I'm not real big on repentence ... I like revenge better.
LAURELL K. HAMILTON, The Lunatic Cafe
When you have the power to screw people over and you don't--well, that's when you get to show who you really are.
To see an enemy humiliated gives a certain contentment, but this is jejune compared with the highly blent satisfaction of seeing him humiliated by your benevolent action or concession on his behalf. That is the sort of revenge which falls into the scale of virtue.
GEORGE ELIOT, The Mill on the Floss
- Vengeance is just:
- Justly we rid the earth of human fiends
- Who carry hell for pattern in their souls.
- But in high vengeance there is noble scorn:
- It tortures not the torturer, nor gives
- Iniquitous payment for iniquity.
- The great avenging angel does not crawl
- To kill the serpent with a mimic fang;
- He stands erect, with sword of keenest edge
- That slays like lightning.
GEORGE ELIOT, The Spanish Gypsy
Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out.
Revenge is often like biting a dog because the dog bit you.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY, Keystones of Thought
When violence hurries on too fast, and caution does not keep pace with revenge, people generally do themselves more harm than the enemy.
WELLINS CALCOTT, Thoughts Moral and Divine
Revenge is but a small circle.
Revenge is a fervor in our own blood, to be cured only by letting the blood of another; but the remedy too often produces a relapse, which is remorse--a malady far more dreadful than the first disease, because it is incurable.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON, Lacon
The man who seeks revenge digs two graves.
KEN KESEY, Sometimes a Great Notion
By retaliating our sufferings on the heads of those we love, we get rid of a present uneasiness and incur lasting remorse. With the accomplishment of our revenge our fondness returns; so that we feel the injury we have done them, even more than they do.
WILLIAM HAZLITT, Characteristics
Revenge, like some poisonous plant, replete with baneful juices, rankles in the breast, and meditates mischief to its neighbour.
WELLINS CALCOTT, Thoughts Moral and Divine
Revenge holds another irony. It so often proves unnecessary. "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord," wrote an ancient Hebrew sage. No mere pious platitude. An axiom of human psychology that is too little understood. Substitute "Nature" for "the Lord," if you desire. Those given to harming others bear within themselves the seeds of their own destruction. When a man injures you, it's often better to let Nature take her course. That wise old lady is pretty sure to do a juster and more artistic job of punishment than you.
Ah, God! what trances of torments does that man endure who is consumed with one unachieved revengeful desire. He sleeps with clenched hands; and wakes with his own bloody nails in his palms.
HERMAN MELVILLE, Moby Dick
Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.
