Cruel Intentions Quotes

I hurt myself deeply, though at the time I had no idea how deeply. I should have learned many things from that experience, but when I look back on it, all I gained was one single, undeniable fact. That ultimately I am a person who can do evil. I never consciously tried to hurt anyone, yet good intentions notwithstanding, when necessity demanded, I could become completely self-centred, even cruel. I was the kind of person who could, using some plausible excuse, inflict on a person I cared for a wound that would never heal.

There would be no one there to live for her during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistance with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination.

No, I only think you cruel, as I said the other day. Maybe not intentionally cruel; but you seem to be forcing me into disclosures which can result in nothing; as if you would have me bare a wound for the pleasure of looking at it, without the intention or power of healing it.

Not all toxic people are cruel and uncaring. Some of them love us dearly. Many of them have good intentions. Most are simply toxic to our being simply because their needs and way of existing force us to compromise ourselves and our happiness. They aren't inherently bad people, but they aren't the right people for us.

The visitor from outer space made a serious study of Christianity, to learn, if he could, why Christians found it so easy to be cruel. He concluded that at least part of the trouble was slipshod storytelling in the New Testament. He supposed that the intent of the Gospels was to teach people, among other things, to be merciful, even to the lowest of the low. But the Gospels actually taught this: Before you kill somebody, make absolutely sure he isn’t well connected. So it goes. The flaw in the Christ stories, said the visitor from outer space, was that Christ, who didn’t look like much, was actually the Son of the Most Powerful Being in the Universe. Readers understood that, so, when they came to the crucifixion, they naturally thought, and Rosewater read out loud again: Oh, boy–they sure picked the wrong guy to lynch _that_ time! And that thought had a brother: “There are right people to lynch.” Who? People not well connected. So it goes. The visitor from outer space made a gift to the Earth of a new Gospel. In it, Jesus really was a nobody, and a pain in the neck to a lot of people with better connections than he had. He still got to say all the lovely and puzzling things he said in the other Gospels. So the people amused themselves one day by nailing him to a cross and planting the cross in the ground. There couldn’t possibly be any repercussions, the lynchers thought. The reader would have to think that, too, since the new Gospel hammered home again and again what a nobody Jesus was. And then, just before the nobody died, the heavens opened up, and there was thunder and lightning. The voice of God came crashing down. He told the people that he was adopting the bum as his son, giving him the full powers and privileges of The Son of the Creator of the Universe throughout all eternity. God said this: From this moment on, He will punish horribly anybody who torments a bum who has no connections.

You act as if I’m intentionally cruel. As if I’m indifferent to you.” “Aren’t you?” “No,” she whispered, her eyes filling with tears. “Of course not.” Cyrus stared at her from where he stood, his chest heaving with barely leashed intensity. He devastated her with that look, even as he seemed planted in the ground, immovable. “Then be with me,” he said softly. “Let me worship you.

Very little of the great cruelty shown by men can really be attributed to cruel instinct. Most of it comes from thoughtlessness or inherited habit. The roots of cruelty, therefore, are not so much strong as widespread. But the time must come when inhumanity protected by custom and thoughtlessness will succumb before humanity championed by thought. Let us work that this time may come.

It was The Gospel From Outer Space, by Kilgore Trout. It was about a visitor from outer space...[who] made a serious study of Christianity, to learn, if he could, why Christians found it so easy to be cruel. He concluded that at least part of the trouble was slipshod storytelling in the New Testament. He supposed that the intent of the Gospels was to teach people, among other things, to be merciful, even to the lowest of the low. But the Gospels actually taught this: Before you kill somebody, make absolutely sure he isn't well connected. So it goes. The flaw in the Christ stories, said the visitor from outer space, was that Christ, who didn't look like much, was actually the Son of the Most Powerful Being in the Universe. Readers understood that, so, when they came to the crucifixion, they naturally thought...: "Oh, boy - they sure picked the wrong guy to lynch that time!" And that thought had a brother: "There are right people to lynch." Who? People not well connected. So it goes.

Dear designer of questionable intent, Please send me a photo of yourself. Please be wearing the knitted pants that you designed. It's not that I don't believe that there is anyone out there thing enough to wear horizontally stripped trousers knit from chunky wool, it's just that I would like to know whether you are deliberately cruel or whether you are the one woman these would look really great on.

Our lives are just spectacles. We are like dolls, in a sense, to be observed and played with - often with cruel and deceitful intentions - in an unreal world.

There was something devastating about being handled gently by a cruel man. Maybe because it felt so intentional, so excruciatingly deliberate.

The more we believe that God hurts only to heal, the less we can believe that there is any use in begging for tenderness. A cruel man might be bribed...But suppose that what you are up against is a surgeon whose intentions are wholly good. The kinder and more conscientious he is, the more inexorably he will go on cutting. If he yielded to your entreaties, if he stopped before the operation was complete, all the pain up to that point would have been useless. But is it credible that such extremities of torture should be necessary for us? Well, take your choice. The tortures occur. If they are unnecessary, then there is no God or a bad one. If there is a good God, then these tortures are necessary. For no even moderately good Being could possibly inflict or permit them if they weren't. Either way, we're for it.

Everyone who has ever been to school knows that school is prison, but almost nobody beyond school age says it is. It's not polite. We all tiptoe around the truth because admitting it would make us seem cruel and would point a finger at well-intentioned people doing what they believe to be essential. . . . A prison, according to the common, general definition, is any place of involuntary confinement and restriction of liberty. In school, as in adult prisons, the inmates are told exactly what they must do and are punished for failure to comply. Actually, students in school must spend more time doing exactly what they are told than is true of adults in penal institutions. Another difference, of course, is that we put adults in prison because they have committed a crime, while we put children in school because of their age.

A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime...

Unkindness is a serial killer. Death in the flesh sometimes seems like a less excruciating way to succumb than the slow and steady venom unleashed by mean-spirited, cruel words and actions that poison you over time. I guess that’s why I can’t stand the old children’s rhyme: sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me. Every time I hear it, I think to myself: that’s a lie. You can dodge a rock, but you can’t unhear a word. You can’t undo the intentional damage that some words have on your mind, body, and spirit. Especially a word like ugly.

I should have learned many things from that experience, but when I look back on it, all I gained was one single, undeniable fact. That ultimately I am a person who can do evil. I never consciously tried to hurt anyone, yet good intentions notwithstanding, when necessity demanded, I could become completely self-centered, even cruel. I was the kind of person who could, using some plausible excuse, inflict on a person I cared for a wound that would never heal. College transported me to a new town, where I tried, one more time, to reinvent myself. Becoming someone new, I could correct the errors of my past. At first I was optimistic: I could pull it off. But in the end, no matter where I went, I could never change. Over and over I made the same mistake, hurt other people, and hurt myself in the bargain. Just after I turned twenty, this thought hit me: Maybe I've lost the chance to ever be a decent human being. The mistakes I'd committed—maybe they were part of my very makeup, an inescapable part of my being. I'd hit rock bottom, and I knew it.

