Merciless Quotes

He felt that he could not turn aside from himself the hatred of men, because that hatred did not come from his being bad (in that case he could have tried to be better), but from his being shamefully and repulsively unhappy. He knew that for this, for the very fact that his heart was torn with grief, they would be merciless to him. He felt that men would crush him as dogs strangle a torn dog yelping with pain. He knew that his sole means of security against people was to hide his wounds from them ~ Leo Tolstoy

Curiously enough, it seems that at times the spiritual side prevails, and then the materialistic side - in wave-like motions following each other. ...At one time the full flood of materialistic ideas prevails, and everything in this life - prosperity, the education which procures more pleasures, more food - will become glorious at first and then that will degrade and degenerate. Along with the prosperity will rise to white heat all the inborn jealousies and hatreds of the human race. Competition and merciless cruelty will be the watchword of the day. To quote a very commonplace and not very elegant English proverb, "Everyone for himself, and the devil take the hindmost", becomes the motto of the day. Then people think that the whole scheme of life is a failure. And the world would be destroyed had not spirituality come to the rescue and lent a helping hand to the sinking world. Then the world gets new hope and finds a new basis for a new building, and another wave of spirituality comes, which in time again declines. As a rule, spirituality brings a class of men who lay exclusive claim to the special powers of the world. The immediate effect of this is a reaction towards materialism, which opens the door to scores of exclusive claims, until the time comes when not only all the spiritual powers of the race, but all its material powers and privileges are centered in the hands of a very few; and these few, standing on the necks of the masses of the people, want to rule them. Then ~ Swami Vivekananda

This institution of higher education had no such concept as mercy. ~ Marina Dyachenko

Don't let him push you around. You got this," he said. "You get on the bull, and you ride until he sees who the master is. Relentless. Unforgiving. Merciless. You know the drill. The only place the broken past has in our present, is the place we give it. So, don't give it, and don't let him give it. ~ Lucian Bane

Remorse, predictably, was the form taken by her distress, the merciless whipping that is self-condemnation, as if in times as bizarre as these there were a right way and a wrong way that would have been clear to somebody else, as if in confronting such predicaments the hand of stupidity is ever far from guiding anyone. ~ Philip Roth

He was part of the night, the creatures known to him, the restless, untamed land matching his hungry soul. Beau watched him,observing the utter stillness marking the dangerous predator, the merciless eyes moving constantly,missing nothing.The powerful, well-muscled body was deceptively relaxed but ready for anything. The face,harshy sensual, beautifully cruel, was etched with hardship and knowledge,rish and peril. Gregori stayed in the shadows,but the silver menace of his gaze glowed with a strange iridescent light in the dark of the night.
Beau took the opportunity to study Savannah. She was everything up close that she had been on the stage, even more. Ethereal, mysterious, sexy. They very stuff of men's fantasies. Her face was flawless, lit up with joy, her eyes clear,like beautiful blue star sapphires. Her laughter was musical and infectious. She was small and innocent beside the predator in his boat. She would touch Gregori's arm, point to something on the embankment, her body brushing his lightly,and each time it happened,those pale eyes would warm to molten mercury and caress fer face intimately,hungrily. ~ Christine Feehan

You know what I think? I think you've picked up the Nazi idea that Jews can't create. That they can only imitate and sell. Middlemen.' He fixed his merciless scrutiny on Frink.

'Maybe so,' Frink said. ~ Philip K. Dick

Summer in Karachi is brutal. The heat alone is ugly and unforgiving. Add unrelenting humidity, and the elements become merciless. The city sits on the sea but is surrounded by desert land that has been known to reach some of the hottest temperatures anywhere. When the heat reaches its peak, you feel baked in an oven and the thick, humid air gives everything an extra, hot skin. It's an effort to even lift your finger. You could get by with air-conditioning, but in this teeming, overpopulated Third World megapolis, it is a luxury few can afford. ~ Saad Shafqat

Throughout history, religious wars have always been the most brutal and cruel and merciless. ~ Al Gore

He liked to think of himself as a merciless vivisector probing into the palpitating entrails of his own soul. ~ Aldous Huxley

