Quotes about aggression
page 5

Abd al-Karim Qasim photo
Alfred de Zayas photo
Hassan Rouhani photo

“… the aggressive, occupying Zionist regime is not bound by the laws of society and of humanity. It takes no pity on men, children and women, and continues to kill and rape”

Hassan Rouhani (1948) 7th President of Islamic Republic of Iran

them
Remarks in August 20, 2015 speech on Iran's World Mosque Day, as quoted in "Iranian President Rohani: 'We Will Not Forget The Bitter Memory Of The Arson At The Muslims' First Direction Of Prayer'; Israel Continues 'To Kill And Rape'" http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/8717.htm, MEMRI, (August 25, 2015)

Hannah Arendt photo
Marlo Thomas photo

“I was learning that, even for a woman with power, the path was dotted with land mines—she's so ambitious. she's so aggressive. she's ruthless. "Funny thing," I used to say, "a man has to be Joe McCarthy to be called ruthless... all a woman has to do is put you on hold."”

Marlo Thomas (1937) American actress, producer, and social activist

Growing Up Laughing: My Story and the Story of Funny http://books.google.com/books?id=pbVDuMYsLJQC&q=%22A+man+has+to+be+Joe+McCarthy+to+be+called+ruthless+All+a+woman+has+to+do+is+put+you+on+hold%22&pg=PT218#v=onepage (2010)

Emil M. Cioran photo

“In our fear, we are victims of an aggression of the Future.”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

All Gall Is Divided (1952)

George H. W. Bush photo

“This will not stand, this aggression against Kuwait.”

George H. W. Bush (1924–2018) American politician, 41st President of the United States

Remarks to reporters (5 August 1990)

Edward Elgar photo
Michael Warner photo
Rick Santorum photo

“The idea that the Crusades and the fight of Christendom against Islam is somehow an aggression on our part is absolutely anti-historical. And that is what the perception is by the American left who hates Christendom.”

Rick Santorum (1958) American politician

2011-02-23
Santorum: Left hates 'Christendom'
Politico
Andy
Barr
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0211/50054.html

Charles Henry Fowler photo
Ursula K. Le Guin photo
Ilana Mercer photo

“The paleolibertarian grasps that liberty has a civilizational dimension, stripped of which the libertarian non-aggression axiom, by which we all must live, cannot endure.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

" Cathy Reisenwitz Redux: Steigerwald, Oy Vey Gevalt! https://thelibertarianalliance.com/2015/01/14/ilana-mercer-cathy-reisenwitz-redux-steigerwald-oy-gevalt/" Libertarian Alliance, January 14, 2015
2010s, 2015

Ali Zayn al-Abidin photo
Camille Paglia photo
Michael Foot photo
Filippo Tommaso Marinetti photo

“.. there is no longer any beauty except the struggle. Any work of art that lacks a sense of aggression can never be a masterpiece.”

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876–1944) Italian poet and editor, founder of the Futurist movement

In the 'First Futurist Manifesto,' Filippo Marinetti, 1909; as quoted in Critical Writings: Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, New Edition, quoted in the text on the Back Cover, Macmillan, 7 Apr 2007
1900's

Linus Torvalds photo
Sam Houston photo
George H. W. Bush photo
Paul Karl Feyerabend photo
Jiddu Krishnamurti photo

“Where there is fear there is aggression.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) Indian spiritual philosopher

1st Public Talk, Berkeley, California (3 February 1969)
1960s

Joyce Carol Oates photo
Thomas Hardy photo

“Aggressive Fancy working spells
Upon a mind o’erwrought.”

