Destructive Quotes - Page 16

• I don't think of sex as a self-destructive impulse.

  Thom Gunn

  Sex, Thinking, Self

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• We don't have to remain in this radically destructive mind-set and institutional-set. We can change, and the natural order of things could emerge in all of our societal organizations-government, commerce, religion-it's right there, waiting to happen. I often tell people that every mind is like a room in an old house, stuffed with very old furniture. Take any space in your mind and empty it of your old conceptions and new ones will rush in, good or bad. So change is more a getting rid of rather than an adding to or an acquiring.

  Dee Hock

  Change, Government, Order

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• Psychiatry is probably the single most destructive force that has affected American Society within the last fifty years.

  Thomas Szasz

  Years, Medicine, Fifty

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• Fossey, Fossey, you cranky difficult strong-arming self-destructive misanthrope, mediocre scientist, deceiver of earnest college students, probable cause of more deaths of the gorillas than if you had never set foot in Rwanda, Fossey, you pain-in-the-ass saint, I do not believe in prayers or souls, but I will pray for your soul, I will remember you for all of my days, in gratitude for that moment by the graves when all I felt was the pure, cleansing sadness of returning home and finding nothing but ghosts.

  Robert M. Sapolsky

  Gratitude, Strong, Prayer

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• In the years since man unlocked the power stored up within the atom, the world has made progress, halting, but effective, toward bringing that power under human control. The challenge may be our salvation. As we begin to master the destructive potentialities of modern science, we move toward a new era in which science can fulfill its creative promise and help bring into existence the happiest society the world has ever known.

  John F. Kennedy

  Moving, Science, Men

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• A convention on the comprehensive ban of nuclear weapons should be negotiated. Since biological and chemical weapons have been prohibited, there is no reason why nuclear weapons, which are more destructive, should not be comprehensively banned and thoroughly destroyed. All it takes to reach this objective is strong political will.

  Jiang Zemin

  Strong, Political Will, Nuclear

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• By rejecting faith in Jesus Christ, America has also rejected God's protective hand, which until recently, sheltered this nation from harm. We have invited the devil which all his diabolical and destructive power in our daily lives.

  Bill Bright

  Jesus, America, Hands

  Bill Bright, John N. Damoose (1998). “Red Sky in the Morning”

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• The three most destructive words that every man receives when he's a boy is when he's told to 'be a man'.

  Joe Ehrmann

  Boys, Men, Three

  "Redefining fatherhood: What it means to 'be a man' today" by Joy Jernigan, www.today.com. June 10, 2014.

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• Nuclear weapons are so destructive and ballistic missiles are so swift, that any substantially increased possibility of their use or any sudden change in their deployment may well be regarded as a definite threat to peace.

  John F. Kennedy

  Deployment, Weapons, Nuclear

  Cuban Missile Crisis Address to the Nation, delivered 22 October 1962

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• Everything that's bad for you catches on too quickly in America, because that's the easiest thing to get people to invest in, the pursuits that are easy and destructive, the ones that bring out the least positive aspects of people.

  Gil Scott-Heron

  America, People, Easy

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• And y'know what they decided the number one threat was? The destructive and disruptive capability of a small group. That's what they're worried about most... they're terrified of a small group with a committed goal.

  Brad Meltzer

  Fear, Numbers, Goal

  Brad Meltzer (2011). “The Inner Circle: The Culper Ring Trilogy 1”, p.291, Hachette UK

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• I was born with a great gift, and sometimes with that comes a destructive streak.

  George Best

  Sometimes, Born, Streaks

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• Destructive thoughts and emotions undermine the very causes of peace and happiness. If you think clearly about it, it makes no sense to think you’re seeking happiness, if you do nothing to restrain angry, spiteful, and malicious thoughts and emotions.

  Dalai Lama

  Thinking, Causes, Emotion

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• History has shown that a government's redistribution of shrinking wealth, in preference to a private sector's creation of new sources of it, can prove more destructive than even the most deadly enemy.

  Victor Davis Hanson

  Government, Enemy, Shrinking

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• Want to know what’s more destructive than a nuclear bomb? Words.

  Kim Jong-un

  Nuclear, Bombs, Want

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• There may have been a time when war served as a negative good by preventing the spread and growth of an evil force, but the destructive power of modern weapons eliminates even the possibility that war may serve as a negative good.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  War, Evil, Growth

  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2013). “"In a Single Garment of Destiny": A Global Vision of Justice”, p.109, Beacon Press

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• So yes I know how angry, or naive, or self-destructive, or messed up, or even deluded I sound weaving my way through these life stories at times. But beautiful things. Graceful things. Hopeful things can sometimes appear in dark places.

  Lidia Yuknavitch

  Life, Beautiful, Dark

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• This disease of being “busy” (and let’s call it what it is, the dis-ease of being busy, when we are never at ease) is spiritually destructive to our health and wellbeing. It saps our ability to be fully present with those we love the most in our families, and keeps us from forming the kind of community that we all so desperately crave.

  Omid Safi

  Community, Sap, Ease

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• The moral consequences of totalitarian propaganda...are destructive of all morals because they undermind one of the foundations of all morals: the sense of and respect for truth.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Foundation, Politics, Moral

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• You and I can profit by asking ourselves: What do I see when I look through the lens of my attitude toward myself? Am I more a critic than a friend? Do I look beyond the surface blemishes to find the truly beautiful and unique person that I am? Or do I play the destructive "comparison game"? What verdict does the juror of my mind pass on me: "good at heart" or "guilty on all counts"?

  John Powell

  Beautiful, Attitude, Heart

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• For all the unkind things said about envy, it would only be fair to acknowledge that not all envy is destructive. If envy leads us to work hard and to improve our skills, it becomes a stimulant to self-improvement. God has given us no quality that cannot be used for good.

  Sidney Greenberg

  Hard Work, Self, Skills

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• At the end of the first half-century of engine-driven flight, we are confronted with the stark fact that the historical significance of aircraft has been primarily military and destructive.

  Charles Lindbergh

  Military, Flying, Historical

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• When we are caught up in a destructive emotion, we lose one of our greatest assets: our independence.

  Dalai Lama

  Independence, Emotion, Assets

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• Even the most sadistic and destructive man is human, as human as the saint.

  Erich Fromm

  Men, Saint, Human Nature

  Erich Fromm (2013). “The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness”, p.29, Open Road Media

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• The mystic purchases a moment of exhilaration with a lifetime of confusion; and the confusion is infectious and destructive. It is confusing and destructive to try and explain anything in terms of anything else, poetry in terms of psychology.

  Basil Bunting

  Confusion, Psychology, Confusing

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