“It's been proven by quite a few studies that plants are good for our psychological development. If you green an area, the rate of crime goes down. Torture victims begin to recover when they spend time outside in a garden with flowers. So we need them, in some deep psychological sense, which I don't suppose anybody really understands yet.” IfsNeedsStudyCrimeFlowerDevelopmentAreasGardenVictimGreenPlantRatePsychologicalTortureProvenEnd TimesSpend TimePsychological Development Author:Jane Goodall
“I had a hard time watching "Wolf Creek." It is a film with one clear purpose: To establish the commercial credentials of its director by showing his skill at depicting the brutal tracking, torture and mutilation of screaming young women. When the killer severs the spine of one of his victims and calls her "a head on a stick," I wanted to walk out of the theater and keep on walking.” HardWantedFilmYoungPurposeWalksClearWalkingDirectorsSkillsTheaterVictimSticksTortureHard TimesKillersBrutalYoung WomenSpineCreeksCredentialsTrackingMutilation Author:Roger Ebert
“Nobody would say the cowshed was heaven and nobody would say the inhuman torture of so many victims be called a revolution of the proletariat. ... A museum should be established to remind China of the follies and disasters that had fallen from 1966 to 1976. We cannot forget what had happened and history should not repeat itself.” ShouldHeavenForgetHappenedRevolutionVictimChinaDisasterFallenTortureRepeatsFollyMuseumsInhumanProletariat Author:Ba Jin
“I am the wound and the knife! I am the slap and the cheek! I am the limbs and the rack, And the victim and the executioner! I am the vampire of my own heart.” HeartSelfMy OwnVictimWoundsVampireTortureKnivesCheeksLimbsSlapRacksExecutioners Author:Charles Baudelaire
“The US has attacked countries like Grenada, Panama, Libya... the list of victims of US terrorism is almost infinite. And the US government's participation in torture, whether in El Salvador, Guatemala, Chile... is well-documented and widely known.” WellsCountryGovernmentKnownInfiniteVictimTerrorismListsTortureParticipationLibyaChilePanamaGuatemalaEl SalvadorGrenada Author:Assata Shakur
“Can't the United States see that when we allow someone to be tortured by our agents, it is not only the victim and the perpetrator who are corrupted, not only the "intelligence" that is contaminated, but also everyone who looked away and said they did not know, everyone who consented tacitly to that outrage so they could sleep a little safer at night, all the citizens who did not march in the streets by the millions to demand the resignation of whoever suggested, even whispered, that torture is inevitable in our day and age, that we must embrace its darkness?” KnowsLittlesSaidStatesAgeNightSleepUnitedMillionsDarknessUnited StatesStreetsCitizensDemandVictimEmbraceAgentsInevitableTortureMarchOutrageResignationPerpetrators Author:Ariel Dorfman
“Torture is something that happens between two people, the torturer and the victim. The victim is made to taste death without actually dying. He is subjected to atrocious pain and begs his torturer to kill him. He's even ready to forgive the torturer as long as he kills him.” PeopleLongMadeTwoHappensPainDyingReadyTasteVictimForgivingTorture Author:Saadi Yacef
“To abstain from condemning a torturer, is to become an accessory to the torture and murder of his victims.” MurderVictimTortureAccessoriesCondemning Book:The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z Source: The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z
“"Judge not, that ye be not judge"... is an abdication of moral responsibility: it is a moral blank check one gives to others in exchange for a moral blank check one expects for oneself. There is no escape from the fact that men have to make choices; so long as men have to make choices, there is no escape from moral values; so long as moral values are at stake, no moral neutrality is possible. To abstain from condemning a torturer, is to become an accesory to the torture and murder of his victims. The moral principle to adopt... is: "Judge, and be prepared to be judged."” MenGivingLongFactsValuesChoicesFearResponsibilityMoralPrinciplesAtheismJudgingMurderVictimPreparedOneselfRageChecksTortureStakesJudgedBlankBe PreparedNeutralityCondemningMoral ValuesMoral PrinciplesMoral ResponsibilityAbdicationBlank Check Author:Ayn Rand
“Land mines, torture equipment, cluster bombs, chemical weapons are weapons designed to inflict pain and death on human beings. Most victims are civilians, women and children. How can arms manufacturers, weapons designers, plant managers, politicians, who have families of their own whom they love, be so insensitive when it comes to the suffering of other human beings?” HumansChildrenPainSufferingHuman BeingsLove IsLandMinesArmsPoliticianWeaponsVictimPlantManagersTortureDesignerBombsChemicalsEquipmentCiviliansDisarmamentInsensitiveClustersChemical WeaponsSuffering Of Others Author:Jose Ramos-Horta
“We should not give up and say that the situation is hopeless. There is still our conscience, there is still the memory of the victims of this war, there is still our duty to try and prevent further bloodshed. We have to prosecute all the perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity.” GivingShouldTryingStillsWarHumanityMemoriesSituationCrimeDutyGiving UpConscienceVictimHuman RightsTortureHopelessNot Giving UpBloodshedPerpetratorsWar CrimesCrimes Against Humanity Author:Lidia Yusupova
“Torture presupposes, it requires, it craves the abrogation of our capacity to imagine others suffering, dehumanizing them so much that their pain is not our pain. It demands this of the torturer, placing the victim outside and beyond any form of compassion or empathy, but also demands of everyone else the same distancing, the same numbness.” PainFormSufferingCompassionImagineDemandEmpathyCapacityVictimTortureCraveNumbness Author:Ariel Dorfman
“In the social equation, the value of a single life is nil; in the cosmic equation, it is infinite... Not only communism, but any political movement which implicitly relies on purely utilitarian ethics, must become a victim to the same fatal error. It is a fallacy as naïve as a mathematical teaser, and yet its consequences lead straight to Goya's Disasters, to the reign of the guillotine, the torture chambers of the Inquisition, or the cellars of the Lubianka.” PoliticalLife IsValuesSocialMovementEthicsConsequenceInfiniteVictimErrorsDisasterCommunismMathematicalRelyTortureCosmicReignEquationsChamberFallacySingle LifeInquisitionCellarsUtilitarianPolitical MovementsGuillotineGoyaTeasers Book:Arrow in the blue: an autobiography Source: Arrow in the blue: an autobiography
“This is a day on which we pay our respects to those who have endured the unimaginable. This is an occasion for the world to speak up against the unspeakable. It is long overdue that a day be dedicated to remembering and supporting the many victims and survivors of torture around the world.” WorldLongRememberSpeakPayVictimAround The WorldOccasionsTortureSurvivorDedicatedUnspeakableUnimaginableOverdue Author:Kofi Annan
“To put the point sharply: If an informer in the French underground who sent a friend to the torture chambers of the Gestapo was equally a victim, then there can be no right or wrong in life that I understand.” IfsVictimTortureChamberGestapoInformers Author:Albert Maltz