Pt. I, sc. vi, Napoleon
The Dynasts (1904–1908)

Kirk Hammett photo
Starhawk photo
George William Curtis photo

“The country does want rest, we all want rest. Our very civilization wants it — and we mean that it shall have it. It shall have rest — repose — refreshment of soul and re-invigoration of faculty. And that rest shall be of life and not of death. It shall not be a poison that pacifies restlessness in death, nor shall it be any kind of anodyne or patting or propping or bolstering — as if a man with a cancer in his breast would be well if he only said he was so and wore a clean shirt and kept his shoes tied. We want the rest of a real Union, not of a name, not of a great transparent sham, which good old gentlemen must coddle and pat and dandle, and declare wheedlingly is the dearest Union that ever was, SO it is; and naughty, ugly old fanatics shan't frighten the pretty precious — no, they sha'n't. Are we babies or men? This is not the Union our fathers framed — and when slavery says that it will tolerate a Union on condition that freedom holds its tongue and consents that the Constitution means first slavery at all costs and then liberty, if you can get it, it speaks plainly and manfully, and says what it means. There are not wanting men enough to fall on their knees and cry: 'Certainly, certainly, stay on those terms. Don't go out of the Union — please don't go out; we'll promise to take great care in future that you have everything you want. Hold our tongues? Certainly. These people who talk about liberty are only a few fanatics — they are tolerably educated, but most of 'em are crazy; we don't speak to them in the street; we don't ask them to dinner; really, they are of no account, and if you'll really consent to stay in the Union, we'll see if we can't turn Plymouth Rock into a lump of dough'. I don't believe the Southern gentlemen want to be fed on dough. I believe they see quite as clearly as we do that this is not the sentiment of the North, because they can read the election returns as well as we. The thoughtful men among them see and feel that there is a hearty abhorrence of slavery among us, and a hearty desire to prevent its increase and expansion, and a constantly deepening conviction that the two systems of society are incompatible. When they want to know the sentiment of the North, they do not open their ears to speeches, they open their eyes, and go and look in the ballot-box, and they see there a constantly growing resolution that the Union of the United States shall no longer be a pretty name for the extension of slavery and the subversion of the Constitution. Both parties stand front to front. Each claims that the other is aggressive, that its rights have been outraged, and that the Constitution is on its side. Who shall decide? Shall it be the Supreme Court? But that is only a co-ordinate branch of the government. Its right to decide is not mutually acknowledged. There is no universally recognized official expounder of the meaning of the Constitution. Such an instrument, written or unwritten, always means in a crisis what the people choose. The people of the United States will always interpret the Constitution for themselves, because that is the nature of popular governments, and because they have learned that judges are sometimes appointed to do partisan service.”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

1850s, The Present Aspect of the Slavery Question (1859)

Thomas Jefferson photo

“Whensoever hostile aggressions…require a resort to war, we must meet our duty and convince the world that we are just friends and brave enemies.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter to Andrew Jackson (3 December 1806)
1800s, Second Presidential Administration (1805-1809)

Marshall McLuhan photo

“The alphabet is an aggressive and militant absorber and transformer of culture, as Harold Innis was the first to show.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

Source: 1960s, The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962), p. 56

Leopoldo Galtieri photo

“The dispatch of a naval force and the peremptory outcome that Great Britain tried to impose are clear demonstrations that that country persists in addressing the question with arguments based on force, and that the solution is sought through the simple refusal to recognize Argentinian rights. In view of that unacceptable intention, the Argentine Government could have no other response than the one it has just made by taking action. The Argentinian position can in no way be considered a form of aggression against the present inhabitants of the islands. Their rights and ways of life will be respected with the same generosity with which we respected those peoples we liberated during our independence movement. Yet we will not yield to the intimidatory deployment of the British forces; far from using peaceful diplomatic channels, they have threatened the indiscriminate use of those forces. Our forces will act only to the extent strictly necessary. They will in no way disrupt the life of the islanders. On the contrary, they will protect those institutions and persons who agree to coexist with us, but they will not tolerate any excesses either in the islands or on the mainland. We have a clear appreciation of the stance adopted and it is in defence of this stance that the Argentine nation has risen, the whole nation, spiritually and materially.”

Leopoldo Galtieri (1926–2003) Argentine military dictator

President Galtieri’s address to the nation https://teachwar.wordpress.com/resources/war-justifications-archive/falklandsmalvinas-war-1982/#arg1, 2 April 1982

“Within the horizon of this [western] myth, love is understood as the artificial restraining of our natural impulses toward unbridled aggression.”

