Abuse quotes
705 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside abuse — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"In an abusive relationship - we'll talk about men and women - women are often restrained, by words or out of fear, from leaving. They will tolerate abuse up to and including being put to death."
"The kind of violence one should fear is always quiet and comes all wrapped up in words like Love until you live with it daily and you value only that which is valuable to the violator."
"In some ways, I lament the introduction of civilisation on such a huge scale, because it has given us a lot of room to abuse each other, which we continue to do."
"It's funny, because there are so many stereotypes out there about actors and movie stars in general, but I've had a great opportunity to meet a lot of them, and maybe it's just because they don't behave that way around me, but I rarely see that kind of abuse of power."
"When any one person or body of men seize into their hands the power in the last resort, there is properly no longer a government, but what Aristotle and his followers call the abuse and corruption of one."
"In adultery, there is usually tenderness and self-sacrifice; in murder, courage; in profanation and blasphemy, a certain satanic splendour. Judas elected those offences unvisited by any virtues: abuse of confidence and informing."
"Three hundred years of humiliation, abuse and deprivation cannot be expected to find voice in a whisper."
"Abuse and neglect negate love. Care and affirmation, the opposite of abuse and humiliation, are the foundation of love. No one can rightfully claim to be loving when behaving abusively."
"We continue to see undeniable evidence that abuse and torture has been widespread and systematic, yet high-level government officials have not been held accountable for creating the policies that led to these atrocities."
"In every country and every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own. It is easier to acquire wealth and power by this combination than by deserving them, and to effect this, they have perverted the purest religion ever preached to man into mystery and jargon, unintelligible to all mankind, and therefore the safer for their purposes."
"You always hear about waste and abuse in Washington. And usually it doesn't mean much, because nobody ever finds where that waste and abuse is."
"We leave a stain, we leave a trail, we leave our imprint. Impurity, cruelty, abuse, error, excrement, semen - there’s no other way to be here. Nothing to do with disobedience. Nothing to do with grace or salvation or redemption. It’s in everyone. Indwelling. Inherent. Defining. The stain that is there before its mark."
"If both factions, or neither, shall abuse you, you will probably be about right. Beware of being assailed by one and praised by the other."
"The torture and other sadistic abuses of prisoners in Iraq have done immense damage already to America's reputation in the world, and the worst may be yet to come. Shamefully, we now learn that Saddam's torture chambers reopened under new management: U.S. management."
"What a pity that 'nothingness' has been devalued by an abuse of it made by philosophers unworthy of it!"
"Every major communication tool on the Internet has spam and abuse problems. All email services, blogging services and social networks have to dedicate a significant amount of resources and time to fighting abuse and protecting their users."
"Few people who are hit once by someone they love respond in the way they might to a singular physical assault by a stranger."
"Most of us find it difficult to accept a definition of love that says we are never loved in a context where there is abuse."
"Abuses of the freedom of speech ought to be repressed, but to whom are we to commit the power of doing it?"
"When we hear a story of the abuse of a child or the abuse of women almost all people are appalled by instances of that kind."
