78 Harm Quotes

Sectarian feelings and criticism of other teachings or other sects is very bad, poisonous, and should be avoided.

Just as rust, which arose from the iron itself, wears out the iron, likewise, performing an action without examination would destroy us by projecting us into a negative state of existence.

I do not want to frighten you by telling you about the temptations life will bring. Anyone who is healthy in spirit will overcome them. But there is something I want you to realize. It does not matter so much what you do. What matters is whether your soul is harmed by what you do. If your soul is harmed, something irreparable happens, the extent of which you won't realize until it will be too late.

While the collateral consequences of drugs such as cocaine are indisputably severe, they are not unlike those which flow from the misuse of other, legal, substances.

It is terrible to destroy a person's picture of himself in the interests of truth or some other abstraction.

The sick in soul insist that it is humanity that is sick, and they are the surgeons to operate on it. They want to turn the world into a sickroom. And once they get humanity strapped to the operating table, they operate on it with an ax.

Inequality has the natural and necessary effect, under the present circumstances, of materializing our upper class, vulgarizing our middle class, and brutalizing our lower class.

The number of laws is constantly growing in all countries and, owing to this, what is called crime is very often not a crime at all, for it contains no element of violence or harm.

The breath Of accusation kills an innocent name, And leaves for lame acquittal the poor life, Which is a mask without it.

Ideas have consequences, and totally erroneous ideas are likely to have destructive consequences.

A soul so pitiably forlorn, If such do on this earth abide, May season apathy with scorn, May turn indifference to pride; And still be not unblest- compared With him who grovels, self-debarred From all that lies within the scope Of holy faith and christian hope; Or, shipwrecked, kindles on the coast False fires, that others may be lost.

:one enemy can do more hurt, than ten friends can do good.

It seems to me certain that more people are killed out of righteous stupidity than out of wickedness.

Why do I think that we, the intellectuals, are able to help? Simply because we, the intellectuals, have done the most terrible harm for thousands of years. Mass murder in the name of an idea, a doctrine, a theory, a religion - that is all our doing, our invention: the invention of the intellectuals. If only we would stop setting man against man - often with the best intentions - much would be gained. Nobody can say that it is impossible for us to stop doing this.

Future generations will look back on TV as the lead in the water pipes that slowly drove the Romans mad.

In the spiritual realm nothing is indifferent: what is not useful is harmful.

'No harm comes to man from outside alone: dumbness is the objective spirit.'

The less we show our love to a woman, Or please her less, and neglect our duty, The more we trap and ruin her surely In the flattering toils of philandery.

Now I can look at you in peace; I don't eat you anymore.

I don't know much about morality and that, but there is this: It's always worth while before you do anything to consider whether it's going to hurt another person more than is absolutely necessary.

Ignorance, which is contented and clumsy, will produce what is imperfect, but not offensive. But ignorance discontented and dexterous, learning what it cannot understand, and imitating what it cannot enjoy, produces the most loathsome forms of manufacture that can disgrace or mislead humanity.

Aren't family squabbles jolly fun? Bleeding ulcers run in my family, we give them to each other.

Corporations may lesser commonwealths in the bowels of a greater, like worms in the entrails of a natural man.

I wish the art of benefiting men had kept pace with the art of destroying them; for though war has become slow, philanthropy has remained hasty. The most melancholy of human reflections, perhaps, is that, on the whole, it is a question whether the, benevolence of mankind does most good or harm. Great good, no doubt, philanthropy does, but then it also does great evil. It augments so much vice, it multiplies so much suffering, it brings to life such great populations to suffer and to be vicious, that it is open to argument whether it be or be not an evil to the world, and this is entirely because excellent people fancy that they can do much by rapid action - that they will most benefit the world when they most relieve their own feelings; that as soon as an evil is seen 'something' ought to be done to stay and prevent it.

He who abhors and shuns the light of the Sun, He who refuses to behold with respect the living creation of God, He who leads the good to wickedness, He who makes the meadows waterless and the pastures desolate, He who lets fly his weapon against the innocent, An enemy of my faith, a destroyer of Thy principles is he, O Lord!

From behind the time locks of courtrooms and from the worlds of darkness, I did let loose devils and demons with the power of scorpions to torment.

Gossip is mischievous, light and easy to raise, but grievous to bear and hard to get rid of. No gossip ever dies away entirely, if many people voice it: it too is a kind of divinity.

A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury. The latter case, it is true, requires a much more cautious exercise of compulsion than the former. To make any one answerable for doing evil to others, is the rule; to make him answerable for not preventing evil is, comparatively speaking, the exception. Yet there are many cases clear enough and grave enough to justify that exception. (p. 17)

I went back through some of the tapes. I can't help it. I like the kid. I think we're going to screw him up. Of course we are. It's our job. We're the wicked witch. We promise gingerbread, but we eat the little bastards alive.

Thy words are like a cloud of winged snakes; And yet I pity those they torture not.

No evil can happen to a good man, neither in life nor after death.

Superstition is our great enemy, but bigotry is worse.

A jest breaks no bones.

