Quotes about Vengeance

A punishment that penalizes without forestalling is indeed called revenge.

Revenge is an act of passion; vengeance of justice. Injuries are revenged; crimes are avenged.

Revenge is the philosophy of dictators and mob bosses... used to keep others in line with threats of economic ruin, violence, or worse.

The whole idea of revenge and punishment is a childish day-dream. Properly speaking, there is no such thing as revenge. Revenge is an act which you want to commit when you are powerless and because you are powerless: as soon as the sense of impotence is removed, the desire evaporates also.

Thirst for revenge is the most important source of ressentiment. As we have seen, the very term “ressentiment” indicates that we have to do with reactions which presuppose the previous apprehension of another person's state of mind. The desire for revenge—in contrast with all active and aggressive impulses, be they friendly or hostile—is also such a reactive impulse. It is always preceded by an attack or an injury. Yet it must be clearly distinguished from the impulse for reprisals or self-defense, even when this reaction is accompanied by anger, fury, or indignation. If an animal bites its attacker, this cannot be called “revenge.” Nor does an immediate reprisal against a box on the ear fall under this heading. Revenge is distinguished by two essential characteristics. First of all, the immediate reactive impulse, with the accompanying emotions of anger and rage, is temporarily or at least momentarily checked and restrained, and the response is consequently postponed to a later time and to a more suitable occasion (“just wait till next time”). This blockage is caused by the reflection that an immediate reaction would lead to defeat, and by a concomitant pronounced feeling of “inability” and “impotence.” Thus even revenge as such, based as it is upon an experience of impotence, is always primarily a matter of those who are “weak” in some respect. Furthermore, it is of the essence of revenge that it always contains the *consciousness* of “tit for tat,” so that it is never a mere emotional reaction.

Revenge is the mode of ignorance — it’s often said that you can’t fix yourself by breaking someone else. Monks don’t hinge their choices and feelings on others’ behaviors. You believe revenge will make you feel better because of how the other person will react.

Your rabble's one unifying cry will be that there must be retribution. Most will call this 'justice.' A few of the most intemperate will also be the most honest; they will call it 'revenge.'

I probably shouldn’t admit this, but writing for me sometimes begins in a spirit of revenge. I looked it up recently: the word revenge comes from the Anglo-French revengier, sharing lineage with vengeance, which originates from the Latin vindicāre, meaning “to assert a claim, claim as one’s own.” I write to lay claim. To claim the world as my own... Sometimes the spirit of revenge comes from a more personal, petty place. I want to tell how someone wronged me. But what I love about fiction is that nothing ends where it begins. In the writing, I am forced to identify with the person who wronged me and to look critically on the protagonist who was wronged. Through endless drafts, I’ve drifted so far away from the original story—so far from the spirit of revenge—that I find myself in a more tangled and interesting new place. So the real act of revenge is that I was able to make art out of the ashes of real pain. I’ve never been convinced that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. But if you know how to make fiction out of lived experience—how to turn the “me” into a “she,” how to find the story that didn’t happen within the one that did—you don’t walk away from the calamity empty-handed. In a spin on the old Zen saying, the obstacle is not just the path but the muse itself. Or, in Nora Ephron’s words, “everything is copy.”

To be angry is to revenge the faults of others on ourselves.

Once a man involves himself with women there's always some kind of retribution. They're the most vengeful creatures on this earth.

Revenge may be wicked, but it’s natural.

Doutbless, revenge is not always sweet, once it is consummated we feel inferior to our victim, or else we are tangled in the subtleties of remorse; so vengeance too has its venom, though it comes closer to what we are, to what we feel, to the very law of the self; it is also healthier than magnanimity. The Furies were held to antedate the gods, Zeus included. Vengeance before Divinity! This is the Major intuition of ancient mythology.

Revenge is a king of wild justice.

A politics of vengeance is not politics. Revenge is a recklessness towards the future in a vain attempt to make the present abolish a suffering which is already past.

To be angry, is to revenge the fault of others upon ourselves.