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Revenge is to harm someone in return for an injury suffered at their hands

• Revenge: The action of hurting or harming someone in return for an injury or wrong suffered at their hands. Oxford Dictionary
• Revenge is the infliction of pain, in consequence of the neglect or violation of duty. Elhanan Winchester
• Revenge: To exact punishment or expiation for a wrong on behalf of, especially in a resentful or vindictive spirit. Dictionary.com
• Vengeance: Punishment inflicted or retribution exacted for an injury or wrong. Oxford Dictionary
• Vengeance: Infliction of injury, harm, humiliation, or the like, on a person by another who has been harmed by that person; violent revenge. Dictionary.com
• Hate,  Forgiveness,  Mercy,  Violence

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Revenge is a kind of wild and primitive justice

• Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more man’s nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out. Francis Bacon
• Revenge is the law of the outlaws. Laura Blumenfeld
• Revenge is the naked idol of the worship of a semi-barbarous age. Percy Bysshe Shelley
• The impulse to revenge is an impulse to justice, but it is a primitive one, and although its intention is to restore balance, its personal and emotional basis always threatens to make it too harsh and punitive, therefore inviting further revenge. A. C. Grayling
• Justice

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Revenge is inherent in human psychology …

• Far from being a psychological trait, the spirit of revenge is the principle on which our whole psychology depends. Gilles Deleuze
• The instinct of revenge is the force which constitutes the essence of what we call psychology, history, metaphysics and morality. The spirit of revenge is the genealogical element of our thought, the transcendental principle of our way of thinking. Gilles Deleuze
• Universal though the instinct for revenge may be, it is much stronger in some of us than others. And those who have it in abundance apparently pay something of a price. Ellis Cose
• Psychology

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… and is an understandable reaction to inflicted pain

• Revenge is a confession of pain. Latin Proverb
• Very often when people speak of justice, they are not referring to some abstract concept of law, or an ethereal vision of divine justice, but rather the more earthly idea of responding to a temporal wrong. They simply want to make sure that he who has caused suffering ends up suffering himself. The only way for the wrongdoer to know the pain that he has caused is by experiencing his own pain. That’s why the seeking of revenge is an understandable human impulse, precisely because, to the revenge- seeker, the result feels like justice. It speaks to the underlying raw hurt, the primal sense that some life-altering event had taken place, and that the perpetrator must be made to feel the same sense of deprivation and loss. Thane Rosenbaum
• Life being what it is, one dreams of revenge. Paul Gauguin
• Pain

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The problem is that revenge can come at a heavy price

• Universal though the instinct for revenge may be, it is much stronger in some of us than others. And those who have it in abundance apparently pay something of a price. Ellis Cose

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Any pleasure from revenge is very short lived, and usually only lies in the anticipation

• The very design of revenge is troublesome, and puts the spirits into an unnatural fermentation and tumult. The man that meditates it is always restless, his very soul is stung, swells and boils, is in pain and anguish, hath no ease, no enjoyment of itself, so long as this passion reigns. The execution of it may perhaps be attended with some present pleasure, but that pleasure is unreasonable and brutish, momentary and short, like a flash of lightning, which vanisheth in the twinkling of an eye. Isaac Barrow
• Therein lies the defect of revenge: it’s all in the anticipation; the thing itself is a pain, not a pleasure; at least the pain is the biggest end of it. Mark Twain
• I tasted too what was called the sweet of revenge – but it was transient, it expired even with the object, that provoked it. Ann Radcliffe
• Anticipation

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Revenge may taste sweet but it has a bitter aftertaste …

