Destructive Quotes - Page 14

• A lot of my characters in all of my books have a self-destructive urge. They'll do precisely the thing that they know is wrong, take a perverse delight in doing the wrong thing.

  Richard Russo

  Book, Character, Self

  FaceBook post by Richard Russo from May 29, 2011

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• I'm amazed that I can sit down, put a guitar in my hands and start playing kind of free style, and it will be four hours later and it will feel like it's been five minutes. I think that adds depth to your being, when something in your life can do that for you. Everybody should try to find something in their life that can do that for them. People find really elaborate self-destructive ways of killing time on this planet. That's why they take drugs or drink, trying to alter their state of being. If you can find something that doesn't destroy you, but deepens your character, you're really lucky.

  John Rzeznik

  Character, Thinking, Guitar

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• Faith in anything, be it positive or negative, produces results. Putting faith in fear generates destructive results, beginning with the disintegration of our ability to relate confidently to the external world.

  Caroline Myss

  Negative, World, Results

  Caroline Myss (2013). “Anatomy of the Spirit: The Seven Stages of Power and Healing”, p.138, Harmony

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• There emanates from superlatives a destructive force.

  Elias Canetti

  Force, Superlatives, Emanate

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• The Internet provides very serious challenges to our ability to keep from children the kinds of things that are destructive to them

  John Ashcroft

  Children, Challenges, Serious

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• I'm a very emotional person, a person of real extremes, and that's often destructive both to myself and others.

  Freddie Mercury

  Real, Emotional, Extremes

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• I was so obsessed and consumed with my grievances that I could not get away from myself and think things out in the light. I was in the grip of that blinding, destructive, terrible thing -- righteous indignation.

  Anzia Yezierska

  Thinking, Light, Obsessed

  Anzia Yezierska (2014). “Hungry Hearts: Stories of the Jewish-American Immigrant Experience”, p.139, Courier Corporation

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• Guilt is just as powerful, but its influence is positive, while shame's is destructive. Shame erodes our courage and fuels disengagement.

  Brené Brown

  Powerful, Guilt, Fuel

  "Brené Brown: 'People are sick of being afraid all the time'" by John-Paul Flintoff, www.theguardian.com. July 27, 2013.

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• There are, and always have been, destructive pseudo-scientific notions linked to race and religion; these are the most widespread and damaging. Hopefully, educated people can succeed in shedding light into these areas of prejudice and ignorance, for as Voltaire once said: "Men will commit atrocities as long as they believe absurdities."

  Martin Gardner

  Believe, Ignorance, Men

  "Exclusive Interview with Martin Gardner". Interview with Bernard Sussman, "Southwind" (Miami-Dade Junior College), Volume 3, No. 1, Fall 1968.

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• We, the elders, have been patiently waiting until the last moment before quantum transformation. The destructive one-fourth must be eliminated from the social body.

  Barbara Marx Hubbard

  Waiting, Body, Lasts

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• This act is as horrible as killing a cancer cell. It must be done for the sake of the future of the whole. So be it: be prepared for the selection process which is now beginning. We, the elders, have been patiently waiting until the very last moment before the quantum transformation, to take action to cut out this corrupted and corrupting element in the body of humanity. It is like watching a cancer grow; something must be done before the whole body is destroyed... The destructive one fourth must be eliminated from the social body.

  Barbara Marx Hubbard

  Cancer, Cutting, Cells

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• The destructive one-fourth must be eliminated from the social body.

  Barbara Marx Hubbard

  Eugenics, Population, Body

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• It is an art in itself to compose a starting team, finding the balance between creative players and those with destructive powers, and between defence, construction and attack – never forgetting the quality of the opposition and the specific pressures of each match.

  Rinus Michels

  Art, Team, Player

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• Sometimes seeming happy can be self-destructive even when you're sane.

  Brandi Carlile

  Self, Sometimes, Sane

  Song: My Song, Album: The Story, 2007

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• Bill Clinton is like a lot of white politicians. They eat soul food, they party with black women, they play the saxophone, but when it comes to domestic and foreign policy, they make the same decisions that are destructive to African people in this country and throughout the world.

  Sister Souljah

  Country, Party, Play

  "Today", June 16, 1992.

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• Currency warfare is the most destructive form of economic warfare.

  Harry Dexter White

  Political, Warfare, Politics

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• The United States military is now evolving geometrically as it gains experience from near-constant fighting and grafts new technology daily. Indeed, it seems to be doubling, tripling, and even quadrupling its lethality every few years. And the result is that we are outdistancing not merely the capabilities of our enemies but our allies as well - many of whom who have not fought in decades - at such a dizzying pace that our sheer destructive power makes it hard to work with others in joint operations.

  Victor Davis Hanson

  Military, Fighting, Technology

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• You spend hours alone, only with your thoughts, and you torture yourself. It's a tendency of many writers to temper the self-destructive act of writing with other self-destructive acts. I certainly was one of those people for a long time.

  Ben Gibbard

  Writing, Self, Long

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• Gambling is not as destructive as war or as boring as pornography. It is not as immoral as business or as suicidal as watching television. And the percentages are better than religion.

  Mario Puzo

  War, Suicidal, Gambling

  Mario Puzo (1977). “Inside Las Vegas”

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• The belief in the probability of death with dignity is our, and society’s, attempt to deal with the reality of what is all too frequently a series of destructive events that involve by their very nature the disintegration of the dying person’s humanity. I have not often seen much dignity in the process by which we die.

  Sherwin B. Nuland

  Reality, Humanity, Dying

  Sherwin B. Nuland (1994). “How We Die”, Vintage

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• People who avoid all criticism fail. It's destructive criticism we need to avoid, not criticism in all forms.

  Tim Ferriss

  People, Criticism, Needs

  "The 4-Hour Workweek". Book by Tim Ferriss, 2007.

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• Our age is one of transition, in which the normal channels for utilizing the daimonic are denied; and such ages tend to be times when the daimonic is expressed in its most destructive form.

  Rollo May

  Age, Normal, Transition

  Rollo May (1969). “Love and will”

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• The destructive impact of psychiatry upon our civilization has been given far too little attention, and the role of psychiatry in Nazi Germany almost no attention. It is entirely possible that without psychiatry the holocaust could never have taken place.

  Peter Breggin

  Taken, Impact, Civilization

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• I try to write about real women, real people - in other words flawed characters. I find flawed characters much more interesting than perfect ones and enjoy the challenge of making readers root for them in spite of their unsympathetic path and destructive choices. Life is about the gray areas. Things are seldom black and white, even when we wish they were and think they should be, and I like exploring this nuanced terrain.

  Emily Giffin

  Real, Writing, Character

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• Christianity was created by some decadent and degenerated Romans as a tool of oppression, in the late Roman era, and it should be treated accordingly. It is like handcuffs to the mind and spirit and is nothing but destructive to mankind. In fact I don't really see Christianity as a religion. It is more like a spiritual plague, a mass psychosis, and it should first and foremost be treated as a problem to be solved by the medical science. Christianity is a diagnosis. It's like Islam and the other Asian religions, a HIV/AIDS of the spirit and mind.

  Varg Vikernes

  Spiritual, Psychosis, Mind

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