Collapse Quotes - Page 24

• What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?

  Zbigniew Brzezinski

  War, Europe, Important

  "The CIA's Intervention in Afghanistan". Le Nouvel Observateur Interview, www.globalresearch.ca. January, 1998.

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• I think we are seeing the absolute and utter collapse of male politicians in this [U.S] country and we're seeing what the underpinnings of the power structure are, which are sexist underpinnings.

  Eve Ensler

  Country, Thinking, Males

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

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• Round and round will Americans be compelled to ride on a mindless, manufactured, racial carousel... for without it, the edifice of an industry built upon grievance and excuse-making is destined to collapse.

  Ilana Mercer

  Excuse, Carousels, Grievance

  "The Ridiculous Racial Merry-Go-Round". www.economicpolicyjournal.com. May 02, 2014.

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• It's estimated that about 30 percent of the increase in grain prices could be attributed to the decision to embrace biofuels, particularly corn-based ethanol. It has done nothing for climate change and the business is in real trouble now with the collapse of oil prices. It's completely dependent on a dollar subsidy and tariff from the government.

  Michael Pollan

  Real, Government, Oil

  "Michael Pollan Fixes Dinner (Extended Interview)". Interview with Clara Jeffery, www.motherjones.com. March 2009.

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• [Magic] can guide people to the very edge of reason - and then push them off. Thoughts collapse for a moment and the mind is free to just experience. Magic is a window to eternity.

  Patrick Martin

  People, Magic, Mind

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• At first I hoped that such a technically unsound project would collapse but I soon realized it was doomed to success. Almost anything in software can be implemented, sold, and even used given enough determination. There is nothing a mere scientist can say that will stand against the flood of a hundred million dollars. But there is one quality that cannot be purchased in this way - and that is reliability. The price of reliability is the pursuit of the utmost simplicity. It is a price which the very rich find most hard to pay.

  Tony Hoare

  Determination, Learning, Code Quality

  "The Emperor's Old Clothes". Communications of the ACM 24, dl.acm.org. February 1981.

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• Ugly programs are like ugly suspension bridges: they're much more liable to collapse than pretty ones, because the way humans (especially engineer-humans) perceive beauty is intimately related to our ability to process and understand complexity. A language that makes it hard to write elegant code makes it hard to write good code.

  Eric S. Raymond

  Writing, Learning, Bridges

  "Why Python?". www.linuxjournal.com. Apr 30, 2000.

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• I predict the Internet will soon go spectacularly supernova and in 1996 catastrophically collapse.

  Robert Metcalfe

  Internet, Supernova

  "Zen and the Art of Systems Analysis: Meditations on Computer Systems Development". Book by Patrick McDermott, 2002.

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• After the collapse of socialism, capitalism remained without a rival. This unusual situation unleashed its greedy and - above all - its suicidal power. The belief is now that everything - and everyone - is fair game.

  Gunter Grass

  Suicidal, Games, Rivals

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• By the end of the 50s, everything began to collapse and, little by little, I lost all of my work. I lost Rex, the Wonder Dog and all the westerns.

  Gil Kane

  Dog, Littles, Wonder

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• What if a small group of world leaders were to conclude that the principal risk to the Earth comes from the actions of the rich countries?... In order to save the planet, the group decides: Isn't the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn't it our responsibility to bring that about?

  Maurice Strong

  Change, Country, Responsibility

  "Environmentalism: Ideology and Power". Book by Donald Gibson, 2002.

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• Look at your body— A painted puppet, a poor toy Of jointed parts ready to collapse, A diseased and suffering thing With a head full of false imaginings. —The Dhammapada

  Thomas Ligotti

  Suffering, Looks, Body

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• Be glad that you're greedy; the national economy would collapse if you weren't.

  Mignon McLaughlin

  Funny, Money, Greedy

  "The Complete Neurotic's Notebook". Book by Mignon McLaughlin, 1981.

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• The bottom line for housing is that the concerns we used to hear about the possibility of a devastating collapse—one that might be big enough to cause a recession in the U.S. economy—while not fully allayed have diminished. Moreover, while the future for housing activity remains uncertain, I think there is a reasonable chance that housing is in the process of stabilizing, which would mean that it would put a considerably smaller drag on the economy going forward.