• Revenge is sweet and not fattening. Alfred Hitchcock
• It [revenge] is sweeter far than flowing honey. Homer
• Revenge is always sweet, it’s the aftertaste that’s bitter. Joshua Caleb
• She’d said that revenge was not sweet, that it was bloody. She was wrong. It *was* sweet. For one fleeting, glorious moment you felt incredible satisfaction. Then it was gone, empty, and you had to go on living. The power high that filled me with her light had faded, and all I tasted now were bitter ashes. Sunny, Mona Lisa Blossoming
• Revenge is sweet, sweeter than life itself – so say fools. Juvenal
• Revenge, at first though sweet, Bitter ere long back on itself recoils. John Milton
• We live today in a world wracked by revenge. Nations at sword’s point. Peoples against peoples. Hate brewing in men’s hearts. And yet we hear it said, “Revenge is sweet.” We everyday folk are often infected by that hoary sophism. But it misstates the dangerous side of a fundamentally noble trait of human nature, self-defence. Unbridled revenge is about the bitterest thing on earth. Garret Smith
• The pleasure of revenge is like the pleasure of eating chalk and coals. Jeremy Taylor
• Something of vengeance I had tasted for the first time; as aromatic wine it seemed, on swallowing, warm and racy: its after-flavour, metallic and corroding, gave me a sensation as if I had been poisoned. Charlotte Bronte

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… for revenge often leads to painful remorse

• By retaliating our sufferings on the heads of those we love, we get rid of a present uneasiness and incur lasting remorse. With the accomplishment of our revenge our fondness returns; so that we feel the injury we have done them, even more than they do. William Hazlitt
• Revenge is a fervor in our own blood, to be cured only by letting the blood of another; but the remedy too often produces a relapse, which is remorse–a malady far more dreadful than the first disease, because it is incurable. Charles Caleb Colton
• Fool that I am,” said he,”that I did not tear out my heart the day I resolved to revenge myself”. Alexandre Dumas
• Vengeance taken will often tear the heart and torment the conscience. Arthur Schopenhauer
• Guilt

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Revenge never quenches the thirst …

• Revenge has no more quenching effect on emotions than salt water has on thirst. Walter Weckler
• Revenge is like a ghost. It takes over every man it touches. Its thirst cannot be quenched until the last man standing has fallen. Vladmir Makarov

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… but poisons the spirit instead

• Revenge is an infection of the spirit. Jonathan Maberry
• I only suggest to you: Will you dwell on killing this man? You wish for revenge? If you do, he has already killed you by slow poison. So, let it go. Why waste your time? His life will see to his death. Lloyd Alexander
• Not forgiving is like drinking rat poison and then waiting for the rat to die. Anne Lamott
• Revenge is a virus which eats into the very vitals of the mind and poisons the entire spiritual being. James Allen
• Revenge, like some poisonous plant, replete with baneful juices, rankles in the breast, and meditates mischief to its neighbour. Wellins Calcott

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Revenge often does more harm to you than to your enemy …

• Revenge is like a rolling stone, which, when a man hath forced up a hill, will return upon him with a greater violence, and break those bones whose sinews gave it motion. Albert Schweitzer
• Revenge commonly hurts both the offerer and sufferer; as we see in a foolish bee, which in her anger invenometh the flesh and loseth her sting, and so lives a drone ever after. Joseph Hall
• Ah, God! what trances of torments does that man endure who is consumed with one unachieved revengeful desire. He sleeps with clenched hands; and wakes with his own bloody nails in his palms. Herman Melville
• Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot that it doth singe yourself. William Shakespeare
• Revenge is a boomerang. Garret Smith
• When violence hurries on too fast, and caution does not keep pace with revenge, people generally do themselves more harm than the enemy. Wellins Calcott
• The man who seeks revenge is like the man who shoots himself in order to hit his enemy with the kick of the gun’s recoil. Tim Lahaye & Bob Phillips
• Those who plot the destruction of others often perish in the attempt. Thomas Moore
• Those who plot the destruction of others often fall themselves. Phaedrus (Thrace of Macedonia)

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… turning you into your own executioner

• Before you begin on the journey of revenge, dig two graves. Proverb
• While seeking revenge, dig two graves – one for yourself. Doug Horton
• When you begin a journey of revenge, start by digging two graves: one for your enemy, and one for yourself. Jodi Picoult
• Revenge proves its own executioner. John Ford

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Revenge often leads to an endless cycle of retaliation

• Revenge is the most worthless weapon in the world. It ruins the avenger while more firmly confirming the enemy in his wrong. It initiates an endless flight down the bottomless stairway of rancor, reprisals, and ruthless retaliation. Tim Lahaye & Bob Phillips
• Justice belongs to those who claim it, but let the claimant beware lest he create new injustice by his claim and thus set the bloody pendulum of revenge into its inexorable motion. Frank Herbert
• The impulse to revenge is an impulse to justice, but it is a primitive one, and although its intention is to restore balance, its personal and emotional basis always threatens to make it too harsh and punitive, therefore inviting further revenge. A. C. Grayling

