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Destructiveness Quotes

Browse 52 quotes about Destructiveness.

Destructiveness Quotes

“What if the heart, for its own unfathomable reasons, leads one willfully and in a cloud of unspeakable radiance away from health, domesticity, civic responsibility and strong social connections and all the blandly-held common virtues and instead straight toward a beautiful flare of ruin, self-immolation, disaster?…If your deepest self is singing and coaxing you straight toward the bonfire, is it better to turn away? Stop your ears with wax? Ignore all the perverse glory your heart is screaming at you? Set yourself on the course that will lead you dutifully towards the norm, reasonable hours and regular medical check-ups, stable relationships and steady career advancement the New York Times and brunch on Sunday, all with the promise of being somehow a better person? Or…is it better to throw yourself head first and laughing into the holy rage calling your name?”

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Book:The Goldfinch
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“When I was a young man and very well thought of, I couldn't ask aught that the ladies denied. I nibbled their hearts like a handful of raisins, And I never spoke love but I knew that I lied. But I said to myself, 'Ah, they none of them know The secret I shelter and savor and save I wait for the one who will see through my seeming, And I'll know when I love by the way I behave.' The years drifted over like clouds in the heavens; The ladies went by me like snow on the wind. I charmed and I cheated, deceived and dissembled, And I sinned, and I sinned, and I sinned, and I sinned. But I said to myself, 'Ah, they none of them see There's part of me pure as the whisk of a wave. My lady is late but she'll find I've been faithful, And I'll know when I love by the way I behave.' At last came a lady both knowing and tender, Saying, 'you're not at all what they take you to be.' I betrayed her before she had quite finished speaking, And she swallowed cold poison and jumped in the sea. And I say to myself when there's time for a word, As I gracefully grow more debauched and depraved, 'Ah, love may be strong, but a habit is stronger And I knew when I loved by the way I behaved.”

SinHabitLamentViceDebaucheryDestructiveness
Book:The Last Unicorn
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“The natural tendency of man is war. The world is dominated by patriarchy, capitalism and war. Man hankers for any excuse to fight, to destroy and to be destructive. If he cannot find a real excuse, he will invent an excuse, because he cannot live without war. In modern times, there has been a war every 5-10 years. And what has man achieved? What has man achieved through all this violence, bloodshed and destructivity? The whole past of man has been pathological, and the reason is that we go on listening to the mind. The mind has grown out of man's animal heritage. Man is part of evolution. Man may be the highest animal, but he is still an animal. And through the evolution, the mind has become conditioned to function in a particular way. The mind knows only how to fight. The mind knows only the way of violence. Unless man learns how to go beyond the mind, he will never become truly human. Then he will remain an animal. To be truly human, man has to stop the way of fight, violence, destructivity and war. He has to move beyond the animal in him, and for the first time reach for the human. The human has tremendous potential for love, joy, silence, intelligence and beauty, The human is also the beginning of the divine. But the first step is to get rid of the animal heritage.”

WarViolenceCapitalismAnimalsPatriarchyDestructiveness
Book:Man is Part of the Whole: Silence, Love, Joy, Truth, Compassion, Freedom and Grace
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“As the generations pass they grow worse. A time will come when they have grown so wicked that they will worship power; might will be right to them and reverence for the good will cease to be. At last, when no man is angry any more at wrongdoing or feels shame in the presence of the miserable, Zeus will destroy them too. And yet even then something might be done, if only the common people would rise and put down rulers that oppress them.”

MythsDestructivenessGreek MythsErich Fromm
Author:Greek myth on the Iron Age
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“I am trying to understand what it means to own a thing, especially a wild and living being. To have exclusive rights to its fate? To dispose of it at will? To deny others it’s use? Ownership seems a uniquely human behavior, a social contract validating the desire for purposeless possession and control. To destroy a wild thing for pride seems a potent act of domination. Wildness cannot be collected and still remain wild. Its nature is lost the moment it is separated from its origins. By the very act of owning, the thing becomes an object, no longer itself.”

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Book:Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses
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“Though no participator in the joy of more vehement sport, I have a pleasure that I cannot reconcile to my abstract notions of the tenderness due to dumb creatures in the tranquil cruelty of angling. I can only palliate the wanton destructiveness of my amusement by trying to assure myself that my pleasure does not spring from the success of the treachery I practise toward a poor little fish, but rather from that innocent revelry in the luxuriance of summer life which only anglers enjoy to the utmost.”

TryingLittlesDoeI CanJoySportsEnjoyPleasurePoorCreaturesSummerSpringNotionFishesDuesInnocentCrueltyDumbAbstractTendernessAmusementReconcileTranquilTreacheryPractiseAnglingWantonAnglersDestructivenessVehementRevelry
Author:Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
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“In this hope, among the things we teach to the young are such truths as the transcendent value of the individual and the dignity of all people, the futility and stupidity of war, its destructiveness of life and its degradation of human values.”

