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Atrocity Quotes

Browse 32 quotes about Atrocity.

Atrocity Quotes

“Do not avert your eyes. It is important that you see this. It is important that you feel this.”

ArtImportantWarCountryArtistHumanityPoliticsNatureConsciousnessPovertyViolenceAwarenessMediaPerspectiveDiseasePerceptionNewsHumanConsciousTransformationHungerCorruptionAwakeningPerceiveAcknowledgeGlobal WarmingGenocideAnimalsEyesPresentFloodExtinctionHomelessnessUnderstandKnowNationKamandKojouriRecogniseFeelKamand KojouriStarvationFamineCorruptSeeAwakenLookTransformAwareRealizeHumannessDeforestationAvertRecognizeNoticeTranscendGazeComprehendRealiseAtrocityStareGraspLook Away
Author:Kamand Kojouri
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“Please don't be too prejudiced against the poor thing because she's a liar. I do really believe that, like so many liars, there is a real substratum of truth behind her lies. I mean that though, to take an instance, her atrocity stories have grown and grown until every kind of unpleasant story that has ever appeared in print has happened to her or her relations personally, she did have a bad shock initially and did see one, at least, of her relations killed. I think a lot of these displaced persons feel, perhaps justly, that their claim to our notice and sympathy lies in their atrocity value and so they exaggerate and invent.”

TruthLiesPrejudiceSympathyExaggerationAtrocity
Book:A Murder Is Announced
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“The character of Moses, as stated in the Bible, is the most horrid that can be imagined. If those accounts be true, he was the wretch that first began and carried on wars on the score or on the pretence of religion; and under that mask, or that infatuation, committed the most unexampled atrocities that are to be found in the history of any nation. Of which I will state only one instance: When the Jewish army returned from one of their plundering and murdering excursions, the account goes on as follows (Numbers xxxi. 13): 'And Moses, and Eleazar the priest, and all the princes of the congregation, went forth to meet them without the camp; and Moses was wroth with the officers of the host, with the captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, which came from the battle; and Moses said unto them, 'Have ye saved all the women alive?' behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the Lord in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the Lord. Now therefore, 'kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known a man by lying with him; but all the women- children that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for Yourselves.' Among the detestable villains that in any period of the world have disgraced the name of man, it is impossible to find a greater than Moses, if this account be true. Here is an order to butcher the boys, to massacre the mothers, and debauch the daughters. Let any mother put herself in the situation of those mothers, one child murdered, another destined to violation, and herself in the hands of an executioner: let any daughter put herself in the situation of those daughters, destined as a prey to the murderers of a mother and a brother, and what will be their feelings? In short, the matters contained in this chapter, as well as in many other parts of the Bible, are too horrid for humanity to read, or for decency to hear.”

CharacterBibleMurderHorribleVillainReadDecencyViolationMosesAtrocitiesJewishPlunderThe BibleAtrocityThe LordWretchDetestableExecutionerHorridWars Of Religion
Book:The age of reason
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“Moral distance processes tend to provide a foundation upon which other killing-enabling processes can be built. In general they are less likely to produce atrocities than cultural distance processes, and they are more in keeping with the kind of "rules" (deterring aggression and upholding individual human dignity) that organizations such as the United Nations have attempted to uphold. But as with cultural distance, there is a danger associated with moral distance. That danger is, of course, that every nation seems to think that God is on its side.”

WarKillingAtrocity
Book:On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society
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“Man cannot do without feelings, but the moment they are considered values in themselves, criteria of truth, justifications for kinds of behavior, they become frightening. The noblest of national sentiments stand ready to justify the greatest of horrors, and man, his breast swelling with lyric fervor, commits atrocities in the sacred name of love.”

LoveWarFeelingsEmotionsSentimentAtrocity
Book:Jacques and His Master: An Homage to Diderot in Three Acts
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“Leaves of Ash (Divine Violence, Sonnet) You know why the West makes such a song and dance about nonviolence, because when your entire empire is built on systemic extermination of living cultures and communities, it really helps if you simultaneously propagate a favorable ideal of nonresistance to evil, this way you can criminalize the very thought of revolution, not only legally, but also morally. Nonviolence has never been about human rights, nonviolence is western propaganda, commodified to maintain moral superiority, if the tortured communities ever dare to resist. Revolution is a fundamental pillar of justice, don't succumb to hypocritical hogwash - colonizers should be seen, and not heard, their philosophy, their theology, all come last. I'm not talking about exceptional ideas, good ideas should be studied as individual ideas, not as western ideas, and western philosophies must never be prioritized as default literature.”

