Retaliation Quotes

“Anger, resentment and jealousy doesn't change the heart of others-- it only changes yours.”
― Shannon Alder, 300 Questions to Ask Your Parents Before It's Too Late

“Stronger than lover's love is lover's hate. Incurable, in each, the wounds they make.”
― Euripides, Medea

“Wise men are not pacifists; they are merely less likely to jump up and retaliate against their antagonizers. They know that needless antagonizers are virtually already insecure enough.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“Vengeance, retaliation, retribution, revenge are deceitful brothers—vile, beguiling demons promising justifiable compensation to a pained soul for his losses. Yet in truth they craftily fester away all else of worth remaining.”
― Richelle E. Goodrich, The Tarishe Curse

“In it's purest form, an act of retribution provides symmetry. The rendering payment of crimes against the innocent. But a danger on retaliation lies on the furthering cycle of violence. Still, it's a risk that must be met; and the greater offense is to allow the guilty go unpunished.”
― Emily Thorne

“We(Pakistan) will eat grass, even go hungry, but we will get one of our own (Atom bomb).... We have no other choice!”
― Zulfikar Ali Bhutto

“Vengeance is a monster of appetite, forever bloodthirsty and never filled.”
― Richelle E. Goodrich, The Tarishe Curse

“His hand went into the skimmer's hull, an inch from her head. She didn't flinch. She turned her head slowly, trying to pretend her heart wasn't slamming against her chest.
'You missed,' she said calmly.
Nehza pulled his hand away from the hull. Blood trickled down his knuckles from four crimson fots.
She should have been afraid, but when she searched his face, she couldn't find a shred of anger. Just fear.
She had no respect for fear.
'I don't want to hurt you,' he said.
'Of, trust me.' Her lip curled. 'You couldn't.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Dragon Republic

“But inevitably, when I can't harm the people who harmed me, I just end up harming the people who love me. So maybe retaliation or holding on to anger about the harm done to me doesn't actually combat evil. Maybe it feeds it. In the end, if we're not careful, we can actually absorb the worst of our enemy and on some level even become them.”
― Nadia Bolz-Weber, Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint

“Never be angry with something that can't get angry with you.”
― Jack Gardner, Words Are Not Things

“Every person has a life mission to fulfill. Never attempt to destroy what God has put in another person to do. You don't know God's plans, but Satan will most certainly use you to stop his plans.”
― Shannon L. Alder

“Rage swallowed remorse. Rage drop-kicked self-pity. Rage murdered sorrow. And then, like blood-red wine tucked into the refrigerator, rage chilled to become cold, calculating anger. Anger was a creature that arrived on her doorstep with a suitcase full of strategy and vengeance. It tipped its hat at her and hopped into her brain. It knocked on the Logic Department's door. It found a broken mirror somewhere in the crevices between her hippocampus and her hypothalamus, and it was wondering if somebody had misplaced it.

No retaliation? It scoffed. Think again, missy.”
― Angela Panayotopulos, The Wake Up

“Tampering with fire will burn you, even in the coldest regions.”
― H.S. Crow

“The greatest form of retaliation is not loving your enemy but ignoring them.”
― Bongha Lee, On Resistism

“Returning insult for insult is justice, returning injury for insult is injustice.”
― Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words

“When you are constantly reacting to having been wronged (or perhaps to what you may regard as a wrong); when you are always giving in by practically living to defend, retaliating one time after another, again and again, you then spend double that time trying to prove the whole story: because to third parties, you will frequently appear to be on the attack, and therefore potentially receiving attacks once more - henceforth an unending pattern of misunderstood retaliations.”
― Criss Jami

“Don't starve an instinct with a lie on,
Never hit or deceive a wounded lion.
He heals faster than you can imagine
And hurts even more when in famine.”
― Ana Claudia Antunes, Pierrot & Columbine

“Hate springs from fear. Violence is released hatred. Behind every hateful crime and act of human brutality is an admission of fearfulness.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“She never would admit it, but she felt utterly exposed at El Redentor, all those pale eyes gnawing at her duskiness like locusts––and she didn't know how to handle such vulnerability. Did what had always saved her in the past. Was defensive and aggressive and mad overreactive. You said something slightly off-color about her shoes and she brought up the fact that you had a slow eye and danced like a goat with a rock stuck in its ass. Ouch. You would just be playing and homegirl would be coming down on you off the top rope.”
― Junot Díaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

“Sweet revenge always turns bitter eventually.”
― Richelle E. Goodrich, The Tarishe Curse

“She was angry and humiliated and hurt, but she wasn't belligerently vicious. She was clever.”
― Mandy Ashcraft, Small Orange Fruit

“A strike within the realm of the professional never justifies retribution in the realm of the personal”
― Kelley Armstrong, Rituals

“Vengeance doesn't taste quite how you imagine it will, even after twenty-five years. It leaves a mark.”
― Rebecca Ross

“The essence of a culture of honor is that it does not sanction predatory or instrumental violence, but only retaliation after an insult or other mistreatment.”
― Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined

“It is the fear of retaliation that prevents most people from committing wrong against their enemy. A state or an individual who does not pay back its offenders can`t live honourably.”
― Awdhesh Singh, Myths are Real, Reality is a Myth

“If you let people shit all over your doorstep, you’re the one who looks like shit, not them. Go and shit on their doorstep. Or are you too liberal, prissy and up yourself for that? There’s nothing worse than dilettantes, posers and Ignavi. If you’ve got no fire in your belly, fuck off! Go and let someone shit on you. We’re not interested in coprophiliacs.”
― Mike Hockney, The Mathmos

“Vengeance has no rules. It has no heart, no conscience, no dignity, and no true allies.”
― Richelle E. Goodrich, The Tarishe Curse

“Only through our adherence to nonviolence— which also means love in its strong and commanding sense —will the fear in the white community be mitigated.

A guilt-ridden white minority fears that if the Negro attains power, he will without restraint or pity act to revenge the accumulated injustices and brutality of the years. The Negro must show that the white man has nothing to fear, for the Negro is willing to forgive. A mass movement exercising nonviolence and demonstrating power under discipline should convince the white community that as such a movement attained strength, its power would be used creatively and not for revenge.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?

“Forgiveness is moot if not heartfelt. The only thing we must do is protect our God-given souls! We must find it in our own hearts to forgive the men of Molotschna ... and even if the men don't ask for it themselves and even if they claim their innocence all the way to their graves!"

"So you believe that maintaining the condition of your own soul is more important than obeying God?" Mirika says, less calm now.
"They are the same thing really," Ona says, steadily. "I believe that my soul, my essence, my intangible energy is the presence of God within me and that by bringing peace to my soul I am honouring God. If I can understand how these crimes may have occurred, I am able to forgive these men and I am almost able, certainly from a distance, to pity them... to love them. Love is good and better than retaliation.”
― Miriam Toews

“If an injury is to be inflicted on an enemy, it is to be so severe, that the enemy’s retaliation need not be feared”.”
― Machiavelli