Ruthless Quotes - Page 7

• Calvin: Look, a dead bird! Hobbes: It must've hit a window. Calvin: Isn't it beautiful? It's so delicate. Sighhh... once it's too late, you appreciate what a miracle life is. You realize that nature is ruthless and our existence is very fragile, temporary, and precious. But to go on with your daily affairs, you can't really think about that... which is probably why everyone takes the world for granted and why we act so thoughtlessly. It's very confusing. I suppose it will all make sense when we grow up. Hobbes: No doubt.

  Bill Watterson

  Beautiful, Growing Up, Thinking

  "There's Treasure Everywhere". Book by Bill Watterson, March 1996.

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• To knot a sentence up properly, it has to be thought out carefully, and revised. New phrases have to be put in; sudden changes of subject must be introducted; verbs must be shifted to unsuspected localities; short words must be excised with ruthless hand; archaisms must be sprinkled like sugar-plums upon the concoction; the fatal human tendency to say things straightforwardly must be detected and defeated by adroit reversals; and, if a glimmer of meaning yet remain under close scrutiny, it must be removed by replacing all the principal verbs by paraphrases in some dead language.

  Aleister Crowley

  Hands, Plums, Verbs

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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. The funny thing is that, although writing has been my actual job for several years now, I still seem to have to fight for time in which to do it. Some people do not seem to grasp that I still have to sit down in peace and write the books, apparently believing that they pop up like mushrooms without my connivance. I must therefore guard the time allotted to writing as a Hungarian Horntail guards its firstborn egg.

  J. K. Rowling

  Jobs, Believe, Book

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• One thought alone preoccupies the submerged mind of Empire: how not to end, how not to die, how to prolong its era. By day it pursues its enemies. It is cunning and ruthless, it sends its bloodhounds everywhere. By night it feeds on images of disaster: the sack of cities, the rape of populations, pyramids of bones, acres of desolation.

  J. M. Coetzee

  Night, Cities, Pyramids

  J. M. Coetzee (1980). “Waiting for the Barbarians”, Penguin Group USA

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• I have seen that there are a number of people who benefit from doing loving kindness meditation, either prior to or along with mindfulness meditation. It varies from person to person of course, but for many, their practice of mindfulness will bring along old habits of self-judgment and ruthless criticism, so it is not actually mindfulness.

  Sharon Salzberg

  Kindness, Practice, Old Habits

  "A conversation with meditation teacher and co-founder of Insight Meditation Society: Sharon Salzberg". Interview with Nancy Alder, www.marandapleasantmedia.com.

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• Cosmic love is absolutely Ruthless and Highly Indifferent: it teaches its lessons whether you like/ dislike them or not.

  John C. Lilly

  Love Is, Religion, Lessons

  John C. Lilly, Antonietta Lilly (1976). “The Dyadic Cyclone: The Autobiography of a Couple”

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• Florey was not an easy personality. His drive and ambition were manifest from the day he arrived ... He could be ruthless and selfish; on the other hand, he could show kindliness, a warm humanity and, at times, sentiment and a sense of humour.

  Allen Drury

  Selfish, Ambition, Science

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• People with antisocial personality disorders aren't automatically bad - they simply approach the world with a more ruthless set of lenses. The lack of empathy or very weak empathy and the ability to read other people's weak spots can be a flammable combination when you get in the way of something they want. But they aren't a different species. They're a part of our spectrum.

  Eden Robinson

  People, Empathy, Personality

  "The Saturday Rumpus Interview With Eden Robinson". Interview With Helga Schimkat, therumpus.net. September 24, 2016.

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• It might sound trite, but happiness is a decision not a destination, and my choices now are all based on whether not a particular action will get me closer to my goals. It's something I'm quite ruthless about, and it helps me avoid the aforementioned wild goose chases!

  Suw Charman-Anderson

  Goal, Choices, Decision

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• Mao appears to be quite free from symptoms of megalomania, but he has a deep sense of personal dignity, and something about him suggests a power of ruthless decision when he deems it necessary.

  Edgar Snow

  Decision, Dignity, Mao

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

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• If the opponent offers keen play I don't object; but in such cases I get less satisfaction, even if I win, than from a game conducted according to all the rules of strategy with its ruthless logic.

  Anatoly Karpov

  Winning, Games, Play

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• The role of religions in the domination and destruction of African civilizations was ruthless... Islam was as guilty as all the rest.

  John Henrik Clarke

  Civilization, Islam, Roles

  John Henrik Clarke (1992). “Christopher Columbus & the Afrikan Holocaust: Slavery & the Rise of European Capitalism”, A & B Distributors

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• I have a very simple philosophy of life: Kindness. Ferocious, unrelenting, ruthless, committed, passionate, kindness. Life is sacred everywhere. We all have better things to do than beat each other up. Arguing for the exception is to invest it with energy, it's to negotiate the loophole. The commitment to kindness must be total.

  David Gerrold

  Kindness, Philosophy, Commitment

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• Ruthless is not necessarily the word I would use, but tough, resolute, understanding what the problems are, and understanding that the job of the president of the United States is to protect the people of this country and to do what is necessary in order to get it done.

  Benjamin Carson

  Country, Jobs, Order

  Source: cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com

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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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• 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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• The only subject fewer authentic Americans cared about than the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo was World Cup Soccer. America is an epic global battle with ruthless savages who seek our destruction, and liberals are feeling sorry for the terrorists.

  Ann Coulter

  Soccer, Sorry, Epic

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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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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