Tolerate Cheating Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Tolerate Cheating. Here they are! All 33 of them:

It’s loneliness. Even though I’m surrounded by loved ones who care about me and want only the best, it’s possible they try to help only because they feel the same thing—loneliness—and why, in a gesture of solidarity, you’ll find the phrase “I am useful, even if alone” carved in stone. Though the brain says all is well, the soul is lost, confused, doesn’t know why life is being unfair to it. But we still wake up in the morning and take care of our children, our husband, our lover, our boss, our employees, our students, those dozens of people who make an ordinary day come to life. And we often have a smile on our face and a word of encouragement, because no one can explain their loneliness to others, especially when we are always in good company. But this loneliness exists and eats away at the best parts of us because we must use all our energy to appear happy, even though we will never be able to deceive ourselves. But we insist, every morning, on showing only the rose that blooms, and keep the thorny stem that hurts us and makes us bleed hidden within. Even knowing that everyone, at some point, has felt completely and utterly alone, it is humiliating to say, “I’m lonely, I need company. I need to kill this monster that everyone thinks is as imaginary as a fairy-tale dragon, but isn’t.” But it isn’t. I wait for a pure and virtuous knight, in all his glory, to come defeat it and push it into the abyss for good, but that knight never comes. Yet we cannot lose hope. We start doing things we don’t usually do, daring to go beyond what is fair and necessary. The thorns inside us will grow larger and more overwhelming, yet we cannot give up halfway. Everyone is looking to see the final outcome, as though life were a huge game of chess. We pretend it doesn’t matter whether we win or lose, the important thing is to compete. We root for our true feelings to stay opaque and hidden, but then … … instead of looking for companionship, we isolate ourselves even more in order to lick our wounds in silence. Or we go out for dinner or lunch with people who have nothing to do with our lives and spend the whole time talking about things that are of no importance. We even manage to distract ourselves for a while with drink and celebration, but the dragon lives on until the people who are close to us see that something is wrong and begin to blame themselves for not making us happy. They ask what the problem is. We say that everything is fine, but it’s not … Everything is awful. Please, leave me alone, because I have no more tears to cry or heart left to suffer. All I have is insomnia, emptiness, and apathy, and, if you just ask yourselves, you’re feeling the same thing. But they insist that this is just a rough patch or depression because they are afraid to use the real and damning word: loneliness. Meanwhile, we continue to relentlessly pursue the only thing that would make us happy: the knight in shining armor who will slay the dragon, pick the rose, and clip the thorns. Many claim that life is unfair. Others are happy because they believe that this is exactly what we deserve: loneliness, unhappiness. Because we have everything and they don’t. But one day those who are blind begin to see. Those who are sad are comforted. Those who suffer are saved. The knight arrives to rescue us, and life is vindicated once again. Still, you have to lie and cheat, because this time the circumstances are different. Who hasn’t felt the urge to drop everything and go in search of their dream? A dream is always risky, for there is a price to pay. That price is death by stoning in some countries, and in others it could be social ostracism or indifference. But there is always a price to pay. You keep lying and people pretend they still believe, but secretly they are jealous, make comments behind your back, say you’re the very worst, most threatening thing there is. You are not an adulterous man, tolerated and often even admired, but an adulterous woman, one who is ...
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
Again, you may look upon life as an unprofitable episode, disturbing the blessed calm of non-existence. And, in any case, even though things have gone with you tolerably well, the longer you live the more clearly you will feel that, on the whole, life is a disappointment, nay, a cheat.
Arthur Schopenhauer (Studies in Pessimism (Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer))
After almost 70 years of being paralysed into silence by the Zionist venom — the accusation of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial — the world in general and the West in particular, have continued to tolerate Israel’s unrelenting arrogance, barbarity, and contemptuous disregard for international law including the UDHR. That venom has prevented condemnation of incalculable cheating, lying, stealing, murdering, and ruthless violation of the legal and natural human rights of the Palestinian people by a nation devoid of conscience, humanity, or any of the noble principles claimed by the religion which it claims to represent.
