#cruel

A few years ago the Deists denied the inspiration of the Bible on account of its cruelty. At the same time they worshiped what they were pleased to call the God of Nature. Now we are convinced that Nature is as cruel as the Bible; so that, if the God of Nature did not write the Bible, this God at least has caused earthquakes and pestilence and famine, and this God has allowed millions of his children to destroy one another. So that now we have arrived at the question -- not as to whether the Bible is inspired and not as to whether Jehovah is the real God, but whether there is a God or not. ↗

— Robert G. Ingersoll

#cruelty #deism #disaster #god #jehovah

I forgive you, but only because you said 'please.'" Smartass, I thought. Then I groaned at the instant chorus of "Please!" mixed with cries for release from Vlad's prisoners. No wonder he got so sick of the word. "I'm only merciful to one person a day," he threw over his shoulder. "As the saying goes, today isn't your day and tomorrow doesn't look good, either. ↗

— Jeaniene Frost

#humor #leila #vlad-tepesh #forgiveness

Love and freedom are such hideous words. So many cruelties have been done in their name. ↗

— Joseph O'Connor

#freedom #injustice #love #freedom

Idle people are often bored and bored people, unless they sleep a lot, are cruel. It is not accident that boredom and cruelty are great preoccupations in our time. ↗

— Renata Adler

#bored #boredom #cruel #cruelty #great

Bored people, unless they sleep a lot, are cruel. ↗

— Renata Adler

#cruel #lot #people #sleep #unless

I was helpless in trying to return people's kindness, but also helpless to resist it. Kindness is a scarier force than cruelty, that's for sure. Cruelty isn't that hard to understand. I had no trouble comprehending why the phone company wanted to screw me over; they just wanted to steal some money, it was nothing personal. That's the way of the world. It made me mad, but it didn't make me feel stupid. If anything, it flattered my intelligence. Accepting all that kindness, though, made me feel stupid. Human benevolence is totally unfair. We don't live in a kind or generous world, yet we are kind and generous. We know the universe is out to burn us, and it gets us all the way it got Renee, but we don't burn each other, not always. We are kind people in an unkind world, to paraphrase Wallace Stevens. How do you pretend you don't know about it, after you see it? How do you go back to acting like you don't need it? How do you even the score and walk off a free man? You can't. I found myself forced to let go of all sorts of independence I thought I had, independence I had spent years trying to cultivate. That world was all gone, and now I was a supplicant, dependent on the mercy of other people's psychic hearts. ↗

— Rob Sheffield

#grief #kindness #intelligence

If our countries had war the one with the other, that was no cause that he should put us to death; with which they were out of heart that their cruel pretense failed them. For which God be forever-more praised. ↗

— William Adams

#countries #cruel #death #failed #god

When this boy was brought to Dr. Young, his name being William, the same as mine, my mother was ordered to change mine to something else. This, at the time, I thought to be one of the most cruel acts that could be committed upon my rights. ↗

— William Wells Brown

#being #boy #brought #change #committed

There is something in age that ever, even in its own despite, must be venerable, must create respect and to have it ill treated, is to me worse, more cruel and wicked than anything on earth. ↗

— Frances Burney

#anything #create #cruel #despite #earth

How cruelly sweet are the echoes that start, When memory plays an old tune on the heart. ↗

— Eliza Cook

#echoes #heart #how #memory #old