...No one knows what they are doing on earth or even off it. The gods didn't even know what the gods were doing, assuming there were even gods. Did the void know what it was doing? Did it know itself? Maybe the void didn't even know what to do with itself and didn't even like itself. Maybe the nothingness knew only to fill itself with people, and in that way was a creator of sorts. Maybe nothingness was a god, but not intentionally cruel-not confident in itself. Maybe it was not evil or saying ha-ha to me, just lonely, hating itself, waning something else to stick inside itself to relieve itself of itself. It seemed as though Theo didn't know what he was doing. I obviously didn't either. In that way maybe we were like gods.

There would be no one there to live for her during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination.

Let no one steal your light with their lies or their cruelty. Shine on, through it all. Shine in spite of their hatred. In spite of the hurt they give. Let them all choke on your light until it blinds them and washes away whatever meanness they’re intent to spew. Tomorrow, no one will remember what cruel thing they said, but they will remember how you held your head high during the storms. They will remember the brightness of your smile and the way you laughed while they tried to bring you down. Let your laughter be the beacon that warms the world.

Men are excessively ruthless and cruel not as a rule out of malice but from outraged righteousness. How much more is this true of legally constituted states, invested with all this seeming moral authority of parliaments and congresses and courts of justice! The destructive capacity of an individual, however vicious, is small; of the state, however well-intentioned, almost limitless. Expand the state and the destructive capacity necessarily expands too. Collective righteousness is far more ungovernable than any individual pursuit of revenge. That was a point well understood by Woodrow Wilson, who warned: 'Once lead this people into war and they'll forget there ever was such a thing as tolerance.

With regard to us, she often displayed a cruel unkindness that was more thoughtless than sadistic: her desire was not to cause us unhappiness but to prove her own power to herself.

Folly is often more cruel in the consequence, than malice can be in the intent.

fairy godmother says villains almost never look like cackling witches, cruel stepmothers, or bratty stepsisters. they’re so much quieter than that, & i think that’s what makes them so menacing. in some chapters of your storybook, you’ll find them hiding everywhere—even in the faces of those you hold dearest. they never reveal their true intentions until you’ve already trusted them too much, & just like that, everyone you know has turned into a stranger.

No; I only think you cruel, as I said the other day. Maybe not intentionally cruel; but you seem to be forcing me into disclosures which can result in nothing; as if you would have me bare a wound for the pleasure of looking at it, without the intention or power of healing it.

No matter what I want to do, no matter how well I lead or how hard I train, I won’t be able to force life into frozen fields, or cure plagues, or feed strength into soldiers like I would if I could use the conduit. The Winterians would probably rather have a cruel queen than a king with good intentions, because with a queen they at least have a chance that the magic can be used for them. It doesn’t matter what I would do with magic, because leaders are valued for the wrong things.

In the future, it might behoove you to share important details like that, or the full scope of both your intentions and actions where I’m concerned. I can’t very well circumvent your stupidity if you don’t inform me.

They often say an idea is not as important as its execution, and that the judgment comes according to perspectives. I confess this be the truth of life. Well then, I should also calculate, that if I have an utterly cruel idea but execute it properly, people will judge me as a saviour, while if a heroic person like you fulfills his idea with the utmost sincerity, he shall be accused of villainy since he goes on extremes just to bring his idealistic vision to life. Aye, amigo – sincerity is rarely rewarded. Foxiness and hypocrisy win the hearts of the multitude, especially if one craftily hides their true intentions and desires with an innocent, hearty smile.

My brothers in combat, white or black, need to believe that it isn’t the war that will kill them, but the evil eye. They need to believe it won’t be one of the thousands of bullets fired by the enemy from the other side that will randomly kill them. They don’t like randomness. Randomness is too absurd. They want someone to blame, they’d rather think that the enemy bullet that hits them was directed, guided by some cruel, malevolent, evil intent.

I should have learned many things from that experience, but when I look back on it, all I gained was one single, undeniable fact. That ultimately I am a person who can do evil. I never consciously tried to hurt anyone, yet good intentions notwithstanding, when necessity demanded, I could become completely self-centered, even cruel. I was the kind of person who could, using some plausible excuse, inflict on a person I cared for a wound that would never heal.

Sports and musicals, the seventh level of Hell.” I gasped, hand to my heart. Ari facepalmed. “Now you’ve done it.” “Grease is the seminal cinematic exploration of teen culture,” I said. Kane grabbed a napkin. “No way. Cruel Intentions.

Cleverness is usually cruel, malicious and selfish; it seeks a weakness in its neighbor and exploits it for its own gain; it leads to success. [...:] Reason is frequently cruel to man, but it is true to its intentions; it seeks to profit everyone ...

They are approaching now a lengthy brick improvisation, a Victorian paraphrase of what once, long ago, resulted in Gothic cathedrals—but which, in its own time, arose not from any need to climb through the fashioning of suitable confusions toward any apical God, but more in a derangement of aim, a doubt as to the God’s actual locus (or, in some, as to its very existence), out of a cruel network of sensuous moments that could not be transcended and so bent the intentions of the builders not on any zenith, but back to fright, to simple escape, in whatever direction, from what the industrial smoke, street excrement, windowless warrens, shrugging leather forests of drive belts, flowing and patient shadow states of the rats and flies, were saying about the chances for mercy that year.

I do not mean that the adult Martians are unnecessarily or intentionally cruel to the young, but theirs is a hard and pitiless struggle for existence upon a dying planet, the natural resources of which have dwindled to a point where the support of each additional life means an added tax upon the community into which it is thrown.

happens to be a two-L and an IE Allie. Besides, Reynolds

HAN: A life's not well lived under threat of death, Especially with men of cruel intent --

I hate that he’s right, but I hate even more that deep inside, I don’t want to stop him.

You were a warrior, Lantern. Such men are not renowned for understanding the infinite shades of gray that govern the actions of men. Black and white are your colors.” “Scholars tend to overcomplicate matters,” said Skilgannon. “If a man runs at you with a sword it would be foolish to spend time wondering what led him to such action. Was his childhood scarred by a cruel father? Did his wife leave him for another man? Was he perhaps misinformed about your intentions, and therefore has attacked you in error?” Skilgannon laughed. “Warriors need black and white, Elder Brother. Shades of gray would kill them.” “True,” admitted the abbot, “and yet a greater understanding that there are shades of gray would prevent many wars beginning.

How could we even be prepared to face such a harsh reality as ourselves when we see nothing in a mirror but the reflection of our disguised faces staring back at us with the many cruel intentions behind it? And perhaps it is this that is hell in itself. It just seems less demanding to submit ourselves to the oblivious demise we have crafted then to witness the ruin of our very soul.

You think so intently of protecting me that you did not consider whether I wanted to be protected. I would have rather died knowing you are as you are than lived a long life thinking you cruel.

A better standard would be intention. If someone says something that offends us - but their intentions was humor - than we should respond far differently to that than we would if the person intended to be cruel.

The visitor from outer space made a serious study of Christianity, to learn, if he could, why Christians found it so easy to be cruel. He concluded that at least part of the trouble was slipshod storytelling in the New Testament. He supposed that the intent of the Gospels was to teach people, among other things, to be merciful, even to the lowest of the low. But the Gospels actually taught this: Before you kill somebody, make absolutely sure he isn’t well connected. So it goes.

