A History of Violence Quotes

In sixteenth-century Paris, a popular form of entertainment was cat-burning, in which a cat was hoisted in a sling on a stage and slowly lowered into a fire...

"The spectators, including kings and queens, shrieked with laughter as the animals, howling with pain, were singed, roasted, and finally carbonized." 

Norman Davies

From A History of Violence By Steve Pinker

Conventional history has long shown that, in many ways, we have been getting kinder and gentler.

Steve Pinker

People sleep peacably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.

George Orwell

René Girard Quotes

Quotations from René Girard

Current thought is the castration of meaning.

Religion has a function that goes beyond faith and the veracity of the monotheistic gift: " The prohibition of human sacrifices. The modern world has decided that the prohibition is the nonsense".

In a certain sense, science has become a new mythology, man who creates life.

Mankind is the species that can always destroy itself. Fot this reason it created religion.

Postmodern philosophy is based on the assumption that history is finished.

Today Christianity is much more realistic than the optimism of science that creates man only to kill him.