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Quote by Charles Maurice de Talleyrand

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Charles Maurice de Talleyrand
Charles Maurice de Talleyrand

Charles Maurice de Talleyrand was a former French Minister of Foreign Affairs, born on February 2, 1754, and died on May 17, 1838. He played a significant role during the French Revolution and the Napoleonic era, known for his diplomatic skills and flexible political stance. more

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“Cruelty, very far from being a vice, is the first sentiment Nature injects in us all. The infant breaks his toy, bites his nurse's breast, strangles his canary long before he is able to reason; cruelty is stamped in animals, in whom, as I think I have said, Nature's laws are more emphatically to be read than in ourselves; cruelty exists amongst savages, so much nearer to Nature than civilized men are; absurd then to maintain cruelty is a consequence of depravity. . . . Cruelty is simply the energy in a man civilization has not yet altogether corrupted: therefore it is a virtue, not a vice.”