Only a handful of Germans in the Reich had the slightest conception of the eternal and merciless struggle for the German language, German schools, and a German way of life. Only today, when the same deplorable misery is forced on many millions of Germans from the Reich, who under foreign rule dream of their common fatherland and strive, amid their longing, at least to preserve their holy right to their mother tongue, do wider circles understand what it means to be forced to fight for one's nationality. ~ Adolf Hitler

Jabotinsky insisted that all energies be expended to force the Congress to join the boycott movement. Nothing less than a 'merciless fight' would be acceptable, cried Jabotinsky. 'The present Congress is duty bound to put the Jewish problem in Germany before the entire world ... (We [Jews] must) destroy, destroy, destroy them, not only with the boycott, but politically, supporting all existing forces against them to isolate Germany from the civilized world ... our enemy [Germany] must be destroyed. ~ Ze'ev Jabotinsky

Absurd. It was absurd to think that someone like that could have any power over him. Yet she would, if she won the auction.
He wanted her to. The thought swept Arin with a merciless, ugly joy. He'd never seen her before, but he guessed who she was: Lady Kestrel, General Trajan's daughter.
The crowd heard her bid. And at once it seemed that Arin was worth something after all. ~ Marie Rutkoski

Cancer was a merciless executioner. It stripped away dignity and autonomy, leaving only pain and horror in its wake. ~ Catie Rhodes

Ben Hogan is the most merciless of all the modern golfers. ~ Gene Sarazen

JOHNNY: Friends! Outcasts. Leeches. Undesirables. A blessing on you, and upon this beggars' banquet. This day we draw a line in the chalk, and push back against the bastard pitiless busybody council, and drive them from this place for ever. I, Rooster Byron, your merciless ruler, have decreed that today all my bounty is bestowed upon you, gratis. There will be free booze, bangers, draw, whizz and whatnot, for all the minions of my kingdom. ~ Jez Butterworth

Other people's history can be read comfortably, the way a novel can be read comfortably. By my own history? I'm on the run from my own history, and catching my breath in the present. Escapist. But the merciless present pushes us back again toward our history. The mind keeps talking. ~ Intizar Hussain

Anybody can look at a pretty girl and see a pretty girl. An artist can look at a pretty girl and see the old woman she will become. A better artist can look at an old woman and see the pretty girl that she used to be. But a great artist-a master-and that is what Auguste Rodin was-can look at an old woman, protray her exactly as she is ... and force the viewer to see the pretty girl she used to be ... and more than that, he can make anyone with the sensitivity of an armadillo, or even you, see that this lovely young girl is still alive, not old and ugly at all, but simply prisoned inside her ruined body. He can make you feel the quiet, endless tragedy that there was never a girl born who ever grew older than eighteen in her heart ... no matter what the merciless hours have done to her. Look at her, Ben. Growing old doesn't matter to you and me; we were never meant to be admired-but it does to them. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

A friend called the other day.
'How are you?' she said.
The sun was shining, the sky a merciless blue. It was only eleven in the morning but I had been awake since three twenty. I was in bed because, as usual, I could think of nowhere else to go. I said that I was feeling low. Low is the depressive's euphemism for despair.
She said: 'How can you be depressed on a day like this?'
I wanted to say: 'If I had flu, would you ask me how I could be sick on a day like this? ~ Sally Brampton

Why would I seek to break your heart?"
"Because you can be a merciless bastard at times," I answered honestly.
A smile flitted across his lips. "True, but I want you with me. ~ Jeaniene Frost

Another night, another day. Just the next breath; one more step. Tired. So terribly tired at the bottom of a merciless ocean. ~ Karina Szczurek

The thing is, work has simply swamped my whole existence. Slowly but surely it's robbed me of my mother, my wife, and everything that meant anything to me. It's like a germ planted in the skull that devours the brain, spreads to the trunk and the limbs, and destroys the entire body in time. No sooner am I out of bed in the morning than work clamps down on me and pins me to my desk before I've even had a breath of fresh air. It follows me to lunch and I find myself chewing over sentences as I'm chewing my food. It goes with me when I go out, eats out of my plate at dinner and shares my pillow in bed at night. It's so extremely merciless that once the process of creation is started, it's impossible for me to stop it, and it goes on growing and working even when I'm asleep. ... Outside that, nothing, nobody exists. ~ Emile Zola

