Harm No One Quotes & Sayings

We're sorry for frightening you, Tris,' another voice says, 'but anonymity is integral to our operation. We mean you no harm.'
'Let go of me then!' I say, almost growling. All the hands holding me on the wall fall away.
'Who are you?' I demand.
'We are the Alliegiant,' the voice replies. 'And we are many, yet we are no one ... '
I can't help it: I laugh. — Veronica Roth

When a person is so irresponsible and self-centered that they can't look out for the basic needs of their own family and they actually cause irreparable harm to their own children, that's totally unacceptable. And when they treat other people like they exist only to serve them, that's not only rude and offensive, it's completely wrong. No one on this earth should be allowed to step on other people just to build themselves up. — Angie Stanton

He stopped at an intersection, panting, rubbing at the twinge in his hamstrings, looking around, though he knew no cars were coming in either direction.
Dropping forward at the waist Martin admitted that he was fucking himself up. Dr Leonowsky told him: hurting yourself is an articulation of self-disgust. It helps no one, prevents nothing. This wasn't a glorious loss of control, he was fooling himself, it was self-harm. — Denise Mina

One of my favorites:
Robby gave her a skeptical look. "Ye're an angel of death. No offense, but I would call that a wee bit of harm."
"We're called Deliverers, actually. And we're not supposed to take someone before their time."
"How does that work?" Gregori lifted his camera, focusing on her. "I mean do you just go down a line, saying, 'Eenie meenie mynie moe, sorry, dude you gotta go'? — Kerrelyn Sparks

Boundless compassion for all living beings is the surest and most certain guarantee of pure moral conduct, and needs no casuistry. Whoever is filled with it will assuredly injure no one, do harm to no one, encroach on no man's rights; he will rather have regard for every one, forgive every one, help every one as far as he can, and all his actions will bear the stamp of justice and loving-kindness. — Arthur Schopenhauer

I love you, Kitten."
How puny those words seemed compared to the feelings strafing mine, but his voice vibrated as he said them. Then he crouched beside me.
"I would never hurt you that way save for one reason: to keep you safe. I can live with your anger, your retribution ... bloody hell, despise me if you must, but don't expect me to behave as though you aren't the most important thing in my life. You are, and I will let no one, yourself included, bring you to harm. — Jeaniene Frost

The body is poisoned through the mouth, even so is the heart through the ear ... And even if we do mean no harm, the Evil One means a great deal, and he will use those idle words as a sharp weapon against some neighbor's heart. — Francis De Sales

Our own worst enemy cannot harm us as much as our unwise thoughts. No one can help us as much as our own compassionate thoughts. — Gautama Buddha

Often times, we blame others for our frustrations and failures.
In doing so,we disturb our own peace of mind and aggravate our happiness.
No one can harm us. No one can keep our good from us.Let us not blame others, but look for and find the best in everyone.This will lead us to success and happiness ... — Tanu Reshma B Singh

We must forgive each other our arising, for our existence always torments others. The golden rule in the midst of this mutual misery has always been, not to do no harm, but as little as possible; and not to love one another, but as much as you can. — Ken Wilber

Man is equal to man. There should not be exploitation. One should help the other. No one should harm anybody. Generally there should be no room for grievance or complaint from anybody. Everyone should live and let others live, with a national spirit. — Periyar E.V. Ramasamy

One of the things that strikes me most though is how some people don't realise they're self-harming. The phrase 'self-harm' brings up thoughts of 'cutting', but that's only a small portion of it. When you drink excessively to drown your sorrows to the point you throw up and can't see straight and/or, like a girl at my school, ended up being driven to hospital to have her stomach pumped, you've brought harm to yourself. If you take drugs to feel numb and it becomes an addiction that you can't break, you've self-harmed. When you starve yourself or binge eat to fit the latest fashions, you're pushing your body further than it can go.
We need to start treating ourselves how we deserve to be treated, even if you feel that no one else does. Prove to the world you ARE worth something by treating yourself with the utmost respect and hope that other people will follow your example. And even if they don't, at least one person in the world is treating you well: YOU. — Carrie Hope Fletcher

You cannot make steel until you have made the iron white-hot in fire. It is not meant for harm. Trouble and disease have a lesson for us. Our painful experiences are not meant to destroy us, but to burn out our dross, to hurry us back Home. No one is more anxious for our release than God. — Paramahansa Yogananda

Besides, it seems to mee that spreading the doctrine of doing good can harm no one.' Nakor shook his head. 'Would that it were true. Men have been put to death for preaching good. — Raymond E. Feist

There is no one who cannot derive great help and great benefit from learning; but there are also only a few people who do not receive a great harm from the light and knowledge they have received by learning, unless they use their knowledge in a manner both fit and natural for them. — Madeleine De Souvre, Marquise De ...

