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Destruction Quotes

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Destruction Quotes

“People think that a liar gains a victory over his victim. What I’ve learned is that a lie is an act of self-abdication, because one surrenders one’s reality to the person to whom one lies, making that person one’s master, condemning oneself from then on to faking the sort of reality that person’s view requires to be faked…The man who lies to the world, is the world’s slave from then on…There are no white lies, there is only the blackest of destruction, and a white lie is the blackest of all.”

PeopleThinkingMenWorldPersonsSelfRealityTruthLyingWhiteViewsMastersVictoryGainsDestructionVictimSlaveOneselfSurrenderI've LearnedLiarsCondemningWhite LieLies And LiarsAbdication
Book:Atlas Shrugged
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“She wanted to leave, she wanted to lie alone face down on her bed and savor the vile piquancy of the moment, and go back down the lines of branching consequences to the point before the destruction began. She needed to contemplate with eyes closed the full richness of what she had lost, what she had given away, and to anticipate the new regime.”

MomentsEyeWantedFacesLyingLostGivenLinesNeededBedConsequenceDestructionRegimesContemplatingRichnessAnticipate
Book:Atonement
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“My fear of life is necessary to me, as is my illness. Without anxiety and illness, I am a ship without a rudder. My art is grounded in reflections over being different from others. My sufferings are part of my self and my art. They are indistinguishable from me, and their destruction would destroy my art. I want to keep those sufferings”

WantArtDifferentSelfLife IsSufferingAnxietyReflectionArt IsDestructionIllnessShipsGroundedBeing DifferentFears Of LifeRudders
Author:Edvard Munch
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“The so-called consumer society and the politics of corporate capitalism have created a second nature of man which ties him libidinally and aggressively to the commodity form. The need for possessing, consuming, handling and constantly renewing the gadgets, devices, instruments, engines, offered to and imposed upon the people, for using these wares even at the danger of one’s own destruction, has become a “biological” need.”

PeopleMenNeedsFormDangerCapitalismDestructionInstrumentsConsumersCorporateTiesDevicesEnginesCommodityConsumingPossessingGadgetsNature Of Man
Book:An Essay on Liberation
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“You are the most dangerous kind of female the world can ever know. You carry the seeds for your own destruction and the destruction of everyone who loves you. And a great many will love you for your beautiful face for your seductive body; but you will fail them all because you will believe they all fail you first. You are an idealist of the worst kind - the romantic idealist. Born to destroy and self destruct.”

KnowsWorldFirstsBelieveKindSelfBodyBeautifulFacesBornFailingWorstLove YouDangerousFemaleDestructionSeedsSeductiveIdealistYour BeautifulSelf DestructBeautiful Face
Author:Virginia C. Andrews
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“The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction.”

RealityEarthUniverseNatureAttentionWonderEnvironmentFocusSeaTasteOceanDestructionEnvironmentalAweSustainabilityEcologyConservationOur EnvironmentWildlifeSustainable DevelopmentZoosEnvironmentalistEnvironmental ProtectionNature And EnvironmentEarth And NatureNature ConservationGreen LivingSave The EnvironmentSilent SpringPanaceaWildlife ConservationSave NatureAnimals In NatureNature And AnimalsWonder Of The WorldEnvironmental HistoryWonder Of NatureEnvironmental SustainabilityWildlife AnimalsAnimal ConservationWildlife And NatureSaving AnimalsDeep EcologyDestruction Of NatureEnvironmental Destruction
Book:Silent Spring
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“Everyone carries a part of society on his shoulders; no one is relieved of his share of responsibility by others. And no one can find a safe way out for himself if society is sweeping toward destruction. Therefore, everyone, in his own interests, must thrust himself vigorously into the intellectual battle. None can stand aside with unconcern; the interest of everyone hangs on the result. Whether he chooses or not, every man is drawn into the great historical struggle, the decisive battle into which our epoch has plunged us.”

IfsMenWayInterestResultsResponsibilityStruggleShareBattleSafeIntellectualDestructionHistoricalLibertarianEvery ManShouldersCarrieThrustRelievedSweepingEpochGreat LibertarianGreat Historical
Book:Planning for freedom, and twelve other essays and addresses
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“The Second Rule is that the greatest harm can result from the best intentions. It sounds a paradox, but kindness and good intentions can be an insidious path to destruction. Sometimes doing what seems right is wrong, and can cause harm. The only counter to it is knowledge, wisdom, forethought, and understanding the First Rule. Even then, that is not always enough.”

