A prisoner in the Inquisition is never allowed to see the face of his accuser, or of the witnesses against him, but every method is taken by threats and tortures, to oblige him to accuse himself, and by that means corroborate their evidence.
John Foxe

Amnesty International continues to report that extra judicial tortures and murders continue. This is not democracy that we are exporting to Mexico, and this is certainly not what the Mexican workers signed up for.
Stephen F. Lynch

Everything is vain and tortures the spirit instead of calming and satisfying it.
Johann G. Hamann

From the heart of the fountain of delight rises a jet of bitterness that tortures us among the very flowers.
Lucretius

I don't believe in an afterlife, so I don't have to spend my whole life fearing hell, or fearing heaven even more. For whatever the tortures of hell, I think the boredom of heaven would be even worse.
Isaac Asimov

Proof is an idol before whom the pure mathematician tortures himself.
Arthur Eddington

Reality is never as bad as a nightmare, as the mental tortures we inflict on ourselves.
Sammy Davis, Jr.

The Founding Fathers in their wisdom decided that children were an unnatural strain on parents. So they provided jails called schools, equipped with tortures called an education.
John Updike

The tortures of present death disturb him not, but the recollection of his fall, fills him with a holy sorrow.
John Strachan

To attempt the destruction of our passions is the height of folly. What a noble aim is that of the zealot who tortures himself like a madman in order to desire nothing, love nothing, feel nothing, and who, if he succeeded, would end up a complete monster!
Denis Diderot