What kind of person casts a spell that steals memories?” She stared at Tamsin intently, as though she expected an answer. “Someone with something they want to forget,” Tamsin said darkly. “It’s evil,” Wren said, and chewed on her bottom lip. “To strip away everything that makes a person human. And then to steal their life? What’s it all for?” Tamsin didn’t know. It did seem mercilessly cruel. To prolong death by first taking the things that made life worth living. There was a difference between existing and living.

Daphne turned to Simon with an amused expression. “I can’t quite decide if she is being terribly polite or exquisitely rude.” “Exquisitely polite, perhaps?” Simon asked mildly. She shook her head. “Oh, definitely not that.” “The alternative, of course, is—” “Terribly rude?” Daphne grinned and watched as her mother looped her arm through Lord Railmont’s, pointed him toward Daphne so that he could nod his good-bye, and led him from the room. And then, as if by magic, the remaining beaux murmured their hasty farewells and followed suit. “Remarkably efficient, isn’t she?” Daphne murmured. “Your mother? She’s a marvel.” “She’ll be back, of course.” “Pity. And here I thought I had you well and truly in my clutches.” Daphne laughed. “I don’t know how anyone considered you a rake. Your sense of humor is far too superb.” “And here we rakes thought we were so wickedly droll.” “A rake’s humor,” Daphne stated, “is essentially cruel.” Her comment surprised him. He stared at her intently, searching her brown eyes, and yet not really knowing what it was he was looking for. There was a narrow ring of green just outside her pupils, the color as deep and rich as moss. He’d never seen her in the daylight before, he realized. “Your grace?” Daphne’s quiet voice snapped him out of his daze. Simon blinked. “I beg your pardon.” “You looked a thousand miles away,” she said, her brow wrinkling. “I’ve been a thousand miles away.” He fought the urge to return his gaze to her eyes. “This is entirely different.” Daphne let out a little laugh, the sound positively musical. “You have, haven’t you? And here I’ve never even been past Lancashire. What a provincial I must seem.” He brushed aside her remark. “You must forgive my woolgathering. We were discussing my lack of humor, I believe?” “We were not, and you well know it.

I knew that what they did was cruel. Humans are feral and ruthless; this, this watching through cool intent eyes and delicately adjusting one factor or another till a man’s fundamental instinct for self-preservation cracks, is savagery in its most pure, most polished and most highly evolved form.

The more we believe that God hurts only to heal, the less we can believe that there is any use in begging for tenderness. A cruel man might be bribed—might grow tired of his vile sport—might have a temporary fit of mercy, as alcoholics have fits of sobriety. But suppose that what you are up against is a surgeon whose intentions are wholly good. The kinder and more conscientious he is, the more inexorably he will go on cutting. If he yielded to your entreaties, if he stopped before the operation was complete, all the pain up to that point would have been useless. But is it credible that such extremities of torture should be necessary for us? Well, take your choice. The tortures occur. If they are unnecessary, then there is no God or a bad one. If there is a good God, then these tortures are necessary. For no even moderately good Being could possibly inflict or permit them if they weren’t.

It was The Gospel From Outer Space, by Kilgore Trout. It was about a visitor from outer space... [who] made a serious study of Christianity, to learn, if he could, why Christians found it so easy to be cruel. He concluded that at least part of the trouble was slipshod storytelling in the New Testament. He supposed that the intent of the Gospels was to teach people, among other things, to be merciful, even to the lowest of the low. But the Gospels actually taught this: Before you kill somebody, make absolutely sure he isn't well connected. So it goes. The flaw in the Christ stories, said the visitor from outer space, was that Christ, who didn't look like much, was actually the Son of the Most Powerful Being in the Universe. Readers understood that, so, when they came to the crucifixion, they naturally thought...: Oh, boy — they sure picked the wrong guy to lynch that time! And that thought had a brother: "There are right people to lynch." Who? People not well connected. So it goes. The visitor from outer space made a gift to Earth of a new Gospel. In it, Jesus really was a nobody, and a pain in the neck to a lot of people with better connections than he had. He still got to say all the lovely and puzzling things he said in the other Gospels. So the people amused themselves one day by nailing him to a cross and planting the cross in the ground. There couldn't possibly be any repercussions, the lynchers thought. The reader would have to think that too, since the Gospel hammered home again and again what a nobody Jesus was. And then, just before the nobody died, the heavens opened up, and there was thunder and lightning. The voice of God came crashing down. He told the people that he was adopting the bum as his son, giving him the full powers and privileges of the Son of the Creator of the Universe throughout all eternity. God said this: From this moment on, He will punish anybody who torments a bum who has no connections!

So Rosewater told him. It was The Gospel from Outer Space, by Kilgore Trout. It was about a visitor from outer space, shaped very much like a Tralfamadorian, by the way. The visitor from outer space made a serious study of Christianity, to learn, if he could, why Christians found it so easy to be cruel. He concluded that at least part of the trouble was slipshod storytelling in the New Testament. He supposed that the intent of the Gospels was to teach people, among other things, to be merciful, even to the lowest of the low. But the Gospels actually taught this: Before you kill somebody, make absolutely sure he isn’t well connected. So it goes. *** The flaw in the Christ

But the intensity of my desire to help her had spoilt my intention. That intensity had brought with it a kind of effort that had tired me. Had goodness been part of me I should have helped her with detachment, quite simply because I could not do otherwise—as the sun shines, or as one give a hand to a tumbling child; I should not have vitiated the movement by thinking: "I must succeed I have to succeed!

People write tragedies in which fatal blondes betray their paramours to ruin, which Cressidas, Cleopatras, Delilahs, and sometimes even naughty daughters like Jessica bring their lovers or their parents to distress: but these are not the heart of tragedy. They are fripperies to the soul of man. What does it matter if Antony did fall upon his sword? It only killed him. It is the mother's not the lover's lust that rots the mind. It is that which condemns the tragic character to his walking death. It is Jocasta, not Juliet, who dwells in the inner chamber. It is Gertrude, not the silly Ophelia, who sends Hamlet to his madness. The heart of tragedy does not lie in stealing or taking away. Any featherpated girl can steal a heart. It lies in giving, in putting on, in adding, in smothering without pillows. Desdemona robbed of life or honour is nothing to a Mordred, robbed of himself--his soul stolen, overlaid, wizened, while the mother-character lives in triumph, superfluously and with stifling love endowed on him, seemingly innocent of ill-intention. Mordred was the only son of Orkney who never married. He, while his brothers fled to England, was the one who stayed alone with her for twenty years--her living larder. Now that she was dead, he had become her grave. She existed in him like the vampire. When he moved, when he blew his nose, he did it with her movement. When he acted he became as unreal as she had been, pretending to be a virgin for the unicorn. He dabbled in the same cruel magic. He had even begun to keep lap dogs like her--although he had always hated hers with the same bitter jealousy as that with which he had hated her lovers.