William Hanna (The Grim Reaper)
Again, you may look upon life as an unprofitable episode, disturbing the blessed calm of non-existence. And, in any case, even though things have gone with you tolerably well, the longer you live the more clearly you will feel that, on the whole, life is a disappointment, nay, a cheat. If
Arthur Schopenhauer (Studies in Pessimism (Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer))
Is this a negative perspective? The stance of a victim? No, It is a statement of truth. The way it is for a woman who refuses to be cast aside without protest. Who has the courage to bare her face and her heart to the reality of her partner’s infidelity. Who will now accept and tolerate nothing but the truth. Will she falter? Will she hide? Will she feel she can’t go on? Of course she will. She is human. That is what is so real about her and what is so beautiful about her, even in her grief, and in her rage.
Meryn G. Callander (After His Affair: Women Rising from the Ashes of Infidelity)
..but she didn't understand and couldn't accept using that unhappiness as an excuse or rationale for being unfaithful. why didn't people just end it? if they wanted someone else, or something else, why not break it off clean first instead of cheating, lying, tolerating, just existing?
Nora Roberts
He wished his mom had stayed in Taiwan. Raised him here, native. He wished his mom had died early, leaving him to do things for himself. Neil wished for 10 percent increases in kindness, tolerance, social skills, confidence and attractiveness and then felt cheated in life by 10 percent.
Tao Lin (Today the Sky is Blue and White With Bright Blue Spots and a Small Pale Moon and I Will Destroy Our Relationship Today)
It took me the better than a quarter century to learn, the hard way, that hard work at something you want to be doing is the most fun that you can have out of bed (and that working at something you don't want to be doing is a logical impossibility-we are all self-employed.) To learn that the dummies are the ones who think it is possible to cheat the boss or the customers without cheating themselves; to learn that the smart man finds ways to make everything he does be work; to learn that "leisure" time is truly pleasurable (indeed tolerable) only to the extent that it is subconscious grazing for information with which to infuse newer, better work.
Spider Robinson (Antinomy)
The shoddy writer wants only publication. He fails to recognize that almost anyone willing to devote between twelve and fourteen hours a day to writing--and there are many such people, will eventually get published. But only the great writer will survive, the writer who fully understands his trade and is willing to take time and the necessary risks, always assuming, of course, that the writer is profoundly honest and at least in his writing, sane. Sanity in a writer is merely this: However stupid he may be in his private life, he never cheats in writing. He never forgets that his audience is, at least ideally, as noble, generous, and tolerant as he is himself (or more so), and never forgets that he is writing about people, so that to turn characters to cartoons, to treat his characters as innately inferior to himself, to forget their reasons for being as they are, to treat them as brutes, is bad art. Sanity also involves taste. The true writer has a great advantage over most other people: He knows the great tradition of literature, which has always been the cutting edge of morality, religion, and politics, to say nothing of social reform. He knows what the greatest literary minds of the past are proud to do and what they will not stoop to, and his knowledge informs his practice.
John Gardner
The attitude of the Bodrugans to his idea of letting a poacher off with a warning was, he knew, the attitude all society would adopt, though they might dress it in politer phrases. Even Cornish society, which looked with such tolerance on the smuggler. The smuggler was a clever fellow who knew how to cheat the government of its revenues and bring them brandy at half price. The poacher not only trespassed literally upon someone’s land, he trespassed metaphorically upon all the inalienable rights of personal property. He was an outlaw and a felon. Hanging was barely good enough.