PhilosophyRevolutionSocial JusticeGenocideNonviolenceColonialismDecolonizationEthnic CleansingMassacreAtrocity
Book:Sonnets From The Mountaintop
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“You know why the West makes such a song and dance about nonviolence, because when your entire empire is built on systemic extermination of living cultures and communities, it really helps if you simultaneously propagate a favorable ideal of nonresistance to evil, this way you can criminalize the very thought of revolution, not only legally, but also morally. Nonviolence has never been about human rights, nonviolence is western propaganda, commodified to maintain moral superiority, if the tortured communities ever dare to resist.”

RevolutionSocial JusticeGenocideNonviolenceColonialismDecolonizationEthnic CleansingMassacreWhitewashAtrocity
Book:Sonnets From The Mountaintop
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“You know why the West makes such a song and dance about nonviolence, because when your entire empire is built on systemic extermination of living cultures and communities, it really helps if you simultaneously propagate a favorable ideal of nonresistance to evil, this way you can criminalize the very thought of revolution, not only legally, but also morally.”

RevolutionSocial JusticeGenocideNonviolenceColonialismDecolonizationEthnic CleansingMassacreWhitewashAtrocity
Book:Sonnets From The Mountaintop
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“Holocaust Theatre (Naskaristana 2799) Most social issues are rooted in religion, most religious issues are rooted in politics, most political issues are vestiges of colonialism. There's a holocaust remembrance day, or let me fix your uneducated english: there's a universally recognized jewish holocaust remembrance day, and that's great, but I have just one question - where is the native american holocaust remembrance, where is the congo and kenyan holocaust remembrance, where is the palestinian holocaust remembrance, where is the punjab and bengal holocaust remembrance - all of which were far bloodier in scale than nazi follies, why is your history, memory, ethics, all so retarded!”

GenocideHolocaustColonialismImperialismBritish EmpireDecolonizationEthnic CleansingReparationsMassacreAtrocity
Book:Nazmahal: Palace of Grace
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“I think that God that we have created and allowed to shape our culture through, essentially Christian theology is a pretty villainous creature. I think that one of the things that male patriarchal figure has done is, allowed under it's, his church, his wing, all kinds of corruptions and villainies to grow and fester. In the name of that God terrible wars have been waged, in the name of that God terrible sexism has been allowed to spread. There are children being born all across this world that don't have enough food to eat because that God, at least his church, tells the mothers and fathers that they must procreate at all costs, and to prevent procreation with a condom is in contravention with his laws. Now, I don't believe that God exists. I think that God is creation of men, by men, and for men. What has happened over the many centuries now, the better part of two thousand in fact, is that that God has been slowly and steadily accruing power. His church has been accruing power, and the men who run that church, and they are all men, are not about to give it up. If they give it up, they give up luxury, they give up comfort.”

ChurchPowerAtheismCrimeTerribleComfortHorrorAtheistCorruptionTheologyLuxurySexismAbsurdityChristian TheologyAtrocityVillainous
Author:Clive Barker
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“Atrocity is recognized as such by victim and perpetrator alike, by all who learn about it at whatever remove. Atrocity has no excuses, no mitigating argument. Atrocity never balances or rectifies the past. Atrocity merely arms the future for more atrocity. It is self-perpetuating upon itself — a barbarous form of incest. Whoever commits atrocity also commits those future atrocities thus bred.”

AtrocityCulpability
Book:Children of Dune
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“In August 1944, the War Ministry in Tokyo had issued a directive to the commandants of various POW camps, outlining a policy for what it called the ‘final disposition’ of prisoners. A copy of this document, which came to be known as the ‘August 1 Kill-All Order,’ would surface in the war crimes investigations in Tokyo. Bearing a chilling resemblance to actual events that occurred at Palawan, the directive stated: ‘When the battle situation becomes urgent the POWs will be concentrated and confined to their location and kept under heavy guard until preparations for the final disposition will be made. Although the basic aim is to act under superior orders, individual dispositions may be made in [certain] circumstances. Whether they are destroyed individually or in groups, and whether it is accomplished by means of mass bombing, poisonous smoke, poisons, drowning, or decapitation, dispose of them as the situation dictates. It is the aim not to allow the escape of a single one, to annihilate them all, and not to leave any traces.’ (pp. 23-24)”

World War IiAtrocityKill All Order
Book:Ghost Soldiers: The Epic Account of World War II's Greatest Rescue Mission
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“A Nazi initiation into the upper reaches of the SS was to gouge out the eye of a pet cat after feeding the cat and cuddling it for a month. This exercise was designed to eliminate all traces of pity-poison and mold a full Übermensch. There is a very sound magical postulate involved: the practitioner achieves superhuman status by performing some atrocious, revolting, subhuman act. In Morocco, magic men gain power by eating their own excrement. But dig out Ruski’s eyes? Stack bribes to the radioactive sky. What does it profit a man? I could not occupy a body that could dig out Ruski’s eyes. So WHO gained the whole world? I didn’t. Any bargain involving exchange of qualitative values like animal love for quantitative advantage is not only dishonorable, as wrong as a man can get, it is also foolish. Because YOU get nothing. You have sold your YOU.”

