Popular quotes about Destruction! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 26
Change of regime with respect to Iraq had nothing to do with this; it had everything to do with the fact that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. And at the time change in regime as a policy came into effect in 1998, it was seen as the only way to compel Iraq to get rid of its weapons of mass destruction.
Colin PowellSalvation and justice are not to be found in revolution, but in evolution through concord. Violence has ever achieved only destruction, not construction; the kindling of passions, not their pacification; the accumulation of hate and destruction, not the reconciliation of the contending parties; and it has reduced men and parties to the difficult task of building slowly after sad experience on the ruins of discord.
Pope Pius XIIWhy is it that the destruction of something created by humans is called vandalism, yet the destruction of something created by God is called development?
Edward AbbeyI grew up in a very responsible, social, Democratic community, and destruction was a bad word. But, in California, destruction is a rad word. The juxtaposition of the two is really what made me into who I am today, in my battles with how fun it is to be bad, and how wrong it is to be bad.
Rie RasmussenThis is our message - killing is wrong. Mass killing is wrong. Threatening mass destruction is a denial of our own humanity and is suicidal. When something is wrong we have to stop it. Dismantling the machinery of destruction is thus a practical act of love that we can all join in. Please join us - together we are unstoppable.
Angie ZelterIn old days there were angels who came and took men by the hand and led them away from the city of destruction. We see no white-winged angels now. But yet men are led away from threatening destruction: a hand is put into theirs, which leads them forth gently towards a calm and bright land, so that they look no more backward; and the hand may be a little child's.
George EliotTragedy speaks not of secular dilemmas which may be resolved by rational innovation, but of the unalterable bias toward inhumanity and destruction in the drift of the world.
George SteinerMencheres slid through the water toward her, drawn by the same inexorable compulsion that led moths to dance with flames. He'd had several lifetimes' worth of reason, cold machinations, and, ultimately, emptiness. Perhaps the moths knew what he didn't, that the joy of the flame was worth the price of destruction.
Jeaniene FrostMany of the artifacts of my house had become potential devices for my own destruction: the attic rafters (and an outside maple or two) a means to hang myself, the garage a place to inhale carbon monoxide, the bathtub a vessel to receive the flow from my opened arteries. The kitchen knives in their drawers had but one purpose for me.
William StyronThe achievements of past struggles and the aspirations of an entire nation are [being] undone and erased.... No Agent Orange or steel pellet bombs, no napalm, no toxic chemicals: a new phase of economic and social (rather than' physical) destruction has unfolded. The seemingly neutral and scientific tools of macro-economic policy constitute a non-violent instrument of recolonization and impoverishment.
Michel ChossudovskyWith each newly minted crisis, US leaders roll out the same time-tested scenario. They start demonizing a foreign leader ... charging them with being communistic or otherwise dictatorial, dangerously aggressive, power hungry, genocidal, given to terrorism or drug trafficking, ready to deny us access to vital resources, harboring weapons of mass destruction, or just inexplicably "anti-American" and "anti-West." Lacking any information to the contrary, the frightened public ... are swept along.
Michael ParentiHow could a society escape destruction if, when political ties are relaxed, moral ties are not tightened, and what can be done with a people master of itself if it not subject to God?
Alexis de Tocqueville'Cyberwar' has nothing to do with the destruction brought about by bombs and grenades and so on.
Paul VirilioWe on Earth have just awakened to the great oceans of space and time from which we have emerged. We are the legacy of 15 billion years of cosmic evolution. We have a choice: We can enhance life and come to know the universe that made us, or we can squander our 15 billion-year heritage in meaningless self-destruction. What happens in the first second of the next cosmic year depends on what we do, here and now, with our intelligence and our knowledge of the cosmos.
Carl SaganHuman use of fossil fuels is altering the chemistry of the atmosphere; oceans are polluted and depleted of fish; 80 per cent of Earth's forests are heavily impacted or gone yet their destruction continues. An estimated 50,000 species are driven to extinction each year. We dump millions of tonnes of chemicals, most untested for their biological effects, and many highly toxic, into air, water and soil. We have created an ecological holocaust. Our very health and survival are at stake, yet we act as if we have plenty of time to respond.
David SuzukiFor Reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and Passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction.
Khalil GibranThey wanted to preserve and protect the mystical knowledge gained from their meditation practices and pass it on to future civilizations they clairvoyantly saw were going to be born after the destruction of Atlantis
Frederick LenzAll paths lead to God, but only one path will present you before God without fault and with great joy. Pick a path, any pathโit will take you to God. Trust me: you will stand before Him one day. You will meet your Maker. You will see the face of Christ. There are many ways up the mountain, but only one will result in life instead of destruction.
Kevin DeYoungI will step outside the system. Voting for the โlesser evilโ-or failing to vote at all-is part of the corporate agenda to crush what is left of our anemic democracy. And those who continue to participate in the vaudeville of a two-party process, who refuse to confront in every way possible the structures of corporate power, assure our mutual destruction.
Chris HedgesHamas is regularly described as 'Iranian-backed Hamas, which is dedicated to the destruction of Israel.' One will be hard put to find something like 'democratically elected Hamas, which has long been calling for a two-state settlement in accord with the international consensus'โblocked for over 30 years by the US and Israel. All true, but not a useful contribution to the Party Line, hence dispensable.