The collar of Lars of Tassla fell away and clattered onto the tiles. katriana felt unable to breathe. Her neck, so long encased with the symbol of Lars’ ownership of her, seemed paradoxically to be suddenly constricted. She felt naked. Naked and abandoned. Her head sank down to lie across the hardness of the anvil. Her entire body shook uncontrollably as she felt all security evaporate from her world. How many minutes she lay there she could not with any certainty say. Yet, eventually she became aware of one tiny point in the cruel world surrounding her. It was a scent. His scent. It entered her. It stroked inside her. It pulsed against her pain until she acknowledged its presence. Her eyes flicked open. And then she saw him there, sitting quietly beside her, watching her with all the intentness that she loved so much in him. His face was still set in the neutrality he reserved for formal times but his eyes were flashing with…with some emotion kept hidden behind his Master’s mask. katriana struggled to read the look flowing from deep inside his eyes. She awkwardly rose to kneel before her former Master. Her body and her breasts were offered. She could not do otherwise whether or not she wore his collar. (A Master's Dilemma, eXtasy)

I meant… I meant,’ the prince began to tremble, ‘I merely wanted to explain to Aglaya Ivanovna… to have the honour of explaining that I have never had the intention of… having the honour of asking for her hand… even some day… I’m not to blame for this in any way, I swear to God, I’m not to blame, Aglaya Ivanovna! I’ve never wanted to, and it has never been in my mind, I will never want to, you’ll see: rest assured! Some cruel person has slandered me to you! You mustn’t worry!

The visitor from outer space made a serious study of Christianity, to learn, if he could, why Christians found it so easy to be cruel. He concluded that at least part of the trouble was slipshod storytelling in the New Testament. He supposed that the intent of the Gospels was to teach people, among other things, to be merciful, even to the lowest of the low. But the Gospels actually taught this: Before you kill somebody, make absolutely sure he isn’t well connected. So it goes.

There are people," my father continued, "who are born to be unhappy and to make others unhappy, who are the victims of celestial intrigues incomprehensible to us, guinea pigs for the celestial machinery, rebels allotted the part of a rebel yet born - by the cruel logic of the celestial comedy - with their wings clipped. They are titans without the power of titans, dwarf-titans whose only greatness was given them in the form of a rigid dose of sensitivity that dissolves their trifling strength like alcohol. They follow their star, their sick sensibility, borne along by titanic plans and intentions, but then break like waves against the rocky banks of triviality. The height of the cruelty allotted them in lucidity, that awareness of their own limitations, that sick capacity for dissociation. I look at myself in the role forced on me by the heavens and by fate, conscious of my role at all times yet at the same time unable to resist it with the force of logic or will.

Their talk, however, was the talk of sordid buccaneers: it was reckless without hardihood, greedy without audacity, and cruel without courage; there was not an atom of foresight or of serious intention in the whole batch of them, and they did not seem aware these things are wanted for the work of the world. To tear treasure out of the bowels of the land was their desire, with no more moral purpose at the back of it than there is in burglars breaking into a safe. Who paid the expenses of the noble enterprise I don't know...

Hallmarks of Wife Abandonment Syndrome 1 Prior to the separation, the husband had seemed to be an attentive, emotionally engaged spouse, looked upon by his wife as honest and trustworthy. 2 The husband had never said that he was unhappy or thinking of leaving the marriage, and the wife believed herself to be in a secure relationship. 3 The husband typically blurts out the news that the marriage is over out-of-the-blue in the middle of a mundane domestic conversation. 4 Reasons given for his decision are nonsensical, exaggerated, trivial or fraudulent. 5 By the time the husband reveals his intentions to his wife, the end of the marriage is already a fait accompli, and he often moves out quickly. 6 The husband’s behavior changes radically, so much so that it seems to his wife that he has become a cruel and vindictive stranger. 7 The husband shows no remorse; rather, he blames his wife and may describe himself as the victim. 8 In almost all cases, the husband had been having an affair. He typically moves in with his girlfriend. 9 The husband makes no attempt to help his wife, either financially or emotionally, as if all positive regard for her has been suddenly extinguished. 10 Systematically devaluing his wife and the marriage, the husband denies what he had previously described as positive aspects of the couple’s joint history.

Sympathy is action-oriented. It is often rooted in empathy but goes beyond it. Whereas sympathy is by definition positive, empathy doesn’t need to be, especially if the capacity to understand others is turned against them. Small-brained animals, such as sharks and snakes, are probably incapable of doing so intentionally. These animals have excellent abilities to hurt and damage others, but without the slightest idea of their impact. Most “cruelty” in nature is of this kind: cruel in outcome, but not on purpose. The brains of apes, on the other hand, are sufficiently complex to knowingly inflict pain. They can recruit their capacity to understand others in order to torment them.

The revolution goes on; a man does not make the revolution, not a thousand men, not an army and not a party; the revolution comes from the people as they reach toward God, and a little of God is in each person and each will not forget it. This it is the revolution when slaves shake their chains and the revolution when a strong man bends toward a weaker and says, "Here, comrade, is my arm." The revolution goes on and nothing stops it; but because the people are seeking what is good, not what is wicked or powerful or cruel or rich or venal, but simply what is good--because of that the people flounder and feel along one dark road after another. The people no more all-seeing than their rulers once were; it is in intention that they differ.

Let us, in good psychiatric fashion, look at the facts. In the last one hundred years we, in the Western world, have created a greater material wealth than any other society in the history of the human race. Yet we have managed to kill off millions of our population in an arrangement which we call “war.” Aside from smaller wars, we had larger ones in 1870, 1914 and 1939. During these wars, every participant firmly believed that he was fighting in his self-defense, for his honor, or that he was backed up by God. The groups with whom one is at war are, often from one day to the next, looked upon as cruel, irrational fiends, whom one must defeat to save the world from evil. But a few years after the mutual slaughter is over, the enemies of yesterday are our friends, the friends of yesterday our enemies, and again in full seriousness we begin to paint them with appropriate colors of black and white. At this moment, in the year 1955, we are prepared for a mass slaughter which would, if it came to pass, surpass any slaughter the human race has arranged so far. One of the greatest discoveries in the field of natural science is prepared for this purpose. Everybody is looking with a mixture of confidence and apprehension to the “statesmen” of the various peoples, ready to heap all praise on them if they “succeed in avoiding a war,” and ignoring the fact that it is only these very statesmen who ever cause a war, usually not even through their bad intentions, but by their unreasonable mismanagement of the affairs entrusted to them. In these outbursts of destructiveness and paranoid suspicion, however, we are not behaving differently from what the civilized part of mankind has done in the last three thousand years of history.

He must be “good” not only in order to please his parents and not only to avoid being punished by them; behind their authority stands another, nameless and impersonal, infinitely harder to please, and bottomlessly cruel. And this filters into the child’s consciousness through his parents’ tone of voice as he is being exhorted, punished, or loved; in the sudden, uncontrollable note of fear heard in his mother’s or his father’s voice when he has strayed beyond some particular boundary. He does not know what the boundary is, and he can get no explanation of it, which is frightening enough, but the fear he hears in the voices of his elders is more frightening still. The fear that I heard in my father’s voice, for example, when he realized that I really believed I could do anything a white boy could do, and had every intention of proving it, was not at all like the fear I heard when one of us was ill or had fallen down the stairs or strayed too far from the house. It was another fear, a fear that the child, in challenging the white world’s assumptions, was putting himself in the path of destruction.

