“We must not look too dangerous to neutrals. While this is probably less important for us than not looking too dangerous to friends and allies, it is still too important to be ignored. Here again, we must not look excessively destructive. It may be all right to promise the Soviets that if they attack us we will destroy every Soviet citizen in retaliation (though personally I think this far too destructive a proposal), but we should not threaten nonbelligerents with near annihilation because of our quarrel with the Russians. Many of the world's inhabitant perhaps two-thirds of them, do not feel it is their quarrel but feel it is their world. The more destructive we look, the less they like us and our program. To the extent that some in our midst talk and threaten potential world annihilation as a U. S. defense measure, we focus undeserved attention on ourselves as being dangerous and even irresponsible—appearing to be willing to risk uncounted hundreds of millions or billions of bystanders as to our selfish ambitions and desires. Neutrals and bystanders will inevitably suffer heavily in any thermonuclear War. But there is a difference between damage and annihilation.”
The Magnum Opus; On Thermonuclear War
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Herman Kahn 27
American futurist 1922–1983Related quotes

Iowa stump speech. http://www.rollingstone.com/nationalaffairs/index.php/2008/03/11/sinbad-on-his-and-hillarys-red-phone-moments-in-bosnia/
Presidential campaign (January 20, 2007 – 2008)

"The Reaction in Germany" (1842)
Often paraphrased as, "The urge to destroy is also a creative urge"
Context: We exhort the compromisers to open their hearts to truth, to free themselves of their wretched and blind circumspection, of their intellectual arrogance, and of the servile fear which dries up their souls and paralyzes their movements.
Let us therefore trust the eternal Spirit which destroys and annihilates only because it is the unfathomable and eternal source of all life. The passion for destruction is a creative passion, too!

Greg Abbott’s War https://www.texasmonthly.com/politics/greg-abbotts-war/ (September 2012)

“Far too many people are looking for the right person, instead of trying to be the right person.”

“It seems to me that we all look at Nature too much, and live with her too little.”
De Profundis (1897)