revenge Quotes

“The nearer I approached to your habitation, the more deeply did I feel the spirit of revenge enkindled in my heart.”

He decided it was human hatred and not divine vengeance that had plunged him into this abyss. He doomed these unknown men to every torment that his inflamed imagination could devise, while still considering that the most frightful were too mild and, above all, too brief for them: torture was followed by death, and death brought, if not repose, at least an insensibility that resembled it.

“I regret now,” said he, “having helped you in your late inquiries, or having given you the information I did.” “Why so?” inquired Dantès. “Because it has instilled a new passion in your heart—that of vengeance.”

“I have seen the man I loved preparing to become the murderer of my son!” She said these words with such overwhelming grief, in such a desperate voice, that when he heard it a sob rose in the count’s throat. The lion was tamed, the avenging angel overcome.

He decided it was human hatred and not divine vengeance that had plunged him into this abyss. He doomed these unknown men to every torment that his inflamed imagination could devise, while still considering that the most frightful were too mild and, above all, too brief for them: torture was followed by death, and death brought, if not repose, at least an insensibility that resembled it.

“Oh, God,” said Monte Cristo, “your vengeance may sometimes be slow in coming, but I think that then it is all the more complete.”

I, who have also been betrayed, assassinated and cast into a tomb, I have emerged from that tomb by the grace of God and I owe it to God to take my revenge. He has sent me for that purpose. Here I am.

“But, with such an outlook,” Franz told the count, “which makes you judge and executioner in your own case, it would be hard for you to confine yourself to actions that would leave you forever immune to the power of the law. Hatred is blind and anger deaf: the one who pours himself a cup of vengeance is likely to drink a bitter draught.” “Yes, if he is clumsy and poor; no, if he is a millionaire and adroit.”

I wish to be Providence myself, for I feel that the most beautiful, noblest, most sublime thing in the world, is to recompense and punish.

[H]e felt he had passed beyond the bounds of vengeance, and that he could no longer say, “God is for and with me.”

You know, mother, Monsieur de Monte Cristo is almost a man of the East and an Oriental; in order not to interfere with his freedom to take revenge, he never eats or drinks in his enemy’s house.

“And now,” said the stranger, “farewell, goodness, humanity, gratitude ... Farewell all those feelings that nourish and illuminate the heart! I have taken the place of Providence to reward the good; now let the avenging God make way for me to punish the wrongdoer!”

“Am I ready? If you say I am, I will seek him through the world. If you say no, I will spend another ten years and another ten after that, if that is needed.”

“Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die!”

“He must have outplanned and outthought Vizzini and he will tell me how to break through the castle and kill the six-fingered beast.”

“Consider none your superior, whatever their rank or station in life. Treat all fairly, or they will seek revenge.”

Vengeance and retribution require a long time; it is the rule.

When the time comes, let loose a tiger and a devil; but wait for the time with the tiger and the devil chained -not shown- yet always ready.

“But you jus’ tell an’ try to get this guy canned and we’ll tell ever’body, an’ then will you get the laugh.”

“If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?”

“To bait fish withal: if it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge. He hath disgraced me, and hindered me half a million; laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies; and what’s his reason?”

“All is not lost; the unconquerable Will, And study of revenge, immortal hate, And courage never to submit or yield.”

But you are quite of opinion, are you not, that Heaven will avenge me, d’Artagnan?

“I have spent all these years preparing to find the six-fingered man and kill him in a duel. But he is a master, Yeste.”

“That was below your heart. Can you guess what I’m doing?” “Cutting my heart out?” “You took mine when I was ten; I want yours now. We are lovers of justice, you and I—what could be more just than that?”

Inigo had only one problem: he could not find the enemy.

“We are what we always were in Salem, but now the little crazy children are jangling the keys of the kingdom, and common vengeance writes the law!”

Revenge is a dish that tastes best when served cold.

He had long ago learned that society imposes insults that must be borne, comforted by the knowledge that in this world there comes a time when the most humble of men, if he keeps his eyes open, can take his revenge on the most powerful. It was this knowledge that prevented the Don from losing the humility all his friends admired in him.

“Do not grieve, wise warrior! It is better for each man that he avenge his friend than to mourn him much. Each of us must accept the end of life here in this world—so we must work while we can to earn fame before death.”

″‘It’s a payback,’ she said, grabbing a cold bean pie. ‘They put colored eggs in one of my chickens’ nests for a week. I poured every medicine I knew down that poor hen’s throat and laid witch-bought charms around her nest until I finally spotted a bit of point on some hay. Devilish, they are.‘”

“The paradox of vengefulness is that it makes men dependent upon those who have harmed them, believing that their release from pain will come only when their tormentors suffer.”