Winston Graham (Ross Poldark (Poldark, #1))
It was a damned near-run thing, I must admit,' said Jack, modestly; then after a pause he laughed and said, 'I remember your using those very words in the old Bellerophon, before we had our battle.' 'So I did,' cried Dundas. 'So I did. Lord, that was a great while ago.' 'I still bear the scar,' said Jack. He pushed up his sleeve, and there on his brown forearm was a long white line. 'How it comes back,' said Dundas; and between them, drinking port, they retold the tale, with minute details coming fresh to their minds. As youngsters, under the charge of the gunner of the Bellerophon, 74, in the West Indies, they had played the same game. Jack, with his infernal luck, had won on that occasion too: Dundas claimed his revenge, and lost again, again on a throw of double six. Harsh words, such as cheat, liar, sodomite, booby and God-damned lubber flew about; and since fighting over a chest, the usual way of settling such disagreements in many ships, was strictly forbidden in the Bellemphon, it was agreed that as gentlemen could not possibly tolerate such language they should fight a duel. During the afternoon watch the first lieutenant, who dearly loved a white-scoured deck, found that the ship was almost out of the best kind of sand, and he sent Mr Aubrey away in the blue cutter to fetch some from an island at the convergence of two currents where the finest and most even grain was found. Mr Dundas accompanied him, carrying two newly sharpened cutlasses in a sailcloth parcel, and when the hands had been set to work with shovels the two little boys retired behind a dune, unwrapped the parcel, saluted gravely, and set about each other. Half a dozen passes, the blades clashing, and when Jack cried out 'Oh Hen, what have you done?' Dundas gazed for a moment at the spurting blood, burst into tears, whipped off his shirt and bound up the wound as best he could. When they crept aboard a most unfortunately idle, becalmed and staring Bellerophon, their explanations, widely different and in both cases so weak that they could not be attempted to be believed, were brushed aside, and their captain flogged them severely on the bare breech. 'How we howled,' said Dundas. 'You were shriller than I was,' said Jack. 'Very like a hyena.
Patrick O'Brian (The Commodore (Aubrey/Maturin, #17))
It feels like you’re cheating on me,” Draco said. His voice cracked halfway through the sentence. Harry stared at him, his breath caught in his chest. “I know it’s the curse,” Draco said, and had to turn away, sniffing angrily, running his hand over his face. “I know - I know it’s not real. And we hate each other or - politely tolerate each other, or whatever’s been going on, and you and the girl Weasley are -- but it feels like you’re cheating on me.” “Draco,” Harry said. The word sounded like it had been torn out of him. “And it’s like I’m crazy,” Draco continued, eyes huge and hungry, fixed on Harry’s face, “because no one else thinks it’s strange, and I want - I want everyone to notice. I want Weasley to say something about it. But instead it’s - it’s all fucked up, and I can’t tell anyone, and--” “I broke up with Ginny,” Harry said. Draco made a tiny, winded noise and stopped talking, mouth snapping shut, thin face turned towards Harry. Harry swallowed hard and continued, “It hasn’t been right between us for a long time. Not since after the Battle. But, er, we finished it, um, officially. Last night. So.” “Right,” Draco said, voice strange and stilted. “Right. Well.” “I felt like I was cheating on you, too,” Harry said.
aideomai (Dwelling)
After long years tolerating tax evasion by their fellow members of the ruling class, the political leaders of the big Western economies had been forced by the cost of the bank bailouts, the subsequent recession and increasingly widespread hostility to cuts in public services to go after those missing tax revenues. Hence the Americans' pursuit of UBS, Credit Suisse, BSI and the rest. But the City was in a different position. It was not the UK Treasury that the City's clients were primarily cheating. It was everyone else's. And there was one more fact, so huge and so obvious that everyone ignored it the way only problems of such magnitude could be ignored. Tax evasion deprived governments of revenue. Money laundering was the other side of the same coin. Like tax dodging, it was a subversion of money's role as a token of reciprocal altruism that allowed large and diverse societies to function. But while tax evasion sucked money out, money laundering pumped money in. If you could stop yourself thinking about its origins, those inflows of dirty money from around the world were just another source of investment into otherwise declining economies.
