I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.
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My thinking had been opened up wide in Mecca. I wrote long letters to my friends, in which I tried to convey to them my new insights into the American black man’s struggle and his problems as well as the depths of my search for truth and justice. “I’ve had enough of someone else’s propaganda,” I had written to these friends. “I am for truth, no matter who tells it. I am for justice, no matter who it is for or against. I am a human being first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” The American white man’s press called me the angriest Negro in America. I wouldn’t deny that charge; I spoke exactly as I felt. I believe in anger. I believe it is a crime for anyone who is being brutalized to continue to accept that brutality without doing something to defend himself. I am for violence if non-violence means that we continue postponing or even delaying a solution to the American black man’s problem. White man hates to hear anybody, especially a black man, talk about the crime that the white man perpetrated on the black man. But let me remind you that when the white man came into this country, he certainly wasn’t demonstrating non-violence.
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He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is I would rather be torn to shreds than be part of so base an action It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.
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. . there is one other thought closely allied to this. What of our duties to our fellow-men? And here I appeal particularly to my own sex, because women are supposed to be rather the standard in the community of refinement, of gentleness, of compassion, of tenderness, of purity. But no one can eat the flesh of a slaughtered animal without having used the hand of a man as slaughterer. Suppose that we had to kill for ourselves the creatures whose bodies we would fain have upon our table, is there one woman in a hundred who would go to the slaughterhouse to slay the bullock, the calf, the sheep or the pig? . . . But if we could not do it, nor see it done; if we are so refined that we cannot allow close contact between ourselves and the butchers who furnish this food; if we feel that they are so coarsened by their trade that their very bodies are made repulsive by the constant contact of the blood with which they must be continually besmirched; if we recognize the physical coarseness which results inevitably from such contact, dare we call ourselves refined if we purchase our refinement by the brutalization of others, and demand that some should be brutal in order that we may eat the results of their brutality? We are not free from the brutalizing results of that trade simply because we take no direct part in it.
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People who are brutally honest get more satisfaction out of the brutality than out of the honesty.
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What the horrors of war are, no one can imagine. They are not wounds and blood and fever, spotted and low, or dysentery, chronic and acute, cold and heat and famine. They are intoxication, drunken brutality, demoralization and disorder on the part of the inferior... jealousies, meanness, indifference, selfish brutality on the part of the superior.
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Killing animals for sport, for pleasure, for adventures, and for hides and furs is a phenomenon which is at once disgusting and distressing. There is no justification in indulging in such acts of brutality.
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'Do get involved in animal rights, YES... BUT: pace yourself! Don't assume you will end these atrocities tomorrow! Lots of people with lots of more knowledge before have been working over hundred years to end this obscenity. Do take time to play! Celebrate frequently the beauty that does exist despite the world's brutality. Do unite with others who share your views. Every individual who gets involved takes a single stone from the enslaving wall until one day the wall must inevitably crumble and fall! While many animals and many of us will not live to see that day, we are working to help build the foundation for the activists of tomorrow who'll continue our work. Our torch must not be allowed to fall to the ground, but passed from generation to generation without a stop until that glorious day of animal liberation arrives! Tomorrow's activists will remember the early animal soldiers with respect and affection.'
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Let no one regard as light the burden of his responsibility. While so much ill-treatment of animals goes on, while the moans of thirsty animals in railway trucks sound unheard, while so much brutality prevails in our slaughterhouses ... we all bear guilt. Everything that lives has value as a living thing, as one of the manifestations of the mystery that is life.
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He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, deplorable patriotism, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.
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There is no comparing the brutality and cynicism of today's pop culture with that of forty years ago: from High Noon to Robocop is a long descent.
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When so much mistreatment of animals continues, when the cries of thirsty beasts from our railway cars die out unheard, when so much brutality prevails in our slaughterhouses, when animals meet a painful death in our kitchens, when animals suffer incredibly from merciless men and are turned over to the cruel play of children, WE ALL BEAR THE GUILT FOR IT. We are afraid of shocking people if we let it be noticed how much we are moved by the suffering man brings to animals. We think that others may have become more 'rational' than we, and may accept as customary and as a matter of course the things we have gotten excited about. Once in a while, however, a word suddenly slips out which shows that even they have not yet become reconciled to this suffering. Now they come very close to us though they were formerly strangers. The masks with which we were deceiving each other fall off. Now we learn from each other that no one is able to escape the grip of the cruelty that flourishes ceaselessly around us.'
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Killing animals for sport, for pleasure, for adventures, and for hides and furs is a phenomenon which is at once disgusting and distressing. There is no justification in indulging in such acts of brutality.
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Doctors who speak out in favour of vivisection do not deserve any recognition in society, all the more so since their brutality is apparent not only during such experiments, but also in their practical medical lives. They are mostly men who stop at nothing in order to satisfy their ruthless and unfeeling lust for honours and gain.
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Cruelty to animals is one of the most significant vices of a low and ignoble people.Wherever one notices them, they constitute a sure sign of ignorance and brutality which cannot be painted over even by all the evidence of wealth and luxury. Cruelty to animals cannot exist together with true education and true learning.
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The language of the younger generation has the brutality of the city and an assertion of threatening power at hand, not to come. It is military, theatrical, and at its most coherent probably a lasting repudiation of empty courtesy and bureaucratic euphemism.
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The man who is brutally honest enjoys the brutality quite as much as the honesty. Possibly more.
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Nature, by its very nature, is very brutal and unequal. However, Man has somehow managed to transform the nature of its brutality and inequality.
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Great God make us friends of the animals. Make us responsible co-inhabitants with them of this fruitful planet. In our dealings with animals, may we be generous; may we exercise our power with compassion and avoid brutality; may we never debase them; may we never use their flesh or their skins wastefully to enhance our appearance; may we respect their right to a good life in their own habitat. In our dealings with animals may we remember that all life is mysterious and precious and God-given and that we are honored and blessed by their presence among us.
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Truly man is the king of beasts, for his brutality exceeds theirs. We live by the death of others: We are burial places!
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HATE, even if it's making money. is an underground movie, that's how it was made. It's a film about police brutality in the largest sense, it's about the whole of society and not just about the hood.
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One could laugh at the world better if it didn't mix tender kindliness with its brutality.
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Sentimentality is a superstructure covering brutality.
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The amount of meat lost each year through careless handling and brutality would be enough to feed a million Americans for a year.
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Life without industry is guilt. Industry without Art is Brutality.
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I know of no book which has been a source of brutality and sadistic conduct, both public and private, that can compare with the Bible.
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Life without industry is guilt, industry without art is brutality.
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Brutality creates respect.
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