Cruelty is indifference to suffering, and even pleasure in inflicting it. If this habit is supported by a legal or social framework, then it receives the name of perversion. Sadism can also be related to this form of action or concept.
Cruel ways of inflicting suffering may involve violence, but affirmative violence is not necessary for an act to be cruel. For example, if a person is drowning and begging for help, and another person is able to help, but merely watches with disinterest or perhaps mischievous amusement, that person is being cruel — rather than violent.
Read more about Cruelty: Usage in Law
Famous quotes containing the word cruelty:
“Cruelty is, perhaps, the worst kid of sin. Intellectual cruelty is certainly the worst kind of cruelty.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“I remember the almost daily talks of my mother on the cruelty of slavery. I would say nothing to her, but I was thinking all the time that slavery did not seem so cruel. Master and Mistress Jennings were not mean to my mother. It was she who was mean to them.”
—Cornelia (1844–?)
“It is cruelty to children to keep five-year-olds sitting still, gazing into vacancy even for one hour at a time. We have little idea of the torture we thus inflict.”
—Ellen Henrietta Swallow Richards (1842–1911)