There is no more harm in adultery than in rubbing one's hands together. — Pope Boniface VIII

They lived before the Christian age began. They paid no reverence, as was due to God. And in this number I myself am one. 40 For such deficiencies, no other crime, we all are lost yet only suffer harm through living in desire, but hopelessly. — Dante Alighieri

The golden rule of relationships is "Cause no indignity." A loving relationship is one in which both partners take care to protect each other's dignity. A wounded soul heals more slowly than a wounded body, so it is as important to avoid indignity as it is to avoid outright harm. — Robert W. Fuller

I left, stifling my generous impulse, for I have often observed that while a charitable act may do no harm to the benefactor, it is death to the one who receives it. — Honore De Balzac

No one does more harm in the Church than he who has the title or rank of holiness and acts perversely. — Gregory The Great

A beautiful object has no intrinsic quality that is good for the mind, nor an ugly object any intrinsic power to harm it. Beautiful and ugly are just projections of the mind. The ability to cause happiness or suffering is not a property of the outer object itself. For example, the sight of a particular individual can cause happiness to one person and suffering to another. It is the mind that attributes such qualities to the perceived object. — Dilgo Khyentse

Teaching is so demanding, and you get so little support. That pinch will have done Olive no harm - probably a lot of good.'
'Do you really think so?'
'Yes,' said Matthew. But then he went on, rather sadly, 'But I suppose that's not the world we live in, with all these regulations and busybodies about.' He paused. 'I think you've struck a blow for sanity. Or rather, pinched one.'
She thought this very funny and laughed.
'I'm rather fed up with teaching anyway,' Elspeth said. — Alexander McCall Smith

Some cognitive scientists believe human response to music provides evidence that we are more than just flesh and blood - that we also have souls. Their thinking is as follows: All reactions to external stimuli can be traced back to an evolutionary rationale. You pull your hand away from fire to avoid physical harm. You get butterflies before an important speech because the adrenaline running through your veins has caused a physiological fight-or-flight response. But there is no evolutionary context within which people's response to music makes sense - the tapping of a foot, the urge to sing along or get up and dance, there's just no survival benefit to these activities. For this reason, some believe that our response to music is proof that there's more to us than just biological and physiological mechanics - that the only way to be moved by the spirit, so to speak, is to have one in the first place. There — Jodi Picoult

But what they find most amazing and despicable is the insanity of those who all but worship the rich, to whom they owe nothing and who can do them no harm; they do so for no other reason except that they are rich, knowing full well that they are so mean and tightfisted that they will certainly never give them one red cent during their whole lives. — Thomas More

Witch' is just a religion, okay? No baby-sacrificing, no Black Masses, no sending imps out to scare the dog-snot out of kids, trying to make them think they're crazy. We don't do things like that. Our number-one law is 'Have fun in this lifetime, but don't hurt anybody.'
Nice little paraphrase of "An it harm none, do as ye will" if I do say so myself. — Mercedes Lackey

She cannot chain my soul.
Yes, she could hurt me. She'd already done so. But what was one more beating? A flogging, even? I would bleed, or not. Scar, or not. Live, or not. But she could no longer harm Ruth, and she could not hurt my soul, not unless I gave it to her.
This was a new notion to me and a curious one. — Laurie Halse Anderson

And there is no harm in loving a stranger. In fact, it is more exciting to love a stranger. When you were not together, there was great attraction. The more you have been together, the more the attraction has become dull. The more you have become known to each other, superficially, the less is the excitement. Life becomes very soon a routine. People go on repeating the same thing, again and again. If you look at the faces of people in the world, you will be surprised: Why do all these people look so sad? Why do their eyes look as if they have lost all hope? The reason is simple; the reason is repetition. Man is intelligent; repetition creates boredom. Boredom brings a sadness because one knows what is going to happen tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow ... until one goes into the grave, it will be the same, the same story. Finkelstein — Osho

When you are invited to drink, and this does occur now and then in New Orleans - and you say, 'What, again? - no, I've had enough;' the other party says, 'But just this one time more - this is for lagniappe.' When the beau perceives that he is stacking his compliments a trifle too high, and sees by the young lady's countenance that the edifice would have been better with the top compliment left off, he puts his 'I beg pardon - no harm intended,' into the briefer form of 'Oh, that's for lagniappe.' If the waiter in the restaurant stumbles and spills a gill of coffee down the back of your neck, he says 'For lagniappe, sah,' and gets you another cup without extra charge. — Mark Twain

