Ruthless Quotes - Page 3

• To be ruthless requires belief that our life on earth is but a brief prelude to an afterlife, or a temporary sacrifice before some utopia can be instituted.
  Where there is the necessary technical skill to move mountains, there is no need for the faith that moves mountains.

  Eric Hoffer

  Moving, Sacrifice, Skills

  1955 The Passionate State of Mind.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Absolute discretion is a ruthless master. It is more destructive of freedom than any of man's other inventions.

  William O. Douglas

  Men, Invention, Masters

  "United States v. Wunderlich, 342 U.S. 98". U.S. Supreme Court case, supreme.justia.com. November 26, 1951.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Let there be no mistake, Hamas is a ruthless terrorist organization.

  Lois Capps

  Mistake, Organization, Terrorist

  7 Copy quote

• Heaven and earth are ruthless, and treat the various creatures as straw dogs; the sage is ruthless, and treats others as straw dogs.

  Laozi

  Dog, Heaven, Sage

  5 Copy quote

• Don't ever make the mistake [of thinking] that you can design something better than what you get from ruthless massively parallel trial-and-error with a feedback cycle. That's giving your intelligence much too much credit.

  Linus Torvalds

  Mistake, Thinking, Errors

  8 Copy quote

• Spirituality can go hand-in-hand with ruthless single-mindedness when the individual is convinced his cause is just

  Michela Wrong

  Hands, Causes, Spirituality

  Michela Wrong (2000). “In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz: Living on the Brink of Disaster in Mobutu's Congo”, Fourth Estate

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• One must be ruthless with one's own writing or someone else will be.

  John Berryman

  Writing

  11 Copy quote

• Nothing weighs more heavily on age than time. Nothing has more meaning … Now time becomes, with a kind of ruthless honesty, what it has always been: life's most precious commodity. The only difference is that, finally, we know it.

  Joan D. Chittister

  Time, Honesty, Differences

  6 Copy quote

• Modern Darwinism makes it abundantly clear that many less ruthless traits, some not always admired by robber barons and Fuhrers - altruism, general intelligence, compassion - may be the key to survival.

  Carl Sagan

  Life, Compassion, Keys

  7 Copy quote

• Because one species is more clever than another, does it give it the right to imprison or torture the less clever species? Does one exceptionally clever individual have a right to exploit the less clever individuals of his own species? To say that he does is to say with the Fascists that the strong have a right to abuse and exploit the weak - might is right, and the strong and ruthless shall inherit the earth.

  Richard D. Ryder

  Strong, Clever, Philosophical

  11 Copy quote

• Those who are in love with the present can be cruel and corrupt but not genuinely vicious. They cannot be methodically and consistently ruthless.

  Eric Hoffer

  Religion, Vicious, Consistently

  Eric Hoffer (1996). “The Passionate State of Mind”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Heaven's blessing must attend all, and freedom must soon be given to the pining millions under a ruthless bondage.

  Frederick Douglass

  Freedom, Blessing, Heaven

  Frederick Douglass (1855). “My Bondage and My Freedom ...”, p.360

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The misfortunes which God is represented in the book of Job as allowing Satan to inflict on Job, merely to test his faith, are indications, if not of positive malevolence, at least of a suspicious and ruthless insecurity, which is characteristic more of a tyrant than of a wholly powerful and benevolent deity.

  A.J. Ayer

  God, Religious, Jobs

  31 Copy quote

• The sadistic narcissist perceives himself as Godlike, ruthless and devoid of scruples, capricious and unfathomable, emotion-less and non-sexual, omniscient, omnipotent and omni-present, a plague, a devastation, an inescapable verdict.

  Sam Vaknin

  Devastation, Emotion, Narcissist

  29 Copy quote

• Since in every European country between 1870 and 1914 there was a war party demanding armaments, an individualist party demanding ruthless competition, an imperialist party demanding a free hand over backward peoples, a socialist party demanding the conquest of power and a racialist party demanding internal purges against aliens - all of them, when appeals to greed and glory failed, invoked Spencer and Darwin, which was to say science incarnate.