Sam Keen (1931) author, professor, and philosopher

Source: The Passionate Life (1983), p. 24

Pope Benedict XVI photo
Lester del Rey photo

“Stupidity, greed, misdirected aggression—or sum it up and call it man.”

Lester del Rey (1915–1993) Novelist, short story writer, editor

Source: The Eleventh Commandment (1962), Chapter 12 (p. 114)

Leszek Kolakowski photo

“Lenin’ s often-quoted speech to the Komsomol Congress on 2 October 1920 deals with ethical questions on similar lines, "We say that our morality is entirely subordinated to the interests of the proletariat’ s class struggle. Morality is what serves to destroy the old exploiting society and to unite all the working people around the proletariat, which is building up a new, a communist society … To a Communist all morality lies in this united discipline and conscious mass struggle against the exploiters. We do not believe in an eternal morality, and we expose the falseness of all the fables about morality" (Works, vol. 31, pp. 291-4). It would be hard to interpret these words in any other sense than that everything which serves or injures the party’ s aims is morally good or bad respectively, and nothing else is morally good or bad. After the seizure of power, the maintenance and strengthening of Soviet rule becomes the sole criterion of morality as well as of all cultural values. No criteria can avail against any action that may seem conducive to the maintenance of power, and no values can be recognized on any other basis. All cultural questions thus become technical questions and must be judged by the one unvarying standard; the "good of society" becomes completely alienated from the good of its individual members. It is bourgeois sentimentalism, for instance, to condemn aggression and annexation if it can be shown that they help to maintain Soviet power; it is illogical and hypocritical to condemn torture if it serves the ends of the power which, by definition, is devoted to the "liberation of the working masses". Utilitarian morality and utilitarian judgements of social and cultural phenomena transform the original basis of socialism into its opposite. All phenomena that arouse moral indignation if they occur in bourgeois society are turned to gold, as if by a Midas touch, if they serve the interests of the new power: the armed invasion of a foreign state is liberation, aggression is defence, tortures represent the people’ s noble rage against the exploiters. There is absolutely nothing in the worst excesses of the worst years of Stalinism that cannot be justified on Leninist principles, if only it can be shown that Soviet power was increased thereby.”

Leszek Kolakowski (1927–2009) Philosopher, historian of ideas

Source: Main Currents Of Marxism (1978), Three Volume edition, Volume II, The Golden Age, pp. 515-6

Christopher Hitchens photo

“We are introduced to Iraq, "a sovereign nation"…In this peaceable kingdom, according to Moore's flabbergasting choice of film shots, children are flying little kites, shoppers are smiling in the sunshine, and the gentle rhythms of life are undisturbed. Then—wham! From the night sky come the terror weapons of American imperialism. Watching the clips Moore uses, and recalling them well, I can recognize various Saddam palaces and military and police centers getting the treatment. But these sites are not identified as such. In fact, I don't think Al Jazeera would, on a bad day, have transmitted anything so utterly propagandistic. You would also be led to think that the term "civilian casualty" had not even been in the Iraqi vocabulary until March 2003…the "insurgent" side is presented in this film as justifiably outraged, whereas the 30-year record of Baathist war crimes and repression and aggression is not mentioned once.That this—his pro-American moment—was the worst Moore could possibly say of Saddam's depravity is further suggested by some astonishing falsifications. Moore asserts that Iraq under Saddam had never attacked or killed or even threatened (his words) any American. I never quite know whether Moore is as ignorant as he looks, or even if that would be humanly possible…Baghdad was the safe house for the man whose "operation" murdered Leon Klinghoffer…In 1991, a large number of Western hostages were taken by the hideous Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and held in terrible conditions for a long time. After that same invasion was repelled—Saddam having killed quite a few Americans and Egyptians and Syrians and Brits in the meantime and having threatened to kill many more—the Iraqi secret police were caught trying to murder former President Bush during his visit to Kuwait. Never mind whether his son should take that personally…Iraqi forces fired, every day, for 10 years, on the aircraft that patrolled the no-fly zones and staved off further genocide in the north and south of the country…And it was after, and not before, the 9/11 attacks that Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi moved from Afghanistan to Baghdad and began to plan his now very open and lethal design for a holy and ethnic civil war.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

2004-06-21
Unfairenheit 9/11
Slate
1091-2339
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2004/06/unfairenheit_911.html: On Michael Moore
2000s, 2004

Ernst Bloch photo
Michael Ignatieff photo
Muammar Gaddafi photo

“Israel is a colonialist-imperialist phenomenon. There is no such thing as an Israeli people. Before 1948, world geography knew of no state such as Israel. Israel is the result of an invasion, of aggression.”