Lack of understanding of the true nature of happiness, it seems to me, is the principal reason why people inflict sufferings on others. They think either that the other's pain may somehow be a cause of happiness for themselves or that their own happiness is more important, regardless of what pain it may cause. But this is shortsighted. No one truly benefits from causing harm to another sentient being ... In the long run causing others misery and infringing their rights to peace and happiness result in anxiety, fear, and suspicion within oneself. — Dalai Lama

3. Count not thyself better than others, lest perchance thou appear worse in the sight of God, who knoweth what is in man. Be not proud of thy good works, for God's judgments are of another sort than the judgments of man, and what pleaseth man is ofttimes displeasing to Him. If thou hast any good, believe that others have more, and so thou mayest preserve thy humility. It is no harm to thee if thou place thyself below all others; but it is great harm if thou place thyself above even one. Peace is ever with the humble man, but in the heart of the proud there is envy and continual wrath. — Thomas A Kempis

It makes one sad to hear Christians saying, "Well, there is no harm in this; there is no harm in that," thus getting as near to the world as possible. Grace is at a low ebb in that soul which can even raise the question of how far it may go in worldly conformity. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

There are all kinds of devices invented for the protection and preservation of countries: defensive barriers, forts, trenches, and the like ... But prudent minds have as a natural gift one safeguard which is the common possession of all, and this applies especially to the dealings of democracies. What is this safeguard? Skepticism. This you must preserve. This you must retain. If you can keep this, you need fear no harm. — Demosthenes

Until kids decide, 'I am a miracle. I am unique. There is no one else exactly like me,' they can never draw the conclusion, 'Because I'm a miracle, I will never harm another person who's a miracle like me.' In this slippery world, they all need something to hang on to. — Marva Collins

Before we put an American in harm's way, tell us why. No one wants to see the region descend into further chaos. There's a lot of concern about getting embroiled in another Vietnam and ... about sending American troops once again to fight someone else's war. — Xavier Becerra

It has seemed to me sometimes as though the Lord breathes on this poor gray ember of Creation and it turns to radiance - for a moment or a year or the span of a life. And then it sinks back into itself again, and to look at it no one would know it had anything to do with fire, or light ... Wherever you turn your eyes the world can shine like transfiguration. You don't have to bring a thing to it except a little willingness to see. Only, who could have the courage to see it? ... Theologians talk about a prevenient grace that precedes grace itself and allows us to accept it. I think there must also be a prevenient courage that allows us to be brave - that is, to acknowledge that there is more beauty than our eyes can bear, that precious things have been put into our hands and to do nothing to honor them is to do great harm. — Marilynne Robinson

I can think of no sadder example of our food paradigm than two posters taped to the window of a California IHOP. One is a colorful photo of pancakes heaped with bananas, strawberries, nuts, syrups and whipped cream with the caption, 'Welcome to Paradise.' Lower down, an 8x10 photocopy states: 'Chemicals known to cause cancer or birth defects or other reproductive harm may be present in food or beverages sold here.' Such signs are posted on many fast-food outlets. Heaven isn't a place on earth, at least not at these drive-throughs. — Adam Leith Gollner

Is the Church inimical to science? Growing up as a Catholic and a scientist - I don't see it. One truth is revealed truth, the other is scientific truth. If you really believe that creation is good, there can be no harm in studying science. The more we learn about creation - the way it emerged - it just adds to the glory of God. Personally, I've never seen a conflict. — Joseph Murray

Nothing and no one can harm you unless you choose to allow it. — Rene Gaudette

All Hell is smaller than one pebble of your earthly world: but it is smaller than one atom of this world, the Real World. Look at yon butterfly. If it swallowed all Hell, Hell would not be big enough to do it any harm or to have any taste'
'It seems big enough when you're in it, Sir.'
'And yet all loneliness, angers, hatreds, envies, and itchings that it contains, if rolled into one single experience and put into the scale against the least moment of the joy that is felt by the least in Heaven, would have no weight that could be registered at all. Bad cannot succeed even in being bad as truly as good is good. If all Hell's miseries together entered the consciousness of yon wee yellow bird on the bough there, they would be swallowed up without trace, as if one drop of ink had been dropped into that Great Ocean to which your terrestrial Pacific is only a molecule'
'I see,' said I at last. 'She couldn't fit into Hell. — C.S. Lewis