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Revenge leaves your wounds fresh and unhealed

• It is useless to meet revenge with revenge. It will heal nothing. R.R. Tolkien
• He that studieth revenge keepeth his own wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well. John Milton
• A man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green. Francis Bacon, Sr.
• Healing,  Illness

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Revenge is barren and often leads to despair

• Revenge is barren of itself: it is the dreadful food it feeds on; its delight is murder, and its end is despair. Friedrich Schiller
• The tree of revenge does not carry fruit. Dutch Proverb
• Nothing is more costly, nothing is more sterile, than vengeance. Winston Churchill
• Despair

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Revenge can consume you till there is nothing left

• Revenge is self-defeating. It will eat away you until there is nothing left. Chris Bradford
• Revenge is the raging fire that consumes the arsonist. Max Lucado

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Revenge drags you down to your enemy’s level

• Revenge is often like biting a dog because the dog bit you. Austin O’Malley
• Revenge is not always sweet, once it is consummated we feel inferior to our victim. Emil Cioran
• The best manner of avenging ourselves is by not resembling him who injured us; and it is hardly possible for one man to be more unlike another than he that forbears to avenge himself of wrong is to him who did the wrong. Jane Porter
• The best revenge is not to be like your enemy. Marcus Aurelius
• The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury. Marcus Aurelius
• The best manner of avenging ourselves is by not resembling him who has injured us. Jane Porter
• Enemies

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Revenge imprisons you in the past

• Not to forgive is to be imprisoned by the past, by old grievances that do not permit life to proceed with new business. Not to forgive is to yield oneself to another’s control… to be locked into a sequence of act and response, of outrage and revenge, tit for tat, escalating always. The present is endlessly overwhelmed and devoured by the past. Forgiveness frees the forgiver. It extracts the forgiver from someone else’s nightmare. Lance Morrow
• The past

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Revenge ties you to your enemy

• The paradox of vengefulness is that it makes men dependent upon those who have harmed them, believing that their release from pain will come only when their tormentors suffer. Laura Hillenbrand

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Some preach an eye for an eye

• And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life, Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe. Bible
• Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot. Exodus 21:24

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Others warn this just makes everyone blind

• An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind. Mahatma Gandhi
• An eye for an eye, and the whole world would be blind. Kahlil Gibran
• That old law about an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind. The time is always right to do the right thing. Martin Luther King, Jr.

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To choose revenge is weakness

• Revenge is always the weak pleasure of a little and narrow mind. Juvenal
• Revenge is for children and the emotionally retarded. Frank Herbert
• Little, vicious minds abound with anger and revenge, and are incapable of feeling the pleasure of forgiving their enemies. Earl of Chesterfield
• Weakness

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To choose not to revenge is a sign of strength

• He that has revenge in his power, and does not use it, is the greater man. Wellins Calcott
• In taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy, but in passing it over he is superior. Francis Bacon
• When you have the power to screw people over and you don’t–well, that’s when you get to show who you really are. Joseph Finder
• Tis more noble to forgive, and more manly to despise, than to revenge an Injury. Benjamin Franklin
• Strength

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Before extracting revenge, ponder it in a peaceful place

• Take no revenge that you have not pondered beneath a starry sky, or on a canyon overlook, or to the lapping of waves and the mewing of a distant gull. Robert Brault

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Malice is best punished by neglect

• What ever the motive for the insult, it is always best to overlook it; for folly doesn’t deserve resentment, and malice is punished by neglect. Samuel Johnson
• What should a wise person do when given a blow? Same as Cato when he was attacked; not fire up or revenge the insult., or even return the blow, but simply ignore it. Seneca (Seneca the Elder)
• One who is injured ought not to return the injury, for on no account can it be right to do an injustice; and it is not right to return an injury, or to do evil to any man, however much we have suffered from him. Socrates

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Transcend revenge by acknowledging your anger and letting it flow through

• Anger ventilated often hurries toward forgiveness; and concealed often hardens into revenge.  Edward G. Bulwer- Lytton
• Anger,  Letting go,  Letting go of emotions through mindfulness

