether that violence, even administered in fear and love, sounded the alarm or choked us at the exit. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

I was stuck in Port Ticonderoga, proud bastion of the common-and-garden variety button and of lower-priced long johns for the budget-minded shoppers. I would stagnate here, nothing would ever happen to me, I would end up an old-maid like Miss Violence, pitied and derided. This at the bottom was my fear. I wanted to be elsewhere, but I saw no way to get there. Once in a while, I found myself hoping that I would be abducted by white slavers, even though I didn't believe in them. At least it would be a change... — Margaret Atwood

The central attitudes driving Rambo are:
Strength and aggressiveness are good; compassion and conflict resolution are bad.
Anything that could be even remotely associated with homosexuality, including walking away from possible violence or showing any fear or grief, has to be avoided at any cost.
Femaleness and femininity (which he associates with homosexuality) are inferior. Women are here to serve men and be protected by them.
Men should never hit women, because it is unmanly to do so. However, exceptions to this rule can be made for my own partner if her behavior is bad enough. Men need to keep their women in line.
You are a thing that belongs to me, akin to a trophy. — Lundy Bancroft

Fear generates anger, and fear generates violence, and those were part of what built the Saudi state. — Robert Lacey

We cannot hope to die peacefully if our lives have been full of violence, or if our minds have mostly been agitated by emotions like anger, attachment, or fear. So if we wish to die well, we must learn how to live well: Hoping for a peaceful death, we must cultivate peace in our mind, and in our way of life. — Dalai Lama

When I walked into the room, I looked down to the floor and saw that each and every garment I owned had been pulled from its rightful place and had been meticulously sliced into countless pieces. One thing was painfully obvious to me: these clothes were symbolic of me; they represented my body.
What you really wanted was to slice me into countless pieces. — Rasmenia Massoud

Is there any country, sir," pursued the history student, "where submission to Government is not due to fear?" "The freedom that exists in any country," I replied, "may be measured by the extent of this reign of fear. Where its threat is confined to those who would hurt or plunder, there the Government may claim to have freed man from the violence of man. But if fear is to regulate how people are to dress, where they shall trade, or what they must eat, then is man's freedom of will utterly ignored, and manhood destroyed at the root. — Rabindranath Tagore

What sparks wars? The will to power, the backbone of human nature. The threat of violence, the fear of violence, or actual violence, is the instrument of this dreadful will. You can see the will to power in bedrooms, kitchens, factories, unions and the borders of states. Listen to this and remember it. The nation state is merely human nature inflated to monstrous proportions. QED, nations are entities whose laws are written by violence. Thus it ever was, so ever shall it be. — David Mitchell

In the artifacts that are conscious, memories of vanished lives still flicker. Tissues that were changed without dying hold the moment that a boy heard his sister was leaving home. They hold multiplication tables. They hold images of sexuality and violence and beauty. They hold the memories of flesh that no longer exists. They hold metaphors: mitochondria, starfish, Hitler's-brain-in-a-jar, hell realm. They dream. Structures that were neurons twitch and loop and burn and dream. Images and words and pain and fear, endless. — James S.A. Corey

Violence is not merely killing another. It is violence when we use a sharp word, when we make a gesture to brush away a person, when we obey because there is fear. So violence isn't merely organized butchery in the name of God, in the name of society or country. Violence is much more subtle, much deeper, and we are inquiring into the very depths of violence. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

One of the paradoxes of our time is that the War on Terror has served mainly to reinforce a collective belief that maintaining the right amount of fear and suspicion will earn one safety. Fear is promoted by the government as a kind of policy. Fear is accepted, even among the best-educated people in this country, even among the professors with whom I work, as a kind of intelligence. And inspiring fear in others is often seen as neighborly and kindly, instead of being regarded as what my cousin recognized it for - a violence. — Eula Biss

As an Auyana man living in New Guinea under the Pax Australiana put it, "Life was better since the government came" because "a man could now eat without looking over his shoulder and could leave his house in the morning to urinate without fear of being shot. — Steven Pinker