There was no manifestation of contemporary culture that did not indicate to my grandmother how steadfast was the nation's decline, how merciless our mental and moral deterioration, how swiftly all-embracing our final decadence. I never saw her read a book again; but she referred to books often - as if they were shrines and cathedrals of learning that television had plundered and then abandoned. ~ John Irving

The food that afternoon was served in tins that had contained Russian beef. It was three spoonfuls of boiled macaroni and a piece of bread. That was February 11, 1970. That day saw the beginning of a plan for biological and psychological experimentation more inhuman, brutal, and merciless than anything the western world had known with the exception of the Nazis' activities. ~ Armando Valladares

She was a cop, a Homicide lieutenant with eleven years on the job protecting and defending the hard, merciless streets of New York. There was little she hadn't seen, touched, smelled, or waded through. Because people, to her mind, would always and could always find more inventive and despicable ways to kill their fellow man, she knew just what torments could be inflicted on the human body.
But bloody and brutal murder was nothing compared to giving birth. ~ J.D. Robb

Nay," she said stubbornly. "I have just been told that the only chance I have for freedom is in your hands and by all that is holy, you will deliver me my freedom or I shall see to it that you live out the rest of your life in merciless misery."
He gaped at her. On any other man such an expression would have looked foolish, but to credit Lord Stryder, even when taken by surprise, he still managed to carry off an air of supreme authority and handsomeness. "I beg your pardon? Have you gone completely mad?"
"Not I, but rather the king you love so well. It appears he would see us marry."
"My hairy arse."
She gave him a droll stare. "That is much more information about your person, Lord Stryder, than I care to know. ~ Kinley MacGregor

Old habits 'DIE' hard, they have to be 'KILLED'!
Yes...for once I would propogate some violence in dealing with habits that do not serve us...'Cold blooded murder of non serving habits' , 'merciless elimination of non serving habits'.. Substitute with newer,more powerful habits !!! ~ Abha Maryada Banerjee

Puberty is merciless. ~ Becky Albertalli

How hard it is to now believe that these strong, merciless chains of fear and hopelessness, rendering the limbs of my mind motionless, were once innocuous mere threads."
-Mehul.M ~ Abhinav .M

Age whittles away at beauty, chips away at strength, and erodes sharpness of mind. Few are born with a notable endowment of any of those traits. Fewer still manage to fend off the merciless attack of time. Rotharia had battled its ravages and held her own for far longer than most. ~ L.H. Leonard

All Communist Parties, upon attaining power, have become completely merciless. But at the stage before they achieve power, it is necessary to use disguises. ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Words! They seemed his only experience, his only sophistications. And yet what were they? Merciless little creatures, crowding about and eager for command, each with its own physical character, an ancestry, an expectation of life and a hope of posterity. ~ Alexander Theroux

A hurt body and mind aren't just like a dictatorship; they are a dictatorship. There is no tyrant as merciless as pain, no despot so cruel as confusion. ~ Stephen King

While President Obama shirks his responsibility to advance solutions to our fiscal challenges, he can no longer hide from the merciless math of the balance sheet. Conservatives have made certain of that. ~ Paul Ryan

The actor Richard Burton once wrote an article for the New York Times about his experience playing the role of Winston Churchill in a television drama:
"In the course of preparing myself ... I realized afresh that I hate Churchill and all of his kind. I hate them virulently. They have stalked down the corridors of endless power all through history ... What man of sanity would say on hearing of the atrocities committed by the Japanese against British and Anzac prisoners of war, 'We shall wipe them out, everyone of them, men, women, and children. There shall not be a Japanese left on the face of the earth? Such simple
minded cravings for revenge leave me with a horrified but reluctant awe for such single
minded and merciless ferocity."
~ Richard Francis Burton

"Ever since the religion of Islam appeared in the world, the espousers of it ... have been as wolves and tigers to all other nations, rending and tearing all that fell into their merciless paws, and grinding them with their iron teeth; that numberless cities are raised from the foundation, and only their name remaining; that many countries, which were once as the garden of God, are now a desolate wilderness; and that so many once numerous and powerful nations are vanished from the earth! Such was, and is at this day, the rage, the fury, the revenge, of these destroyers of human kind". ~ John Wesley