Noam ChomskyThe fact is, I see no compelling reason why we should not unilaterally get rid of our nuclear weapons. To maintain them is costly and adds nothing to our security. I can think of no circumstances under which it would be wise for the United States to use nuclear weapons, even in retaliation for their prior use against us. What, for example, would our targets be? It is impossible to conceive of a target that could be hit without large-scale destruction of many innocent people?
Paul NitzeThe three most disastrous inventions of our time have been the birth control pill, the camera and nuclear weaponry. The first offers sex in terms of sterility, the second reality in terms of fantasy, and the third security in terms of destruction.
Malcolm MuggeridgeHow can one talk in a classical language about a child who's torn apart in an explosion in the market near his school? People in Iraq don't talk about their joys, their problems, and the destruction of the country in literary diction.
Hassan BlasimThe seeds of destruction lie in the definition of "chosen-ness" and can easily blossom into bigotry. It's not inevitable but it needs constant care to avoid.
Toni MorrisonThe road to tyranny, we must never forget, begins with the destruction of the truth.
William J. ClintonIn a time of destruction, create something: a poem, a parade, a community, a school, a vow, a moral principle; one peaceful moment.
Maxine Hong KingstonIn April, 1915, the Ottoman Government began to put into execution throughout Turkey a systematic and carefully-prepared plan to exterminate the Armenian race. In six months nearly a million Armenians have been killed. The number of victims and the manner of their destruction are without parallel in Modern History.
Herbert Adams GibbonsThere is no cruelty so inexorable and unrelenting as that which proceeds from a bigoted and presumptuous supposition of doing service to God. The victim of the fanatical persecutor will find that the stronger the motives he can urge for mercy are, the weaker will be his chance for obtaining it, for the merit of his destruction will be supposed to rise in value in proportion as it is effected at the expense of every feeling both of justice and of humanity.
Charles Caleb ColtonBecause hypocrisy stinks in the nostrils one is likely to rate it as a more powerful agent for destruction than it is.
Rebecca WestThe indefinite combination of human fallibility and nuclear weapons will lead to the destruction of nations.
Robert McNamaraWhite males are the most responsible for the destruction of human life and environment on the planet today.
Robin MorganMy default is self-destruction, and anything on top of that is a bloody lot of work.
Gillian AndersonIsrael means war and destruction and we Americans are behind this war and I am ashamed of being American.
Anthony HopkinsBy my monastic life and vows I am saying no to all the concentration camps, the aerial bombardments, the staged political trials, the judicial murders, the racial injustices, the economic tyrannies, and the whole socioeconomic apparatus which seems geared for nothing but global destruction in spite of all its fair words in favor of peace.
Thomas MertonAtheism is a system which can communicate neither warmth nor illumination, except from those fagots which your mistaken zeal has lighted up for its destruction.
Charles Caleb ColtonTo be well used, creatures and places must be used sympathetically, just as they must be known sympathetically to be well known...The "animal scientist" to whom it is of no concern whether or not animals suffer will almost inevitably aid and abet the destruction of the decent old ideal of animal husbandry and, as a consequence, increase the suffering of animals. I hope that my country may be delivered from the remote, cold abstractions of university science.
Wendell BerryThere is no question that Iraq possesses biological and chemical weapons and that he [Saddam Hussein] seeks to acquire additional weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons. That is not in debate. I also agree with President Bush that Saddam Hussein is a threat to peace and must be disarmed, to quote President Bush directly.
Christopher DoddThe number of nuclear bombs on the planet today - the sheer quantity of weapons of mass destruction in the possession of people and governments throughout the world - along with the fact that the use of brute force and militarism is an almost knee-jerk way of problem-solving on the planet today, makes the eradication of war the great moral issue of this generation.
Marianne WilliamsonThe most powerful force ever known on this planet is human cooperation - a force for construction and destruction.
Jonathan HaidtSenator Lugar will also travel to Libya for official meetings as a part of the president's initiative to move toward more normal relations reflecting that country's renunciation of terrorism and abandonment of its weapons of mass destruction and longer range missiles.
Dana PerinoA truly free society must not include a peace which oppresses us. We must learn on our own terms what peace and freedom mean together. There can be no peace if there is social injustice and suppression of human rights, because external and internal peace are inseparable. Peace is not just the absence of mass destruction, but a positive internal and external condition in which people are free so that they can grow to their full potential.
Petra KellyDespotism may govern without faith, but liberty cannot. How is it possible that society should escape destruction if the moral tie is not strengthened in proportion as the political tie is relaxed? And what can be done with a people who are their own masters if they are not submissive to the Deity?
Alexis de TocquevilleThere is neither creation nor destruction, neither destiny nor free will, neither path nor achievement. This is the final truth.
Ramana MaharshiI do not wish upon anyone a descent into hell. But if your life has to be turned inside out in order for you to know yourself--if the shadow of a shaman crosses your path and you turn and follow it down--I pray that you use its force wisely. I hope that you take the ultimate responsibility for your actions and that you consecrate any destruction to the rebuilding of your higher self and a more radiant life.
Elizabeth Lesser