Tom Burgis (Kleptopia How Dirty Money is Conquering the World & The Looting Machine By Tom Burgis 2 Books Collection Set)
Willa forgot this scrappiness when Tig was far away, then wore out on it fast when she was around. But their new household arrangement was working out in some ways. Tig, who generally took no prisoners, had an inexplicable tolerance for her grandfather. She took his barked commands with a smile, let him cheat at backgammon, and helped with his insulin shots while ignoring his effluent of foul language. Willa was relieved of her hardest familial duties and had finally begun sleeping better, with no idea she was gathering strength for the next collapse: a new unhappiest child.
Barbara Kingsolver (Unsheltered)
Cheating should never be tolerated whatever the reason is.
Alex Gonzaga (Dear Alex, Break Na Kami. Paano?! Love, Catherine)
BECAUSE OF THE WISDOM and encouragement of good parents, I decided to attend the United States Air Force Academy following high school. I got in because I was good at basketball, not because I had ever been a serious student. Life at the Academy was difficult but rewarding. The first two years were particularly taxing, especially for those like me who had just left home for the first time in their lives. When my incoming class of freshmen and I first arrived, we had everything stripped from us—civilian clothes, cars, cell phones, other personal belongings, and even our hair. Thus began my initiation into a respectable tradition, one for which I have been profoundly grateful. That tradition taught us not to lie, steal, or cheat, nor tolerate among us anyone who does. It was a tradition of patriotism. The Academy was a place where I learned that no honor was granted short of hard work and merit. There, I learned
Matthew Lohmeier (Irresistible Revolution: Marxism's Goal of Conquest & the Unmaking of the American Military)
Who don’t cheat?” “Bitch I don’t, and I’m not gone tolerate a nigga who gone do it to me,
Tirzah Lee (I'm the Queen)
Men cheat. They lie. They manipulate. They control. All men have flaws. You just have to find the one who works for you. Marriage is founded on love and tolerance because you have to put up with a lot of bullshit.
Ashley Antoinette (Moth to a Flame)
I liked the guy more than I should have, but he would have to learn I wasn’t the object of a negotiation. I had thoughts and feelings and desires, and not one of them appreciated being disrespected. If he wanted to win me over, my opinion was the only one that mattered. Not my mom’s. Not my dad’s. Mine. And I would not be bullied into anything less. Bishop needed to understand that I wasn’t the pawn on his chessboard or even the king or queen. I was his opponent across the table. We both had equal stakes in the game, and cheating wouldn’t be tolerated, which was exactly what he’d done when he’d gone behind my back.
Jill Ramsower (Secret Sin (The Byrne Brothers))
I liked the guy more than I should have, but he would have to learn I wasn’t the object of a negotiation. I had thoughts and feelings and desires, and not one of them appreciated being disrespected. If he wanted to win me over, my opinion was the only one that mattered. Not my mom’s. Not my dad’s. Mine. And I would not be bullied into anything less. Bishop needed to understand that I wasn’t the pawn on his chessboard or even the king or queen. I was his opponent across the table. We both had equal stakes in the game, and cheating wouldn’t be tolerated, which was exactly what he’d done when he’d gone behind my back. I needed to send him a message that he’d messed up—show him that he wasn’t the only one who could play dirty.
Jill Ramsower (Secret Sin (The Byrne Brothers))
I just want a man like Daddy. Daddy was perfect,” Raven replied with an exasperated sigh. Justine couldn’t help but laugh at that one. “Girl, your daddy was far from perfect. There is no such thing as the perfect man, Rae. That’s why I never taught you about Prince Charming as a little girl. Men cheat. They lie. They manipulate. They control. All men have flaws. You just have to find the one who works for you. Marriage is founded on love and tolerance because you have to put up with a lot of bullshit.