That religion, which above all others was founded and propagated by the sword - the tenets and principles of which are instinct with incentives to slaughter and which in three continents has produced fighting breeds of men - stimulates a wild and merciless fanaticism. The love of plunder, always a characteristic of hill tribes, is fostered by the spectacle of opulence and luxury which, to their eyes, the cities and plains of the south display. A code of honour not less punctilious than that of old Spain is supported by vendettas as implacable as those of Corsica. ~ Winston S. Churchill

Goldstone has done terrible damage to the cause of truth and justice and the rule of law. He has poisoned Jewish-Palestinian relations, undermined the courageous work of Israeli dissenters and-most unforgivably-increased the risk of another merciless IDF assault. ~ Norman Finkelstein

The existence of Slavery in its most cruel form among them, has a tendency to brutalize the humane and finer feelings of their nature. Daily witnesses of human suffering - listening to the agonizing screeches of the slave - beholding him writhing beneath the merciless lash - bitten and torn by dogs - dying without attention, and buried without shroud or coffin - it cannot otherwise be expected, ~ Solomon Northup

(of Monsignor Fortenot, a priest) ... He is forbidden to love as a man. Passion must find its own way out. Claws tear the heart. Love is the most merciless of gods. Something so powerful will not be stopped, only turned, often to violence. I can almost understand this man.
Laertes, Count of Samothrace ~ Rebecca Ashe

But she did not take her eyes from the wheels of the second car. And exactly at the moment when the midpoint between the wheels drew level with her, she threw away the red bag, and drawing her head back into her shoulders, fell on her hands under the car, and with a light movement, as though she would rise immediately, dropped on her knees. And at the instant she was terror-stricken at what she was doing. 'Where am I? What am I doing? What for?' She tried to get up, to throw herself back; but something huge and merciless struck her on the head and dragged her down on her back. ~ Leo Tolstoy

What's more, his costume designs testified to the fact that both female Legionnaires and their male counterparts felt comfortable exposing plenty of flesh. (They were, after all, hormonal teenagers.) Detractors have dinged Grell's designs for their Ming-the-Merciless collars, bikini bottoms, and pixie boots (and that's just on the men) - and it's true that in some panels, Legion HQ crowd scenes seem more like the VIP lounge at Studio 54, but his designs made the book look like nothing else on the shelves. ~ Glen Weldon

[Property] is a brilliant, chillingly revelatory piece of fiction, a work of craft, economy and such good merciless observation-one of those rare, crucial novels illuminating a history we think we know and understand so that after we've read it we'll never forget its truths. ~ Ali Smith

The most merciless thing in the world is love. When love flees, all that remains is memory to compensate. ~ Keith Donohue

Ah, come now. I look like an angel, but I'm not. The old rules of nature encompass many creatures like me. We're beautiful like the diamond-backed snake, or the striped tiger, yet we're merciless killers ~ Anne Rice

Very few people in the world would care to listen to the real defense of their own characters. The real defense, the defense which belongs to the Day of Judgment, would make such damaging admissions, would clear away so many artificial virtues, would tell such tragedies of weakness and failure, that a man would sooner be misunderstood and censured by the world than exposed to that awful and merciless eulogy. ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

France, because it was attacked cowardly, shamelessly, violently, France will be merciless against the barbarians of Daesh. ~ Francois Hollande

As the Navajo and Christian activist Mark Charles explains, when citizens of the thirteen British colonies composed the Declaration of Independence, among their complaints against King George was that he didn't allow them to apply the Doctrine of Discovery to the people of the lands to their west.22 The Declaration described the indigenous peoples as "merciless Indian savages," clearly not counted among the "all men" whom God supposedly "created equal. ~ Brian D. McLaren

Will you dance with me?" The charms on Sahara's bracelet clinked against one another as she lifted her arms to link them around his neck, her love for him proud and open.
Deep inside, even the part of him that was the void, merciless and dark and broken, knew happiness, knew joy. ~ Nalini Singh

My belief is that, morally, God and Satan are vaguely on the same page. According to the common understanding of Satan's origins, 'holiness' is, metaphorically, frozen stiff in his veins: and at that a corrupted formula - i.e. legalism. The vital difference is that God is willing to offer grace for our sins; he delights in grace. God is the one and only holy and just punisher of sin, yes, but that is partly so because punishment for the sake of punishment is not something he loves. Whereas Satan, as the accuser, and as it is written, actually seeks God's permission to punish; he, being a seasoned legalist, delights in finding wrongs and will defy his own morality just to expose immorality. This is why both the anti-religious soul and the violently religious soul are, whether consciously or unconsciously, and sadly enough, glorifying their biggest hater: Satan is not only a lawless lover of punishing lawlessness, but also the sharpest theologian of us all. He loves wickedness, but only because he loves punishing wickedness. ~ Criss Jami