They understood that the innate emotions of humans were mutable. Anger didn't have to lead to violence, hate to cruelty, fear to oppression. There was a space for change between what words were said and what deeds were done. — Ronlyn Domingue

In the basement, with Ruth, I began to learn that anger, hate, fear and loneliness are all one button awaiting the touch of just a single finger to set them blazing toward destruction. — Jack Ketchum

Weapons are the tools of violence;all decent men detest them.Weapons are the tools of fear;a decent man will avoid themexcept in the direst necessityand, if compelled, will use themonly with the utmost restraint.Peace is his highest value.If the peace has been shattered,how can he be content?His enemies are not demons,but human beings like himself.He doesn't wish them personal harm.Nor does he rejoice in victory.How could he rejoice in victoryand delight in the slaughter of men?He enters a battle gravely,with sorrow and with great compassion,as if he were attending a funeral — Laozi

I was the only "girl writer," probably because the power to make people laugh is also a power, so women have been kept out of comedy. Polls show that what women fear most from men is violence, and what men fear most from women is ridicule. Later, when Tina Fey was head writer and star of Saturday Night Live, she could still say, "Only in comedy does an obedient white girl from the suburbs count as diversity. — Gloria Steinem

How many more tragedies does it take before we do something? How many more children have to die before this country realizes that No Gun Zones create perfect locations for violence? You can not stop criminals and mad men with laws, you can only stop violence with the fear of armed victims. — Alan Gottlieb

When political leaders fail to denounce anti-Semitic violence and slurs, the void is not only demoralizing to the victims, but silence actually enables the wrongdoing. Silence by elected officials in particular conveys approval - or at least acquiescence - and can contribute to a climate of fear and a sense of vulnerability. — Chris Smith

The reply to this was that Three took out a small revolver, and this surprised me; for everyone knows that anger is most intense towards those you know: it is lovers and neighbors who kill each other. There's no sense, after all, in behaving that way toward a perfect stranger; where's the satisfaction? No love, no need; no need, no frustration; no frustration, no hate, right? It must have been fear. — Joanna Russ

At that moment Sonny noticed that the other car had not kept going but had parked a few feet ahead, still blocking his way. At that same moment his lateral vision caught sight of another man in the darkened tollbooth to his right. But he did not have time to think about that because two men came out of the car parked in front and walked toward him. The toll collector still had not appeared. And then in the fraction of a second before anything actually happened, Santino Corleone he knew he was a dead man. And in that moment his mind was lucid, drained of all violence, as if the hidden fear finally real and present had purified him. — Mario Puzo

Power-Over leads to punishment and violence. Power-With leads to compassion and understanding, and to learning motivated by reverence for life rather than fear, guilt, shame, or anger. — Marshall B. Rosenberg

For the world as a whole, the CIA has now become the bogey that Communism has been for America. Wherever there is trouble, violence, suffering, tragedy, the rest of us are now quick to suspect the CIA had a hand in it. Our phobia about the CIA is, no doubt, as fantastically excessive as America's phobia about world Communism; but in this case, too, there is just enough convincing guidance to make the phobia genuine. In fact, the roles of America and Russia have been reversed in the world's eyes. Today America has become the world's nightmare. When an uncontrolled and perhaps uncontrollable team can flaunt the historic and traditional codes of civilization by disregarding the honor and sovereignty of other countries large and small, by intervening in the internal affairs of other countries for reasons real and contrived, the rest of the world does fear for its own welfare and for the future of this country. — L. Fletcher Prouty

Gay people getting married is not a threat to the institution of marriage. You know what's a threat to the institution of marriage? Infidelity is! Hate is! Unforgiveness is! Apathy is! Coldheartedness is! Fear is! And you know what's a threat to the kids? It's not having gay parents! Most gay kids have straight parents! And plenty of gay parents raise respectable, straight kids! The threat to children isn't their parents being gay; the threat to children is their parents not loving one another! Not caring for one another! Not being crazy about each other! Domestic violence is a threat to children. Stupidity is a threat to children. A swimming pool in the backyard with no supervision is a threat to children! — C. JoyBell C.