Ashley Antoinette (Moth to a Flame)
People make life a sad place because they can’t tolerate each other. There are the liars, the cheats, the poor, the rich, the jealous, and the first-class haters who cannot stand to see someone happy.
Kenan Hudaverdi (Nazar: “Self-Fulling Prophecy Realized”)
Somehow, I simply felt it was wrong to lie about a Truth that was so serious, about an event that was so significant to our lives. Telling the truth seemed more important than averting suffering. Maybe suffering shouldn’t be avoided at all costs. Maybe if we would just face the horrors of our lives they wouldn’t be as horrible as we anticipate. And even if they are, maybe they should simply be respected and experienced as the horrors that they are. I suspect many readers have difficulty with this position, at least regarding some of the examples so far. But I also suspect everyone has a point at which the painful truth is preferred. Consider if your spouse or mate was cheating on you, like having an affair with someone at his or her office. Would you rather know, or would you rather live your life, and maybe even go to your grave, ignorant? It’s interesting: Romantic cheating is something that we’re usually more interested in knowing about. With cheating, we can’t tolerate—well, being cheated. Here, we are not merely out of touch with reality; someone to whom we’re emotionally attached is intentionally deceiving us, and we won’t be the object of that. Sure, we’ll deceive ourselves till the cows come home. As long as we’re in control of the deception, it’s okay. That said, we mustn’t forget Landers’s First Law of Psychology: “It depends; exceptions abound.” Ask Elvis: Honey, you lied when you said you loved me. And I had no cause to doubt you. But I'd rather go on hearing your lies, Than go on living without you.8
David Landers (Optimistic Nihilism: A Psychologist's Personal Story & (Biased) Professional Appraisal of Shedding Religion)
Therein resides the material power of ideology: it not only trains us to tolerate power, or even to actively participate in our own submission. It cheats on us by the very act of warning us against being cheated, i.e., it does not count on our trust (in the public order and its values) but on our very distrust—its underlying message is: “Don’t trust those in power, you are being manipulated, and here is how you can avoid being duped!
Slavoj Žižek (Surplus-Enjoyment: A Guide For The Non-Perplexed)
It’s Simple: Be fair and honorable in your business dealings. It’s the only way that you and your employees can leave a legacy to be proud of. Never lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do. The culture of your organization starts with you. Own your lapses in judgment. It happens to everyone. Correct the problem and return to being a person of good character. Chapter Two You Can’t Surge Trust
William H. McRaven (The Wisdom of the Bullfrog: Leadership Made Simple (But Not Easy))
That was the one thing she’d never tolerate in a relationship—cheating. It wasn’t about the physical act. It was about the trust. Once broken, it was hard, if not impossible, to mend.
Ana Huang (If We Ever Meet Again (If Love, #1))
Being an American boy is a setup. We train boys to believe that the way to become a man is to objectify and conquer women, value wealth and power above all, and suppress any emotions other than competitiveness and rage. Then we are stunned when our boys become exactly what we have trained them to be. Our boys cannot follow our directions, but they are cheating and dying and killing as they try to. Everything that makes a boy human is a “real man’s” dirty secret. Our men are caged, too. The parts of themselves they must hide to fit into those cages are the slices of their humanity that our culture has labeled “feminine”—traits like mercy, tenderness, softness, quietness, kindness, humility, uncertainty, empathy, connection. We tell them, “Don’t be these things, because these are feminine things to be. Be anything but feminine.” The problem is that the parts of themselves that our boys have been banished from are not feminine traits; they are human traits. There is no such thing as a feminine quality, because there is no such thing as masculinity or femininity. “Femininity” is just a set of human characteristics a culture pours into a bucket and slaps with the label “feminine.” Gender is not wild, it’s prescribed. When we say, “Girls are nurturing and boys are ambitious. Girls are soft and boys are tough. Girls are emotional and boys are stoic,” we are not telling truths, we are sharing beliefs—beliefs that have become mandates. If these statements seem true, it’s because everyone has been so well programmed. Human qualities are not gendered. What is gendered is permission to express certain traits. Why? Why would our culture prescribe such strict gender roles? And why would it be so important for our culture to label all tenderness and mercy as feminine? Because disallowing the expression of these qualities is the way the status quo keeps its power. In a culture as imbalanced as ours—in which a few hoard billions while others starve, in which wars are fought for oil, in which children are shot and killed while gun manufacturers and politicians collect the blood money—mercy, humanity, and vulnerability cannot be tolerated. Mercy and empathy are great threats to an unjust society. So how does power squash the expression of these traits? In a misogynistic culture, all that is needed is to label them feminine. Then we can forever discount them in women and forever shame them out of men. Ta-da: no more messy, world-changing tenderness to deal with. We can continue on without our shared humanity challenging the status quo in any way.
