Home > Topic > the brutes
1 " The man who is contented to be only himself, and therefore less a self, is in prison. My own eyes are not enough for me, I will see through those of others. Reality, even seen through the eyes of many, is not enough. I will see what others have invented. Even the eyes of all humanity are not enough. I regret that the brutes connot write books. Very gladly would I learn what face things present to a mouse or a bee; more gladly still would I perceive the olfactory world charged with all the information and emotion it carries for a dog. Literary experience heals the wound, without undermining the privilege, of individuality... in reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like the night sky in the Greek poem, I see with a myriad of eyes, but it is still I who see. Here, as in worship, in love, in moral action, and in knowing, I transcend myself; and am never more myself than when I do. "
― C.S. Lewis , An Experiment in Criticism
2 " I said it was a brutal thing." No, it was a human thing. You should not insult the brutes by such a misuse of that word; they have not deserved it. "
3 " I said it was a brutal thing." No, it was a human thing. You should not insult the brutes by such a misuse of that word; they have not deserved it, "
4 " Sky and the stars and the sun, and the moon and the mountain and the rivers will smile, if you smile. Beasts and the brutes and the monsters and the birds, and the flowers, and the plants, will be kind if you are kind. Doomed and the hopeless and the condemned and the ruined and the miserable and the lost, will be happy if you are happy. "
― M.F. Moonzajer , A moment with God ; Poetry
5 " Being a hangman requires you to take someone else’s life based on someone else’s judgment, and carry it out on someone else’s schedule. The job does not provide the same satisfaction that an ordinary murderer gets from smashing a skull. It robs them of the fulfillment of plunging a knife into someone’s throat. In the world of capital punishment, the prisoner’s crimes have been sanitized by years of sitting on death row. By then, the execution is a cold and impersonal affair. There is prayer, a noose, and a few last words. The prisoner then experiences a sudden rush of blood to the head. At the end of it all, you have a broken neck and a dead body swinging from the end of a rope. That is it. You don’t get to manhandle them with your own hands. That’s why the brutes you mention will never be hired. So you see, Vaida, this is not a job for a murderer. It is a job for a humanitarian. "
― Taona Dumisani Chiveneko , The Hangman's Replacement: Sprout of Disruption
6 " Somhow those Ten Men -- at the time they were called Recruiters, of course -- discovered that Constance had been at the library. Most likely one of their informants saw her come out, because it was on that very day that the brutes showed up and threatened the librarians. Who told them nothing, incidentally.''The same thing happened in Holland,' Kate reflected. 'You'd think these guys would learn their lesson -- librarians know how to keep quiet.''It helps to ask politely,' said Mr. Benedict "
― Trenton Lee Stewart , The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Prisoner's Dilemma (The Mysterious Benedict Society, #3)
7 " No, it was a human thing. You should not insult the brutes by such a misuse of the word; they have not deserved it . . .It is like your paltry race--always lying, always claiming virtues which it hasn't got, always denying them to the higher animals, which alone posses them. No brute ever does a cruel thing--that is the monopoly of those with the Moral Sense. When a brute inflicts pain he does it innocently; it is not wrong; for him there is no such thing as wrong. And he does not inflict pain for the pleasure of inflicting it--only man does that. Inspired by that mongrel Morel Sense of his! A sense whose function is to distinguish between right and wrong, with liberty to choose which of them he will do. Now what advantage can he get out of that? He is always choosing, and in nine time out of ten he prefers the wrong. There shouldn't be any wrong; and without the Moral Sense there couldn't be any. And yet he is such an unreasoning creature that he is not able to perceive that the Moral Sense degrades him to the bottom layer of animated beings and is a shameful possession. Are you feeling better? Let me show you something. "
― Mark Twain , The Mysterious Stranger
8 " Thanks to words we have been able to rise above the brutes and thanks to words we have often sunk to the level of the demons. "