FirstsSometimesEnoughSeemsCausesUnderstandingSoundResultsKindnessPathDestructionIntentionHarmParadoxGood IntentionsInsidiousKnowledge WisdomBest IntentionsForethought
Author:Terry Goodkind
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“There are a dozen different ways of delivering destruction in impersonal wholesale, via ships or missiles of one sort or another, catastrophes so widespread, so unselective that the war is over because that nation or planet has ceased to exist. What we do is entirely different. We make war as personal as a punch in the nose. We can be selective, applying precisely the required amount of pressure at the specified point at a designated time. We've never been told to go down and kill or capture all left-handed redheads in a particular area, but if they tell us to, we can. We will.”

IfsWayDifferentWarLeftNationsParticularPlanetsAmountAreasDestructionPressureDown AndShipsNosesDifferent WaysCaptureDozenCatastropheMissilesDeliveringSelectiveWholesaleLeft Handed
Author:Robert A. Heinlein
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“I was taught that candles are like house cats - domesticated versions of something wild and dangerous. There's no way to know how much of that killer instinct lurks in the darkness. I used to think the house-burning paranoia was the result of some upper-middle-class fear regarding the potential destruction of a half-million-dollar Westchester house the size of a matchbox. But then I realized the fear stemmed from something far less complex: we're not used to fire. Candles are a staple of the Judaic existence and, like many suburban residents before us, we're pretty bad Jews.”

ThinkingKnowsWayUsedHouseResultsExistenceHalfClassMillionsDarknessKnow HowFireMiddleDangerousTaughtCatDestructionDollarsInstinctComplexesSizeJewI RealizedVersionsBurningMiddle ClassCandleKillersMillion DollarsParanoiaResidentsStaplesUpper Middle ClassKiller InstinctMatchboxes
Book:I Was Told There'd Be Cake
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“Your reason and your passion are your rudder and sails of your seafaring soul, if either your sails or your rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas. For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction.”

IfsSoulReasonSpiritualPassionForceSeaBrokenDestructionFlamesSailRulingTossRuddersStandstillOne Tree Hill VoiceoverRuling Passion
Author:Khalil Gibran
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“I believe until fairly recently our destructions of nature were more or less unwitting -- the by-products, so to speak, of our ignorance or weakness or depravity. It is our present principled and elaborately rationalized rape and plunder of the natural world that is a new thing under the sun.”

WorldBelieveSpeakI BelieveNaturalSunIgnoranceProductsWeaknessDestructionNew ThingsNatural WorldDepravityPlunderPrincipledDestruction Of Nature
Book:What Matters?: Economics for a Renewed Commonwealth
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“The Wickans know that the gift of power is never free. They know enough not to envy the chosen among them, for power is never a game, nor are glittering standards raised to glory and wealth. They disguise nothing in trappings, and so we all see what we'd rather not, that power is cruel, hard as iron and bone, and thrives on destruction. ~ Deadhouse Gates”

KnowsHardEnoughGamesWealthGloryStandardsDestructionRaisedBonesEnvyChosenThriveIronGatesDisguise
Author:Steven Erikson
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“I knelt and prayed, and the strongest truth came over me. Didn't matter if God in his heaven was a Catholic or a Protestant God, or the God of the Hindus. What mattered was something deeper and older and more powerful than any such image - it was a concept of goodness based upon the affirmation of life, the turning away from destruction, from the perverse, from man using and abusing man. It was the affirmation of the human and the natural.”

IfsMenHumansMatterHeavenNaturalPowerfulGoodnessConceptsDestructionCatholicDeeperStrongestAffirmationProtestants
Author:Anne Rice
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“Economic power is exercised by means of a positive, by offering men a reward, an incentive, a payment, a value; political power is exercised by means of a negative, by the threat of punishment, injury, imprisonment, destruction. The businessman's tool is values; the bureaucrat's tool is fear.”

MenMeanPoliticalValuesLibertyEconomicCapitalismNegativeEconomicsToolsDestructionThreatRewardsPunishmentInjuryOfferingBusinessmanIncentivesPaymentPolitical PowerBureaucratsImprisonmentEconomic Power
Book:The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z
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“He loved the extensive vaults where you could hear the night birds and the sea breeze; he loved the craggy ruins bound together by ivy, those dark halls, and any appearance of death and destruction. Having fallen so far from so high a position, he loved anything that had also fallen from a great height”

TogetherNightDarkSeaPositionBirdDestructionBoundsAppearanceRuinsHeightFallenHallsBreezeIvyVaultsGreat HeightsSea Breeze
Book:Early Writings
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“By eating meat we share responsibility for causing climate change, the destruction of our forests, and the poisoning of our air and water. The simple act of becoming a vegetarian can make a difference in the health of our planet.”

