Destruction Quotes

“I think I’ll dismember the world and then I’ll dance in the wreckage.”
― Neil Gaiman, Preludes & Nocturnes

“Fedin laughed outright, a grim, calculating gesture as hard and unfeeling as cold steel. “Twenty million Russians have been slaughtered by the Fascists in the last six years..... Always remember this, Squadron Leader. It was our war, our victory and now it is our Berlin. We tolerate your presence in this city… if that.”
― KGE Konkel, Who Has Buried the Dead?: From Stalin to Putin … The last great secret of World War Two

“He will tell you what's wrong in your society, who's to blame, and make you afraid of it, but he won't tell you how to fix it.”
― March Lions, The Last Sunset

“Study, along the lines which the theologies have mapped, will never lead us to discovery of the fundamental facts of our existence. That goal must be attained by means of exact science and can only be achieved by such means. The fact that man, for ages, has superstitiously believed in what he calls a God does not prove at all that his theory has been right. There have been many gods – all makeshifts, born of inability to fathom the deep fundamental truth. There must be something at the bottom of existence, and man, in ignorance, being unable to discover what it is through reason, because his reason has been so imperfect, undeveloped, has used, instead, imagination, and created figments, of one kind or another, which, according to the country he was born in, the suggestions of his environment, satisfied him for the time being. Not one of all the gods of all the various theologies has ever really been proved. We accept no ordinary scientific fact without the final proof; why should we, then, be satisfied in this most mighty of all matters, with a mere theory?

Destruction of false theories will not decrease the sum of human happiness in future, any more than it has in the past... The days of miracles have passed. I do not believe, of course, that there was ever any day of actual miracles. I cannot understand that there were ever any miracles at all. My guide must be my reason, and at thought of miracles my reason is rebellious. Personally, I do not believe that Christ laid claim to doing miracles, or asserted that he had miraculous power...

Our intelligence is the aggregate intelligence of the cells which make us up. There is no soul, distinct from mind, and what we speak of as the mind is just the aggregate intelligence of cells. It is fallacious to declare that we have souls apart from animal intelligence, apart from brains. It is the brain that keeps us going. There is nothing beyond that.

Life goes on endlessly, but no more in human beings than in other animals, or, for that matter, than in vegetables. Life, collectively, must be immortal, human beings, individually, cannot be, as I see it, for they are not the individuals – they are mere aggregates of cells.

There is no supernatural. We are continually learning new things. There are powers within us which have not yet been developed and they will develop. We shall learn things of ourselves, which will be full of wonders, but none of them will be beyond the natural.

[Columbian Magazine interview]”
― Thomas A. Edison

“The most dangerous people in the world are not the tiny minority instigating evil acts, but those who do the acts for them. For example, when the British invaded India, many Indians accepted to work for the British to kill off Indians who resisted their occupation. So in other words, many Indians were hired to kill other Indians on behalf of the enemy for a paycheck. Today, we have mercenaries in Africa, corporate armies from the western world, and unemployed men throughout the Middle East killing their own people - and people of other nations - for a paycheck. To act without a conscience, but for a paycheck, makes anyone a dangerous animal. The devil would be powerless if he couldn't entice people to do his work. So as long as money continues to seduce the hungry, the hopeless, the broken, the greedy, and the needy, there will always be war between brothers.”
― Suzy Kassem

“The tyrant is a child of Pride
Who drinks from his sickening cup
Recklessness and vanity,
Until from his high crest headlong
He plummets to the dust of hope.”
― Sophocles, Oedipus Rex

“The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us the less taste we shall have for the destruction of our race. Wonder and humility are wholesome emotions, and they do not exist side by side with a lust for destruction.

{Speech accepting the John Burroughs Medal}”
― Rachel Carson

“I am the spirit that negates.
And rightly so, for all that comes to be
Deserves to perish wretchedly;
'Twere better nothing would begin.
Thus everything that that your terms, sin,
Destruction, evil represent—
That is my proper element.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust - Part One

“I also fear an attack directly upon us which shall be considerably aided by the French colonists! I therefore support your plan to act first and stage a preemptive strike against the French by launching “Operation Bright Moon”, which is now the code name for the Japanese coup d ětat which will disarm the Vichy French Forces by or during the 9th of March 1945!”  

(A Gracious Enemy & After the War Volume Two)”
― Michael G. Kramer

“There are five dangerous faults which may affect a general:
(1) Recklessness, which leads to destruction;
(2) cowardice, which leads to capture;
(3) a hasty temper, which can be provoked by insults;
(4) a delicacy of honor which is sensitive to shame;
(5) over-solicitude for his men, which exposes him to worry and trouble.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

“They have nothing to give. They have no power of making. All their power is to darken and destroy. They cannot leave this place; they are this place; and it should be left to them. They should not be denied nor forgotten, but neither should they be worshiped. The Earth is beautiful, and bright, and kindly, but that is not all. The Earth is also terrible, and dark, and cruel. The rabbit shrieks dying in the green meadows. The mountains clench their great hands full of hidden fire. There are sharks in the sea, and there is cruelty in men’s eyes. And where men worship these things and abase themselves before them, there evil breeds; there places are made in the world where darkness gathers, places given over wholly to the Ones whom we call Nameless, the ancient and holy Powers of the Earth before the Light, the powers of the dark, of ruin, of madness… I think they drove your priestess Kossil mad a long time ago; I think she has prowled these caverns as she prowls the labyrinth of her own self, and now she cannot see the daylight any more. She tells you that the Nameless Ones are dead; only a lost soul, lost to truth, could believe that. They exist. But they are not your Masters. They never were. You are free, Tenar. You were taught to be a slave, but you have broken free.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Tombs of Atuan

“On the 30th of April 1975, American helicopters flew out of Saigon in an ignominious retreat as the tanks of the People’s Liberation Army of Vietnam rumbled into the grounds of the American Embassy in Saigon.

