Destruction Quotes - Page 10

• You know, the Philistines have long since discarded the rack and stake as a means of suppressing the opinions they feared: they've discovered a much more deadly weapon of destruction -- the wisecrack.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Mean, Long, Razors

  W. Somerset Maugham (2008). “The Razor's Edge”, p.305, Random House

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• I often see how you sob over what you destroy, how you want to stop and just worship; and you do stop, and then a moment later you are at it again with a knife, like a surgeon.

  Anais Nin

  Knives, Want, Worship

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• In that one slight motion, I see the end of hope, beginning of destruction of everything I hold dear in the world. I can't guess what form my punishment will take, how wide the net will be cast, but when it is finished there most likely be nothing left. So you would think that at this moment, I would be in utter despair.

  Suzanne Collins

  Thinking, Punishment, Despair

  Suzanne Collins (2011). “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire”, p.64, Scholastic

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• I spent my time drinking and staring at a television in the airport bar. More death and destruction. Crime. Pollution. All the news stories were telling me to be frightened. All the commercials were telling me to buy things I didn´t need. The message was that people could only be passive victims or consumers.

  John Twelve Hawks

  Drinking, Airports, News Stories

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• I wonder why progress looks so much like destruction.

  John Steinbeck

  Progress, Looks, Wonder

  John Steinbeck (1980). “Travels with Charley in Search of America”, p.102, Penguin

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• The urge for destruction is also a creative urge!

  Mikhail Bakunin

  Creative, Urges

  "Die Reaktion in Deutschland," Jahrbuch fur Wissenschaft und Kunst (1842)

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• It is one of the saddest spectacles of our time to see a great democratic movement support a policy which must lead to the destruction of democracy and which meanwhile can benefit only a minority of the masses who support it. Yet it is this support from the Left of the tendencies toward monopoly which make them so irresistible and the prospects of the future so dark.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Dark, Support, Democracy

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• And they would all smile at the beauty of destruction.

  Markus Zusak

  All Smiles

  Markus Zusak (2014). “Markus Zusak: The Book Thief & I Am the Messenger”, p.406, Knopf Books for Young Readers

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• I am a personal optimist but a skeptic about all else. What may sound to some like anger is really nothing more than sympathetic contempt. I view my species with a combination of wonder and pity, and I root for its destruction. And please don't confuse my point of view with cynicism; the real cynics are the ones who tell you everything's gonna be all right.

  George Carlin

  Real, Views, Roots

  George Carlin (2007). “The Best of Brain Droppings”, p.11, Peter Pauper Press, Inc.

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• to love is to destroy, and that to be loved is to be the one destroyed.

  Cassandra Clare

  Love Is, Destroyed

  Cassandra Clare (2015). “City of Bones: TV Tie-in”, p.206, Simon and Schuster

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• Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Character, Imperfection, Hocus Pocus

  Kurt Vonnegut (1997). “Hocus Pocus”, p.167, Penguin

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• Let's say someone has experienced a violent trauma or betrayal: a child has been raped by a parent or has witnessed the destruction of someone he loves or has been so traumatized by the possibility of beatings and punishments that he's afraid to act. If the trauma is great enough, that person's life may become frozen, emotionally frozen even though he still gets up in the morning, is busy all day, and goes to bed at night. But there's this empty space that begins to fill with rage, rage toward everyone - the perpetrator, the people in the world who haven't suffered, even toward himself. (174)

  Stephen Dobyns

  Morning, Children, Betrayal

  Stephen Dobyns (2015). “Boy in the Water: A Novel”, p.202, Penguin

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• There are many reasons for violence. This is just something that sometimes happens. We'd see it in treatment centers - the child who'd suffered something awful. Even in the best recovery there'd be a fear that everything would fall apart and they'd become victims again. And their final loyalty was to themselves. They couldn't be forced. They preferred to wreck everything, preferred self-destruction to surrender. (175)

  Stephen Dobyns

  Loyalty, Children, Fall

  Stephen Dobyns (2015). “Boy in the Water: A Novel”, p.203, Penguin

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• Destruction is also creation.

  Marcel Duchamp

  Creation

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• I was a slave to something he believed to be silly and superstitious: the idea that all life was worth defending and that nothing justified surrender to the forces of destruction.

  Rick Yancey

  Silly, Ideas, Justified

  Rick Yancey (2010). “The Monstrumologist: The Terror Beneath”, p.79, Simon and Schuster

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• Tis safter to be that which we destroy Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.

  William Shakespeare

  Joy, Lady Macbeth, Important Macbeth

  William Shakespeare (2001). “The Tragedy of Macbeth”, p.150, Classic Books Company

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• I know not what to call this, nor will I urge that it is a secret, overruling decree, that hurries us on to be the instruments of our own destruction, even though it be before us, and that we rush upon it with our eyes open.

  Daniel Defoe

  Eye, Secret, Decree

  Daniel Defoe (1836). “The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner with an Account of His Travels Round Three Parts of the Globe”, p.8

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• What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again.

  Suzanne Collins

  Love, Spring, Inspiration

  Suzanne Collins (2010). “Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, Book 3)”, p.388, Scholastic Inc.

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• They seemed to forget that the increase of known truths stimulates the investigation, establishment and growth of the arts; not their dimination or destruction.

  Galileo Galilei

  Art, Growth, Forget

  Galileo Galilei (2017). “Delphi Collected Works of Galileo Galilei (Illustrated)”, p.73, Delphi Classics

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• But collective thinking is usually short-lived. We're fickle, stupid beings with poor memories and a great gift for self-destruction.

  Suzanne Collins

  Memories, Stupid, Thinking

  Suzanne Collins (2011). “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay”, p.297, Scholastic

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• Because there is no greater evil than ignorance and the destruction of genius. Ignorance has been responsible for more death, more bigotry, and more sin than any other force. It is the destroyer of mankind.

  Richelle Mead

  Ignorance, Evil, Genius

  Richelle Mead (2010). “Succubus Shadows”, p.137, Kensington Publishing Corp.

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• a man who has decided upon self-destruction is far removed from mundane affairs, and to sit down and write his will would be, at that moment, an act just as absurd as winding up one’s watch, since together with the man, the whole world is destroyed; the last letter is instantly reduced to dust and, with it, all the postmen; and like smoke, vanishes the estate bequeathed to a nonexistent progeny.

  Vladimir Nabokov

  Writing, Men, Self

  VLADIMIR NABOKOV' (1965). “THE EYE”

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• There are no white lies, there is only the blackest of destruction, and a white lie is the blackest of all.

  Ayn Rand

  Lying, White, White Lie

  Ayn Rand (2016). “Atlas Shrugged”, p.657, Hamilton Books

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• The cause of liberty becomes a mockery if the price to be paid is the wholesale destruction of those who are to enjoy liberty. Ghandi, quoted in Merton, p. 68

  Thomas Merton

  Liberty, Causes, Wholesale

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• The one who confidently looks forward to an eternal reward for his efforts in mortality is constantly sustained through his deepest trials. When he is disappointed in love, he does not commit suicide. When loved ones die, he doesn’t despair; when he loses a coveted contest, he doesn’t falter; when war and destruction dissipate his future, he doesn’t sink into a depression. He lives above his world and never loses sight of the goal of his salvation.

  Harold B. Lee

  Suicide, War, Sight

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