Violence Quotes

My nonviolence does recognize different species of violence, defensive and offensive.

They call me "a teacher, a fomenter of violence." I would say point blank, "That is a lie. I'm not for wanton violence, I'm for justice."

I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today - my own government.... There is something strangely inconsistent about a nation and a press that would praise you when you say, 'Be nonviolent toward Jim Clark,' but will curse and damn you when you say, 'Be nonviolent toward little brown Vietnamese children!' There is something wrong with that press.

Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war!

There are actually people who go out and re-fight these battles. You know what I say? Use real ammunition! You just might raise the intelligence level of the American gene pool!

People must understand that people were beaten, arrested, jailed, and some people were murdered, while attempting to register to vote, or to get others to register to vote.

How often we recall with regret that Napoleon once shot at a magazine editor and missed him and killed a publisher. But we remember with charity that his intentions were good.

We are constantly being astonished these days at the amazing discoveries in the field of violence. But I maintain that far more undreamt of and seemingly impossible discoveries will be made in the field of nonviolence.

ROMEO to BALTHASAR But if thou, jealous, dost return to pry In what I further shall intend to do, By heaven, I will tear thee joint by joint And strew this hungry churchyard with thy limbs: The time and my intents are savage-wild, More fierce and more inexorable far Than empty tigers or the roaring sea.

Nothing is more destructive than the charge of artillery on a crowd.

I am a violent man who has learned not to be violent and regrets his violence.

A dissolute character is more dissolute in thought than in deed. And the same is true of violence. Our violence in word and deed is but a feeble echo of the surging violence of thought in us.

When I hold you in my arms and I feel my finger on your trigger I know no one can do me no harm because happiness is a warm gun.

These violent delights have violent ends And in their triump die, like fire and powder Which, as they kiss, consume

I look upon air-power for destruction as a terrible crime against humanity.

If we neglect or abandon those who are suffering in poverty ... not only are we depriving ourselves of potential opportunities for markets and economic growth, but ultimately that despair may turn to violence that turns on us.

All gentle cant and philosophizing to the contrary notwithstanding, no people in this world ever did achieve their freedom by goody-goody talk and moral suasion: it being immutable law that all revolutions that will succeed, must begin in blood.

I was going to thrash them within an inch of their lives, but I didn't have a tape measure.

We have to enforce the laws we've already got, make sure that we're keeping guns out of the hands of criminals, those who are mentally ill. I also share your belief that weapons that were designed for soldiers in war theaters don't belong on our streets. And so what I'm trying to do is to get a broader conversation about how do we reduce the violence generally.

I am for violence if non-violence means we continue postponing a solution to the American black man's problem just to avoid violence.

Happiness Is A Warm Gun not about heroin. A gun magazine was sitting there with a smoking gun on the cover and an article that I never read inside called 'Happiness Is a Warm Gun.' I took it right from there. I took it as the terrible idea of just having shot some animal.

He who achieves power by violence does not truly become lord or master.

We will stand against violence and intimidation. We will stand for the rights and dignity of all human beings.

Nonviolence of the strong is infinitely braver than their violence.

My objective was to hurt the other fighters. I wanted to hurt them. I wanted to be merciless. Man, I was a wild thing. It's kind of a drug, a rush.

Indeed, it may be laid down as a general principle, that the more extended the ancestry, the greater the amount of violence and vagabondism; for in ancient days those two amusements, combining a wholesome excitement with a promising means of repairing shattered fortunes, were at once the ennobling pursuit and the healthful recreation of the Quality of this land.

There are two ways to resolve conflicts, through violence or through negotiation. Violence is for wild beasts, negotiation is for human beings.

I'll beat him so bad he'll need a shoehorn to put his hat on.

More than once I had seen a noble who had gotten his enemy at a disadvantage stop to pray before cutting his throat.

War can only be abolished through war, and in order to get rid of the gun it is necessary to take up the gun.

They say it's the white man I should fear, But it's my own kind doin' all the killin' here.

Through violence, you may 'solve' one problem, but you sow the seeds for another.

Non -violence is infinitely superior to violence , forgiveness is more manly than punishment. Forgiveness is the ornament.

I will tell you, when 20 6-year-olds are gunned down and Congress literally does nothing, yeah that's the closest I came to feeling disgusted.

Violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones.

If somebody is really trying to take your head off with a baseball bat - I don't know how long you're supposed to stand there and turn the other cheek, so he or she can get a better angle at taking your head off.

There are more pleasant things to do than beat up people.

The reaction that a ruthless dictator sets up in us either that of awe or pity according respectively as we react to him violently on nonviolently.

Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.

Movies and television don't make you violent; all they do is channel the violence more creatively.

I do believe that where there is a choice between cowardice and non-violence I would advise violence. Thus when my eldest son asked me what he should have done, had he been present when I was almost fatally assaulted in 1908, whether he should have run away and seen me killed or whether he should have used his physical force which he could and wanted to use, and defended me, I told him that it was his duty to defend me even by using violence.

How could man rejoice in victory and delight in the slaughter of men?

The nation cannot be kept on the nonviolent path by violence.

A man strikes you, make him bleed. He makes you bleed, you break his bones. He breaks your bones, kill him. Being hit is inevitable, strike back twice as hard.

First, I blow a hole in your face; then I go back inside, and sleep like a baby... I guarantee you.

Violence is the weapon of weak, non-violence that of the strong.

Those who praise victory relish manslaughter. Those who relish manslaughter cannot reach their goals in the world.

We know we can't stop every act of violence, every act of evil in the world, but maybe we could try to stop one act of evil, one act of violence.

We don't use guns because we don't have guns

The real destroyer of inner peace is fear and distrust. Fear develops frustration, frustration develops anger, anger develops violence.

They say pu$$y and paper is poetry power and pistols.

war is a man's game ... the killing machine has a gender and it is male.

I was raped when I was very young. I told my brother the name of the person who had done it. Within a few days the man was killed. In my child's mind--seven and a half years old--I thought my voice had killed him. So I stopped talking for five years.

The ancient Romans built their greatest masterpieces of architecture, their amphitheaters, for wild beasts to fight in.

Drop them or let them drop you. I chose droppin' that cop.

The principle of self defense, even involving weapons and bloodshed, has never been condemned, even by Gandhi.

I will hit a man with glasses.

Ain't no reason for me to kill nobody in the ring, unless they deserve it.

That is the explanation of war, an outrage by humanity upon humanity in despite of humanity.

Intolerance is a species of violence and therefore against our creed.