Rosewater was on the next bed, reading, and Billy drew him into the conversation, asked him what he was reading this time. So Rosewater told him. It was The Gospel from Outer Space, by Kilgore Trout. It was about a visitor from outer space, shaped very much like a Tralfamadorian by the way. The visitor from outer space made a serious study of Christianity, to learn, if he could, why Christians found it so easy to be cruel. He concluded that at least part of the trouble was slipshod storytelling in the New Testament. He supposed that the intent of the Gospels was to teach people, among other things, to be merciful, even to the lowest of the low. But the Gospels actually taught this: Before you kill somebody, make absolutely sure he isn't well connected. So it goes. The flaw in the Christ stories, said the visitor from outer space, was that Christ, who didn't look like much, was actually the Son of the Most Powerful Being in the Universe. Readers understood that, so, when they came to the crucifixion, they naturally thought, and Rosewater read out loud again: Oh, boy—they sure picked the wrong guy to lynch that time! And that thought had a brother: ''There are right people to lynch.'' Who? People not well connected. So it goes. The visitor from outer space made a gift to Earth of a new Gospel. In it, Jesus really was a nobody, and a pain in the neck to a lot of people with better connections than he had. He still got to say all the lovely and puzzling things he said in the other Gospels. So the people amused themselves one day by nailing him to a cross and planting the cross in the ground. There couldn't possibly be any repercussions, the lynchers thought. The reader would have to think that, too, since the new Gospel hammered home again and again what a nobody Jesus was. And then, just before the nobody died, the heavens opened up, and there was thunder and lightning. The voice of God came crashing down. He told the people that he was adopting the bum as his son giving him the full powers and privileges of The Son of the Creator of the Universe throughout all eternity. God said this: From this moment on, He will punish horribly anybody who torments a bum who has no connections!

Ree is his. Is his, is devoted to him, is aggravatingly tender and possessively passionate and wrapped up in him in a thousand ways, loves him in a way that is very useful. It seems a law of nature, at this point. Even if the events of this startling evening have served to give him pause, a little. But Ree is still his. He's fairly sure. Such complex knots can't be untied so quickly, can they? Still, it's not the only thing disturbing him, about the Dam's account of early events. She laughs when she sees his face, his sidewise look at her description, and there's definitely a mean note to it. “Oh, it was darling,” she says, and he gets the feeling of a caged animal stuck behind bars, while a cruel child pokes at it. “You were enchanted by his wolf, would follow it anywhere, welcome or not, though mostly he tolerated it. But you couldn't manage his name – and a nickname hadn't stuck at that point – so instead you imitated the sound he made. Rather insultingly, too, if not intentionally – Ruff. Or Woof, or whatever it was that you intended to say, except that it actually came out as Wuff. Or Wuffy, depending, and at varying pitches and volume as you ran after him, falling down and rolling about half the time.” Penn is transfixed. It's outrageous, it's an outrage. It can't possibly be true. It was nothing like that.

Last night Grey and I were caught together and now he insists we marry.” Eve’s eyes were huge blue saucers. “Define ‘caught.’” Rose stroked Heathcliff’s silky ears. “Naked and in bed-that sort of caught.” Her friend looked positively scandalized-and gleeful. “No! Who caught you?” “His brother Archer and a servant.” She purposefully did not mention anything about Bronte’s situation. As much as she trusted Eve, she could not be certain that none of the grooms wouldn’t overhear. And since most of the household probably knew about her and Grey by dawn, it didn’t seem so important to keep her own council in that regard. “I have no doubt that your maid is getting every sordid detail-and possibly embellishment-belowstairs as we speak.” Eve frowned. “Do you think Ryeton’s servants would be so cruel as to discuss you openly?” She rolled her eyes. “They would never in a million years do anything to intentionally hurt me or Grey, but there’s bound to be talk. It’s that affection for both of us that makes their lips loose. I swear one of the footmen grinned at me this morning as I took breakfast.” Her friend chuckled sweetly, laughing even harder as one of the pups came up on its hind legs to lick her chin. “At least you will have dedicated servants, if not indiscreet ones.” Rose had to smile-it was that or burst into sobs. “At least.

Why make thy laws against an unhappy corse? CRE. The determination of Eteocles this, not mine. ANT. It is absurd, and thou a fool to enforce it. CRE. How so? Is it not just to execute injunctions? ANT. No, if they are base, at least, and spoken with ill intent. CRE. What! will he not with justice be given to the dogs? ANT. No, for thus do ye not demand of him lawful justice. CRE. We do; since he was the enemy of the state, who least ought to be an enemy. ANT. Hath he not paid then his life to fortune? CRE. And in his burial too let him now satisfy vengeance. ANT. What outrage having committed, if he came after his share of the kingdom? CRE. This man, that you may know once for all, shall be unburied. ANT. I will bury him; even though the city forbid it. CRE. Thyself then wilt thou at the same time bury near the corse. ANT. But that is a glorious thing, for two friends to lie near. CRE. Lay hold of her, and bear her to the house. ANT. By no means—for I will not let go this body. CRE. The God has decreed it, O virgin, not as thou wilt. ANT. And this too is decreed—that the dead be not insulted. CRE. Around him none shall place the moist dust. ANT. Nay, by his mother here Jocasta, I entreat thee, Creon. CRE. Thou laborest in vain, for thou canst not obtain this. ANT. But suffer thou me at any rate to bathe the body. CRE. This would be one of the things forbidden by the state. ANT. But let me put bandages round his cruel wounds. CRE. In no way shalt thou show respect to this corse. ANT. Oh most dear, but I will at least kiss thy lips. CRE. Thou shalt not prepare calamity against thy wedding by thy lamentations.

O that today you would hearken to his voice! —Psalm 95:7 (RSV) MARIA, INSPIRATION BEHIND HOLY ANGELS HOME Maria was nine in 1965 when I first wrote about her, a bright, little girl with an impish smile. Born hydrocephalic, without legs, a “vegetable” who could not survive, she’d dumbfounded experts and become the inspiration behind a home for infants with multiple handicaps. Now I was back at Holy Angels in North Carolina to celebrate Maria’s fiftieth birthday. I had to trot to keep up with Maria’s motorized wheelchair through a maze of new buildings, home now for adults as well as infants. At each stop, Maria introduced me to staff and volunteers who simply exuded joy. And yet the people they were caring for had such cruel limitations! How could everyone seem so happy, I asked, working day after day with people who’ll never speak, never hold a spoon, never sit up alone? “None of us would be happy,” Maria said, “if we looked way off into the future like that.” Here, she explained, they looked for what God was doing in each life, just that one day. “That’s where God is for all of us, you know. Just in what’s happening right now.” How intently one would learn to look, I thought, to spot the little victories. In my life too…. What if I memorized just the first stanza of Millay’s “Renascence”? What if I understood just one more function on my iPhone? What if just one morning I didn’t comment about my husband’s snoring? “Thank you, Maria,” I said as we hugged good-bye, “for showing me the God of the little victories.” Through what small victory, Father, will You show me Yourself today? —Elizabeth Sherrill Digging Deeper: Ps 118:24; Mt 6:34

