Terry Pratchett Quotes

Truly, I would not hang a dog by my will, much more a man who hath any honesty in him.

Compassion towards the wicked – is cruelty to all beings.

Were it only to learn benevolence to humankind, we should be merciful to other creatures.

I can't stand what people do to each other. I think we're brilliant as a species. I think we are amazing. I think that God is incredible, that He just gave us everything. Everything in our face. Everything for us to use. And sometimes we're such shitheads. And it makes me crazy.

I wonder why it is the man who pleads for mercy never gives it.

It doesn't make you a monster to want, she said, her voice very gentle. It's what you do with it that matters.

You have no skills in your hands. You have no education of understanding the meaning and the purpose and the compassion and the relationship. You have just a profession.

I do not kill with my gun; He who kills with his gun has forgotten the face of his father. I kill with my heart.

Human compassion is equal to human cruelty, and it is up to each of us to tip the balance.

No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity. But I know none, and therefore am no beast.

It is only out of ignorance that people are cruel, because they really don't think it will come back.

Somewhere somebody must have some sense. Men must see that force begets force, hate begets hate, toughness begets toughness. And it is all a descending spiral, ultimately ending in destruction for all and everybody. Somebody must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate and the chain of evil in the universe. And you do that by love.

Sir,' I interrupted him, 'you are inexorable for that unfortunate lady; you speak of her with hate --- with vindictive antipathy. It is cruel --- she cannot help being mad.

Nature is cruel but we don't have to be

When men are inhuman, take care not to feel towards them as they do towards other humans.

I would rather make mistakes in kindness and compassion than work miracles in unkindness and hardness.

But you were always a good man of business, Jacob,' faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself. Business!' cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. "Mankind was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The deals of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!

To be able to laugh and to be merciful are the only things that make man better than the beast

It is the duty of men to love even those who injure them.

It is very easy for us to go, you know, "I am being cruel to be kind," when really we are just ... being cruel. Because it makes us feel big, or whatever.

I cannot tell and I shall never know how many words of mine might have given birth to cruelty in place of love and kindness and charity.

To me, cruelty is the worst of human sins. Once we accept that a living creature has feelings and suffers pain, then by knowingly and deliberately inflicting suffering on that creature, we are guilty, whether it be human or animal.

Show respect to people who don't deserve it. Not as a reflection of their character, but of yours.

Do you think you can cure the hatreds and the maladjustments of the world by hanging them? You simply show your ignorance and your hate when you say it. You may here and there cure hatred with love and understanding, but you can only add fuel to the flames by cruelty and hate.

You cannot laugh and be unkind at the same time