CatNazismAnimal LoveAtrocity
Book:The Cat Inside
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“[To admit that college isn't for everyone] may sound élitist. It may even sound philistine, since the purpose of a liberal-arts education is to produce well-rounded citizens rather than productive workers. But perhaps it is more foolishly élitist to think that going to school until age 22 is necessary to being well-rounded, or to tell millions of young adults that their futures depend on performing a task that only a minority of them can actually accomplish. It is absurd that people have to get college degrees to be considered for good jobs in hotel management or accounting — or journalism. It is inefficient, both because it wastes a lot of money and because it locks people who would have done good work out of some jobs. The tight connection between college degrees and economic success may be a nearly unquestioned part of our social order. Future generations may look back and shudder at the cruelty of it.”

JobsScienceMoneyEducationKnowledgeEconomyCollegeJournalismHotelModernityAccountingEducation ReformDegreeAtrocity
Author:Ramesh Ponnuru
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“In all bluefolk the immune system is quite advanced. A large number of relevant genes seem to be imported from the crocodile: those creatures live in stagnant, muddy water in much warmer climates, where they are exposed to many diseases and parasites. Wrestling with prey or each other, they may be wounded, but the dirty swamp water in the cut is mostly harmless. It was a very important acquisition by the Auravelus; it meant that virtually none of the old bioweapons were effective against them. More ordinary bluefolk could still suffer under a few recipes, but often no more than a rash. Chemical weapons had to be used instead. Infection or contamination through wounds was largely useless; our Asian friends determined that inhalation was a more viable route. Concoctions made against the lungs, as aerosols, were the most successful”

WarScienceTortureEugenicsWar CrimesGenetic EngineeringAtrocityBiopunkHuman Experimentation
Book:Terra Incognita
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“Land, sea and air news from everywhere bring tales of incredible human valour which we all discuss briefly and then, as more news pours in, get forgotten. New inventions for destruction keep being produced – each more terrible than the last. We did not start this war but now we have to win it. Our target is peace on earth but we must do most ghastly things to achieve this. We are rightly proud of our efforts but, when we get time to think – which is not very often – we are appalled by the misery and suffering we must receive and inflict. Now I can understand why my Mother so often said – after World War I – ‘I can never, ever, forgive the Germans.’ Now, once again, we have all become murderers – in one way or another.”

WarMurderAtrocity
Book:To War With Whitaker
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“Nobody talks about it. It’s not that kind of war.” “What kind of war is it, then?” said Guet Imm. She looked like she wanted to hit Tet Sang. “A secret war? I’ve never heard of such a thing!” “Yes,” said Tet Sang. “Open death, open atrocity, open persecution. But a silent war. It’s safer to be silent in these times.”

WarAtrocitySilent War
Book:The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water
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“Sonnet of National Obligation When a nation is founded on terrorism, It has an obligation for self-improvement. If admitting the past hurts your feelings, Better remain in your mother's basement. If we really look for filth and atrocities, We'll find it in the history of every nation. The real problem is not the history, But the absolute denial of its admission. No nation can become civilized, Till it steps up to right the wrongs. Admit the errors of our ancestors, And pledge to never repeat those harms. Humanity begins with admitting inhumanity. Lo we are the shield against further atrocity.”

SlaveryInjusticeOppressionAccountabilityAmerican HistorySonnetInhumanityNation BuildingAtrocityNation Builder
Book:Hometown Human: To Live for Soil and Society
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“Your conscience is what you do, not what you think or say you think. It’s also something you do when it has to be done, not as an afterthought when you’re forced to face up to your wrongdoing. Remorse is cheap and easy. It’s an insult. My awareness obliged me to act, but I did nothing: I cooperated, and my compliance enabled something monstrous. I didn’t slaughter millions, but there’s no sliding scale in atrocities, even if the robotic imagination of the law requires fixed thresholds. Each death, each act of suffering, is a complete and qualifying act of evil in itself. Humans instinctively norm. We behave like others around us, because compliance is our survival strategy. No matter how intelligent, sensible, or kind, 99 percent of human beings will carry out the most appalling acts if the rest of their tribe is doing the same. And most of our conscious acts are simply postscript rationalizations of our hard-wired unconscious decisions.”

ConscienceRight And WrongAtrocityMoralismSliding Scale
Book:Halo: Mortal Dictata
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