Ruthless Quotes - Page 4

All human plans [are] subject to ruthless revision by Nature, or Fate, or whatever one preferred to call the powers behind the Universe.

Arthur C. Clarke

Fate, Revision, Plans

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I've been taught that love is beautiful and kind, but it isn't like that at all. It is beautiful, but it's a terrible beauty, a ruthless one, and you fall-you fall, and the thing is- The thing is you want to. You don't care what's coming you just want who your heart beats for.

Elizabeth Scott

Beautiful, Fall, Heart

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The writer's only responsibility is to his art. He will be completely ruthless if he is a good one. He has a dream. It anguishes him so much he must get rid of it. He has no peace until then. Everything goes by the board: honor, pride, decency, security, happiness, all, to get the book written. If a writer has to rob his mother, he will not hesitate; the 'Ode on a Grecian Urn' is worth any number of old ladies.

William Faulkner

Mother, Dream, Art

In Paris Review Spring 1956, p. 30

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No. You know this is wrong and you want to feel better about it. You don't want to admit your as ruthless and monstrous as the demons you claim to hate.

Darren Shan

Hate, Feel Better, Want

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Do you know," he said, "there are men who would like very much to see me dead. Powerful men. Obscenely wealthy me. Men who can afford to be patient and engage the services of large, ruthless brutes. I've managed to evade them all. But you...God's truth, I think you'll be the very death of me.

Tessa Dare

Powerful, Men, Thinking

Tessa Dare (2010). “Three Nights with a Scoundrel”, p.19, Ballantine Books

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So if you're not Artemis Fowl, then who are you?" The boy extended a dripping hand straight up. "My name is Orion. I am so pleased to meet you at last. I am, of course, your servant." Holly shook the proferred hand, thinking that manners were lovely, but she really needed someone cunning and ruthless right now, and this kid didn't appear to be very cunning.

Eoin Colfer

Kids, Thinking, Boys

Eoin Colfer (2010). “Artemis Fowl and the Atlantis Complex”, p.87, Penguin UK

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My husband is my most ruthless critic... sometimes he will say, 'It's been said better before.' Of course it has. It's all been said better before. If I thought I had to say it better than anybody else, I'd never start. Better or worse is immaterial. The thing is that it has to be said; by me; ontologically. We each have to say it, to say it our own way. Not of our own will, but as it comes out through us. Good or bad, great or little: that isn't what human creation is about. It is that we have to try; to put it down in pigment, or words, or musical notations, or we die.

Madeleine L'Engle

Husband, Musical, Trying

FaceBook post by Madeleine L'Engle from May 06, 2016

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[Jesus] matters because of what he brought and what he still brings to ordinary human beings, living their ordinary lives and coping daily with their surroundings. He promises wholeness for their lives. In sharing our weaknesses he gives us strength and and imparts through his companionship a life that has the quality of eternity." (Dallas Willard in Ruthless Trust - Brennan Manning)

Brennan Manning

Jesus, Giving, Promise

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You can't be anything but who you are. I wouldn't love you the same if you stopped being you. How do I change enough to accept that ruthless streak in you.

Christine Feehan

Love You, Enough, Accepting

Christine Feehan (2012). “Christine Feehan's Drake Sisters Series: Five Novels and a Novella”, p.510, Penguin

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No one seriously doubts Socrates' maxim: The unexamined life isn't worth living. Self-assessment and attempts at self-improvement are essential aspects of "the good life." Yes, we should engage in ruthless self-reflection and harsh scrutiny, but we should simultaneously acknowledge that such introspection will, at best, only result in a partial view of our minds at work. Complete objectivity is not an option.

Robert A. Burton

Good Life, Humility, Reflection

Robert A. Burton, M.D., M.D. (2008). “On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You're Not”, p.162, Macmillan

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It is said that it is far more difficult to hold and maintain leadership (liberty) than it is to attain it. Success is a ruthless competitor for it flatters and nourishes our weaknesses and lulls us into complacency. We bask in the sunshine of accomplishment and lose the spirit of humility which helps us visualize all the factors which have contributed to our success. We are apt to forget that we are only one of a team, that in unity there is strength and that we are strong only as long as each unit in our organization functions with precision.