It is better to lock up your heart with a merciless padlock, than to fall in love with someone who doesn't know what they mean to you. ~ Michael Bassey Johnson

Despite my growing fear, I still want to be right where I am, trapped in the merciless arms of a killer. ~ J.A. Redmerski

Without keeping up a merciless guard, day and night, the variety of forward opinions in this world could easily destroy one's sanity. ~ J.D. Salinger

The other exception to the rule regards dealings with masochists. A masochist derives pleasure from being hurt; so denying the masochist his pleasure through-pain hurts him just as much as actual physical pain hurts the non masochist. The story of the truly cruel sadist illustrates this point: The masochist says to the sadist, "beat me." To which the merciless sadist replies, "NO!" If a person wants to be hurt and enjoys suffering, then there is no reason not to indulge him in his
wont. ~ Anton Szandor LaVey

What you discovered, gradually, was that only by structuring your own life pitilessly could you achieve anything fulfilling. Only by applying yourself to something arbitrary and pointless – and yet, crucially, of your own devising – could you escape the emptiness of unstructured diversion. In order to transcend pointlessness, you needed to become the merciless organiser of pointlessness. ~ Momus

Life in the oceans must be sheer hell. A vast, merciless hell of permanent and immediate danger. So much of a hell that during evolution some species - including man - crawled, fled onto some small continents of solid land, where the Lessons of Darkness continue. ~ Werner Herzog

A crown of thrones and stars to show the world that we are as much of dreamers as they are but we are merciless and restless in achieving our goals ~ Raneem Yacoub Throne Of Deception

The job of the financial journalist was to examine the sharks who created interest crises and speculated away the savings of small investors, to scrutinize company boards with the same merciless zeal. ~ Stieg Larsson

When Jack's command won a sharp skirmish against the Mexicans, he personally captured the Mexican Commander Juan Sanchez who had been at the Alamo and Goliad. Instead of exacting revenge against Sanchez for the merciless killings of surrendered soldiers, Sergeant Hays treated Sanchez with the dignity and respect of a prisoner of war. ~ Dan Marcou

Later," Amos said, "when you're wishing we had this stuff, I am going to be merciless in my mockery. And then we'll die." Holden ~ James S.A. Corey

Merciless Mart, with its grand lobby. I glimpse the Abnegation ~ Veronica Roth

Came they, in their droves, one after the other, hundred after hundred, thousand after thousand, engulfing all before them, each line a merciless wave from a boundless sea of bold men. ~ A.H. Septimius

Enlightenment, if left unclouded by pathetic fancy, leads to a very special and bracing sort of nihilism - positivist, rationalist ... merciless. ~ David Bentley Hart

Back at my parents', Mum was waiting with a muffin for me. 'Banana and pecan. I know it's the wrong colour but would you try it? Are you okay?' she asked. 'You look a bit …'
'Grand,' I said. 'It's just the clouds. When it's overcast like this, it does my head in.'
A strange expression passed over her face. 'The sky is blue.'
I took a look out of the window; the sky was blue. 'When did that happen?'
'It's been blue all morning.'
But it didn't make things any better. I was still uneasy, just in a different way. The empty sky looked hard and cold and merciless. Couldn't they have put in some clouds to soften it up a bit? ~ Marian Keyes

As though she had entered a fable, as though she were no more than words crawling along a dry page, or as though she were becoming that page itself, that surface on which her story would be written and across which there blew a hot and merciless wind, turning her body to papyrus, her skin to parchment, her soul to paper. ~ Salman Rushdie

Life is a merciless bully for children born into circumstances of grinding poverty, to unhappy families broken apart by crime, drugs, alcohol. It brutalises the affections, cramps the intellect, destroys aspiration. ~ Victoria Clayton

Reductionism is merciless. ~ Douglas Hofstadter

I do not believe that God has given us this trial to not purpose. I know that the day will come when we will clearly understand why this persecution with all it's sufferings has been bestowed upon us -- for everything that Our Lord does is for our good. And yet, even as I write these words I feel the oppressive weight in my heart of those last stammering words of Kichijiro in the morning of his departure: "Why has Deus Sama imposed this suffering on us?" and then the resentment in those eyes that he turned upon me. "Father", he had said "what evil have we done?"

