Destructive Quotes - Page 24

• A system must be managed. It will not manage itself. Left to themselves in the Western world, components become selfish, competitive. We cannot afford the destructive effect of competition.

  W. Edwards Deming

  Selfish, Competition, World

  "The New Economics for Industry, Government, Education". Book by W. Edwards Deming, 1993.

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• One of the most destructive anti-concepts in the history of moral philosophy is the term 'duty.

  Ayn Rand

  Philosophy, Moral, Duty

  Ayn Rand (1984). “Philosophy: Who Needs It”, p.94, Penguin

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• Stardom can be very destructive - particularly if you believe in it.

  Shelley Winters

  Believe, Fame, Stardom

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• The creative instincts, the love force must be nourished with every beat of our hearts until they overbalance the destructive instincts.

  Gladys Taber

  Heart, Creativity, Creative

  Gladys Bagg Taber (1948). “The book of Stillmeadow”

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• Drunkenness is deplorably destructive, but her demurer sister Gluttony destroys a hundred to her one.

  William Kitchiner

  Food, Cooking, Culinary

  William Kitchiner, Luigi Cornaro (1847). “Directions for Invigorating and Prolonging Life; Or, The Invalid's Oracle ...”, p.173

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• Shameless actually good since it gives a kind of freedom. We consider the old, functionless shame destructive. Today, if you have a strong sense of shame you also have a strong desire to overcome it. And that's when you can write.

  Karl Ove Knausgard

  Strong, Writing, Giving

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• Nothing can be more unphilosophical than to be positive or dogmatical on any subject; and even if excessive scepticism could be maintained it would not be more destructive to all just reasoning and inquiry. When men are the most sure and arrogant, they are commonly the most mistaken, and have there given reins to passion, without that proper deliberation and suspense which can alone secure them from the grossest absurdities.

  David Hume

  Passion, Men, Being Positive

  David Hume (2016). “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding: Revision of Great Book”, p.213, VM eBooks

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• The appetite for power is old and irrepressible in humankind, and in its action almost always destructive.

  Barbara Tuchman

  Power, Action, Appetite

  Barbara W. Tuchman (2011). “The First Salute: A View of the American Revolution”, p.65, Random House

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• Making those we love happy sounds innocent as a dove, but it can be as destructive as a lion.

  Florida Scott-Maxwell

  Sound, Lions, Innocent

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• He that has no present Christ has a future, dark, chaotic, heaving with its destructive ocean; and over it there goes forever--black-pinioned winging its solitary and hopeless flight, the raven of his anxious thoughts, and finds no place to rest, and comes back again to the desolate ark with its foreboding croak of evil in the present and evil in the future.

  Alexander MacLaren

  Ocean, Dark, Anxious Thoughts

  Alexander Maclaren (1859). “Sermons preached in Union chapel, Manchester”, p.289

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• Guilt is the most destructive of all emotions. It mourns what has been while playing no part in what may be, now or in the future.

  Penelope Leach

  Guilt, May, Emotion

  Penelope Leach (2013). “Your Baby and Child”, p.12, Knopf

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• Language is one of the thin walls humanity has built up over centuries against its own bestial and destructive impulses.

  Storm Jameson

  Wall, Humanity, Language

  Storm Jameson (2011). “Parthian Words”, p.24, A&C Black

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• ... I don't think anybody should avoid mistakes. If it is within their nature to make certain mistakes, I think they should make them, make the mistakes and find out what the cost of the mistake is, rather than to constantly keep avoiding it, and never really knowing exactly what the experience of it is, what the cost of it is, you know, and all the other facets of the mistake. I don't think that mistakes are that bad. I think that they should try and not do destructive things, but I don't think that a mistake is that serious a thing that one should be told what to do to avoid it.

  Anne Bancroft

  Mistake, Thinking, Knowing

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• As a Black lesbian feminist comfortable with the many different ingredients of my identity, and a woman committed to racial and sexual freedom from oppression, I find I am constantly being encouraged to pluck out some one aspect of myself and present this as the meaningful whole, eclipsing or denying the other parts of self. But this is a destructive and fragmenting way to live.

  Audre Lorde

  Meaningful, Acceptance, Self

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• No wonder all the great comedians had such destructive private lives. ... After you get the audience into that kind of frenzy, and you are being worshiped like the false idol you are, how do you leave the stage and transition back into real life? ... What is there left to do but set yourself on fire?

  Margaret Cho

  Real, Fire, Idols

  Margaret Cho (2007). “I'm the One That I Want”, p.85, Ballantine Books

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• But I think that sometimes, when one's behaved like a rather second-rate person, the way I did at breakfast, then in a kind of self-destructive shock one goes and does something really second-rate. Almost as if to prove it.

  Alison Lurie

  Thinking, Self, Doe

  Alison Lurie (2012). “Real People: A Novel”, p.146, Open Road Media

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• Enlightenment is a destructive process.

  Adyashanti

  Enlightenment, Process

  Adyashanti (2010). “The End of Your World: Uncensored Straight Talk on the Nature of Enlightenment”, p.104, Sounds True

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• To dislocate the functioning of a city without destroying it can be more effective than a riot because it can be longer-lasting, costly to the society but not wantonly destructive, moreover, it is more difficult for Government to quell it by superior force.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Government, Cities, Destroying

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• Sandy was particularly destructive because it was prevented from moving back out to sea by a "blocking pattern" associated with the jet stream. There's debate about this, but one recent study suggested that melting sea ice in the Arctic may lead to such blocking.

  Nicholas D. Kristof

  Block, Moving, Ice

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• It's been said to me that I'm self-destructive because I'll walk away from things that are good.

  Ariel Rechtshaid

  Self, Said, Walks

  "Ariel Rechtshaid: the producer behind Vampire Weekend, Haim and Sky Ferreira" by Dorian Lynskey, www.theguardian.com. December 27, 2013.

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• There are two kinds of power. One is power over, which is always destructive, and the other is power from within, which is a transcendent and creative power.

  Starhawk

  Two, Creative, Kind

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• It is the utterly destructive quality. When you say vanity, you are thinking of the kind that admires itself in mirrors and buys things to deck itself out in. But that is merely personal conceit. Real vanity is something quite different. A matter not of person but of personality. Vanity says, "I must have this because I am me." It is a frightening thing because it is incurable.

  Josephine Tey

  Real, Thinking, Vanity

  Josephine Tey (1952). “The singing sands”, Vintage

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• One of the most wicked destructive forces, psychologically speaking, is unused creative power ... If someone has a creative gift and out of laziness, or for some other reason, doesn't use it, the psychic energy turns to sheer poison. That's why we often diagnose neuroses and psychotic diseases as not-lived higher possibilities.

  Marie-Louise von Franz

  Creativity, Power, Psychics

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• media saturation is probably very destructive to art. New movements get overexposed and exhausted before they have a chance to grow, and they turn to ashes in a short time. Some degree of time and obscurity is often very necessary to artists.

  Joyce Johnson

  Art, Media, Degrees

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• a weak and irresolute disposition is often more destructive than determined vice.

  Lady Caroline Lamb

  Weakness, Vices, Determined

  Lady Caroline Lamb (1822). “Graham Hamilton”, p.6

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