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Transcend revenge through forgiveness

• Forgiveness is the sweetest revenge. Isaac Friedmann
• Never does the human soul appear so strong as when it forgoes revenge and dares to forgive an injury. H. Chapin
• There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness. Josh Billings
• Grudges are for those who insist that they are owed something; forgiveness, however, is for those who are substantial enough to move on. Criss Jami
• Nothing inspires forgiveness quite like revenge. Scott Adams
• It is commonly said that revenge is sweet, but to a calm and considerate mind, patience and forgiveness are sweeter. Isaac Barrow
• We should forgive our enemies, but not before they are hanged. Heinrich Heine
• Forgiveness is better than revenge, for forgiveness is the sign of a gentle nature, but revenge is the sign of a savage nature. Epictetus
• Forgiveness

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Transcend revenge through love

• Mankind must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love. Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Love

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Transcend revenge through empathy

• Peace requires something far more difficult than revenge or merely turning the other cheek; it requires empathizing with the fears and unmet needs that provide the impetus for people to attack each other. Being aware of those feelings and needs, people lose their desires to attack back because they see the human ignorance leading to those attacks. Instead, their goal becomes providing the empathic connection and education that will enable them to transcend their violence and engage in cooperative relationships. Marshall Rosenberg
• Empathy

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Some religions denounce revenge …

• Revenge is a common passion; it is the sin of the uninstructed. The savage deems it noble; but Christ’s religion, which is the sublime civilizer, emphatically condemns it. Why? Because religion ever seeks to ennoble man; and nothing so debases him as revenge. Bulwer Lytton
• Religion

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… yet still believe in a revengeful God

• It is of course evident that everything in one’s religious life depends upon the sort of God one worships. The character of the worshiper must necessarily be molded by the character of the object worshipped.  If it is a cruel and revengeful God, or a selfish and unjust God, the worshiper will be cruel, and revengeful, and selfish, and unjust, also.  If it is a loving, tender, forgiving, unselfish God, the worshiper will be loving, and tender, and forgiving, and unselfish, as well.  Hannah Whitall Smith
• Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord. Bible
• God

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Some believe in the revenge of karma

• Karma comes after everyone eventually. You can’t get away with screwing people over your whole life, I don’t care who you are. What goes around comes around. That’s how it works. Sooner or later the universe will serve you the revenge that you deserve. Jessica Brody
• Karma is the universal law of cause and effect. You reap what you sow. You get what you earn. You are what you eat. If you give love, you get love. Revenge returns itself upon the avenger. What goes around comes around. Mary T. Browne
• Karma

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Some people argue in favour of revenge

• Revenge may be wicked, but it’s natural. William Makepeace Thackeray
• To exact revenge for yourself or your friends is not only a right, it’s an absolute duty. Stieg Larsson
• There is nothing wrong with revenge. The wrong has already been done, or there would be no need to even the score. Ashly Lorenzana
• Nothing inspires forgiveness quite like revenge. Scott Adams
• Revenge is profitable, gratitude is expensive. Edward Gibbon
• Revenge is a much more punctual paymaster than gratitude. Charles Caleb Colton
• I’m not real big on repentance … I like revenge better. Laurell K. Hamilton
• Don’t get mad, get even. Robert F. Kennedy
• Revenge is profitable. Edward Gibbon
• And where the offense is, let the great axe fall. William Shakespeare
• One good act of vengeance deserves another. John Jefferson
• No more tears now; I will think about revenge. Mary, Queen of Scots

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If you must commit revenge, serve it in the imagination

• Very often actual revenge is beyond our means, and we are driven to indulge in prospective, circuitous, and imaginary retaliations, from thence deriving a few drops of satisfaction in the ideal form. Lexander Bain
• Imagination

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If you must commit revenge, serve it cold

• Revenge is a dish best served cold.
• Revenge is like sex, Mister Dresden. It’s best when it comes on slow, quiet, until it all seems inexorable. Jim Butcher
• Vengeance and retribution require a long time; it is the rule. Charles Dickens
• There is no truer saying than “Revenge is a dish best eaten cold.” It is so much sweeter for the waiting, and my only regret is that I cannot broadcast my triumph to the world. Minette Walters
• Vengeance is a dish best eaten cold. Proverb
• Delay in vengeance delivers a heavier blow. John Ford

