“In a time of destruction, create something.”

— Maxine Hong Kingston

Last update Nov. 2, 2021. History

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Maxine Hong Kingston 7

Chinese American author 1940

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“Everything that is created is subject to destruction.”

Sallustius Roman philosopher and writer

VII. On the Nature of the World and its Eternity.
On the Gods and the Cosmos
Context: The cosmos itself must of necessity be indestructible and uncreated. Indestructible because, suppose it destroyed: the only possibility is to make one better than this or worse or the same or a chaos. If worse, the power which out of the better makes the worse must be bad. If better, the maker who did not make the better at first must be imperfect in power. If the same, there will be no use in making it; if a chaos... it is impious even to hear such a thing suggested. These reasons would suffice to show that the world is also uncreated: for if not destroyed, neither is it created. Everything that is created is subject to destruction.

“We are able to be incredibly creative or to be incredibly destructive. We have that decision to make, to create something. It could be grotesque and ugly, but it is monstrously beautiful, so it inspires people.”

Julie Taymor (1952) American film and theatre director

Academy of Achievement interview (2006)
Context: We can either be monsters or angels. We are able to be demons and angels, as that book says. We are able to be incredibly creative or to be incredibly destructive. We have that decision to make, to create something. It could be grotesque and ugly, but it is monstrously beautiful, so it inspires people.

“I think computer viruses should count as life … I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We've created life in our own image.”

Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author

Speech at Macworld Expo in Boston, as quoted in The Daily News (4 August 1994) http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=bD8PAAAAIBAJ&sjid=IoYDAAAAIBAJ&pg=4837%2C5338590. A nearly identical quote can be found at the end of the second paragraph of his lecture Life in the Universe http://hawking.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=65 (1996).