I suppose I should simply cast from my mind these meaningless words of the coward; yet why does his plaintive voice pierce my breast with tall the pain of a sharp needle? Why has Our Lord imposed this torture and this persecution on poor Japanese peasants? No, Kichijiro was trying to express something different, something even more sickening. The silence of God. Already twenty years have passed since the persecution broke out; the black soil of Japan has been filled with the lament of so many Christians; the red blood of priests has flowed profusely; the walls of churches have fallen down; and in the face of this terrible and merciless sacrifice offered up to Him, God has remained silent. ~ Shusaku Endo

Who said childhood was the best time of life? When in reality it was the most terrible, the most merciless era, the barbaric time when there were no police to protect you, only parents preoccupied with themselves and their taller world. ~ Ray Bradbury

Please, people, do not f- with depression. It's merciless. All it wants is to get you in a room alone and kill you. Take care of yourself. ~ Harvey Fierstein

The bleak splendors of these remote and lonely forests rather overwhelmed him with the sense of his own littleness. That stern quality of the tangled backwoods which can only be described as merciless and terrible, rose out of these far blue woods swimming upon the horizon, and revealed itself. He understood the silent warning. He realized his own utter helplessness. ~ Algernon Blackwood

Thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. ~ Bertrand Russell

There is one notable thing about our Christianity: bad, bloody, merciless, money-grabbing, and predatory. The invention of hell measured by our Christianity of today, bad as it is, hypocritical as it is, empty and hollow as it is, neither the deity nor his son is a Christian, nor qualified for that moderately high place. Ours is a terrible religion. The fleets of the world could swim in spacious comfort in the innocent blood it has spilled. ~ Mark Twain

'Lost' fans were fantastic fans. I've said this before, but they were rabid, and they questioned everything - they were merciless, but I loved them for that. ~ Henry Ian Cusick

I never feel more alone than when I'm traveling. Alone and, to some extent, helpless. The world expects a certain level of competence and can be merciless when this expectation is unmet. ~ Philip Schultz

I imagine the dead waking, dazed, into a shadowless light in which they know themselves altogether for the first time. It is a light that is merciless until they can accept its mercy; by it they are at once condemned and redeemed. It is Hell until it is Heaven. Seeing themselves in that light, if they are willing, they see how far they have failed the only justice of loving one another; it punishes them by their own judgment. And yet, in suffering that light's awful clarity, in seeing themselves in it, they see its forgiveness and its beauty, and are consoled. In it they are loved completely, even as they have been, and so are changed into what they could not have been but what, if they could have imagined it, they would have wished to be. ~ Wendell Berry

Going through the pass, which demands a sort of swastika maneuvering in order to debouch free and clear on the high plateau, I had the impression of wading through phantom seas of blood; the earth was not parched and convulsed in the usual Greek way but bleached and twisted as must have been the mangled, death-stilled limbs of the slain who were left to rot and give their blood here in the merciless sun to the roots of the wild olives which cling to the steep mountain slope with vulturous claws. ~ Henry Miller

History is a merciless judge. It lays bare our tragic blunders and foolish missteps and exposes our most intimate secrets, wielding the power of hindsight like an arrogant detective who seems to know the end of the mystery from the outset. ~ David Grann

Writers haven't got any rockets to blast off. We don't even trundle the most insignificant auxiliary vehicle. We haven't got any military might. So what can literature do in the face of the merciless onslaught of open violence? One word of truth outweighs the whole world. ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Each life has its share of heroism, an obscure heroism, born of abdication, of renunciation and acceptance under the merciless whip of fate. ~ Mariama Ba

I very carefully levered up an eyelid and shut it again fast. A merciless sunbeam had squirted straight in, making my brain bleed. ~ Kyril Bonfiglioli

Schoolchildren are merciless people: separately they're God's angels, but together, especially ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The world was a merciless place. Hard and cruel. Except when you found someone to trust and love. Life, however fleeting, possessed meaning then. ~ Sophie Jordan

Schoolboys are a merciless race, individually they are angels, but together, especially in schools, they are often merciless. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

She heard the trace of fear in his voice. The fear that a small boy must have felt when every woman he loved had disappeared from his life, swept away by a merciless fever. She didn't know how to reassure him, or how to console his long-ago grief. ~ Lisa Kleypas

It will be a Religious War, a sort of Christian Jihad, fueled by religious hatred and led by merciless fanatics on both sides. It will be guerilla warfare on a global scale, with no front lines and no identifiable enemy. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

I do not dance,' said Jean-Claude, who had forsworn that exercise for much the same reasons as Miss Stevenson.