“The rarer action is In virtue than in vengeance.”

Our revenge will be achieved not through subjugation but by contagion.

“What I have learned from my experiences is that revenge is not good. I joined the army to avenge the deaths of my family and to survive, but I’ve come to learn that if I am going to take revenge, in that process I will kill another person whose family will want revenge; then revenge and revenge and revenge will never come to an end…”

“At least the four of them are safe at last. AM will be all the madder for that. It makes me a little happier. And yet ... AM has won, simply ... he has taken his revenge ... I have no mouth. And I must scream.”

“All the running, the hiding, the lies, the killing, for what? The endless circle of revenge: answering pain by inflicting pain. Why did I do it?”

“When the white man dies, he thinks he is at peace, but the red men know how to torture even the ghosts of their enemies.”

“Suffering is like anything else. Live with it long enough, you learn to like the taste.”

“I said, “That is my father.” I stood there looking at him. What a waste! Tom Chaney would pay for this! I would not rest easy until that Louisiana cur was roasting and screaming in hell!”

“People do not give credence that a fourteen-year-old-girl could leave home and go off in the wintertime to avenge her father’s blood but it did not seem so strange then, although I will say it didn’t happen every day.”

“I have left off crying, and giggling as well. […] Here is the money. I aim to get Tom Chaney and if you are not game I will find somebody who is game. I know you can drink whiskey and I have seen you kill a gray rat. All the rest has been talk. They told me you had true grit and that is why I came to you. I am not paying for talk.”

“For what you have said to shame my daughters and my good name in front of those men, I will see you dead!”

“I must go. He was my brother!”

“It will only end when blood is spilled”

“How do you outwit a Twit? Mr. and Mrs. Twit are the smelliest, ugliest people in the world. They hate everything — except playing mean jokes on each other, catching innocent birds to put in their Bird Pies, and making their caged monkeys, the Muggle-Wumps, stand on their heads all day. But the Muggle-Wumps have had enough. They don’t just want out, they want revenge.”

“I shall revenge myself in the cruelest way you can imagine. I shall forget it.”

“Troy shall overturn the Grecian state, And sweet revenge her conqu’ring sons shall call, To crush the people that conspir’d her fall.”

“Could all be lies. Could all be part of revenge scheme, planned during his decade behind bars. But if true, then what? […] Never mind. Answers soon. Nothing is insoluble.”

“Love holds no grievances.”

“The way of revenge lies simply in forcing one’s way into a place and being cut down. There is no shame in this. By thinking you must complete the job you will run out of time.”

“The rage rises again, and I don’t even want to control it. But what can I do about it? What can I do to avenge my brother, or even try to save the others?”

“I’ll find a day to massacre them all, And raze their faction and their family, The cruel father and his traitorous sons, To whom I sued for my dear son’s life; And make them know what ‘tis to let a queen Kneel in the streets and beg for grace in vain.”

“Vengeance is in my heart, death in my hand, Blood and revenge are hammering in my head.”

“The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as best I could; but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge.”

“At length I would be avenged; this was a point definitely, settled—but the very definitiveness with which it was resolved precluded the idea of risk. I must not only punish but punish with impunity.”

“A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser.”

“He longed to revenge himself on every one for his own unseemliness.”

“Ha! ha! ha!–he! he!–a very good joke indeed–an excellent jest. We shall have many a rich laugh about it at the palazzo–he! he! he!–over our wine–he! he! he!”

“I had finished a portion of the last and the eleventh; there remained but a single stone to be fitted and plastered in.”

“The other possibility is that there are witches out there, hiding somewhere, plotting their revenge, liberally applying fireproofing compounds to themselves. And someday they may reappear and start causing trouble. And then what will our high and mighty scientists do? Throw calculator at them? Witches eat calculators.”

″‘I don’t want tea,’ said Clary, with muffled force. ‘I want to find my mother. And then I want to find out who took her in the first place, and I want to kill them.’ ‘Unfortunately,’ said Hodge, ‘we’re all out of bitter revenge at the moment, so it’s either tea or nothing.‘”

“Medea: Oh, what misery! … Cursed sons, and a mother for cursing! Death take you all – you and your father … Nurse: Why make the sons share in their father’s guilt?”

“Jason: Anything you or the children want in exile, let me know; I’ll gladly furnish it … Medea: The presents of the wicked are pure poison.”

