Collapse Quotes

• If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.

  E. O. Wilson

  Science, Years, Environmental

  152 Copy quote

• The banking collapse was caused, more than anything, by bad government policy and the total failure of bad regulation, rather than by greed.

  Nigel Farage

  Government, Greed, Banking

  "Occupy movement: critics have their say" by Nigel Farage, James Barty, Dan Hodges, www.theguardian.com. November 16, 2011.

  70 Copy quote

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• The New Deal is plainly an attempt to achieve a working socialism and avert a social collapse in America; it is extraordinarily parallel to the successive 'policies' and 'Plans' of the Russian experiment. Americans shirk the word 'socialism', but what else can one call it?

  H. G. Wells

  World Government, Order, Nwo

  H. G. Wells (2007). “The New World Order”, p.46, Filiquarian Publishing, LLC.

  87 Copy quote

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• Every wave, regardless of how high and forceful it crests, must eventually collapse within itself.

  Stefan Zweig

  Wave

  25 Copy quote

• Living systems are never in equilibrium. They are inherently unstable. They may seem stable, but they’re not. Everything is moving and changing. In a sense, everything is on the edge of collapse.

  Michael Crichton

  Moving, Jurassic Park, May

  Michael Crichton (1997). “Michael Crichton's Jurassic World”, Alfred a Knopf Incorporated

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• I speak of a clinical depression that is the background of your entire life, a background of anguish and anxiety, a sense that nothing goes well, that pleasure is unavailable and all your strategies collapse.

  Leonard Cohen

  Anxiety, Speak, Strategy

  "Leonard Cohen: 'All I've got to put in a song is my own experience'" by Dorian Lynskey, www.theguardian.com. January 19, 2012.

  41 Copy quote

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• All enterprises that are entered into with indiscreet zeal may be pursued with great vigor at first, but are sure to collapse in the end.

  Tacitus

  Vigor, May, Firsts

  9 Copy quote

• If you're overfishing at the top of the food chain, and acidifying the ocean at the bottom, you're creating a squeeze that could conceivably collapse the whole system.

  Carl Safina

  Ocean, Science, Creating

  92 Copy quote

• You know, we all have our inner demons. I, for one - I can't speak for you, but I'm on the verge of moral collapse at any time. It can happen by the end of the show.

  Glenn Beck

  Inner Demons, Moral, Speak

  "Glenn Beck Program", November 6, 2006.

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• Censorship is saying: "I'm the one who says the last sentence. Whatever you say, the conclusion is mine." But the internet is like a tree that is growing. The people will always have the last word – even if someone has a very weak, quiet voice. Such power will collapse because of a whisper.

  Ai Weiwei

  Quiet Voice, People, Tree

  "China's censorship can never defeat the internet" by Ai Weiwei, www.theguardian.com. April 15, 2012.

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• Your home is regarded as a model home, your life as a model life. But all this splendor, and you along with it... it's just as though it were built upon a shifting quagmire. A moment may come, a word can be spoken, and both you and all this splendor will collapse.

  Henrik Ibsen

  Home, Quagmire, May

  Henrik Ibsen (1961). “The Oxford Ibsen: Pillars of society. A doll's house. Ghosts”

  20 Copy quote

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• I confidently predict the collapse of capitalism and the beginning of history. Something will go wrong in the machinery that converts money into money, the banking system will collapse totally, and we will be left having to barter to stay alive. Those who can dig in their garden will have a better chance than the rest. I'll be all right; I've got a few veg.

  Margaret Drabble

  Garden, Banking, Alive

  The Guardian, January 2, 1993.

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• America cannot continue to lead the family of nations around the world if we suffer the collapse of the family here at home.

  Mitt Romney

  Family, Leadership, Home

  "Romney kicks off White House bid". edition.cnn.com. February 13, 2007.

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• With the advent of genetic engineering the time required for the evolution of new species may literally collapse.

  Dee Hock

  Engineering, May, Evolution

  27 Copy quote

• Gladio had been necessary during the days of the Cold War but, in view of the collapse of the East Block, Italy would suggest to Nato that the organisation was no longer necessary.

  Giulio Andreotti

  Block, War, Views

  8 Copy quote

• I've been in on the beginning, the rise, peak, collapse and end of the talking picture.

  Joseph L. Mankiewicz

  Talking, Ends

  Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Brian Dauth (2008). “Joseph L. Mankiewicz: Interviews”, p.160, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• You get in before sunrise and you get out after sunset and you go home, eat and collapse. While you're aware of the ratings, you aren't prepared for the response of the fans.

  Parker Stevenson

  Sunset, Home, Sunrise

  16 Copy quote

• The left dismisses talk about the collapse of family life and talks instead about the emergence of the growing new diversity of family types.

  Christopher Lasch

  Family, Hunting, Diversity

  9 Copy quote

• When a place gets crowded enough to require ID's, social collapse is not far away. It is time to go elsewhere. The best thing about space travel is that it made it possible to go elsewhere.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Travel, Space, Far Away

  Robert A. Heinlein (1987). “Time Enough for Love”, p.228, Penguin

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• Truth is the greatest of all national possessions. A state, a people, a system which suppresses the truth or fears to publish it, deserves to collapse.

  Kurt Eisner

  People, Truth Is, States

  9 Copy quote

• We may get to the point where the only way of saving the world will be for industrial civilization to collapse.

  Maurice Strong

  Civilization, World, Saving

  National Review magazine, September 1, 1997.

  34 Copy quote

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• The only hope is that our civilization will collapse at a certain point, as always happens in history. Then, out of barbarity, a renaissance.

  Pierre Schaeffer

  Civilization, Renaissance, Certain

  45 Copy quote

• The ecosystem of our world is a closed system: it would run out of gas, collapse of its own weight.

  Joan D. Vinge

  Running, Ecosystems, Our World

  24 Copy quote

• I think money is due for some sort of collapse. People are going to realize that money has a half-life, like radioactive elements.

  Douglas Coupland

  Thinking, People, Elements

  8 Copy quote

• The collapse of Enron was devastating to tens of thousands of people and shook the public's confidence in corporate America.

  Robert Mueller

  Confidence, America, People

  90 Copy quote