Nature is one with rapine, a harm no preacher can heal; The Mayfly is torn by the swallow, the sparrow speared by the shrike, And the whole little wood where I sit is a world of plunder and prey. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

Heavenly Bastard in the Sky, these cockroaches were sadomasochists, looking for the most painful way to die. Once I swallowed one absent-mindedly drinking my tea. Traumatised, I rang the local chemist. The voice on the line was gently reassuring: cockroaches were not poisonous, ingesting one would cause me no harm. Though, the chemist added, in terms of protein they were not as nutritious as snails. — Xiaolu Guo

No one loathed her more than she and thus none could truly harm her. — Michael R. Fletcher

You have killed?" Robert Jordan asked. "Yes. Several times. But not with pleasure. To me it is a sin to kill a man. Even fascists whom we must kill." "Yet you have killed." "Yes. And will again. But if I live later, I will try to live in such a way, doing no harm to any one, that it will be forgiven." "By whom?" "Who knows? Since we do not have God here anymore, who forgives, I do not know. — Ernest Hemingway,

We went hand in hand across four lines of avenues. At the corner she was to go right, and I left.
"I'd like so much to come to your place today and let the blinds down. Today-right this minute" said O, and shyly looked up at me with her round crystal-blue eyes.
she's a funny one. But what could I say? She was with me only yesterday, and she knows as well as I do that our next Sex Day is the day after tomorrow. It's just more of her thought getting ahead of itself, like a spark that flies too early in the ignition, which can do some harm at times.
Saying goodbye, I kissed her twice-no, I'll tell the truth-three times on those wonderful blue eyes of hers that not the least little cloud ever troubled. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

One should have expected some terrible enormities charged to those who are excluded from heaven, as the reason; but no, - they are condemned for not doing positive good, as if that included every possible harm. — Harriet Beecher Stowe

You're one of th'Union, Job?'
'Ay! I'm one, sure enough; but I'm but a sleeping partner in the concern. I were obliged to become a member for peace, else I don't go along with 'em. Yo see they think themselves wise, and me silly, for differing with them! Well! there's no harm in that. But then they won't let me be silly in peace and quietness, but will force me to be as wise as they are; now that's not British liberty, I say. I'm forced to be wise according to their notions, else they parsecute me, and starve me out. — Elizabeth Gaskell

I walked back by way of the sea-lions' enclosure to refresh my eyes with the King Penguin's perfect ecclesiastical tailoring. He was pacing moodily about as usual, in what one felt to be the interval between a marriage ceremony and a funeral service. Much better, I thought, to have left the 2000 a year to him. No harm would then be done, and what perfect episcopal garden-parties he could give with it! — Edward Verrall Lucas

If a man is crossing a river and an empty boat collides with his own skiff, even though he be a bad-tempered man he will not become very angry. But if he sees a man in the boat, he will shout at him to steer clear. If the shout is not heard, he will shout again, and yet again, and begin cursing. And all because there is somebody in the boat. Yet if the boat were empty, he would not be shouting, and not angry. If you can empty your own boat crossing the river of the world, no one will oppose you, no one will seek to harm you ... . Who can free himself from achievement, and from fame, descend and be lost amid the masses of men? He will flow like Tao, unseen, he will go about like Life itself with no name and no home. Simple is he, without distinction. To all appearances he is a fool. His steps leave no trace. He has no power. He achieves nothing, has no reputation. Since he judges no one, no one judges him. Such is the perfect man: His boat is empty. — Osho

Forgiveness is not just a selfish pursuit of personal satisfaction or righteousness. It actually alleviates the amount of suffering in the world. As each one of us frees ourselves from clinging to resentments that cause suffering, we relieve our friends, family, and community of the burden of our unhappiness. This is not a philosophical proposal; it is a verifiable and practical truth. Through our suffering and lack of forgiveness, we tend to do all kinds of unskillful things that hurt others. We close ourselves off from love, for example, out of fear of further pains or betrayals. This alone - a lack of openness to the love shown to us - is a way that we cause harm to our loved ones. The closed heart lets no one in or out. — Noah Levine

All around him the chanting swelled, Harm no one, harm no one. What the hell did that mean? He was going to have to shoot the poor son of a bitch, but maybe that was a far better way to go than what the house of horrors had planned. This was a hell of a way for men to die, even if they deserved it. — Christine Feehan

You are mine! Mine by God, and no one but no one will hurt, abuse, or dare to fucking harm what's mine, ever again. — Lora Leigh