Muammar Gaddafi (1942–2011) Libyan revolutionary, politician and political theorist

Time (9 April 1979) " World: An Interview with Gaddafi http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,920211-1,00.html"
Interviews

Nayef Al-Rodhan photo
James Madison photo

“Resolved, That the General Assembly of Virginia, doth unequivocally express a firm resolution to maintain and defend the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution of this State, against every aggression either foreign or domestic, and that they will support the Government of the United States in all measures warranted by the former.”

James Madison (1751–1836) 4th president of the United States (1809 to 1817)

Resolutions proposed to the Legislature of Virginia (21 December 1798), passed on 24 December; as published in the "Report of the Committee to whom were referred the Communications of various States, relative to the Resolutions of the last General Assembly of this State, concerning the Alien and Sedition Laws" (20 January 1800)
1790s

Kliment Voroshilov photo
Robert Rauschenberg photo
James K. Morrow photo
Benito Juárez photo

“The government of the republic will fulfill its duty to defend its independence, to repel foreign aggression, and accept the struggle to which it has been provoked, counting on the unanimous spirit of the Mexicans and on the fact that sooner or later the cause of rights and justice will triumph.”

Benito Juárez (1806–1872) President of Mexico during XIX century

Proclamation to the Mexican people, shortly before the Battle of Puebla of 5 May 1862 (which is commemorated by the "Cinco de Mayo" celebrations).

Noam Chomsky photo
Edward O. Wilson photo
John Ashcroft photo
Ron Paul photo
Ernesto Che Guevara photo
Stella Vine photo
Jimmy Carter photo
Jane Roberts photo
Montesquieu photo

“There are only two cases in which war is just: first, in order to resist the aggression of an enemy, and second, in order to help an ally who has been attacked.”

Montesquieu (1689–1755) French social commentator and political thinker

No. 95. (Usbek writing to Rhedi)
Lettres Persanes (Persian Letters, 1721)

Jimmy Carter photo

“History teaches, perhaps, very few clear lessons. But surely one such lesson learned by the world at great cost is that aggression, unopposed, becomes a contagious disease.”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

Speech on Afghanistan (4 January 1980) http://millercenter.org/president/carter/speeches/speech-3403
Presidency (1977–1981), 1978

George W. Bush photo
Dana Rohrabacher photo

“The American people, through the 35 states that have liberalized laws banning either medical marijuana, marijuana in general, or cannabinoid oils, have made it clear that federal enforcers should stay out of their personal lives. It’s time for restraint of the federal government’s over-aggressive weed warriors.”

Dana Rohrabacher (1947) American politician

"O.C. Congressman Dana Rohrabacher trying again with bill protecting state marijuana laws", The Orange County Register http://www.ocregister.com/articles/rohrabacher-659189-laws-state.html (April 23, 2015)

Enoch Powell photo

“One of the most dangerous words is 'extremist'. A person who commits acts of violence is not an 'extremist'; he is a criminal. If he commits those acts of violence with the object of detaching part of the territory of the United Kingdom and attaching it to a foreign country, he is an enemy under arms. There is the world of difference between a citizen who commits a crime, in the belief, however mistaken, that he is thereby helping to preserve the integrity of his country and his right to remain a subject of his sovereign, and a person, be he citizen or alien, who commits a crime with the intention of destroying that integrity and rendering impossible that allegiance. The former breaches the peace; the latter is executing an act of war. The use of the word 'extremist' of either or both conveys a dangerous untruth: it implies that both hold acceptable opinions and seek permissible ends, only that they carry them to 'extremes'. Not so: the one is a lawbreaker; the other is an enemy.