Samuel J. Tilden

Leadership, Strong, Team

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I'm the most brutal and ruthless conquerer there has ever been.

Mike Tyson

Crazy, Brutal

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At the heart of science is an essential balance between two seemingly contradictory attitudes-an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive they may be, and the most ruthless skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new. This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep nonsense.

Carl Sagan

Attitude, Heart, Science

"The Demon-Haunted World : Science as a Candle in the Dark". Ch. 17 : The Marriage of Skepticism and Wonder. Book by Carl Sagan, 1995.

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And this is the simple truth - that to live is to feel oneself lost. He who accepts it has already begun to find himself, to be on firm ground. Instinctively, as do the shipwrecked, he will look around for something to which to cling, and that tragic, ruthless glance, absolutely sincere, because it is a question of his salvation, will cause him to bring order into the chaos of his life. These are the only genuine ideas; the ideas of the shipwrecked. All the rest is rhetoric, posturing, farce.

Soren Kierkegaard

Life, Loneliness, Simple

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O neglectful Nature, wherefore art thou thus partial, becoming to some of thy children a tender and benignant mother, to others a most cruel and ruthless stepmother? I see thy children given into slavery to others without ever receiving any benefit, and in lieu of any reward for the services they have done for them they are repaid by the severest punishments.

Leonardo da Vinci

Mother, Art, Nature

Leonardo (da Vinci) (1906). “Note Books: Arranged and Rendered Into English, with Introd”

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The problem with capitalism is that it best rewards the worst part of us: the ruthless, competitive, conniving, opportunistic, acquisitive drives, giving little reward and often much punishment-or at least much handicap-to honesty, compassion, fair play, many forms of hard work, love of justice, and a concern for those in need.

Michael Parenti

Honesty, Hard Work, Compassion

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If peace is equated simply with the absence of war, it can become abject pacifism that turns the world over to the most ruthless.

Henry A. Kissinger

Peace, War, Patriotic

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People, you see... are ruthless and foolish. When they're young, in order to have money and power, they give up everything like health and youth. And when they get sick, become old, and have all the money and power... in order to find their health and youth again, they spend all of the wealth they've wasted so much energy and time to accumulate.

Jae Hee

Giving Up, Drama, Order

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Be ruthless about protecting writing days, i.e., do not cave in to endless requests to have "essential" and "long overdue" meetings on those days.

J. K. Rowling

Writing, Mushrooms, Long

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Once lead this people into war, and they'll forget there ever was such a thing as tolerance. To fight, you must be brutal and ruthless, and the spirit of ruthless brutality will enter into the very fiber of our national life, infecting Congress, the courts, the policeman on the beat, the man in the street.

Woodrow Wilson

War, Fighting, Men

Woodrow Wilson (2015). “Wilson, Volume V: Campaigns for Progressivism and Peace, 1916-1917”, p.399, Princeton University Press

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There is a totalitarian regime inside every one of us. We are ruled by a ruthless politburo which sets our norms and drives us from one five-year plan to another. The autonomous individual who has to justify his existence by his own efforts is in eternal bondage to himself.

Eric Hoffer

Years, Effort, Individuality

Eric Hoffer (1996). “The Passionate State of Mind”

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Ruin seize thee, ruthless king! Confusion on thy banners wait! Though fann'd by Conquest's crimson wing, They mock the air with idle state.

Thomas Gray

Kings, Air, Wings

'The Bard' (1757) l. 1

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That doctrine of peace at any price has done more mischief than any I can well recall that have been afloat in this country. It has occasioned more wars than any of the most ruthless conquerors. It has disturbed and nearly destroyed that political equilibrium so necessary to the liberties and the welfare of the world.

Benjamin Disraeli

Country, Peace, War

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The celebrity-making machine-photographers, paparazzi, press and stuff like that-can be ruthless.

Catherine Keener

Machines, Stuff, Photographer

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As Americans, we want peace - we work and sacrifice for peace. But there can be no peace if our security depends on the will and whims of a ruthless and aggressive dictator. I'm not willing to stake one American life on trusting Saddam Hussein.

George W. Bush

Leadership, Sacrifice, Hussein

Address to the Nation on the Threat of Iraq, delivered 7 October 2002, Cincinnati Union Terminal, Cincinnati, Ohio

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