“Jason: But, Medea, what is this -- these dewy eyes, these tears; … Medea: It is nothing. I was just thinking of our sons.”

“Medea: how I bless you both… not here—beyond… every blessing here you father has despoiled.”

“Medea: I agree, of course, that a foreigner should conform, adapt to his society.”

“My logic went as follows: If someone hurts you, then you automatically want revenge. It doesn’t matter how long it takes, you want revenge.”

“The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism.”

“My sons, aunts, and uncles have been slain. Take care, Your Highness, that the queen of the mice doesn’t bite your little princess in two. Take care!”

“Later, after Clarice dumps a bowl of spaghetti on her brother’s head, her mother advises her to think before she acts, and this young queen of the quick comeback responds, “And she’s right. If I’d thought about it I would have put tapioca down his shorts.”

“When Joel emerged into the street, he was still embarrassed. He didn’t want to go shopping anymore. He didn’t want to be his own mother. But he did want revenge.”

“The person who killed my cousin got killed. It’s been a weird three weeks since it happened. ‘Cause Ant was shot at a school function it was all over the news. His parents cried on TV, and I realized he had parents. Like Dre. Some kids at school were really tore up over his death, and I realized he had friends. Like Dre. At the stadium, he got a memorial in the parking lot with flowers and balloons. Like Dre. Everybody get mourned by somebody, I guess. Even murderers.”

“All of my self-pity turned into a need for revenge. But I held myself at Mother’s knees not to rush up and scratch at her pretty face.”

“Man Alan,” said I, “ye are neither very wise nor very Christian to blow off so many words of anger. They will do the man ye call the Fox no harm, and yourself no good. Tell me your tale plainly out. What did he next?” ” ‘And that’s a good observe, David,’ said Alan. ‘Troth and indeed, they will do him no harm; the more’s the pity! And barring that about Christianity (of which my opinion is quite otherwise, or I would be nae Christian), I am much of your mind.’ ‘Opinion here or opinion there,’ said I, ‘it’s a kent thing that Christianity forbids revenge.’ ‘Ay’ said he, ‘it’s well seen it was a Campbell taught ye! It would be a convenient world for them and their sort, if there was no such a thing as a lad and a gun behind a heather bush!’ ”

“But God considers the sins of unforgiveness, anger, hatred, self-pity, lovelessness, and revenge to be just as bad as any others.”

“Sim looked at the man before him. ‘Centre-forwards,’ he remarked significantly, ‘I can buy ‘em an’ sell em’- or,′ he added, ‘I can at least sell ‘em.‘”

“Why, in exchange for you having blown up my belongings, I’m going to blow up yours and you all with it.”

“The others made whewing noises and thanked heaven for the way their magical Chitty-Chitty Bang Bang had saved them from the gangsters’ terrible revenge.”

“The bird looked much smaller dead than it had alive. Jody felt a little mean pain in his stomach, so he took out his pocketknife and cut off the bird’s head.”

“I’ve been in the revenge business for so long, now that it’s over I don’t know what to do with the rest of my life.”

“Revenge isn’t what you expected, is it?”

“But it was the constant shadow of my presence!—the closest propinquity of the man whom he had most vilely wronged!—and who had grown to exist only by this perpetual poison of the direst revenge!”

“It was I, not less than he. Why hast thou not avenged thyself on me?”

“I have left thee to the scarlet letter,” replied Roger Chillingworth.

“That old man’s revenge has been blacker than my sin.”

“There is a strange secrecy in his nature,” replied Hester, thoughtfully; “and it has grown upon him by the hidden practices of his revenge.

A distinguished personage happened to visit the school that morning, and Amy’s beautifully drawn maps received praise, which honor to her foe rankled in the soul of Miss Snow, and caused Miss March to assume the airs of a studious young peacock. But, alas, alas! Pride goes before a fall, and the revengeful Snow turned the tables with disastrous success. No sooner had the guest paid the usual stale compliments and bowed himself out, than Jenny, under pretense of asking an important question, informed Mr. Davis, the teacher, that Amy March had pickled limes in her desk.

“But, father, take care; when our turn comes, our revenge will be sweeping.”

“If a man had by unheard-of and excruciating tortures destroyed your father, your mother, your betrothed,—a being who, when torn from you, left a desolation, a wound that never closes, in your breast,—do you think the reparation that society gives you is sufficient when it interposes the knife of the guillotine between the base of the occiput and the trapezal muscles of the murderer, and allows him who has caused us years of moral sufferings to escape with a few moments of physical pain?”