PeaceWaterDifferencesSimpleResponsibilityAirSharePlanetsBecomingEatingDestructionClimateClimate ChangeForestsBuddhistMeatMaking A DifferenceVegetarianVeganOur PlanetPoisoningVegetarian HealthPeace Is Every StepEating MeatMeat EatingAir And Water
Author:Nhat Hanh
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“The most spiritual men, as the strongest, find their happiness where others would find their destruction: in the labyrinth, in hardness against themselves and others, in experiments. Their joy is self-conquest: asceticism becomes in them nature, need, and instinct. Difficult tasks are a privilege to them; to play with burdens that crush others, a recreation. Knowledge-a form of asceticism. They are the most venerable kind of man: that does not preclude their being the most cheerful and the kindliest.”

MenNeedsKindDoeSelfPlaySpiritualFormJoyDifficultTasksDestructionInstinctPrivilegeBurdenExperimentsCrushStrongestCheerfulConquestRecreationLabyrinthAsceticismHardnessDifficult Tasks
Book:The Portable Nietzsche
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“... suffering does not ennoble. It destroys. To resist destruction, self-hatred, or lifelong hopelessness, we have to throw off the conditioning of being despised, the fear of becoming the they that is talked about so dismissively, to refuse lying myths and easy moralities, to see ourselves as human, flawed, and extraordinary. All of us extraordinary”

HumansDoeSelfLyingSufferingEasyBecomingMoralityDestructionHatredExtraordinaryRefuseMythHopelessnessFlawedLifelongConditioningDespisedSelf Hatred
Book:Skin: Talking About Sex, Class, and Literature
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“Happiness is a state of non-contradictory joy--a joy without penalty or guilt, a joy that does not clash with any of your values and does not work for your own destruction, not the joy of escaping from your mind, but of using your mind's fullest power, not the joy of faking reality, but of achieving values that are real, not the joy of a drunkard, but of a producer.”

MindDoeRealStatesRealityHappinessJoyValuesAchieveDestructionGuiltInner PeaceProducersPenaltiesContradictoryClashEscapingDrunkards
Book:The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z
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“From whence shall we expect the approach of danger? Shall some trans-Atlantic military giant step the earth and crush us at a blow? Never. All the armies of Europe and Asia...could not by force take a drink from the Ohio River or make a track on the Blue Ridge in the trial of a thousand years. No, if destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men we will live forever or die by suicide.”

IfsMenYearsEarthDiesForceNationsStepsForeverMilitaryDangerDrinkThousandApproachEuropeRiversDestructionArmyBlueSuicideTrackBlowTrialsGiantsCrushThousand YearsAsiaTransFree ManLive ForeverOhioRidgesSecessionFinishers
Author:Abraham Lincoln
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“At the moment our human world is based on the suffering and destruction of millions of non-humans. To perceive this and to do something to change it in personal and public ways is to undergo a change of perception akin to a religious conversion. Nothing can ever be seen in quite the same way again because once you have admitted the terror and pain of other species you will, unless you resist conversion, be always aware of the endless permutations of suffering that support our society.”

WorldWayHumansMomentsPainSufferingReligiousMillionsSupportPerceptionDestructionSpeciesTerrorConversionEndlessPerceiveOur SocietyVeganAnimal RightsAnimal WorldFactory FarmingAnimal Suffering
Author:Arthur Conan Doyle
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“I hate solitude but I am afraid of intimacy. The substance of my life is a private conversation with myself and to turn it into a dialogue would be equivalent to self-destruction. The company I need is the company which a pub or a cafe will provide. I have never wanted a communion of souls.”

NeedsSoulSelfHardEnoughWould BeWantedLife IsHateTurnsCompanySolitudeConversationDestructionI HateOneselfDialogueIntimacySubstanceTelling The TruthCommunionSelf DestructionPubsCafes
Author:Iris Murdoch
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“Abraham Zogoiby covered his face that night in August 1939 because he had been assailed by fear, [...] a sudden apprehension that the ugliness of life might defeat its beauty; that love did not make lovers invulnerable. Nevertheless, he thought, even if the world's beauty and love were on the edge of destruction, theirs would still be the only side to be on; defeated love would still be love, hate's victory would not make it other than it was.”

IfsWorldStillsMightFacesNightHateSidesLoversVictoryDestructionAnd LoveDefeatEdgesCoveredNeverthelessDefeatedUglinessAbrahamAugustLove HateApprehensionBeauty And Love
Author:Salman Rushdie
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