quotations about revenge
Revenge is a favorite theme of mine. I like the idea of an underdog, laying broken and almost defeated, pulling himself from the dust. I like thinking that this can happen in real life. That the person who has been wronged can muster the will and strength needed to rise up and take down the person responsible for all their malaise is what makes revenge so awesome in film. I know real life is not so kind to such theories, but on film, you will not find a more excellent theme than revenge.
REMY CARREIRO
"Five Incredible Revenge Movies Not Enough People Have Seen", TV Overmind, February 9, 2016
By retaliating our sufferings on the heads of those we love, we get rid of a present uneasiness and incur lasting remorse. With the accomplishment of our revenge our fondness returns; so that we feel the injury we have done them, even more than they do.
WILLIAM HAZLITT
Characteristics
It is well if you go in for revenge to make it as complete as possible.
ROBERT BARR
"The Vengeance of the Dead", The English Illustrated Magazine, 1894
When violence hurries on too fast, and caution does not keep pace with revenge, people generally do themselves more harm than the enemy.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
REVENGE is a kind of wild justice; which the more man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out. For as for the first wrong, it doth but offend the law; but the revenge of that wrong, putteth the law out of office. Certainly, in taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior; for it is a prince's part to pardon. And Solomon, I am sure, saith, It is the glory of a man, to pass by an offence. That which is past is gone, and irrevocable; and wise men have enough to do, with things present and to come; therefore they do but trifle with themselves, that labor in past matters. There is no man doth a wrong, for the wrong's sake; but thereby to purchase himself profit, or pleasure, or honor, or the like. Therefore why should I be angry with a man, for loving himself better than me? And if any man should do wrong, merely out of ill-nature, why, yet it is but like the thorn or briar, which prick and scratch, because they can do no other. The most tolerable sort of revenge, is for those wrongs which there is no law to remedy; but then let a man take heed, the revenge be such as there is no law to punish; else a man's enemy is still before hand, and it is two for one. Some, when they take revenge, are desirous, the party should know, whence it cometh. This is the more generous. For the delight seemeth to be, not so much in doing the hurt, as in making the party repent. But base and crafty cowards, are like the arrow that flieth in the dark. Cosmus, duke of Florence, had a desperate saying against perfidious or neglecting friends, as if those wrongs were unpardonable; You shall read (saith he) that we are commanded to forgive our enemies; but you never read, that we are commanded to forgive our friends. But yet the spirit of Job was in a better tune: Shall we (saith he) take good at God's hands, and not be content to take evil also? And so of friends in a proportion. This is certain, that a man that studieth revenge, keeps his own wounds green, which otherwise would heal, and do well. Public revenges are for the most part fortunate; as that for the death of Caesar; for the death of Pertinax; for the death of Henry the Third of France; and many more. But in private revenges, it is not so. Nay rather, vindictive persons live the life of witches; who, as they are mischievous, so end they unfortunate.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Revenge", Essays, or Counsels Civil and Moral
We live today in a world wracked by revenge. Nations at sword's point. Peoples against peoples. Hate brewing in men's hearts. And yet we hear it said "Revenge is sweet." We everyday folk are often infected by that hoary sophism. But it misstates the dangerous side of a fundamentally noble trait of human nature, self-defense. Unbridled revenge is about the bitterest thing on earth.
GARRET SMITH
Living Sparks of Life
A man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
Revenge is what we call that sturdy horse, Self-Defense, when it runs amuck. Curb it and train it to stick to the road, and it will carry you far.
GARRET SMITH
Living Sparks of Life
Revenge is a fervor in our own blood, to be cured only by letting the blood of another; but the remedy too often produces a relapse, which is remorse--a malady far more dreadful than the first disease, because it is incurable.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
In complex societies, free-wheeling revenge undermines a ruler's control; it's wild justice. A basic given for civic order is that the state appropriates revenge. Justice is codified. Punishment is the state's prerogative, revenge by another name.
STEPHEN FINEMAN
"Wanting revenge is only natural--here's why", The Conversation, November 2, 2017
The best manner of avenging ourselves is by not resembling him who injured us; and it is hardly possible for one man to be more unlike another than he that forbears to avenge himself of wrong is to him who did the wrong.
JANE PORTER
attributed, Lifelines
The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.
MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditations
On the contrary, once revenge is taken, we feel even more miserable having behaved with such negative poison. The right approach is to beware of revenge and not let it build a foundation in our hearts. Let us eliminate this joy stealer, for it may come in pretending to bring us satisfaction, but leaves with all the joy and happiness that once belonged to us.
RAVI V. MELWANI
I Wanna Be Happy: Happiness Guaranteed in 6 Simple Steps
The man who seeks revenge is like the man who shoots himself in order to hit his enemy with the kick of the gun's recoil.
TIM LAHAYE & BOB PHILLIPS
Anger is a Choice
The very design of revenge is troublesome, and puts the spirits into an unnatural fermentation and tumult. The man that meditates it is always restless, his very soul is stung, swells and boils, is in pain and anguish, hath no ease, no enjoyment of itself, so long as this passion reigns. The execution of it may perhaps be attended with some present pleasure, but that pleasure is unreasonable and brutish, momentary and short, like a flash of lightning, which vanisheth in the twinkling of an eye.
ISAAC BARROW
sermon XXXIII
Revenge in fiction can be shocking, but it often embeds a moral message. There is heroic revenge, a staple of the American movie world, in which the determined hero or anti-hero acts against an evil protagonist (the law being ineffective or absent). And there is righteous revenge, as in tales of women who exact bloody retribution on abusing men, a denouement that can bring cheers from an audience. Oppressors and bullies, goes the sentiment, often deserve what they get.
STEPHEN FINEMAN
"Wanting revenge is only natural--here's why", The Conversation, November 2, 2017
If I were going to set out to oppress other people, I would surely prefer to select for my victims persons whose first response is forgiveness rather than persons whose first response is revenge.
JEFFRIE G. MURPHY
Getting Even
In taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy, but in passing it over he is superior.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
Revenge is for children and the emotionally retarded.
FRANK HERBERT
Chapterhouse: Dune
Scum, filth, anger and greed
Walks along beside of me
Chaos, darkness on a violent binge
This is our world according to revenge
MURDERDOLLS
"The World According to Revenge"