Something Vimes had learned as a young guard drifted up from memory. If you have to look along the shaft of an arrow from the wrong end, if a man has you entirely at his mercy, then hope like hell that man is an evil man. Because the evil like power, power over people, and they want to see you in fear. They want you to know you’re going to die. So they’ll talk. They’ll gloat.
They’ll watch you squirm. They’ll put off the moment of murder like another man will put off a good cigar.
So hope like hell your captor is an evil man. A good man will kill you with hardly a word.
Quotations about:
gloating
Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.
To keep your marriage brimming,
With love in the loving cup,
Whenever you’re wrong, admit it;
Whenever you’re right, shut up.Ogden Nash (1902–1971) American poet
“A Word to Husbands,” Marriage Lines: Notes of a Student Husband (1964)
(Source)
If your enemies fall, do not exult;
If they trip, let your heart not rejoice,
Lest GOD see it and be displeased,
And avert God’s wrath from them.בִּנְפֹ֣ל (אויביך) [א֭וֹיִבְךָ] אַל־תִּשְׂמָ֑ח וּ֝בִכָּשְׁל֗וֹ אַל־יָגֵ֥ל לִבֶּֽךָ׃
The Bible (The Old Testament) (14th - 2nd C BC) Judeo-Christian sacred scripture [Tanakh, Hebrew Bible], incl. the Apocrypha (Deuterocanonicals)
Book 20. Proverbs 24:17ff (Prov 24:17-18) [tr. RJPS (2023 ed.)]
(Source)
(Source (Hebrew)). Other translations:Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, and let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth:
Lest the Lord see it, and it displease him, and he turn away his wrath from him.
[KJV (1611)]Should your enemy fall, do not rejoice, when he stumbles do not let your heart exult; for fear that at the sight Yahweh will be displeased and turn his anger away from him.
[JB (1966)]Don't be glad when your enemies meet disaster, and don't rejoice when they stumble. The Lord will know if you are gloating, and he will not like it; and then maybe he won't punish them.
[GNT (1976)]Should your enemy fall, do not rejoice, when he stumbles do not let your heart exult: for fear that Yahweh will be displeased at the sight and turn his anger away from him.
[NJB (1985)]When your enemies fall, don’t rejoice.
When they stumble, don’t let your heart be glad,
or the Lord will see it and be displeased,
and he will turn his anger from them.
[CEB (2011)]Do not rejoice when your enemies fall,
and do not let your heart be glad when they stumble,
lest the Lord see it and be displeased
and turn away his anger from them.
[NRSV (2021 ed.)]
Never find your delight in another’s misfortune.
Publilius Syrus (d. 42 BC) Assyrian slave, writer, philosopher [less correctly Publius Syrus]
Sententiae [Moral Sayings], # 467