Well, since you know the Corsicans so well, you know that they always keep their word. You think that it was a good deed to kill my brother, who was a Bonapartist, because you are a royalist. Well, I, who am a Bonapartist also, declare one thing to you, which is, that I will kill you. From this moment I declare the vendetta against you, so protect yourself as well as you can, for the next time we meet your last hour has come.

Providence appears to me to have no share in this affair; and happily so, for instead of the invisible, impalpable agent of celestial rewards and punishments, I shall find one both palpable and visible, on whom I shall revenge myself, I assure you, for all I have suffered during the last month.

I say, and proclaim it publicly, that you were justified in revenging yourself on my father, and I, his son, thank you for not using greater severity.

“Alas, my dear mother, some have suffered so much, and yet live, and have raised a new fortune on the ruin of all the promises of happiness which heaven had made them—on the fragments of all the hope which God had given them! I have seen that, mother; I know that from the gulf in which their enemies have plunged them they have risen with so much vigor and glory that in their turn they have ruled their former conquerors, and have punished them.”

You are a generous man, Albert, but perhaps you may be blinded by pride or resentment; if you refuse me, if you ask another for what I have a right to offer you, I will say it is ungenerous of you to refuse the life of your mother at the hands of a man whose father was allowed by your father to die in all the horrors of poverty and despair.

“I am he whom you sold and dishonored—I am he whose betrothed you prostituted—I am he upon whom you trampled that you might raise yourself to fortune—I am he whose father you condemned to die of hunger—I am he whom you also condemned to starvation, and who yet forgives you, because he hopes to be forgiven—I am Edmond Dantès!”

Monte Cristo knew everything, as he had bought the daughter of Ali Pasha; and, knowing everything, he had advised Danglars to write to Yanina. The answer known, he had yielded to Albert’s wish to be introduced to Haydée, and allowed the conversation to turn on the death of Ali, and had not opposed Haydée’s recital (but having, doubtless, warned the young girl, in the few Romaic words he spoke to her, not to implicate Morcerf’s father). Besides, had he not begged of Morcerf not to mention his father’s name before Haydée? Lastly, he had taken Albert to Normandy when he knew the final blow was near. There could be no doubt that all had been calculated and previously arranged; Monte Cristo then was in league with his father’s enemies.

“Fernand,” cried he, “of my hundred names I need only tell you one, to overwhelm you! But you guess it now, do you not?—or, rather, you remember it? For, notwithstanding all my sorrows and my tortures, I show you today a face which the happiness of revenge makes young again— a face you must often have seen in your dreams since your marriage with Mercédès, my betrothed!”

“When the ruin is complete,” said she, with a ghastly look, “and when they lay me dead, in my bride’s dress on the bride’s table,—which shall be done, and which will be the finished curse upon him,—so much the better if it is done on this day!”

“Now,” said a suppressed voice with an oath, “I’ve got you!”

“I come upon her from behind, as I come upon you to-night. I giv’ it her! I left her for dead, and if there had been a limekiln as nigh her as there is now nigh you, she shouldn’t have come to life again. But it warn’t Old Orlick as did it; it was you. You was favoured, and he was bullied and beat. Old Orlick bullied and beat, eh? Now you pays for it. You done it; now you pays for it.”

“I’ve had a firm mind and a firm will to have your life, since you was down here at your sister’s burying. I han’nt seen a way to get you safe, and I’ve looked arter you to know your ins and outs. For, says Old Orlick to himself, ‘Somehow or another I’ll have him!‘”

“No, it was not because I disliked Mr. Heathcliff, but because Mr. Heathcliff dislikes me; and is a most diabolical man, delighting to wrong and ruin those he hates, if they give him the slightest opportunity.

O thou Mowgli—for Mowgli the Frog I will call thee—the time will come when thou wilt hunt Shere Khan as he has hunted thee.

“Those who kill snakes get killed by snakes,”

“and Sibyl Vane was my sister. She killed herself. I know it. Her death is at your door. I swore I would kill you in return. For years I have sought you. I had no clue, no trace. The two people who could have described you were dead. I knew nothing of you but the pet name she used to call you. I heard it to-night by chance. Make your peace with God, for to-night you are going to die.”

“Tom, we got to keep mum. You know that. That Injun devil wouldn’t make any more of drownding us than a couple of cats, if we was to squeak ‘bout this and they didn’t hang him. Now, look-a-here, Tom, less take and swear to one another—that’s what we got to do—swear to keep mum.”

I sat still and thought ‘he is doing it out of revenge,’ because we had a violent quarrel just before his death.