Destructive Quotes - Page 26

• Reject without regret whatever seems on reflection wrongheaded, dull, destructive, or irrelevant to your vision. It’s just as important to be able to discriminate between helpful and unhelpful criticism as it is to be able to write.

  Janet Burroway

  Regret, Writing, Reflection

  4 Copy quote

• Do not be deceived by the way men of bad faith misuse words and names … Things are set up as contraries that are not even in the same category. Listen to me: the opposite of radical is superficial, the opposite of liberal is stingy; the opposite of conservative is destructive. Thus I will describe myself as a radical conservative liberal; but certain of the tainted red fish will swear that there can be no such fish as that. Beware of those who use words to mean their opposites. At the same time have pity on them, for usually this trick is their only stock in trade.

  R. A. Lafferty

  Mean, Men, Opposites

  "The Flame is Green" by R. A. Lafferty, (Ch. 5), 1971.

  20 Copy quote

  Show source

• The opposite of liberal is stingy. The opposite of radical is superficial. The opposite of conservative is destructive. So I declare that I am a radical conservative liberal. Beware of men who use words to mean their opposites.

  R. A. Lafferty

  Mean, Men, Opposites

  11 Copy quote

• Radical changes of identity, happening suddenly and in very brief intervals of time, have proved more deadly and destructive of human values than wars fought with hardware weapons.

  Marshall McLuhan

  War, Identity, Weapons

  "Laws of Media: The New Science". Book by Marshall McLuhan, co-written with Eric McLuhan, p.97, 1988.

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Though thousands of people indulge themselves in it regularly, and even develop a taste for it, there is no doubt in my mind (and that of scientists whom I employ to prove it) that Work is a dangerous and destructive drug, and should be called by its right name, which is Fatigue.

  Robertson Davies

  Work, Names, People

  Robertson Davies (1986). “The papers of Samuel Marchbanks”, Viking, 1986

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Suffering is dysfunctional, except as a bodily warning against danger. Psychologically and socially it's merely destructive.

  Ursula K. Le Guin

  Suffering, Warning, Danger

  "The Dispossessed". Book by Ursula K. Le Guin, 1974.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• The totalitarian attempt at global conquest and total domination has been the destructive way out of all impasses. Its victory may coincide with the destruction of humanity; wherever it has ruled, it has begun to destroy the essence of man.

  Hannah Arendt

  Men, Essence, Humanity

  Hannah Arendt (1973). “The Origins of Totalitarianism”, p.8, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  23 Copy quote

  Show source

• One of the most durable and destructive legacies of discrimination is the way we've internalized a sense of limitation; how so many in our community have come to expect so little from the world and from themselves.

  Barack Obama

  Community, Legacy, World

  "Lou Dobbs Tonight" with Lou Dobbs, www.cnn.com. July 16, 2009.

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• Every seemingly arbitrary destructive action is a reaction of the organism to the frustration of a gratification of a vital need, especially of a sexual need.

  Wilhelm Reich

  Frustration, Needs, Arbitrary

  Wilhelm Reich (1973). “The Discovery of the Orgone”

  19 Copy quote

  Show source

• Men who expect universal peace through invention of destructive weapons of war are no wiser than one who, noting the improvement of agricultural implements, should prophesy an end to the tilling of the soil.

  Ambrose Bierce

  War, Men, Weapons

  Ambrose Bierce (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)”, p.2696, Delphi Classics

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• See, I will always have this penchant for what I call kamikaze women. I call them kamikazes because they, you know they crash their plane, they're self-destructive. But they crash into you, and you die along with them.

  Woody Allen

  Women, Self, Crash

  "Husbands and Wives". www.imdb.com. 1992.

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• I attacked those Western playwrights who use their influence and affluence to preach to the world the nihilistic doctrine that life is pointless and irrationally destructive, and that there is nothing we can do about it. Until everyone is fed, clothed, housed and taught, until human beings have equal leisure to contemplate the overwhelming fact of mortality, we should not (I argued) indulge in the luxury of "privileged despair."

  Kenneth Tynan

  Indulge In, Luxury, Despair

  "Conference at Edinburgh (1963)". "Tynan Right and Left: Plays, Films, People, Places and Events". Book by Kenneth Tynan, p. 146, 1967.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The present relationship existing between husband and wife, where one claims a command over the actions of the other, is nothing more than a remnant of the old leaven of slavery. It is necessarily destructive of refined love; for how can a man continue to regard as his type of the ideal a being whom he has, be denying an equality of privilege with himself, degraded to something below himself?