Seas of blood have been shed for the sake of patriotism. One would expect the harm and irrationality of patriotism to be self-evident to everyone. But the surprising fact is that cultured and learned people not only do not notice the harm and stupidity of patriotism, they resist every unveiling of it with the greatest obstinacy and passion (with no rational grounds), and continue to praise it as beneficent and elevating. — Leo Tolstoy

Delicious foods are drugs that will inflame the gut and rot the bones, but there is no harm if one eats moderately. Delightful things are all purveyors of destruction and decadence, but there is no regret if one enjoys them moderately. — Zicheng Hong

I, for one, begin with intent. There is no question that, Saddam Hussein had intent to do harm to the Western alliance and to the United States of America. — Tommy Franks

The law which their prophet Mohamed has given to muslims is that any harm done to any one who does not accept their law and any appropriation of his goods, is no sin at all. — Marco Polo

Considering the ways in which so many of us waste our time, what would be wrong with a world in which everybody were writing poems? After all, there's a significant service to humanity in spending time doing no harm. While you're writing your poem, there's one less scoundrel in the world. And I'd like a world, wouldn't you, in which people actually took time to think about what they were saying? It would be, I'm certain, a more peaceful, more reasonable place. I don't think there could ever be too many poets. By writing poetry, even those poems that fail and fail miserably, we honor and affirm life. We say 'We loved the earth but could not stay. — Ted Kooser

She can't hurt him, Izzy," (Alec)
"I know you're worried, but he's got the Mark of Cain; he's untouchable. Even a Greater Demon can't harm him. No one can." (Alec)
Isabelle scowled at her brother. "So what do you think she wants him for, then? So she'll have someone to pick up her dry cleaning during the day? Really, Alec
— Cassandra Clare

There is no harm in being sometimes wrong - especially if one is promptly found out. — John Maynard Keynes

Women are afraid in a world in which almost half the population bears the guise of the predator, in which no factor - age, dress, or color - distinguishes a man who will harm a woman from one who will not. — Marilyn French

Why must I cling to the customs and practices of a particular country forever, just because I happened to be born there? What does it matter if its distinctiveness is lost? Need we be so attached to it? What's the harm if everyone on earth shares the same thoughts and feelings, if they stand under a single banner of laws and regulations? What if we can't be recognized as Indians any more? Where's the harm in that? No one can object if we declare ourselves to be citizens of the world. Is that any less glorious? — Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay

Today, Iraq is an immediate danger to our nation. This time, we cannot wait. We cannot wait for Saddam Hussein to take a devastating action or to transfer a weapon of mass destruction to someone else who will. After September 11th, it is simply no longer an option to sit back and contemplate an enemy - one with a stated intent to harm us, a track record and the means, and just wait for him to strike in order to protect ourselves. — Richard Armitage

World, death, devil, hell, away and leave me in peace! You have no hold on me. If you will not let me live, then I will die. But you won't succeed in that. Chop my head off, and it won't harm me. I have a God who will give me a new one. — Martin Luther

There is no logical basis for the prohibition of marijuana. $7.7 billion is a lot of money, but that is one of the lesser evils. Our failure to successfully enforce these laws is responsible for the deaths of thousands of people in Colombia. I haven't even included the harm to young people. It's absolutely disgraceful to think of picking up a 22-year-old for smoking pot. More disgraceful is the denial of marijuana for medical purposes. — Milton Friedman

No one's going to harm you, princess. On my life, I'll keep you safe.
-Nykyrian — Sherrilyn Kenyon

He may harp in the Dark One's Hall and take no harm, who is a true harper. — Tanith Lee

You don't know me; you never knew my heart. No man knows my history. I cannot tell it: I shall never undertake it. I don't blame any one for not believing my history. If I had not experienced what I have, I would not have believed it myself. I never did harm any man since I was born in the world. My voice is always for peace. — Joseph Smith Jr.

But [religious faith]'s not extinct, Janet. It's become nearly universal in the fleet and is growing very quickly in the Alliance."

"Yes, and that's why I cannot now or I think ever will have a chosen faith. There should be no pressure for the path one takes. Oh, it's no secret that Islam has more of an appeal to me than the others, but Allah understands this as he understands all things. The notion of faith is, I believe, far more important than the choice of a particular one."

"And what of the unfaithful?" asked Justin. "What of them?"

