I turned to the circle of brutal and malignant faces peering at me through the semi-darkness. A sudden and deep sympathy welled up in me. I remembered the Cockney’s way of putting it. How God must have hated them that they should be tortured so!

Amongst Western intelligentsia, to criticize if not loathe American values is viewed as progressive and liberal, whilst to support brutal and intolerant religious and political ideologies is a hallmark of being enlightened.

The game is only over if you stop playing. There is always one more life. Even the most brutal death isn’t final.

ICE has only become increasingly militarized, brutal, and unaccountable

That consent, or the lack of it, is expressed for you, prime minister, through the ballot box. It is a tough, even brutal, system but at least the message is a clear one for all to read. For us, a royal family, however, the message is often harder to read, obscured as it can be by deference, rhetoric or the conflicting currents of public opinion.

I have sometimes thought that humanity seemed to have turned on itself: With wars, civil disturbances and acts of brutal terrorism… this world is not always an easy or a safe place to live in, but it is the only place we have.

I said it was a brutal thing. No, it was a human thing. You should not insult the brutes by such a misuse of that word; they have not deserved it.

Human nature will find itself only when it fully realizes that to be human it has to cease to be beastly or brutal.

I was gonna rip his heart out. I’m the best ever. I’m the most brutal and vicious, the most ruthless champion there has ever been. No one can stop me. Lennox is a conqueror? No! He’s no Alexander! I’m Alexander! I’m the best ever. I’m Sonny Liston. I’m Jack Dempsey. There’s never been anyone like me. I’m from their cloth. There is no one who can match me. My style is impetuous, my defense is impregnable, and I’m the ferocious. I want his heart! I want to eat his children! Praise be to Allah!

Time is a smooth river for the one who does not notice it, and fierce and brutal for the one who gazes at it and is snatched by the abyss.