You know, my boy, he said, it's impossible to love men such as they are. And yet we must. So try to do good to men by doing violence to your feelings, holding your nose, and shutting your eyes, especially shutting your eyes. Endure their villainy without anger, as much as possible; try to remember that you're a man too. For, if you're even a little above average intelligence, you'll have the propensity to judge people severely. Men are vile by nature and they'd rather love out of fear. Don't give in to such love: despise it always. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The alcohol danced down his throat like a contented snake on the way to a magic ball... The lights seemed suddenly brighter... He felt an immediate sense of danger... Electricity... Fear... Excitement... The glass left his lips he needed another. He needed ten, twenty, thirty more...
He needed rivers, seas, oceans...
He swore under his breath. Somewhere a woman laughed and a man shouted... He looked at the stage. Temptresses dancing... Strange Northern music.... Whores... laws... violence... — James A. Newman

Rape culture is an environment in which rape is prevalent and in which sexual violence against women is normalized and excused in the media and popular culture. Rape culture is perpetuated through the use of misogynistic language, the objectification of women's bodies, and the glamorization of sexual violence, thereby creating a society that disregards women's rights and safety. Rape culture affects every woman. Most women and girls limit their behavior because of the existence of rape. Most women and girls live in fear of rape. Men, in general, do not. That's how rape functions as a powerful means by which the whole female population is held in a subordinate position to the whole male population, even though many men don't rape, and many women are never victims of rape. — Rebecca Solnit

One day, I stopped hating. I ceased all meaningless activity. I completed the circle. I Set my sights straight. Like an Arrow I flew. I stopped acting. I got tired of playing with you. Random violence and destruction Because my reason for living, my out, My excuse. What is your excuse? Destruction. Without hate, without fear, Without judgement. I am no better Than you. No-one knows this better Than I do. I just got tired of playing Parlor Games. — Henry Rollins

I didn't believe all her stories," Martha wrote later. "I thought she was exaggerating and a bit hysterical." When Martha left her hotel she witnessed no violence, saw no one cowering in fear, felt no oppression. — Erik Larson

Everyone in the world should sleep without fear at least for one night, sleep without fear. Everyone in the world should eat to their fill, at least for one day, eat to their fill. There should be one day when there is no violence, no one is injured, no one is harmed. All people young and old should serve the poor and needy, at least for one day serve selflessly. This is my dream ... this is my prayer. Love is the answer, love is the way. Love is the answer, love is the way. — Mata Amritanandamayi

What is this thing we call government? Is it anything but organized violence? The law orders you to obey, and if you don't obey, it will compel you by force - all governments, all law and authority finally rest on force and violence, on punishment or fear of punishment. — Alexander Berkman

As long as you are run by the egoic mind, you are part of the collective insanity. Perhaps you haven't looked very deeply into the human condition in its state of dominance by the egoic mind. Open your eyes and see the fear, the despair, the greed, and the violence that are all-pervasive. See the heinous cruelty and suffering on an unimaginable scale that humans have inflicted and continue to inflict on each other as well as on other life forms on the planet. You don't need to condemn. Just observe. That is sin. That is insanity. That is unconsciousness. — Eckhart Tolle

Conflict exists only when there are two opposing things: fear and non-fear,violence and non-violence. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

And how will this come to pass?' He paused and lowered his voice. ' In the same way all change comes to pass, I fear, And I am sorry it is so. It will come to pass by violence and upheaval, by flame and by fury, for no change comes calmly over the world. — Walter M. Miller Jr.

So, those who hate, those who are violent in nature, live in a world of hate and fear and violence inside themselves, inside their minds, inside their awareness. — Frederick Lenz

This is the violence that captures our fear and attention, even though only 20 percent of all homicides are committed by strangers. The other 80 percent are committed by people we know, so I'll focus on those we hire, those we work with, those we fire, those we date, those we marry, those we divorce. — Gavin De Becker

There is no city or country in the world where women and girls live free of the fear of violence. No leader can claim: 'this is not happening in my backyard.' — Michelle Bachelet

There's fear and violence under the surface. One always follows the other. — James W. Bodden