Adeline is Battered & Threatened Not knowing the title of this bureaucrat, I addressed him incorrectly as Meine Herrschaften. With this silly fabricated title, I simply tried to explain to him that the corporal was a brave Frontsoldat. My efforts were in vain since he was intent on finding out the corporal’s name, and my stalling only made matters worse. “What’s his name?” he shouted again and again, this time hitting my breasts and punching me in the stomach, which caused me to vomit all over the floor. It didn’t matter to him that my husband was a German soldier fighting for das Vaterland. He continued to beat me and threatened to put me into the terrible prison camp at Schirmeck. Having passed by there recently, the crying and moaning sounds from inside the gates of this prison were still very vivid in my mind. He reached for his telephone and said, “With one call you’ll be there if you don’t answer me!” “Please, I won’t be able to live with myself if I’m the cause of an innocent person’s death,” I sobbed. I remember him saying, “I remember you! You’re the woman from Bischoffsheim who helped with the kindergarten class and did the art work there. You have two little girls, don’t you?” How could this man know so much about me? He continued his threats by saying that he would beat my little girls at 3 o’clock every afternoon in the Village center, until I gave him the names he wanted. I formed a mental image of this cruel act, however in spite of this, I firmly told him that I would never talk and that the only Etappenhase was the man standing in front of me. The last thing I can remember was him using the telephone to hit me. His last blow struck me above my right eye…. With this I fell down into my own vomit and lost consciousness!

See how cruel the whites look. Their lips are thin, their noses sharp, their faces furrowed and dis­torted by folds. Their eyes have a staring expression; they are always seeking something. What are they seeking? The whites always want something; they are always uneasy and restless. We do not know what they want. We do not understand them. We think that they are mad." I asked him why he thought the whites were all mad. "They say that they think with their heads," he replied. "Why of course. What do you think with?" I asked him in surprise. "We think here," he said, indicating his heart. I fell into a long meditation. For the first time in my life, so it seemed to me, someone had drawn for me a picture of the real white man. It was as though until now I had seen nothing but sentimental, prettified color prints. This Indian had struck our vulnerable spot, unveiled a truth to which we are blind. I felt rising within me like a shapeless mist something unknown and yet deeply familiar. And out of this mist, image upon image detached itself: first Roman legions smashing into the cities of Gaul, and the keenly incised features of Julius Caesar, Scipio Africanus, and Pompey. I saw the Roman eagle on the North Sea and on the banks of the White Nile. Then I saw St. Augus­tine transmitting the Christian creed to the Britons on the tips of Roman lances, and Charlemagne's most glorious forced con­versions of the heathen; then the pillaging and murdering bands of the Crusading armies. With a secret stab I realized the hol­lowness of that old romanticism about the Crusades. Then fol­lowed Columbus, Cortes, and the other conquistadors who with fire, sword, torture, and Christianity came down upon even these remote pueblos dreaming peacefully in the Sun, their Father. I saw, too, the peoples of the Pacific islands decimated by firewater, syphilis, and scarlet fever carried in the clothes the missionaries forced on them. It was enough. What we from our point of view call coloniza­tion, missions to the heathen, spread of civilization, etc., has another face - the face of a bird of prey seeking with cruel in­tentness for distant quarry - a face worthy of a race of pirates and highwaymen. All the eagles and other predatory creatures that adorn our coats of arms seem to me apt psychological representatives of our true nature.

God's honesty. A god who is all-knowing and all-powerful and who does not even make sure that his creatures understand his intention could that be a god of goodness? Who allows countless doubts and dubieties to persist, for thousands of years, as though the salvation of mankind were unaffected by them, and who on the other hand holds out the prospect of frightful consequences if any mistake is made as to the nature of the truth? Would he not be a cruel god if he possessed the truth and could behold mankind miserably tormenting itself over the truth? But perhaps he is a god of goodness notwithstanding and merely could not express himself more clearly! Did he perhaps lack the intelligence to do so? Or the eloquence? So much the worse! For then he was perhaps also in error as to that which he calls his 'truth', and is himself not so very far from being the 'poor deluded devil'! Must he not then endure almost the torments of Hell to have to see his creatures suffer so, and go on suffering even more through all eternity, for the sake of knowledge of him, and not be able to help and counsel them, except in the manner of a deafand-dumb man making all kinds of ambiguous signs when the most fearful danger is about to fall on his child or his dog? A believer who reaches this oppressive conclusion ought truly to be forgiven if he feels more pity for this suffering god than he does for his 'neighbours' for they are no longer his neighbours if that most solitary and most primeval being is also the most suffering being of all and the one most in need of comfort. All religions exhibit traces of the fact that they owe their origin to an early, immature intellectuality in man they all take astonishingly lightly the duty to tell the truth: they as yet know nothing of a duty of God to be truthful towards mankind and clear in the manner of his communications. On the 'hidden god', and on the reasons for keeping himself thus hidden and never emerging more than half-way into the light of speech, no one has been more eloquent than Pascal a sign that he was never able to calm his mind on this matter: but his voice rings as confidently as if he had at one time sat behind the curtain with this hidden god. He sensed a piece of immorality in the 'deus absconditus' [the "hidden/concealed god"] and was very fearful and ashamed of admitting it to himself: and thus, like one who is afraid, he talked as loudly as he could.

91 THE HONESTY OF GOD. An omniscient and omnipotent God who does not even take care that His intentions shall be understood by His creatures could He be a God of goodness ? A God, who, for thousands of years, has permitted innumerable doubts and scruples to continue unchecked as if they were of no importance in the salvation of mankind, and who, nevertheless, announces the most dreadful consequences for anyone who mistakes his truth ? Would he not be a cruel god if, being himself in possession of the truth, he could calmly contemplate mankind, in a state of miserable torment, worrying its mind as to what was truth ? Perhaps, however, he really is a God of goodness, and was unable to express Himself more clearly ? Perhaps he lacked intelligence enough for this? Or eloquence ? All the worse ! For in such a cas6 he may have been deceived himself in regard to what he calls his " truth," and may not be far from being another " poor, deceived devil ! " Must he not therefore experience all the torments of hell at seeing His creatures suffering so much here below and even more, suffering through all eternity when he himself can neither advise nor help them, except as a deaf and dumb person, who makes all kinds of equivocal signs when his child or his dog is threatened with the most fearful danger ? A distressed believer who argues thus might be pardoned if his pity for the suffering God were greater than his pity for his "neighbours"; for they are his neighbours no longer if that most solitary and primeval being is also the greatest sufferer and stands most in need of consolation. Every religion shows some traits of the fact that it owes its origin to a state of human intellectuality which was as yet too young and immature : they all make light of the necessity for speaking the truth : as yet they know nothing of the duty of God, the duty of being clear and truthful in His communications with men. No one was more eloquent than Pascal in speaking of the " hidden God " and the reasons why He had to keep Himself hidden, all of which indicates clearly enough that Pascal himself could never make his mind easy on this point : but he speaks with such confidence that one is led to imagine that he must have been let into the secret at some time or other. He seemed to have some idea that the deus absconditus bore a few slight traces of immorality ; and he felt too much ashamed and afraid of acknowledging this to himself: consequently, like a man who is afraid, he spoke as loudly as he could.