"If they have faith, I believe they'll have greater understanding of things; if not, I can't order someone to believe. It would be stupid to try and evil to force someone to pretend. As if God wants frightened adherents bowing on trembling knees. The harm all those fanatics did before the Grand Collapse," she said with true rancor, "those idiots I'd shoot, if I had the ability. — Dani Kollin

Passing from one dimension to another, he feels that nothing is left behind, but rather is always with him in the moment. His life is no more a myth than other man's, his needs much the same. The only price he pays for this exquisite singularity may be the intrusion of his fellow dreamers who sometimes call him on the telephone. They mean no harm. They too are innocent. Clarity is all any man seeks, this Somnambulist merely find his on the other Side. — Ralph Gibson

The sad irony here is that the FDA, which does not regulate fluoride in drinking water, does regulate toothpaste and on the back of a tube of fluoridated toothpaste ... it must state that "if your child swallows more than the recommended amount, contact a poison control center."
The amount that they're talking about, the recommended amount, which is a pea-sized amount, is equivalent to one glass of water.
The FDA is not putting a label on the tap saying don't drink more than one glass of water. If you do, contact a poison center ...
There is no question that fluoride - not an excessive amount - can cause serious harm. — Paul Connett

Privacy and pollution are similar problems. Both cause harm that is invisible and pervasive. Both result from exploitation of a resource--whether it is land, water, or information. Both suffer from difficult attribution. It is not easy to identify a single pollutant or a single piece of data that caused harm. Rather, the harm often comes from an accumulation of pollutants, or an assemblage of data. And the harm of both pollution and privacy is collective. No one person bears the burden of all pollution; all of society suffers when the air is dirty and the water undrinkable. Similarly, we all suffer when we live in fear that our data will be used against us by companies trying to exploit us or police officers sweeping us into a lineup. (212-213) — Julia Angwin

Silence is the worst. Whenever a thick cloud of silence descends, the yapping voices inside me become all the more audible, rising to the surface one by one. I like to believe I know all the women in this inner harm of mine but perhaps there are those I have never met. Together they make a choir that does not know how to tone down. I call them the Choir of Discordant Voices. It is a bizarre choir, now that I think about it. Not only are they all off-key, none of them can read notes. In fact, there is no music at all in what they do. They all talk at the same time, each in a voice louder than the other, never listening to what is being said. They make me afraid of my own diversity, the fragmentation inside of me. That is why I do not like the quiet. I even find it unpleasant, unsettling. — Elif Shafak

When rehabilitation works, there is no question that it is the best and most productive use of the correctional system. It stands to reason: if we can take a bad guy and turn him into a good guy and then let him out, then that's one fewer bad guy to harm us. . . .

Where I do not think there is much hope. . .is when we deal with serial killers and sexual predators, the people I have spent most of my career hunting and studying. These people do what they do. . .because it feels good, because they want to, because it gives
them satisfaction. You can certainly make the argument, and I will agree with you, that many of them are compensating for bad jobs, poor self-image, mistreatment by parents, any number of things. But that doesn't mean we're going to be able to rehabilitate them. — John E. Douglas

The World has a First Cause, which may be regarded as the Mother of the World. When one has found the Mother, one can know the Child. Knowing the Child and still keeping the Mother, to the end of his days he shall suffer no harm. — Lao-Tzu

Bjartur declared that he had never denied that there was much that was strange in nature. "I consider that there's nothing wrong in believing in elves even though their names aren't on the parish register," he said. "It hurts no one, yes and even does you good rather than harm; but to believe in ghosts and ghouls
that I contend is nothing but the remains of popery and hardly fit for a Christian to give even a moment's consideration." He did his utmost to persuade the women to accept his views on these matters. — Halldor Laxness

I did everything wrong," he said. "I misunderstood everything. Moon Child gave me so much, and all I did with it was harm, harm to myself and harm to Fantastica."
Dame Eyola gave him a long look.
No," she said. "I don't believe so. You went the way of wishes, and that is never straight. You went the long way around, but that was your way. And do you know why? Because you are one of those who can't go back until they have found the fountain from which springs the Water of Life. And that's the most secret place in Fantastica. There's no simple way of getting there."
After a short silence she added: "But every way that leads there is the right one. — Michael Ende

The animals you eat are not those who devour others; you do not eat the carnivorous beasts, you take them as your pattern. You only hunger for the sweet and gentle creatures which harm no one, which follow you, serve you, and are devoured by you as the reward of their service. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Autistic children often show no real fears of danger despite obvious risks of harm. This may be easy to spot in a young child who bolts for the street at a moment's notice, or plunges into water with no fear of its depth without being able to swim. But what does it look like in an older child, one on the cusp of adolescence? — Jeannie Davide-Rivera