  Herbert Spencer

  Marriage, Husband, Men

  Herbert Spencer (1904). “An Autobiography: By Herbert Spencer”

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• The enormous dynamic and creative, as well as destructive energy of capitalism... is written up with more praise and more respect by Marx and Engels in the 1848 Communist Manifesto than probably by anyone since. I don't think anyone has ever said so precisely and with such awed admiration how great capitalism is, how inventive, how innovative, how dynamic, how much force of creativity it unleashes.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Creativity, Thinking, Creative

  "Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism". PBS documentary, June 2005.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The daimonic is any natural function which has the power to take over the whole person. Sex and eros, anger and rage, and the craving for power are examples. The daimonic can be either creative or destructive and is normally both.

  Rollo May

  Sex, Creative, Example

  Rollo May (1969). “Love and will”

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• From our human experience and history, at least as far as I am informed, I know that everything essential and great has only emerged when human beings had a home and were rooted in a tradition. Today's literature is, for instance, largely destructive.

  Martin Heidegger

  Home, Essentials, Literature

  "Der Spiegel" Magazine, May 31, 1976.

  19 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is no disease so destructive as lust.

  Chanakya

  Lust, Disease

  18 Copy quote

• Look at who people are elevating and deifying in the public eye, and ask yourself what those people have done to receive such lauding and what it is they haven't. When you look at that you say, okay, are these people being revered for something of merit, or are they completely hallow? Or even worse, are they being revered for something that is actually destructive?

  Davey Havok

  Eye, People, Looks

  "The Skinnie" Magazine, March 2010.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Technically speaking, since our complex societies are highly susceptible to interferences and accidents,they certainly offer ideal opportunities for a prompt disruption of normal activities. These disruptions can, with minimum expense, have considerably destructive consequences. Global terrorism is extreme both in its lack of realistic goals and in its cynical exploitation of the vulnerability of complex systems.

  Jurgen Habermas

  Opportunity, Goal, Cynical

  "Philosophy in a Time of Terror". Book by Giovanna Borradori, Jacques Derrida, Jürgen Habermas, 2003.

  28 Copy quote

  Show source

• Today, we will hear from federal law enforcement agencies, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, who will discuss the problem of ELF and ALF and law enforcement's reaction to their dangerous and destructive tactics. It is these tactics, particularly the widespread use of arson, which makes ELF and ALF the #1 domestic terror concern over the likes of white supremacists, militias, and anti-abortion groups.

  James Inhofe

  Law, White, Agency

  Senate Hearing 109-947 before Committee on Environment and Public Works, May 18, 2005.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• We are members of the most destructive culture ever to exist. Our assault on the natural world, on indigenous and other cultures, on women, on children, on all of us through the possibility of nuclear suicide and other means--all these are unprecedented in their magnitude and ferocity.

  Derrick Jensen

  Suicide, Children, Mean

  Derrick Jensen (2004). “Listening to the Land: Conversations about Nature, Culture and Eros”, p.1, Chelsea Green Publishing

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• The Ryan White Care Act provides money for community-based counseling centers. While that may sound noble and compassionate, we know from experience that "AIDS education" becomes a platform for the homosexual community to recruit adolescents and lure teens into a self-destructive sexual lifestyle.

  Christine O'Donnell

  Self, White, Community

  Concerned Women for America press release, 1995.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Even if drugs are fully as destructive as they are usually claimed to be, it is morally wrong and demonstrably more destructive for government to deprive people of their unalienable, individual, civil, Constitutional, and human right to make an utter mess of their own lives. Since human beings are inclined to learn more from the mistakes they make, rather than from their triumphs, the right to fail, for individuals and groups alike, may be even more important than the right to succeed, and it must be fiercely protected at almost any cost.

  L. Neil Smith

  Mistake, Government, People

  "Some Random Thoughts About the War On Drugs". The Libertarian Enterprise, www.ncc-1776.org. June 13, 2010.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• You'll say I'm self-destructive I constructed all this tragedy. Go tell them all it's all my fault You'll tell them I was crazy . And anyway it's over now Nothing left to say.

  Alicia Witt

  Crazy, Self, Tragedy

  4 Copy quote

• The most destructive criticism has not been able to dethrone Christ as the incarnation of perfect holiness. The waves of a tossing and restless sea of unbelief break at His feet, and He stands still the supreme model, the inspiration of great souls, the rest of the weary, the fragrance of all Christendom, the one divine flower in the garden of God.

  Herrick Johnson

  Flower, Inspiration, Garden

  Herrick Johnson (1881). “Christianity's Challenge and Some Phases of Christianity Submitted for Candid Consideration”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source