  Janet Yellen

  Mean, Thinking, Lines

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• On golfer Rory McIlroy's collapse in the final round of the 2011 Masters: We had hoped to compare the young Northern Irishman to the great Masters champions but instead had to reach for the compendium of great golfing train wrecks.

  Matt Dickinson

  Failure, Train Wrecks, Champion

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• Ironically, the universities have trained hundreds of thousands of graduates for jobs that soon will not exist. They have trained people to maintain a structure that cannot be maintained. The elite...know only how to feed the beast until it dies. Once it is dead, they will be helpless. Don't expect them to save us. They don't know how....and when it all collapses, when our rotten financial system with its trillions in worthless assets implodes and our imperial wars end in humiliation and defeat, the power elite will be exposed as being as helpless, and as self-deluded as the rest of us

  Chris Hedges

  Jobs, War, Self

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• The progressive Left can be in favor of Big Government or population control but not both. The mutual incompatibility is about to plunge Europe into societal collapse. There is no precedent in human history for economic growth on declining human capital - and that's before anyone invented unsustainable welfare systems.

  Mark Steyn

  Government, Europe, Growth

  Mark Steyn (2006). “America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It”, p.3, Regnery Publishing

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• When I heard the words, I felt as if the blood had been frozen in my veins, and that my lungs must collapse for the want of air. Mr. Lincoln shot!

  Elizabeth Keckley

  Air, Blood, Veins

  Elizabeth Keckley (2016). “Behind the Scenes: Or, Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House”, p.79, Enhanced Media Publishing

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• Homosexuality is not a civil right. Its rise almost always is accompanied, as in the Weimar Republic, with a decay of society and a collapse of its basic cinder block, the family.

  Pat Buchanan

  Block, Decay, Republic

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• The suddenness of the leap from hardware to software cannot but produce a period of anarchy and collapse, especially in the developed countries.

  Marshall McLuhan

  Country, Media, Anarchy

  Marshall McLuhan, Matie Molinaro, Corinne McLuhan, William Toye (1987). “Letters of Marshall McLuhan”, Oxford University Press, USA

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• That we do not discover reality but rather invent it is quite shocking for many people. And the shocking part about it - according to the concept of radical constructivism - is that the only thing we can ever know about the real reality (if it even exists) is what it is not. It is only with the collapse of our constructions of reality that we first discover that the world is not the way we imagine.

  Paul Watzlawick

  Real, People, Way

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• Some beliefs may be subject to such instant, brutal and unambiguous rejection. For example: no left-coiling periwinkle has ever been found among millions of snails examined. If I happen to find one during my walk on Nobska beach tomorrow morning, a century of well nurtured negative evidence will collapse in an instant.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Beach, Morning, Science

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• The presently existing global financial and monetary system will disintegrate during the near term. The collapse might occur this spring, or summer, or next autumn; it could come next year; it will almost certainly occur during President William Clinton's first term in office; it will occur soon. That collapse into disintegration is inevitable, because it could not be stopped now by anything but the politically improbable decision by leading governments to put the relevant financial and monetary institutions into bankruptcy reorganization.

  Lyndon LaRouche

  Summer, Spring, Autumn

  "The Coming Disintegration of Financial Markets". archive.larouchepac.com. June 24, 1994.

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• If we consider the actual basis of this information [i.e., intelligence], how unreliable and transient it is, we soon realize that war is a flimsy structure that can easily collapse and bury us in its ruins. ... Many intelligence reports in war are contradictory; even more are false, and most are uncertain. This is true of all intelligence but even more so in the heat of battle, where such reports tend to contradict and cancel each other out. In short, most intelligence is false, and the effect of fear is to multiply lies and inaccuracies.

  Carl von Clausewitz

  War, Lying, Battle

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• Critics of the war plans (including myself) have pointed to the disastrous political results that must be expected: Iraq would break into three parts (Kurds in the north, Sunnis in the center, Shi'ites in the south), the Middle East would be exposed to the onslaught of Iranian fanaticism, pro-Western Arab regimes would collapse. Israel would be surrounded by aggressive Islamic fundamentalism, like the Crusader kingdom with the advent of Saladin.

  Uri Avnery

  War, Islamic, Israel

  "War Now!" by Uri Avnery, September 9, 2002.

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