For four years at Yale, he'd sat at the center of his circle with free rein to utter whatever was on his mind. He was well known for calling people out on their "bullshit." But he'd been able to exercise that tendency with the concrete awareness that his words had no consequences, not real ones. Maybe someone's feelings would get hurt; maybe there'd be an argument. Even so, nobody at Yale would ever come at him, no one carried lethal weapons, no one constructed the particular walls around his pride that, if penetrated, might impel him to want to inflict severe physical harm. The situation was different in Newark - more so now than ever, since the gang explosion had begun. — Jeff Hobbs

Simon: You're in a dangerous line of work, Jayne. Odds are you'll be under my knife again, often. So I want you to understand one thing very clearly: No matter what you do or say or plot, no matter how you come down on us, I will never, ever harm you. You're on this table, you're safe ... 'cause I'm your medic. And however little we may like or trust each other, we're on the same crew. Got the same troubles, same enemies, and more than enough of both. Now, we could circle each other and growl, sleep with one eye open, but that thought wearies me. I don't care what you've done, I don't know what you're planning on doing, but I'm trusting you. I think you should do the same. 'Cause I don't see this working any other way.
River: Also, I can kill you with my brain. — Ben Edlund

Help, I have done it again I have been here many times before Hurt myself again today And the worst part is There's no-one else to blame. — Sia Furler

There was a nodding of heads in the kitchen, and only Tom sat rocklike and brooding.
"Tom, wouldn't you be willing to take over the ranch?" George asked.
"Oh, that's nothing," said Tom. "It's no trouble to run the ranch because the ranch doesn't run
never has."
"Then why don't you agree?"
"I'd find a reluctance to insult my father," Tom said. "He'd know."
"But where's the harm in suggesting it?"
Tom rubbed his ears until he forced the blood out of them and for a moment they were white. "I don't forbid you," he said. "But I can't do it."
George said, "We could write it in a letter - a kind of invitation, full of jokes. And when he got tired of one of us, why, he could go to another. There's years of visiting among the lot of us." And that was how they left it. — John Steinbeck

The Hippocratic Oath says do no harm. It's the Hypocritical Oath that says do no harm to one's political future. — Mark McKinnon

You and I will be dust and half-remembered tales before they even start to build that city. But it will come, and when it does, this sword will still be there to see it. Kiriath steel - built to harm, built to last. When all the damage it's done and the grief it's caused have been forgotten, even by the gods, when the Kiriath themselves have passed into discredited myth, this murderous fucking ... thing ... will hang unused, and harmless, and gaped at by children. That's how it ends, Gil. With no one to remember, or care, or understand what this thing could do when you set it free. — Richard K. Morgan

Allow me to share one simple and very frightening truth with you: your real enemy is someone who knows you. And the better they know you, and the closer they are to you, the greater is their capacity to do you harm.
Total strangers who get a little angry and lose control at sporting events are no real threat, if the proper caution is used. Protective fathers of pretty fourteen-year-old girls will shout and sputter, get loud and use strong language, but in the end they will retreat into their warm houses and leave you alone.
But a person who shares a part of your life, who lives with you and knows all your habits and has a keen insight into what you value most in all the world - this is the person to fear. — David Klass

There is no ground whatever for the claim, so often made by religious apologists, that these ideals are specifically Christian and originated with Jesus. What were specifically Christian were some of the less enlightened teachings, which have done untold harm. Christians claim that organised Christianity has been a great force for good, but this view can be maintained on one assumption only: that everything good in the Christian era is a result of Christianity and everything bad happened in spite of it. — Margaret E. Knight

No changing of place at a hundred miles an hour will make us one whit stronger, or happier, or wiser. There was always more in the world than man could see, walked they ever so slowly; they will see it no better for going fast. The really precious things are thought and sight, not pace. It does a bullet no good to go fast; and a man, if he be truly a man, no harm to go slow; for his glory is not at all in going, but in being. — John Ruskin

Gretel in Darkness:


This is the world we wanted.
All who would have seen us dead
are dead. I hear the witch's cry
break in the moonlight through a sheet
of sugar: God rewards.
Her tongue shrivels into gas....

Now, far from women's arms
And memory of women, in our father's hut
we sleep, are never hungry.
Why do I not forget?
My father bars the door, bars harm
from this house, and it is years.

