Destructive Quotes - Page 2

• Nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced.

  Albert Einstein

  Love, Life, God

  Albert Einstein (1949). “The World as I See it”, Citadel Press

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• This is what I am. I have periods of enormous self-destructive depression, where I go completely off my trolley and lose all sight of reality and reason.

  Siobhan Fahey

  Reality, Sight, Self

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• My story is really an affirmation of my strength and my luck. To live with a great artist like Ted Hughes or Mick Jagger is a very, very destructive role for a woman trying to be herself. In fact, it can't be done.

  Marianne Faithfull

  Artist, Luck, Trying

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• There is perhaps no phenomenon which contains so much destructive feeling as moral indignation, which permits envy or to be acted out under the guise of virtue.

  Erich Fromm

  Spiritual, Envy, Feelings

  Erich Fromm (2013). “Man for Himself: An Inquiry Into the Psychology of Ethics”, p.235, Routledge

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• America's greatness has been the greatness of a free people who shared certain moral commitments. Freedom without moral commitment is aimless and promptly self-destructive.

  John W. Gardner

  Freedom, Commitment, Greatness

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• I had the honor to meet Nelson Mandela, and I heard him explain his forgiveness of his captors of 27 years by saying hatred and bitterness is destructive - the power is in love and forgiveness.

  Dick Gephardt

  Years, Hatred, Honor

  "Sen. Richard Gephardt's Speech Text". abcnews.go.com. August 16.

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• I think the destructive, vicious, negative nature of much of the news media makes it harder to govern this country, harder to attract decent people to run for public office.

  Newt Gingrich

  Running, Country, Thinking

  "CNN’s John King stands by his first debate question to Newt Gingrich". Interview With John King, cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com. January 20, 2012.

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• Romance and novel paint beauty in colors more charming than nature, and describe a happiness that humans never taste. How deceptive and destructive are those pictures of consummate bliss!

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Color, Romance, Taste

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• Nothing is more dangerous than a dogmatic worldview - nothing more constraining, more blinding to innovation, more destructive of openness to novelty.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Innovation, Religion, Novelty

  Stephen Jay Gould (1995). “Dinosaur in a haystack: reflections in natural history”, Harmony

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• I've been in and out of Wall Street since 1949, and I've never seen the type of animosity between government and Wall Street. And I'm not sure where it comes from, but I suspect it's got to do with a general schism in this society which is really becoming ever more destructive.

  Alan Greenspan

  Wall, Government, Becoming

  "Meet the Press", www.nbcnews.com. August 1, 2010.

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• There is nothing more corrupting, nothing more destructive of the noblest and finest feelings of our nature, than the exercise of unlimited power.

  William Henry Harrison

  Nature, Military, Exercise

  David A. Durfee, William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, United States. President (1841-1845 : Tyler) (1970). “William Henry Harrison, 1773-1841: John Tyler, 1790-1862; chronology, documents, bibliographical aids”, Oceana Pubns

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• I think computer viruses should count as life ... I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We've created life in our own image.

  Stephen Hawking

  Science, Technology, Thinking

  Speech at Macworld Expo in Boston, as quoted in "The Daily News", August 4, 1994.

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• But that citizen's perception was also at one with the truth in recognizing that the very brutality of the means by which the IRA were pursuing change was destructive of the trust upon which new possibilities would have to be based.

  Seamus Heaney

  Mean, Perception, Brutality

  Seamus Heaney (2014). “Opened Ground: Selected Poems, 1966-1996”, p.421, Macmillan

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• The most destructive criticism is indifference.

  E. W. Howe

  Envy, Gossip, Criticism

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• This avidity alone, of acquiring goods and possessions for ourselves and our nearest friends, is insatiable, perpetual, universal, and directly destructive of society.

  David Hume

  Possession, Goods, Insatiable

  David Hume, Geoffrey Sayre-McCord “Moral Philosophy”, Hackett Publishing

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• There is peace more destructive of the manhood of living man than war is destructive of his material body.

  Douglas William Jerrold

  Peace, War, Men

  Douglas William Jerrold (1858). “Specimens of Douglas Jerrold's Wit: Together with Selections, Chiefly from His Contributions to Journals : Intended to Illustrate Hs Opinions”, p.176

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• Ethnic stereotypes are boring and stressful and sometimes criminal. It's just not a good way to think. It's non-thinking. It's stupid and destructive.

  Tommy Lee Jones

  Stupid, Thinking, Criminals

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• Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Integrity, Selfish, Creativity

  Martin Luther King Jr. (1963). “Strength to Love”

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• Greed is so destructive. It destroys everything.

  Eartha Kitt

  Greed

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• I'm trying to find a way to eat up time without being destructive, 'cause that's my go-to, it seems.

  Shia LaBeouf

  Trying, Way, Causes

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• It is the logic of consumerism that undermines the values of loyalty and permanence and promotes a different set of values that is destructive of family life.

  Christopher Lasch

  Loyalty, Different, Logic

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• I get anxious about a lot of things, that's the trouble. I get anxious about everything. I just can't stop thinking about things all the time. And here's the really destructive part - it's always retrospective. I waste time thinking of what I should have said or done.

  Hugh Laurie

  Thinking, Should Have, Done

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• Black writers, of whatever quality, who step outside the pale of what black writers are supposed to write about, or who black writers are supposed to be, are condemned to silences in black literary circles that are as total and as destructive as any imposed by racism.

  Audre Lorde

  Writing, Circles, Racism

  Audre Lorde, Joan Wylie Hall (2004). “Conversations with Audre Lorde”, p.85, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• I don't find any kind of tension very productive, I find it destructive, actually.

  Shirley Manson

  Kind, Tension, Productive

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• Cheating is not the American way. It is small, while we are large. It is cheap, while we are richly endowed. It is destructive, while we are creative. It is doomed to fail, while our gifts and responsibilities call us to achieve. It sabotages trust and weakens the bonds of spirit and humanity, without which we perish.

  Terrence McNally

  Cheating, Responsibility, Creative

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