Liberty is poorly served by men whose good intent is quelled from one failure or two failures or any number of failures, or from the casual indifference or ingratitude of the people, or from the sharp show of the tushes of power, or the bringing to bear soldiers and cannon or any penal statutes. Liberty relies upon itself, invites no one, promises nothing, sits in calmness and light, is positive and composed, and knows no discouragement. The battle rages with many a loud alarm and frequent advance and retreat…the enemy triumphs…the prison, the handcuffs, the iron necklace and anklet, the scaffold, garrote and leadballs do their work…the cause is asleep…the strong throats are choked with their own blood…the young men drop their eyelashes toward the ground when they pass each other…and is liberty gone out of that place? No never. When liberty goes it is not the first to go nor the second or third to go…it waits for all the rest to go…it is the last…When the memories of the old martyrs are faded utterly away…when the large names of patriots are laughed at in the public halls from the lips of the orators…when the boys are no more christened after the same but christened after tyrants and traitors instead…when the laws of the free are grudgingly permitted and laws for informers and bloodmoney are sweet to the taste of the people…when I and you walk abroad upon the earth stung with compassion at the sight of numberless brothers answering our equal friendship and calling no man master—and when we are elated with noble joy at the sight of slaves…when the soul retires in the cool communion of the night and surveys its experience and has much extasy over the word and deed that put back a helpless innocent person into the gripe of the gripers or into any cruel inferiority…when those in all parts of these states who could easier realize the true American character but do not yet—when the swarms of cringers, suckers, dough-faces, lice of politics, planners of sly involutions for their own preferment to city offices or state legislatures or the judiciary or congress or the presidency, obtain a response of love and natural deference from the people whether they get the offices or no…when it is better to be a bound booby and rogue in office at a high salary than the poorest free mechanic or farmer with his hat unmoved from his head and firm eyes and a candid and generous heart…and when servility by town or state or the federal government or any oppression on a large scale or small scale can be tried on without its own punishment following duly after in exact proportion against the smallest chance of escape…or rather when all life and all the souls of men and women are discharged from any part of the earth—then only shall the instinct of liberty be discharged from that part of the earth.

In the contemporary world there are two classes of bad plans-the plans invented and put into practice by men who do not accept our ideal postulates, and the plans invented and put into practice by the men who accept them, but imagine that the ends proposed by the prophets can be achieved by wicked or unsuitable means. Hell is paved with good intentions, and it is probable that plans made by well-meaning people of the second class may have results no less disastrous than plans made by evil-intentioned people of the first class. Which only shows, yet once more, how right the Buddha was in classing unawareness and stupidity among the deadly sins. Let us consider a few examples of bad plans belonging to these two classes. In the first class we must place all Fascist and all specifically militaristic plans. Fascism, in the words of Mussolini, believes that "war alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the peoples who have the courage to meet it." Again, "a doctrine which is founded upon the harmful postulate of peace is hostile to Fascism." The Fascist, then, is one who believes that the bombardment of open towns with fire, poison and explosives (in other words, modern war) is intrinsically good. He is one who rejects the teaching of the prophets and believes that the best society is a national society living in a state of chronic hostility towards other national societies and preoccupied with ideas of rapine and slaughter. He is one who despises the non-attached individual and holds up for admiration the person who, in obedience to the boss who happens at the moment to have grabbed political power, systematically cultivates all the passions (pride, anger, envy, hatred) which the philosophers and the founders of religions have unanimously condemned as the most maleficent, the least worthy of human beings. All fascist planning has one ultimate aim: to make the national society more efficient as a war machine. Industry, commerce and finance are controlled for this purpose. The manufacture of substitutes is encouraged in order that the country may be self-sufficient in time of war. Tariffs and quotas are imposed, export bounties distributed, exchanges depreciated for the sake of gaining a momentary advantage or inflicting loss upon some rival. Foreign policy is conducted on avowedly Machiavellian principles; solemn engagements are entered into with the knowledge that they will be broken the moment it seems advantageous to do so; international law is invoked when it happens to be convenient, repudiated when it imposes the least restraint on the nation's imperialistic designs. Meanwhile the dictator's subjects are systematically educated to be good citizens of the Fascist state. Children are subjected to authoritarian discipline that they may grow up to be simultaneously obedient to superiors and brutal to those below them. On leaving the kindergarten, they begin that military training which culminates in the years of conscription and continues until the individual is too decrepit to be an efficient soldier. In school they are taught extravagant lies about the achievements of their ancestors, while the truth about other peoples is either distorted or completely suppressed. the press is controlled, so that adults may learn only what it suits the dictator that they should learn. Any one expressing un-orthodox opinions is ruthlessly persecuted. Elaborate systems of police espionage are organized to investigate the private life and opinions of even the humblest individual. Delation is encouraged, tale-telling rewarded. Terrorism is legalized. Justice is administered in secret; the procedure is unfair, the penalties barbarously cruel. Brutality and torture are regularly employed.

Again Jung wanted to make contact with “archaic man” and he asked the Pueblo chief why he thought the whites were mad. Ochwiay told him it was because they think with their heads, while the Indians think with their hearts, a remark the esoteric Egyptologist René Schwaller de Lubicz would have appreciated.43 Ochwiay’s remark led Jung to a searing vision of Roman and Christian supremacy, bringing fear and suffering to their victims with “fire, sword, torture, and Christianity.” Western civilization, Jung saw, had the “face of a bird of prey seeking with cruel intentness for distant quarry,” a mea culpa regarding indigenous people well in advance of our own fashionable political correctness. One form of “thinking with the heart” impressed Jung deeply. The Pueblos performed a ritual that they insisted helped the sun in its daily course across the heavens. Jung, of course, knew that the sun was an average-sized star and that the earth moved around it, but in their hearts the Indians knew it was a god—the god—and that without their participation it would stop rising and then “it would be night forever.

As Davidson and others have noted, the United States is continuing this cruel policy of playing both sides against each other today by supporting, but also trying to contain, ISIS forces in order to molest and undermine both Syria and Iran; by intentionally stirring up religious sectarianism in the Middle East, and in particular, animosities between the Shia and

He’d known these men’s intentions, but it didn’t hurt to have it spelled out with bullets.  It removed those remaining barriers in James’s head; allowed him to go where he needed to go.  Put this in its proper context of black and white.  He wasn’t a big fan of capital punishment.  He thought it unnecessarily cruel, but he acknowledged that killing did have its place.  There were evil people out there.  These people certainly fit that bill.

The Father of Glory does not lurk behind His Son with sinister intent to do us ill, restrained only by the cruel and bloody sacrifice His Son has made! No, a thousand times no! The Father loves us in the love of the Son and the love of the Spirit (John 16:27).