No one remembers. Even you, my brother,
summer afternoons you look at me as though
you meant to leave,
as though it never happened.
But I killed for you. I see armed firs,
the spires of that gleaming kiln--

Nights I turn to you to hold me
but you are not there.
Am I alone? Spies
hiss in the stillness, Hansel
we are there still, and it is real, real,
that black forest, and the fire in earnest. — Louise Gluck

No one sees your strength, do they? No one sees the silent battle you fight against your overprotective mind that's trying to keep you safe from harm by keeping you safe from risk, safe from connection, safe from honesty. Maybe others don't see, but you see it sometimes, don't you? In the mirror, in those eyes, begging for someone to notice. You have noticed. It is real. You are strong. You are fighting for something incredible. Don't let anyone convince you otherwise - especially not your thoughts. — Vironika Tugaleva

When I told my mother about them, she said she had similar attacks, and that they did no harm and lasted only a few minutes. With this, I started to look forward to my occasional attacks, wondering what might happen in the next one — Oliver Sacks

For me, the most ironic token of [the first human moon landing] is the plaque signed by President Richard M. Nixon that Apollo 11 took to the moon. It reads, 'We came in peace for all Mankind.' As the United States was dropping seven and a half megatons of conventional explosives on small nations in Southeast Asia, we congratulated ourselves on our humanity. We would harm no one on a lifeless rock. — Carl Sagan

Aye, well, he'll be wed a long time," he said callously. "Do him no harm to keep his breeches on for one night. And they do say that abstinence makes the heart grow firmer, no?"
"Absence," I said, dodging the spoon for a moment. "AND fonder. If anything's growing firmer from abstinence, it wouldn't be his heart. — Diana Gabaldon

Half a dozen fingers pointed at the amputated wheel
he stared at it for a moment and then looked upward as though he suspected that it had dropped from the sky. "It came off," some one explained. He nodded. "At first I din' notice we'd stopped." A pause. Then, taking a long breath and straightening his shoulders he remarked in a determined voice: "Wonder'ff tell me where there's a gas'line station?" At least a dozen men, some of them little better off than he was, explained to him that wheel and car were no longer joined by any physical bond. "Back out," he suggested after a moment. "Put her in reverse." "But the WHEEL'S off!" He hesitated. "No harm in trying," he said. — F Scott Fitzgerald

No longer could I root happily into my mother's company and find comfort in her rounded shape. There was no one to tell me the facts. How much nutrition to pull from the dirt? Would the beetles bring harm? And what of the worms? Friends, foe, or nevermind? — Kate Bernheimer

If you have superpowers and no one can actually cause you any physical harm, then everything has to be very thought-through. You almost have to fake at being human. — Henry Cavill

Life isn't so much that we are seeking God (whether earnestly, sporadically, desperately, or not at all), but rather that God is already here with a steady lamp in the dark, searching for us. Life isn't how we stumble about trying to do no harm while we make occasional, feeble lurches at loving one another. Life is what God is doing within us and among us, nonstop-and it's not a death march, it's a dance. Life is about hearing this music and getting in step. — Marilyn Lacey

No one is free from uttering stupidities. The harm lies in doing it meticulously: Nae — Michel De Montaigne

If a man is crossing the river and an empty boat collides with his skiff, even though he is a bad tempered man he will not become very angry. But if he sees a man in the other boat he will scream and shout and curse at the man to steer clear. If you can empty your own boat crossing the river of the world, no one will oppose you, no one will seek to harm you. Thus is the perfect man - his boat is empty. — Zhuangzi

In love, no one can harm anyone else; we are each responsible for our own feelings and cannot blame someone else for what we feel. — Paulo Coelho

Madeira is a wine like no other. It is fine wine in extremis. Heat and air, both the sworn enemies of most wines and wine makers, conspire to turn madeira into one of the most enthralling of the world's wines as well as the most resilient. Wines from the nineteenth and even the eighteenth centuries still retain an ethereal, youthful gloss, even after spending what is, in wine terms, an aeon in cask and bottle. Having gone through this extreme and often extensive ageing process, madeira is virtually indestructible. Once the cork is removed, the wine comes to no harm, even if the bottle is left on ullage for months, even for years on end. If ever there was a wine to take away with you to a desert island, this is it. — Richard Mayson

His mind was freshly inclined toward sorrow; toward the fact that the world was full of sorrow; that everyone labored under some burden of sorrow; that all were suffering; that whatever way one took in this world, one must try to remember that all were suffering (none content; all wronged, neglected, overlooked, misunderstood), and therefore one must do what one could to lighten the load of those with whom one came into contact; that his current state of sorrow was not uniquely his, not at all, but, rather, its like had been felt, would be felt, by scores of others, in all times, in every time, and must not be prolonged or exaggerated, because, in this state, he could be of no help to anyone and, given that his position in the world situated him to be either of great help, or great harm, it would not do to stay low, if he could help it. — George Saunders