Prayer is not eloquence but earnestness.
The English can laugh and at the same time strike you down, without the least compunction. It is the secret of their success as a nation.
The child who is permitted to torment, or destroy, the minutest object in creation, who will wantonly tread upon a worm, or unhumanly pass a pin through the body of a fly, will in all probabiilty, as he increases in years, feel no more compunction at tormenting a fellow-creature, than he did in witnessing the wreathing agonies of a fly.
The beginning of compunction is the beginning of a new life.
As the cleansing ocean closes over bin Laden's carcass, may the earth lie lightly on the countless graves of those he sentenced without compunction to be burned alive or dismembered in the street.
Once you've seen certain things, the moral compunction drives you to act.