(A Gracious Enemy & After the War Volume Two)”
― Michael G. Kramer

“we are threatened with suffering from three directions: from our body, which is doomed to decay..., from the external world which may rage against us with overwhelming and merciless force of destruction, and finally from our relations with other men... This last source is perhaps more painful to use than any other. (p77)”
― Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents

“On the 30th of April 1975, American helicopters flew out of Saigon in an ignominious retreat as the tanks of the People’s Liberation Army of Vietnam rumbled into the grounds of the American Embassy in Saigon.”
― Michael G. Kramer, A Gracious Enemy & After the War Volume One

“darkness falls upon Humanity
and faces become terrible
things
that wanted more than there
was.

all our days are marked with
unexpected
affronts - some
disastrous, others
less so
but the process is
wearing and
continuous.
attrition rules.
most give
way
leaving
empty spaces
where people should
be.

and now
as we ready to self-destruct
there is very little left to
kill

which makes the tragedy
less and more
much much
more.”
― Charles Bukowski, You Get So Alone at Times That it Just Makes Sense

“Rumours should be juicy and gossips must be mouth-watering, since they have to uplift and make people feel better. Tittle-tattle can have a swift ripple effect and when the ball is rolling very fast, it kick-starts a flood of moral destruction. “Schadenfreude” can, then, be fully enjoyed. (“Juicy rumours”)”
― Erik Pevernagie

“No one else could share his quandary. His agonies were a mixture of shame, of loss fueled by profoundly rooted fury—solitary burdens he had carried with him like pockets of sorrow weighing him down, forcing him to become stronger. When the Devil was gnawing at him, he’d withstood the pain.”
― Tom Baldwin, Macom Farm

“Hey, even the Mona Lisa is falling apart.”
― Chuck Palahniuk , Fight Club

“Woe, destruction, ruin, and decay; the worst is death and death will have his day.”
― William Shakespeare, Richard II

“I am destroying myself so other people can’t," she said, "and it’s the worst kind of control but it’s the only form I know.”
― Sue Zhao

“You can't let the truth bring out the worst and let it get the best of you.”
― Criss Jami, Diotima, Battery, Electric Personality

“Our problems started in Dallas, when the fire-breathing sheep destroyed the King Tut exhibit.”
― Rick Riordan, The Serpent's Shadow

“She was overwhelmed with a premonition. Deja vu but from the future, looking back to this moment looking forward.”
― William Kely McClung, Black Fire

“O Rose, thou art sick.
The invisible worm
That flies in the night
In the howling storm

Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy,
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.”
― William Blake, Songs of Experience

“If Darwin had seen in life what Dostoevsky saw, he would not have talked of the law of the preservation of species, but of its destruction.”
― Lev Shestov, In Job's Balances: On the Sources of the Eternal Truths

“Humanity will destroy itself, body and soul, before it will learn a simple lesson.”
― Dan Wells, Fragments

“We love the things that destroy us, because in that destruction we truly feel alive.”
― Robert Pobi, Bloodman

“Yes, an actual full-sized camel. If you find that confusing, just think how the criosphinx must have felt.
Where did the camel come from, you ask? I may have mentioned Walt’s collection of amulets. Two of them summoned disgusting camels. I’d
met them before, so I was less than excited when a ton of dromedary flesh flew across my line of sight, plowed into the sphinx, and collapsed on top
of it. The sphinx growled in outrage as it tried to free itself. The camel grunted and farted.
“Hindenburg,” I said. Only one camel could possibly fart that badly. “Walt, why in the world—?”
“Sorry!” he yelled. “Wrong amulet!”
The technique worked, at any rate. The camel wasn’t much of a fighter, but it was quite heavy and clumsy. The criosphinx snarled and clawed
at the floor, trying unsuccessfully to push the camel off; but Hindenburg just splayed his legs, made alarmed honking sounds, and let loose gas.
I moved to Walt’s side and tried to get my bearings.”
― Rick Riordan, The Serpent's Shadow

“If the ignorance of nature gave birth to such a variety of gods, the knowledge of this nature is calculated to destroy them.”
― Paul Henri Thiry d'Holbach, System of Nature

“Karen was radiant in a beautiful blue gown. Even her mother, for once, had said so. “Not just pretty, honey—you reek of class. Like Princess Grace from Morocco,” she’d said, beaming at her daughter.”
― J.K. Franko, Killing Johnny Miracle