"Mouse's tears will shed to the cat": quotes about revenge

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Psychologists say that you can not bear a grudge in yourself for a long time. The feeling of injustice that a person experiences when someone does not see his achievements, does not appreciate his merit, appropriates his work, has a devastating effect on his he alth. All the more dangerous is the state of the one who was betrayed by close people, from whom the beloved left, who, due to someone else's treachery, was left with nothing. People who have ruined or badly spoiled a person's life continue to live and enjoy life themselves. And then the idea to punish the offender is born. Quotes about revenge from the works of Russian and foreign authors, from the memoirs of famous people show how differently in different cultures and in different historical periods they treated the realization of the possibility of paying with evil for the evil done.

An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth

Since ancient times, man has thought about whether he has the right or not to endurethe verdict of the guilty and to judge independently. The thirst for justice pushed many worthy people onto the path of crime, forced them to hatch plans for bloody revenge. Since the Old Testament times, the principle of “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” has been guiding for a long time even among the peoples who later adopted Christianity, there is no need to talk about pagans: in those days only the one who answered blow for blow was considered strong.

When a civilized society had not yet developed, in the value system of patriarchy, where a man was at the head, his strength, in particular, was measured by the ability to stand up for himself in the fight against the offender. His image of a fighter, warrior, defender of the interests of the clan could suffer significantly when he did not punish the offender. For some peoples whose development is at a primitive level, the laws of bloody revenge are still in effect. In a civilized society, only representatives of certain subcultures and countercultures continue to desperately defend the right to this rudiment. For cultures that are based on the assertion of agonal principles, revenge has always been justified. So in the works of German authors, images of noble avengers are often found - people who restore justice with weapons in their hands.

In The Mature Years of King Henry IV, Heinrich Mann wrote:

Enemies must be avenged: everyone is waiting for this, it is impossible without it. There is no respect for those who do not take revenge.

The taste of victory

Revenge quotes reflect the tendency that great writers think to find a way to extinguish their urgesettle scores. The main alternative to revenge is called forgiveness, which, although many authors look noble and righteous, still tastes somewhat bland. Unfortunately, forgiveness of the offender cannot be compared with the pleasure that one receives who somehow managed to defeat his enemy. Therefore, revenge is called sweet, compared with a gourmet dish. The avenger is likened to a gourmet who conjures over its preparation, mixing in advance all the ingredients for the coming fiasco of his enemy. The sin that a person takes on his soul in this case is justified. The sinner, realizing that he has committed a crime by punishing the offender, often begins to be tormented by remorse, when the intoxication of victory passes, he tries to atone for this sin.

How I hate you…

Quotes about revenge and hatred reflect a causal relationship between a person's inner experiences and the actions they lead to. Hatred is a fire that burns a person from the inside, which enters into him at the moment when it is discovered that some evil has been committed against him. The only chance to extinguish this fire is to destroy the source of evil. It does not have to be physical destruction: not everyone is ready to commit crime. But to humiliate, trample into the mud, destroy reputational resources - this is what many people dream of. And you can, as in E. Asadov’s poem, just stay close to the object of your negative feelings, thereby ruining your life not only for yourself, but also for him:

– I hate my husbandhis!

– Well, get away from him as soon as possible.

– Leaving, of course, is easy. But then

He will immediately be happy. Never!

Cat will shed a mouse's tears

The representatives of the weaker sex take revenge especially subtly. Quotes about the revenge of women demonstrate how exquisitely and beautifully they punish someone who did not appreciate, did not understand his happiness - an insidious traitor. Sometimes, as in a famous song, for the sake of revenge, not sparing his own life, but more often at any cost trying to show that you can be happy without him. Women's "response" is rarely spontaneous, rather it can fly in years in the form of a "knife in the back." But, starting with Princess Olga, women have demonstrated more brutal types of revenge when it comes to settling scores with offenders of relatives and friends.

Victim Syndrome

The sayings also reflect such a curious psychological nuance: many people do not dare to take revenge, not out of nobility and not out of fear of being punished. The victim syndrome is quite common in a modern person: a person experiences painful pleasure, savoring his experiences and telling everyone what insults he was caused.

To avenge an offense is to deprive ourselves of the pleasure that we get from complaining about injustice (Cesare Pavese).

Not resisting evil with violence

The morality of the New Testament, which is based on the idea of non-resistance to evil by violence, redistributed the choice in the dispute between revenge on the offender and forgiveness in favor of the latter. In the era of modern times, Leo becomes the most serious defender of this ideology. Tolstoy. It was he who persistently advocated the rejection of retribution, insisted that the sphere of human competence does not include the punishment of the guilty: for this there is a God. That is why he chose the epigraph “I will repay vengeance for me” for the novel “Anna Karenina” (Rom. 12:19).

Don't make enemies - don't litter the river

When Tolstoy created his new religion, he found points of intersection with ideas close to him in Eastern teachings. In Taoism and Confucianism, you can find many quotes about revenge, which should be abandoned, since there is a higher court that will punish the guilty and show the victim that retribution has overtaken the offender.

Oriental wisdom says:

If someone hurt you, don't take revenge. Sit on the river bank and soon you will see the corpse of your enemy floating past you.

Resentment as an incentive for self-development

The word "revenge" usually evokes rather gloomy associations, especially when it comes to the revenge of a deceived woman. Although deceit and betrayal can equally cause both the destruction of one's own life on the way to the destruction of the enemy, and its qualitative improvement. It is no coincidence that John Maxwell said that "your life is 10% dependent on what happens to you, and 90% on how you react to these events." To spite the enemies, you can become better, more beautiful, more successful, in other words, for many women, it was the thirst for revenge that became an incentive for self-development.

A classic example of such a "non-bloody vengeance" option would be the implementationdreams of Toska Kislitsyna, the heroine of the beloved Soviet cult film "Girls":

So I want to be beautiful! I would then avenge all the deceived girls! Here I am walking beautifully along the street, and all the guys I meet are numb, and those who are weaker fall, fall, fall and stack themselves in piles!

Oh, my life is a tin

The offender can be not only a specific person, but life in general. When circumstances are not in favor of a person, he can become embittered at the whole world, he can begin to take revenge on everything around him, destroying everything in his path. Or maybe, like a woman, humiliated and insulted, try to get up from her knees and start taking revenge, proving that she deserves a better life. And then the implementation of revenge will be new peaks, which will be able to climb. This is exactly what Frank Sinatra was talking about:

The best revenge is a huge success.

This sweet revenge

There are practically no among the domestic authors of those who would approve of the thirst for revenge, regardless of what was the root cause of its appearance. No cruelty and no injustice, according to Russian classics, justifies the transformation of a person into an avenger.

Among European writers, there are quite a lot of those who, with various reservations, recognize the human right to revenge. The most striking quotes about revenge, which amaze the reader's imagination with metaphors that allow us to translate the abstract concept of "revenge" into specific memorable images, belong to the pen of W alterScott:

Vengeance is the best of earthly drinks and should be savored by the drop, not gulped greedily.

Revenge is a hungry wolf just waiting to rip flesh and lap up blood.

Vengeance must be sweet if many respectable and prudent men prefer it to all other pleasures available to the poor sinners of this world.

And the brothers will give you the sword…

For many authors, it is obvious that, starting to take revenge, a person starts a mechanism that operates on the principle of a boomerang. First he will take revenge, then they will take revenge on him, then they may begin to take revenge for him. If the brothers do not give up the sword, the chain of evil will not stop, and the avenger himself may fall in this struggle. In any case, vengeance is just as destructive for the one who is avenged as it is for the one who avenges.

As Stendhal said, "the avenger always pays for his revenge."