PeopleHumansWarYoungValuesIndividualTeachDignityStupidityDefenseDegradationTranscendentFutilityHuman ValuesDestructiveness
Book:Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1960-1961
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“Madame Bovary is one my favorite novels. Emma Bovary will always be an enigma, but as the years pass, I feel that I understand her better. She has a violent nostalgia, almost an infantile nostalgia, to be understood by the men surrounding her. I like her relentless fight for independence, her rebellion against the mediocre, and her quest for the sublime, even if she burns her wigs in the process. I like that Flaubert never judges her morally for her self-destructiveness, for her desperate attempt to satisfy her wildest desires and appetites.”

IfsMenFeelsYearsSelfDesireFightingProcessNovelHe ManJudgingUnderstoodIndependenceMy FavoriteNostalgiaViolentDesperateRebellionAppetiteQuestsSublimeMediocreRelentlessLike HerEmmaWigsEnigmaInfantileDestructiveness
Author:Sophie Barthes
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“Nurture your felt love for nature. Never deny it. That love is the eons, the purifying intelligence, beauty and diversity of nature sustaining us in its perfection. Our disconnection from this love and its advice produces our hurt, greed and destructiveness. We must reconnect and restore its peaceful voice in our thoughts, soul and surroundings.”

SoulFeltVoiceHurtLove IsAdviceProduceDiversityPerfectionGreedDenyPeacefulNurtureOur ThoughtsSurroundingsSustainingPurifyingDisconnectionDestructiveness
Author:Michael J Cohen
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“Once we begin to appreciate that the apparent destructiveness of the toddler in taking apart a flower or knocking down sand castles is in fact a constructive effort to understand unity, we are able to revise our view of the situation, moving from reprimand and prohibition to the intelligent channeling of his efforts and the fostering of discovery.”

FactsAbleMovingViewsEffortSituationFlowerDisciplineDiscoveryAppreciateIntelligentUnitySandCastlesConstructiveProhibitionKnockingChannelingToddlerFosteringDestructivenessSand Castle
Book:Whole child, whole parent
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“The Bush administration has now provided three case studies in arrogance, isolation and destructiveness: Michael Brown during Hurricane Katrina, Ambassador Jerry Bremer in Baghdad and Secretary Paulson at Treasury. It is a tragic and very expensive legacy. No conservative and no Republican should doubt how much it has hurt our cause and our party.”

ShouldThreeCausesHurtPartyCasesStudyDoubtRepublicanConservativeAdministrationLegacyArroganceIsolationExpensiveBrownTragicSecretaryHurricanesJerryAmbassadorsTreasuryBaghdadKatrinaHurricane KatrinaDestructivenessCase Studies
Author:Newt Gingrich
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“Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.”

MenLightChoicesDecisionWalksCreativityDarknessCreativeGreatnessWords Of WisdomWalkingIntegrityCreatingDestructionCharitySelfishEvery ManAfrican AmericanGenerositySelfishnessDestructivePhilanthropyAltruismBe CreativeLight And DarknessBenevolenceEgoismPhilanthropicLight And DarkGive And TakeDarkness To LightGenerosity And KindnessKindness GenerositySelfish PeopleMan Of IntegrityKings And LoveDestructivenessGood KingsDeeds DoneSelfish MenCharity And GenerositySpiritual Darkness
Book:Strength to Love
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“Re-vision – the act of looking back, of seeing with fresh eyes, of entering an old text from a new critical direction – is for woman more than a chapter in cultural history: it is an act of survival. Until we understand the assumptions in which we are drenched we cannot know ourselves. And this drive to self-knowledge, for women, is more than a search for identity: it is part of our refusal of the self-destructiveness of male-dominated society.”

KnowsSelfEyeVisionSeeingIdentitySurvivalMalesCriticalAssumptionChaptersLooking BackSelf KnowledgeEnteringRefusalDestructivenessSearch For Identity
Author:Adrienne Rich
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“It is tempting when looking at the life of anyone who has committed suicide to read into the decision to die a vastly complex web of reasons; and, of course, such complexity is warranted. No one illness or event causes suicide; and certainly no one knows all, or perhaps even most, of the motivations behind the killing of the self. But psychopathology is almost always there, and its deadliness is fierce. Love, success, and friendship are not always enough to counter the pain and destructiveness of severe mental illness”

KnowsSelfReasonEnoughPainMotivationDiesCoursesCausesDecisionBehindsEventsSuicideComplexesKillingIllnessCommittedMental IllnessComplexityFierceSevereTemptingPsychopathologyDestructiveness
Author:Kay Redfield Jamison
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“I love her for what she has dared to be, for her hardness, her cruelty, her egoism, her perverseness, her demoniac destructiveness. She would crush me to ashes without hesitation. She is a personality created to the limit. I worship her courage to hurt, and I am willing to be sacrificed to it. She will add the sum of me to her. She will be June plus all that I contain.”