But here he spoke too soon, for Lady Dorothy Bingham, merciless to what she called 'ballroom skulkers', saw him standing about, ordered John to introduce him to her, and became his patroness.

Not till he had miserably danced twice with her and once with each of the twins did he have the brilliant idea of introducing her to his mother. The master minds met, and recognised each other, and for the greater part of the evening they discussed the care and subjugation of a family... ~ Angela Thirkell

That the American police can perjure themselves with the same ease, that they are just as merciless, just as brutal and cunning as their European colleagues, has been proven on more than one occasion. We need only recall the tragedy of the eleventh of November, 1887, known as the Haymarket Riot. No one who is at all familiar with the case can possibly doubt that the Anarchists, judicially murdered in Chicago, died as victims of a lying, bloodthirsty press and of a cruel police conspiracy. Has not Judge Gary himself said: Not because you have caused the Haymarket bomb, but because you are Anarchists, you are on trial. ~ Emma Goldman

To understand something sufficiently well to be able to program it for a computer does not mean to understand it to its ultimate depth. There can be no such ultimate understanding in practical affairs. Programming is rather a test of understanding. In this respect it is like writing; often when we think we understand something and attempt to write about it, our very act of composition reveals our lack of understanding even to ourselves. Our pen writes the word 'because' and suddenly stops. We thought we understood the 'why' of something, but discover that we don't. We begin a sentence with 'obviously,' and then see that what we meant to write is not obvious at all. Sometimes we connect two clauses with the word 'therefore,' only to then see that our chain of reasoning is defective. Programming is like that. It is, after all, writing, too. But in ordinary writing we sometimes obscure our lack of understanding, our failures in logic, by unwittingly appealing to the immense flexibility of a natural language and to its inherent ambiguity... An interpreter of of programming-language-texts, a computer, is immune to the seductive influence of mere eloquence... A computer is a merciless critic. ~ Joseph Weizenbaum

I love her with a merciless power that's rooted in the deepest part of me – a part I never knew was there. ~ Jodi Ellen Malpas

The dream of true economic, gender and racial equality in a free society, which was cherished (if not achieved) by Leftists of the post-war generation, died under New Labour; but the egalitarianism at its heart was resurrected by a merciless minority as the brain-sucking zombie of Political Correctness. ~ Mark Crutchfield

He seemed enlightened. But like every drug lord who's ever risen to such a rank, he was also shrewd, merciless, and ultimately delusional. He was a vicious mass murderer who mistook himself for a gentleman. A thug who fancied himself a poet. ~ Jeanine Cummins

The world is merciless, and it's also very beautiful. ~ Hajime Isayama

Blessed be the merciless, for they shall see God's enormous shrug. ~ George Garrett

By the breaking in of enraged merciless armies, flourishing countries have been laid waste, great numbers of people have perished in a short time, and many more have been pressed with poverty and grief. ~ John Woolman

Nothing can be more violent and merciless than a group of true believers, no matter what they choose to believe. ~ Dee Hock

Later, when you're wishing we had this stuff, I am going to be merciless in my mockery. And then we'll die. ~ James S.A. Corey

For all her active goodness, Florence Nightingale herself was far from being the angelic figure of popular adulation: according to Lytton Strachey's Eminent Victorians she was a self-righteous, domineering amazon, who was ruthless in her compassion, merciless in her philantropy, destructive in friendships, obsessional in her list for power, and demonic in her saintliness. ~ David Cannadine

It can't be bargained with, it can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity! Or remorse or fear and it absolutely will not stop! ... ever ... until you are dead! ~ James Cameron

It is difficult at times to repress the thought that history is about as instructive as an abattoir; that Tacitus was right and that peace is merely the desolation left behind after the decisive operations of merciless power. ~ Seamus Heaney