Glennon Doyle (Untamed)
Yes, I said. And Irma, do you feel that we can rebel? I don’t know, I said. I had no idea what he was referring to, or on which word of the question to put the emphasis. Do you feel that we can rebel against our oppressors without losing our love, our tolerance and our ability to forgive? I don’t know, I said. I looked around towards nature for a clue. A bird, a gust of wind, a star? But there was nothing, as though nature had noticed me trying to cheat and quickly covered up her answers. Diego put his hand on my shoulder and continued to smile. Perfect, he said. You will be perfect.
Miriam Toews (Irma Voth: A Novel)
It measures just 9 inches in circumference, weighs only about 5 ounces, and it made of cork wound with woolen yarn, covered with two layers of cowhide, and stiched by hand precisely 216 times. It travels 60 feet 6 inches from the pitcher's mound to home--and it can cover that distance at nearly 100 miles an hour. Along the way it can be made to twist, spin, curve, wobble, rise, or fall away. The bat is made of turned ash, less than 42 inches long, not more than 2 3/4 inches in diameter. The batter has only a few thousandths of a second to decide to hit the ball. And yet the men who fail seven times out of ten are considered the game's greatest heroes. It is played everywhere. In parks and playground and prison yards. In back alleys and farmers fields. By small children and by old men. By raw amateurs and millionare professionals. It is a leisurely game that demands blinding speed. The only game where the defense has the ball. It follows the seasons, beginning each year with the fond expectancy of springtime and ending with the hard facts of autumn. Americans have played baseball for more than 200 years, while they conquered a continent, warred with one another and with enemies abroad, struggled over labor and civil rights and the meaning of freedom. At the games's heart lie mythic contradictions: a pastoral game, born in crowded cities; an exhilarating democratic sport that tolerates cheating and has excluded as many as it has included; a profoundly conservative game that sometimes manages to be years ahead of its time. It is an American odyssey that links sons and daughters to father and grandfathers. And it reflects a host of age-old American tensions: between workers and owners, scandal and reform, the individual and the collective. It is a haunted game, where each player is measured by the ghosts of those who have gone before. Most of all, it is about time and timelessness, speed and grace, failure and loss, imperishable hope, and coming home.
John Chancellor
I am the default woman who was never noted as special. I'm the tolerant one that he's blessed to have. Im not the Apple of anyone's eye. I'm not the one longed for or the one that is dreamed about. I am the woman that sticks around and gives her all. Im not the woman that he's always wanted. I remember writing a song for him and he blew it off. I remember trying to spoil him and he barely reacted.. I remember feeling foolish for him and he quickly became comfortable and then I was just "the wife". I remember being told that "I cheated him" as if I deliberately decieved him and little did I know I was the one who was being deceived. I was being looked down on. I would never compare. I was not good enough in the eyes of him, her or the family. I remember trying to motivate only to be blamed for being part of the reason for poor family ties. I remember having to stand up for myself. I remember giving birth multiple times only to feel afterwards that maybe he wished it had been someone else baring his children. Ive read oh God what you think of me. I'm losing the battle in my mind. How many times will I take up arms in this battle only to find myself dying to sleep and waking up to fight it all over again. This woman will not die and the fight is not changing. It's like a self defeat life loop of my reincarnated self. Just thinking.
