#brutality

Wo ein Gebildeter weilt, kann keine Rohheit aufkommen. ↗

— Confucius

#education #education

Social systems proceed by (usually) covering up the brutalities upon which they are based. The doctor doesn't let you get to his door and then turn you away, rather his home address is hard to find. The government handcuffs you so they don't have to shoot you trying to escape. And so on. ↗

— Tyler Cowen

#coercion #social-systems #home

The most altruistic and sustainable philosophies fail before the brute brain stem imperative of self-interest. ↗

— Peter Watts

#brutality #life-philosophy #self-interest #life

I see myself capable of arrogance and brutality... That's a fierce thing, to discover within yourself that which you despise the most in others. ↗

— George Stevens

#brutality #capable #despise #discover #fierce

The only animal capable of giving man a fair fight is man. Actually, among ourselves, we fight unfairest of all, and the more we practice, the nastier we get. ↗

— Robert Buettner

#fighting #human-nature #human-superiority #humanity #unfairness

If someone puts their hands on you make sure they never put their hands on anybody else again. ↗

— Malcolm X

#police-brutality #power #resistance #solidarity #violence

I encountered among my comrades the most varied human traits, from frankness to reserve, from goodness, uprightness and kindness, to brutality and baseness. ↗

— Georg Brandes

#baseness #brutality #comrades #encountered #frankness

I stood up as best I could to their disgusting stupidity and brutality, but I did not, of course, manage to beat them at their own game. It was a fight to the bitter end, one in which I was not defending ideals or beliefs but simply my own self. ↗

— George Grosz

#beliefs #best #bitter #bitter end #brutality

We became convinced that, regardless of Stalin's awful brutality and his reign of terror, he was a great war leader. Without Stalin, they never would have held. ↗

— W. Averell Harriman

#became #brutality #convinced #great #great war

But that citizen's perception was also at one with the truth in recognizing that the very brutality of the means by which the IRA were pursuing change was destructive of the trust upon which new possibilities would have to be based. ↗

— Seamus Heaney

#based #brutality #change #citizen #destructive