The object of this Essay is to assert one very simple principle, as entitled to govern absolutely the dealings of society with the individual in the way of compulsion and control, whether the means used be physical force in the form of legal penalties, or the moral coercion of public opinion. That principle is, that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinions of others, to do so would be wise, or even right These are good reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning with him, or persuading him or entreating him, but not for compelling him, or visiting him with any evil, in case he do otherwise. To justify that, the conduct from which it is desired to deter him must be calculated to produce evil to some one else. The only part of the conduct of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign. (pp. 14-15)

But a man with a machine and inadequate culture--such as I was when I made my pond--is a pestilence. He shakes more than he can hold.

Even those who are fed up with morality ought to realize that it is better to suffer certain injustices than to commit them even in wars, and that such deeds do us more harm than a hundred underground forces on the enemy's side.

In certain men, the fire of eternity consuming them is great enough for them to burn in it the very heart of those closest to them.

Oh, those scoundrelly Charity Commissioners! [:] By the side of these anthropoid apes, the genuine bookworm, the paper-eating insect, ravenous as he once was, has done comparatively little mischief.

Random: Ha, the monster was funny. Davey: Hey, that's mean. I hope you get a monster.

I believe that no one can harm you but yourself.

If you keep on killing, you could get me to settle and as soon as I settle, I bet I'll be able to move on.

Well, you won't get me with your Belladonna - in the coffee, And you won't get me with your aresenic - in the pot of tea, And you won't get me in a hole to rot - with your hemlock On the rocks.

Breathing my mother in, Breathing my beloved in, Breathing, Breathing her nicotine, Breathing, Breathing the fall-out in, Out in, out in, out in, out in.

Harm is in us. Harm in us, but power to arm. Harm is in us. Leave it open!

I haven't been wounded, but I can still feel that hit. I will not tolerate such behaviour.

Tell those who indulge in these drugs (LSD, marijuana, and other types) that it is harmful physically, mentally and spiritually, and that they should stop the taking of these drugs. Your duty is to tell them, regardless of whether they accept what you say, or if they ridicule or humiliate you, to boldly and bravely face these things.

You are to bring my message to those ensnared in the drug-net of illusion that they should abstain, that the drugs will bring more harm than good. I send my love to them.

Failing to try and stop a murder that you might easily stop - how is that not murder?

You aren't very good at determining what other people want and need from you... No one is. We're all as likely to hurt as help.

It all spoke of the willingness of people to hurt each other, the burning passion to control what other people thought and did. So many people, in secret, subtle ways, acted to destroy people - and not just their enemies, either, but also their friends. Destroying them for the pleasure of knowing that they had the power to cause pain. And so few who devoted their lived to building other peoples strength and confidence. So few who were true teachers, genuine mates.

Which is the greater wrong? To hurt the unforgiving one, or hurt the one who has forgiven all?

Our men taking part in the executions suffered more from nervous exhaustion than those who were to be shot.

No one returns with good will to the place which has done him a mischief.

I don't see any point or any good in drugs that are as disruptive as cocaine.

My initial reaction is disgust. How someone can sit in that chair and say that I am a car bomber or - excuse me, a suicide bomber - is disgusting. I have seen the after-effects of a suicide bomb. I have friends that were hurt by suicide bombs. It makes me mad down to a place where I can't even think to describe. It's just repugnant.

The danger of religious faith is that it allows otherwise normal human beings to reap the fruits of madness and consider them holy.[2]

I'd push the lot of you over a cliff myself. Except the one in the wheelchair, I think I'd lose the sympathy vote before people had time to think it through.

Because of sin, I am self-addicted, living in the wreckage of the fall, my body, my heart, and my affections are prone to love things that kill me.

She knew exactly what she had done to him. And yet she couldn't quite believe that she was jerking him around

There would be no compromise, no sweet-talking, no tears that could soften the hardest heart. It's not my heart that's hard, anyway. It's hers. Having no concern for what she's doing to me, the risks she's making me take against my will. My whole future down the toilet

I thought they'd get one of us, but Jack, after all he's been through, never worried about it. I thought it would be me.

What on earth should we do if we had no matches to make, or mar; no 'unfortunate attachments' to shake our heads over; no flirtations to speculate about and comment upon with knowing smiles; no engagements 'on' or 'off' to speak our minds about, nosing out every little circumstance, and ferreting out our game to their very hole, as if all their affairs, their hopes, trials, faults, or wrongs, were being transacted for our own private and peculiar entertainment! Of all forms of gossip - I speak of mere gossip, as distinguished from the carrion-crow and dunghill-fly system of scandal-mongering - this tittle-tattle about love-affairs is the most general, the most odious, and the most dangerous. Every one of us must have known within our own experience many an instance of dawning loves checked, unhappy loves made cruelly public, happy loves embittered, warm, honest loves turned cold, by this horrible system of gossiping about young or unmarried people... ~ Ch. 8

Il n'y a guere d'homme assez habile pour connaitre tout le mal qu'il fait.

Sorry we hurt your field, mister.

Malice is of a low stature, but it hath very long arms.

The dog, to gain some private ends, Went mad, and bit the man.

Race prejudice is not only a shadow over the colored - it is a shadow over all of us, and the shadow is darkest over those who feel it least and allow its evil effects to go on.

Who will say with confidence that sexual abuse is more permanently damaging to children than threatening them with the eternal and unquenchable fires of hell?

Sin lies only in hurting others unnecessarily. All other 'sins' are invented nonsense.

Usually, terrible things that are done with the excuse that progress requires them are not really progress at all, but just terrible things.