VaeEshia Ratcliff-Davis
if you are going to trust a loved one, first learn to tolerate pain, because finally, your trust will bring you there
Mohammed Zaki Ansari ("Zaki's Gift Of Love")
Napoleon's emancipation of the Jews had a number of unforeseen consequences as well. He got his first inkling of what they were when he passed through Strasbourg on his way back to Paris after the battle of Jena. The citizens of Strasbourg, who now had to accept the Jews, who up to that time had been merely tolerated as resident aliens, as their equals, complained to Napoleon that the Jews used their new-found status as citizen to cheat Strasbourg's Christian population.
E. Michael Jones (Ethnos Needs Logos: Why I Spent Three Days in Guadalajara Trying to Persuade David Duke to Become a Catholic)
Both Mussolini and Hitler could perceive the space available, and were willing to trim their movements to fit. The space was partly symbolic. The Nazi Party early shaped its identity by staking a claim to the street and fought with communist gangs for control of working-class neighborhoods of Berlin. At issue was not merely a few meters of urban “turf.” The Nazis sought to portray themselves as the most vigorous and effective force against the communists—and, at the same time, to portray the liberal state as incapable of preserving public security. The communists, at the same time, were showing that the Social Democrats were unequipped to deal with an incipient revolutionary situation that needed a fighting vanguard. Polarization was in the interest of both. Fascist violence was neither random nor indiscriminate. It carried a well-calculated set of coded messages: that communist violence was rising, that the democratic state was responding to it ineptly, and that only the fascists were tough enough to save the nation from antinational terrorists. An essential step in the fascist march to acceptance and power was to persuade law-and-order conservatives and members of the middle class to tolerate fascist violence as a harsh necessity in the face of Left provocation. It helped, of course, that many ordinary citizens never feared fascist violence against themselves, because they were reassured that it was reserved for national enemies and “terrorists” who deserved it. Fascists encouraged a distinction between members of the nation who merited protection and outsiders who deserved rough handling. One of the most sensational cases of Nazi violence before power was the murder of a communist laborer of Polish descent in the town of Potempa, in Silesia, by five SA men in August 1932. It became sensational when the killers’ death sentences were commuted, under Nazi pressure, to life imprisonment. Party theorist Alfred Rosenberg took the occasion to underscore the difference between “bourgeois justice,” according to which “one Polish Communist has the same weighting as five Germans, frontsoldiers,” and National Socialist ideology, according to which “one soul does not equal another soul, one person not another.” Indeed, Rosenberg went on, for National Socialism, “there is no ‘law as such.’” The legitimation of violence against a demonized internal enemy brings us close to the heart of fascism. For some, fascist violence was more than useful: it was beautiful. Some war veterans and intellectuals (Marinetti and Ernst Jünger were both) indulged in the aesthetics of violence. Violence often appealed to men too young to have known it in 1914–18 and who felt cheated of their war. It appealed to some women, too. But it is a mistake to regard fascist success as solely the triumph of the D’Annunzian hero. It was the genius of fascism to wager that many an orderly bourgeois (or even bourgeoise) would take some vicarious satisfaction in a carefully selective violence, directed only against “terrorists” and “enemies of the people.” A climate of polarization helped the new fascist catch-all parties sweep up many who became disillusioned with the old deference (“honoratioren”) parties. This was risky, of course. Polarization could send the mass of angry protesters to the Left under certain conditions (as in Russia in 1917). Hitler and Mussolini understood that while Marxism now appealed mainly to blue-collar workers (and not to all of them), fascism was able to appeal more broadly across class lines. In postrevolutionary western Europe, a climate of polarization worked in fascism’s favor.
Robert O. Paxton (The Anatomy of Fascism)