1,621 Quotes About Violence

Should we then be surprised that when Western powers destroy a certain country that there will be an influx of refugees? Do we expect these wars to happen and for their effects to simply stay 'over there'? How can we really expect all this to happen while people here carry on doing business as usual? Do Westerners expect to just relax and enjoy a cold crisp beer on their porches on a warm summer night and see no refugees before their eyes after all these wars waged by their governments?

In today’s world, a refugee from a war-torn country is a messenger carrying an important message to all Western people. That message is: 'I am here because of what the warmongers in your so-called ‘democratic’ governments have done to my country and my people.' And so, read the message and work with the messenger rather than shoot them.

It should not be a secret to any independent and conscientious thinker, writer, or journalist that what has been happening in Syria since 2011 is nothing but complex and dirty attempts by multiple regional and global powers to 'Iraqize' Syria by other means.

I thought about how in every ‘Third World’ country that gets ‘liberated’ from its dictators, the first things that go up are luxury hotels and residential areas for Western expats and gated communities from which to administer the newly formed governments in places like Baghdad’s Green Zone.

Once upon a time, displaced people had a time and a place. They had a place in which they made plans about what to do with their future and their lives. Their time and place were prematurely destroyed and stolen from them. These people were then forced to exist in times and places that are not theirs. They were forced to learn the art of living and flourishing in the same empire that stole and destroyed their time and place back home.

A refugee is someone who was forcefully taken out of their time and place. They were then placed in another time and another place that insist on dehumanizing them. It is a tragedy. The ultimate paradox and irony of this tragedy is that, in many cases, those who caused their displacement and those who hate them in their newfound ‘homes’ in exile are the same people! In this way, they leave no place for a refugee to feel at home or even alive.

Non c'è in tutta l'Europa un popolo così orgoglioso e infelice come quello siciliano, che faccia tanto male a se stesso, ma non c'è nemmeno un popolo che abbia tanta devozione alla sua terra, e che abbia altrettanto coraggio di lottare per l'esistenza, e tanta violenza, tanto amore per la vita.

What you have to accept at the outset is this: many men have died like Robert Ross, obscured by violence. Lawrence was hurled against a wall—Scott entombed in ice and wind—Mallory blasted on the face of Everest. Lost. We're told Euripides was killed by dogs—and this is all we know. The flesh was torn and scattered—eaten. Ross was consumed by fire. These are like statements: 'pay attention!' People can only be found in what they do.

You win by sensuality what you cannot win by force.