  Jacques Barzun

  Country, War, Party

  Jacques Barzun (1958). “Darwin, Marx, Wagner: critique of a heritage”, Doubleday Books

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• In a lot of roles, strong women feel like they need to apologize. But men don't need to apologize for being ruthless and women somehow do?

  Rodrigo Santoro

  Strong Women, Needs, Roles

  Source: collider.com

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• We need to have a resolve that will bring the world together to root out the kind of radical jihadist ideology that motivates organizations like ISIS, a barbaric, ruthless, violent jihadist, terrorist group.

  Hillary Clinton

  Isis, Organization, Roots

  Hillary Clinton's speech on foreign policy and domestic issues at the Democratic presidential debate at Drake University in Iowa hosted by the CBS News, www.cbsnews.com. November 14, 2015.

  30 Copy quote

  Show source

• I acquired more wealth, power, and prestige than most. But you can acquire all you want and still feel empty. It took a deadly illness to put me eye to eye with that truth, but it is a truth that the country, caught up in its ruthless ambitions and moral decay, can learn on my dime. I don't know who will lead us through the '90s, but they must be made to speak to this spiritual vacuum at the heart of American society, this tumor of the soul.

  Lee Atwater

  Country, Spiritual, Eye

  Life Interview, January 1991.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• A commander should have a profound understanding of human nature, the knack of smoothing out troubles, the power of winning affection while communicating energy, and the capacity for ruthless determination where require by circumstances. He needs to generate an electrifying current, and to keep a cool head in applying it.

  B. H. Liddell Hart

  Determination, Winning, Should Have

  6 Copy quote

• The problems of the global economy are not based in perception, but in the reality of prices, balance sheets and income statements, vast concentrations of wealth and power, precarious systemic imbalances, ruthless exploitation, and command economies mismanaged by Central State/Bank policy and manipulation.

  Charles Hugh Smith

  Reality, Concentration Of Wealth, Perception

  "The 'Uncredible' Dog And Pony Show: Merkel And Sarkozy" by Charles Hugh Smith, www.businessinsider.com. October 10, 201.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Romantic love is blind to everything except what is lovable and lovely, but Christ's love sees us with terrible clarity and sees us whole. Christ's love so wishes our joy that it is ruthless against everything in us that diminishes our joy. The worst sentence Love can pass is that we behold the suffering which Love has endured for our sake, and that is also our acquittal. The justice and mercy of the judge are ultimately one.

  Frederick Buechner

  Love, Justice, Judging

  Frederick Buechner (1973). “Wishful thinking: a theological ABC.”, Harper San Francisco

  36 Copy quote

  Show source

• Though environmental orthodoxy holds that Third World deforestation is caused by rapacious clear-cutters and ruthless cattle barons, penniless peasants seeking fuel wood may be the greatest threat to our forests.

  Gregg Easterbrook

  Environmental, Fuel, World

  4 Copy quote

• At the heart of science is an essential balance between two seemingly contradictory attitudes-an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive they may be, and the most ruthless skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new. This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep nonsense.

  Carl Sagan

  Attitude, Heart, Science

  "The Demon-Haunted World : Science as a Candle in the Dark". Ch. 17 : The Marriage of Skepticism and Wonder. Book by Carl Sagan, 1995.

  18 Copy quote

  Show source

• Stay as focused as possible and keep simplifying down your ideas till you have something small you can launch quickly and iterate on. Be ruthless in hiring only the best people. Keep fit and try to exercise even in the longest times.

  Ian Hogarth

  Exercise, Ideas, People

  6 Copy quote

• He likes to take strolls by himself and believes dog-catchers are friendly innkeepers who'll take care of a meal. He's gullible and has never learned to fight back against a ruthless world.

  Tom Hayden

  Dog, Believe, Fighting

  16 Copy quote