…there are some guys who can return good for evil

Every brave man will think so. He will not want to live by passing on the wrath. A hit B? B hit C?—we have not enough alphabet to cover the condition. A brave man will try to make the evil stop with him. He shall keep the blow. No man shall get it from him, and that is a sublime ambition. So, a fellow throws himself in the sea of blows saying he do not believe it is infinite. In this way many courageous people have died. But an even larger number who had more of impatience than bravery. Who have said, ‘Enough of the burden of wrath. I cannot bear my neck should be unfree. I cannot eat more of this mess of fear-pottage.’

From page 214 (Penguin Classic Paperback) of Henderson the Rain King by Saul Bellow. That line seems to be often quoted, despite the preceding paragraph stating the hubris of it.

Preceding that is the statement of the human condition of continuity (not violence in and of itself):

Brother raises hand against brother and son against father (how terrible!) and the father also against son. And moreover it is a continuity-matter, for if the father did not strike the son, they would not be alike. It is done to perpetuate similarity.