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If you must commit revenge, don’t be half hearted about it

• To take revenge halfheartedly is to court disaster: Either condemn or crown your hatred. Pierre Corneille
• People should either be caressed or crushed. If you do them minor damage they will get their revenge; but if you cripple them there is nothing they can do. If you need to injure someone, do it in such a way that you do not have to fear their vengeance. Niccolò Machiavelli
• If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared. Niccolo Machiavelli

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There are far more constructive forms of revenge than harming your enemy

• If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. Romans 12:20
• Success would be the best revenge. Lost Prophets
• The best revenge is living well. Jerry Seinfeld
• The best revenge is massive success. Frank Sinatra
• The best revenge is not to be like your enemy. Marcus Aurelius
• To see an enemy humiliated gives a certain contentment, but this is jejune compared with the highly blent satisfaction of seeing him humiliated by your benevolent action or concession on his behalf. That is the sort of revenge which falls into the scale of virtue. Geoerge Eliot
• She Eleanor Roosevelt got even in a way that was almost cruel. She forgave them. Ralph McGill
• Surviving well is your finest revenge. Morgan Nito
• Forgiveness is the sweetest revenge. Isaac Friedmann
• There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness. Josh Billings
• Live well. It is the greatest revenge. The Talmud
• Looking good is the best revenge. Ivana Trump

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Hatred and revenge are bed fellows

• Evil is always devising more corrosive misery through man’s restless need to exact revenge out of his hate. Ralph Steadman
• Hatred is the coward’s revenge for being intimidated. George Bernard Shaw
• Hate

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When there is great lust, revenge is sometimes not far behind

• Vanity, revenge, loneliness, boredom, all apply: lust is one of the least of the reasons for promiscuity. Mignon McLaughlin
• Lust is to the other passions what the nervous fluid is to life; it supports them all, lends strength to them all ambition, cruelty, avarice, revenge, are all founded on lust. Marquis de Sade
• Lust

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Women are just as good at revenge as men

• When one woman strikes at the heart of another, she seldom misses, and the wound is invariably fatal. Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
• In revenge and in love woman is more barbaric than man is. Friedrich Nietzsche
• Women do most delight in revenge. Sir Thomas Browne
• Sweet is revenge–especially to women. Lord Byron
• No one rejoices more in revenge than woman. Juvenal
• The battle of the sexes

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• Forgiveness is the sweetest revenge. Isaac Friedmann
• I want to write a song about retaliation called, “Oh Yeah, and I Faked Every Orgasm…While You Were Out of Town. Jarod Kintz
• If anger were mileage, I’d be a very frequent flyer, right up there in First Class. Gina Barreca
• Living well is the best revenge.  Adrienne Gusoff
• May the fleas of a thousand camels invade the crotch of the person that ruins your day. And may their arms be to short too scratch. Keisha Keenleyside
• Meekness: Uncommon patience in planning a revenge that is worthwhile. Ambrose Bierce
• Never go to bed angry, stay awake and plot your revenge.
• Nothing inspires forgiveness quite like revenge.  Scott Adams
• Relationships give us a reason to live. Revenge. Ronny Shakes
• Revenge is a dish best served with cold cuts.  Malaprop
• Revenge is sweet and not fattening. Alfred Hitchcock
• The First Wives Club had strong American values: divorce, alcoholism, plastic surgery and revenge. Bette Midler
• There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness. Josh Billings
• There’s nothing wrong with revenge – it’s the best way to get even.  Archie Bunker
• Two wrongs dont make it right but….it makes it even! Alex Biggs
• Violin: the revenge extracted by the intestines of a dead cat.
• We should forgive our enemies, but not before they are hanged. Heinrich Heine
• Well, remember what you said, because in a day or two, I’ll have a witty and blistering retort! You’ll be devastated THEN! Calvin & Hobbes
• When a man steals your wife, there is no better revenge than to let him keep her.  Sacha Guitry
• You are not permitted to kill a woman who has injured you, but nothing forbids you to reflect that she is growing older every minute. You are avenged 1440 times a day. Ambrose Bierce

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