I was teased constantly by children calling me “Yankee,” which was slightly amusing, and mimicking my Korean, which was less amusing. I wouldn’t say that the kids were openly cruel, but I have never felt more culturally segregated before or since. Mostly, they just looked at me with incomprehension. For a child, that feeling of being dumb and mute is utterly alienating. Language aside, I was simply a misfit. My facial expressions and mannerisms were all wrong; I made intent, direct eye contact with my betters when I should have been sheepishly looking down at my shoes. When

Poison is for weaklings, they say. The English poet Phineas Fletcher (1582-1650) may have been the first to coin the term “coward's weapon,” but the opinion has not dissipated in the centuries since; even a character in George R. R. Martin’s Game of Thrones recently sniped that poison was a gutless way to kill. Poison is sneaky, it’s slow, and you can poison someone without spilling a drop of their blood or awkwardly making eye contact with them midimpalement. As such, it doesn’t get a lot of cred for being scary. Poisoners simply don’t terrify people the way, say, disembowlers do. But that’s unfair, because poisoning requires advance planning and the stomach for a drawn-out death scene. You need to look into your victim’s trusting eyes day after day as you slowly snuff out their life. You have to play the role of nurse or parent or lover while you sustain your murderous intent at a pitch that would be unbearable for many of those who’ve shot a gun or swung a sword. You’ve got to mop up your victim’s vomit and act sympathetic when they beg for water. While they scream that their insides are on fire, you must steel yourself against the dreadful sight of encroaching death and give them another sip of the fatal drink. A coward’s weapon? Not so much. Poison is the weapon of the emotionless, the sociopathic, and the truly cruel.

It is a commonplace that men are excessively ruthless and cruel not as a rule out of avowed malice but from outraged righteousness. How much more is this true of legally constituted states, invested with all the seeming moral authority of parliaments and congresses and courts of justice! The destructive capacity of the individual, however vicious, is small; of the state, however well-intentioned, almost limitless.

So Rosewater told him. It was The Gospel from Outer Space, by Kilgore Trout. It was about a visitor from outer space, shaped very much like a Tralfamadorian, by the way. The visitor from outer space made a serious study of Christianity, to learn, if he could, why Christians found it so easy to be cruel. He concluded that at least part of the trouble was the slipshod storytelling in the New Testament. He supposed that the intent of the Gospels was to teach people, among other things, to be merciful, even to the lowest of the low. But the Gospels actually taught this: Before you kill somebody, make absolutely sure he isn't well connected. So it goes. The flaw in the Christ stories, said the visitor from outer space, was that Christ, who didn't look like much, was actually the Son of the Most Powerful Being in the Universe. Readers understood that, so, when they came to the crucifixion, they naturally thought, and Rosewater read out loud again: Oh, boy - they sure picked the wrong guy to lynch this time! And that though had a brother: "There are right people to lynch." Who? People not well connected. So it goes.

A scoundrel may not rise above his place - This is a fact the galaxy doth teach. For e'en though I have join'd rebellion's ranks these many weeks and months, and gain'd respect within their noble band, my scoundrel past doth make its harsh demands upon my life. The bounty hunters sent by Jabba make pursuit to win the price upon my head. So must I go once more unto the depths of my old life, find Jabba of the Hutt and pay his ransom, thus to free my soul. I would not leave my noble rebel friends, I would not leave the cause for which they fight, I would not leave the princess and her charm, I would not leave all these, and yet I must. A life's not well lived under threat of death, especially with men of cruel intent - who for a price shall fill the Hutt's demands - upon the trail of my indebtedness. And so, my mate Chewbacca and I leave upon the instant that the ship is set to go.

When I wipe off a silver mirror with my hand and see myself dressed in a dead faerie’s clothes, a shudder goes through me. Suddenly, I do not know why I am here in this place. I am not sure of Locke’s intentions.

set of makeup.

her tonsils.

gray-haired, hearing-aid-wearing old lady

unwanted interference

talked a blue streak. Her sister, on the other hand, never said a word.

Bobby stuffed it into his pocket.

curiosity killed the cat.

As we are going through life, and people who know one version of us see us grow, we might hear them say, “You’ve changed.” Sometimes, it will hurt our feelings to hear, because that’s the intention behind the statement. They’re saying that we are no longer the old us and that they don’t recognize who we are. But what they’re really saying is THEY haven’t changed. They might be thinking we aren’t on the same level as them anymore and are projecting that onto us. And yeah, it’s really easy to be offended by it. We might be tempted to make somebody else feel better and say, “No, I haven’t changed. I’m still the same person.” We are wrong. We did change. We tried something new. We got new results. We changed our worlds. Maybe we’re not on the same level anymore, and that’s okay. It doesn’t mean I’m better than you. It only means I’m different. Not changing is a detriment. What if we are supposed to spur positive change in everyone else? What if we are supposed to push everyone else out of their box? Instead of taking affront to the notion that we’ve changed, we should simply say, “Thank you for noticing. I’ve been working hard at being better.” Because to change is to adapt to challenges we’ve faced. It means we are adjusting to what life has thrown us and doing things differently. If the change they see is us being more cruel, hateful, and thoughtless, then maybe we can say, “Hmmm . . . I should adjust.” Otherwise, NAH.

Each one of us can only live out of what he feels himself to be, not out of what he thinks and knows in terms of logical, fact-based information. The emotion-based knowledge of one’s ‘self’ and the ‘self-esteem’ that results from it, are formed in childhood. Children come into the world with a unique inner self (a ‘heart’) which, at the time they begin their earthly journey, is undeveloped. The image of a 'seed' I described in the first book illustrates something which needs a lot of care: a lot of input is required in order for that inner self to be developed and for the child to reach his full potential. Sadly, most people never get to discover and live out of their true selves, and as a result, they never see the true selves of their children. Instead — and this is often done with genuine good intentions — they try to make the children conform to their standards and ideas; more often than not, they succeed, and the results are tragic. This is the story of the boy whose cruel father shames him — mocks him as he tries and fails at the exercise the father has asked him to do; this boy abandons all attempts of being physical in any way and hides behind his academic skills. He grows up to be a successful college professor but, able only to live out one aspect of his originally multifaceted self, he goes through life lacking an inner sense of confidence and struggles to ‘feel like a man’; he dislikes any form of physical exercise and develops a number of health issues.

They were flawed and cruel, but there was no intent to kill. Not within the meaning of the law. And the law’s all we have to hold things together.

I am suddenly tired. So fucking tired of him thinking the worst of me. I won't pretend that I don't deserve it, especially after the last couple days, but while I might be careless at times, I'm never cruel. Not intentionally, at least.

It’s not that P’s are trying to be intentionally cruel, though they could care less about that since they have no conscience. Rather, since P’s lack an identity, they spend their lives collecting data and analyzing situations. They merely see that something ‘works’ and so store it away for future use on another target.

I’m not getting any in real life or my dreams. If you’re going to be having hot sex, even if it isn’t real, I want to hear about it.

I’m going to fuck you bare, little love.

Just wait until I ram my cock into your wet little cunt.

Your pussy’s so beautiful when it’s dripping with my cum.

That’s it, little girl,” he whispers into the darkness, “get daddy’s cock nice and warm. You’re making me hard.

So Rosewater told him. It was The Gospel from Outer Space, by Kilgore Trout. It was about a visitor from outer space, shaped very much like a Tralfamadorian, by the way. The visitor from outer space made a serious study of Christianity, to learn, if he could, why Christians found it so easy to be cruel. He concluded that at least part of the trouble was slipshod storytelling in the New Testament. He supposed that the intent of the Gospels was to teach people, among other things, to be merciful, even to the lowest of the low. But the Gospels actually taught this: Before you kill somebody, make absolutely sure he isn’t well connected. So it goes.

He wasn’t cruel. He wasn’t even rude, at least not intentionally. He simply evoked extreme feelings in others.

reconnoiter