HurtWillingPersonalityLimitsWorshipAddCrueltyCrushPlusAshesJuneEgoismHesitationHardnessDestructivenessPerverseness
Author:Anais Nin
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“The fact that no limits exist to the destructiveness of this weapon [the 'Super', i.e. the hydrogen bomb] makes its very existence and the knowledge of its construction a danger to humanity as a whole. It is necessarily an evil thing considered in any light. For these reasons, we believe it important for the President of the United States to tell the American public and the world what we think is wrong on fundamental ethical principles to initiate the development of such a weapon.”

ThinkingWorldBelieveImportantStatesReasonWholeFactsLightHumanityEvilPresidentUnitedExistencePrinciplesUnited StatesDangerDevelopmentLimitsWeaponsFundamentalsBombsEthicalConstructionInitiateHydrogenEvil ThingsDestructivenessHydrogen BombEthical Principles
Author:Enrico Fermi
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“In the dark colony of night, when I consider man's magnificent capacity for malice, madness, folly, envy, rage, and destructiveness, and I wonder whether we shall not end up as breakfast for newts and polyps, I seem to hear the muffled cries of all the words in all the books with covers closed.”

MenBookEndsSeemsNightFearDarkWonderAtheismCryCapacityMadnessEnvyRageFollyBreakfastMagnificentMaliceColonyNewtsDestructiveness
Book:The return of H*y*m*a*n K*a*p*l*a*n
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“Wars between states and people seem to have existed under all historical systems for as long as we have some recorded evidence. War is quite clearly not a phenomenon particular to the modern world-system. On the other hand, once again the technological achievements of capitalist civilization serve as much ill as good. One bomb in Hiroshima killed more people than whole wars in pre-modern times. Alexander the Great in his whole sweep of the Middle East could not compare in destructiveness to the impact of the Gulf War on Iraq and Kuwait.”

PeopleWorldLongWarStatesWholeHandsSeemsModernMiddleParticularCivilizationAchievementEvidenceCapitalismImpactHistoricalIllIraqEastCompareBombsPhenomenonCapitalistMiddle EastTechnologicalModern WorldHiroshimaModern TimesGulf WarKuwaitDestructiveness
Author:Immanuel Wallerstein
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“For the other end of the spectrum, the 50 to 85 percent of the world's population who are not the recipients of privilege, the world they know is almost certainly worse than any their earlier counterparts knew. It is likely they are worse off materially, despite the technological changes. In substantive as opposed to formal terms, they are more, not less, subject to arbitrary constraints, since the central mechanisms are more pervasive and more efficient. And they bear the brunt of the various kinds of psychic malaise, as well as of the destructiveness of civil wars.”

KnowsWorldWellsKindWarEndsTermSubjectsBearsPercentCapitalismPrivilegePopulationVariousDespiteCivil WarMechanismEfficientFormalTechnologicalPsychicsArbitrarySpectrumConstraintsCounterpartsMalaiseDestructivenessTechnological Change
Author:Immanuel Wallerstein
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“For me, the entire journey of Lost has been walking that fine line between discovering Sawyer's humanity and, yet, keeping his edge of anger and destructiveness. He's been through every situation possible, emotionally and physically. Sometimes, it's been scary to get in touch with his growth, especially his relationship with Juliet. I really thought the audience might reject the softer side of Sawyer we saw in that. As for what will happen with him and Kate, all I can say is they have a love that is undeniable, but maybe it must be denied.”

Has BeensI CanSometimesMightHappensHumanityLostSidesGrowthLinesSituationAudienceSawsJourneyFineWalkingEdgesScaryRejectsDeniedDiscoveringKateJulietFine LinesSawyerDestructiveness
Author:Josh Holloway
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“Man represses the irrational passions of destructiveness, hate, envy, revenge; he worships power, money, the sovereign state, the nation; while he pays lip service to the teachings of the great spiritual leaders of the human race, those of Buddha, the prophets, Socrates, Jesus, Mohammed-he has transformed these teachings into a jungle of superstition and idol-worship. How can mankind save itself from destroying itself by this discrepancy between intellectual-technical overmaturity and emotional backwardness?”

MenHumansStatesSpiritualHatePassionJesusNationsPayRaceLeaderTeachingMankindEmotionalWorshipIntellectualLipsRevengeEnvyHuman RaceProphetDestroyingIdolsTransformedSuperstitionsIrrationalSovereignJungleSpiritual LeaderLip ServiceGreat SpiritualDiscrepanciesDestructivenessIdol WorshipDiscrepancies Between
Book:Escape from Freedom
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“It is not true that evil, destructiveness , and perversion inevitably form part of human existence, no matter how often this is maintained. But it is true that we are daily producing more evil and, with it, an ocean of suffering for millions that is absolutely avoidable. When one day the ignorance arising from childhood repression is eliminated and humanity has awakened, an end can be put to this production of evil.”

HumansEndsMatterFormSufferingHumanityEvilExistenceMillionsChildhoodIgnoranceOne DayOceanProductionsRepressionAwakenedHuman ExistencePerversionDestructiveness
Book:Banished Knowledge: Facing Childhood Injuries
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