Cruelty has a human heart,
And Jealousy a human face;

For Mercy has a human heart;
Pity, a human face;
And Love, the human form divine:
And Peace the human dress.

Songs of Innocence

Cruelty has a human heart
And jealousy a human face,
Terror the human form divine,
And secrecy the human dress.

The human dress is forged iron,
The human form a fiery forge,
The human face a furnace seal'd,
The human heart its hungry gorge.

For Mercy has a human heart
Pity, a human face:
And Love, the human form divine,
And Peace, the human dress.

Human beings can be awful cruel to one another.

Cruelty is a terrible thing. I believe it is the worst human sin.

Cruelty is one of the chief ingredients of love, and divided about equally between the sexes: cruelty of lust, ingratitude, callousness, maltreatment, domination. The same is true of the passive qualities, patience under suffering, even pleasure in ill usage.

A person who already displays … cruelty to animals is also no less hardened towards men. We can already know the human heart, even in regard to animals.

Cruelty is as old as life itself.

E'en here the tear of pity springs,
And hearts are touched by human things.

Every form of cruelty—whether it be trapping, hunting, the working of ponies in mines, or the practice of vivisection—casts a slur on humanity. These actions demand our attention if we are to make progress as a truly humane society.

Human beings suffer, they torture one another, they get hurt and get hard. No poem or play or song can fully right a wrong inflicted or endured.

There is something in meanness which excites a species of resentment that never subsides, and something in cruelty which stirs up the heart to the highest agony of human hatred.

Are you a man? Then you should have an human heart. But have you indeed? What is your heart made of? Is there no such principle as Compassion there? Do you never feel another's pain? Have you no Sympathy? No sense of human woe? No pity for the miserable? When you saw the flowing eyes, the heaving breasts, or the bleeding sides and tortured limbs of your fellow-creatures, was you a stone, or a brute? Did you look upon them with the eyes of a tiger? When you squeezed the agonizing creatures down in the ship, or when you threw their poor mangled remains into the sea, had you no relenting? Did not one tear drop from your eye, one sigh escape from your breast? Do you feel no relenting now? If you do not, you must go on, till the measure of your iniquities is full. Then will the Great GOD deal with You, as you have dealt with them, and require all their blood at your hands.

Cruelty and compassion come with the chromosomes