Revenge

Revenge or vengeance consists of retaliation against a person or group in response to perceived wrongdoing. Although many aspects of revenge resemble or echo the concept of making things equal, revenge usually has a more injurious than constructive goal. The vengeful wish is to make the perceived wrongdoer go through what they put the victim through or to make sure the wrongdoer can never do what they did again.

Quotations on revenge

• Breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth: as he hath caused a blemish in a man, so shall it be done to him again. - Leviticus 24:20, King James Bible
• Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. - Romans 12:21
• But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you. - Matthew 5:44
• Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord. - Romans 12:19
• If we practice an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, soon the whole world will be blind and toothless. - Mahatma Gandhi
• Revenge without respect to the example and profit to come is a triumph, or glorying in the hurt of another, tending to no end (for the end is always somewhat to come); and glorying to no end is vain-glory, and contrary to reason. - Thomas Hobbes in Leviathan
• Revenge is a dish best served cold. - suggesting that emotional detachment and planning ("cold blooded") are best for taking revenge. The earliest well-known example of this proverb in print appears as "La vengeance est un plat qui se mange froid" in the novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses (1782) by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos. The saying exists in many cultures, including Sicilian, Spanish and Pashtun, making its ultimate origin difficult to determine. The modern English wording is attributed to Dorothy Parker. In ' (and, in reference, Kill Bill) it is said to be a Klingon proverb and was quoted by Khan Noonian Singh (to which Khan aptly quipped "...and it is very cold in space..."). In comic books it is often associated with Batman's enemy Mr. Freeze.
• In the fifth season of the HBO series The Sopranos, Tony Soprano states that Revenge is like serving cold cuts. To this, his psychiatrist Dr. Melfi offers the traditional Parker/Khan phrasing.
• James Bond in For Your Eyes Only: 'Melina, the Chinese have a saying: "One who seeks revenge must first dig two graves."'
• Revenge is best dealt with by forgetting it. - Japanese Buddhism (Pure Land school) in advice of a King about to be executed, to his son concerning his enemy, about to execute his father, the King.
• "Vengeance on a dumb brute!" cried Starbuck, "that simply smote thee from blindest instinct! Madness! To be enraged with a dumb thing, Captain Ahab, seems blasphemous." . . . "Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I'd strike the sun if it insulted me. For could the sun do that, then I could do the other." - Moby-Dick