The same purpose, that of rendering friend and foe indistinguishable, is achieved by references to the 'impartiality' of the British troops and to their function as 'keeping the peace'. The British forces are in Northern Ireland because an avowed enemy is using force of arms to break down lawful authority in the province and thereby seize control. The army cannot be 'impartial' towards an enemy, nor between the aggressor and the aggressed: they are not glorified policemen, restraining two sets of citizens who might otherwise do one another harm, and duty bound to show no 'partiality' towards one lawbreaker rather than another. They are engaged in defeating an armed attack upon the state. Once again, the terminology is designed to obliterate the vital difference between friend and enemy, loyal and disloyal.

Then there are the 'no-go' areas which have existed for the past eighteen months. It would be incredible, if it had not actually happened, that for a year and a half there should be areas in the United Kingdom where the Queen's writ does not run and where the citizen is protected, if protected at all, by persons and powers unknown to the law. If these areas were described as what they are—namely, pockets of territory occupied by the enemy, as surely as if they had been captured and held by parachute troops—then perhaps it would be realised how preposterous is the situation. In fact the policy of refraining from the re-establishment of civil government in these areas is as wise as it would be to leave enemy posts undisturbed behind one's lines.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

Speech to the South Buckinghamshire Conservative Women's Annual Luncheon in Beaconsfield (19 March 1971), from Reflections of a Statesman. The Writings and Speeches of Enoch Powell (London: Bellew, 1991), pp. 487-488.
1970s

Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani photo
Roberto Clemente photo

“I was too aggressive. I should not have been so foolish. I am a craftsman in baseball. I look like rookie.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

Speaking after the 1972 NLCS, as quoted in "Puerto Rico Has Lost a Hero" by Bob Addie, in The Washington Post (Tuesday, January 2, 1973), p. D2
Baseball-related, <big><big>1970s</big></big>, <big>1972</big>

Koenraad Elst photo
Thomas Szasz photo

“Like the devout theologian seeing the Devil lurking everywhere, Menninger, the devout Freudian, sees aggression.”

Thomas Szasz (1920–2012) Hungarian psychiatrist

Source: The Manufacture of Madness: A Comparative Study of the Inquisition and the Mental Health Movement (1997), p. 172.

“To know thyself is the ultimate form of aggression.”

Marion J. Levy Jr. (1918–2002) American sociologist

Marion J. Levy Jr. in: University of Chicago. Graduate Program in Hospital Administration, ‎University of Chicago. Center for Health Administration Studies, 1971. p. 90

Michael Foot photo
Rebecca West photo
Rajnath Singh photo

“The RSS is the largest social and cultural organisation in the country and an aggressively patriotic organisation. The terrorists' bid is an attempt to attack the symbol of nationalism in the country's social life. It is also aimed at frightening the country's majority community, which is commendable.”

Rajnath Singh (1951) Indian politician

After an attempted terrorist attack on a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh office, " Police foil terrorist attack on RSS HQ http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2006-06-02/news/27454760_1_rss-headquarters-sangh-headquarters-rss-hq" The Economic Times (2 June 2006)

Ilana Mercer photo

“Western foreign policy is a necessary but insufficient reason for Muslim aggression.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

“The Camel-ate-my-homework Theory of Culpability,” http://thelibertarianalliance.com/2015/01/30/the-camel-ate-my-homework-theory-of-culpability/ Libertarian Alliance, January 30, 2015.
2010s, 2015

John Kenneth Galbraith photo
Calvin Coolidge photo
Camille Paglia photo
Paul Karl Feyerabend photo
Camille Paglia photo
Saddam Hussein photo
Andrew Sullivan photo
Abd al-Karim Qasim photo
Benjamín Netanyahu photo

“Starting with the Swadeshi Movement in Bengal, this flattering of Muslims by praising Islam culminated in Mahatma Gandhi’s sarva-dharma-samabhava - the opiate which lulled the Hindus into a deep slumber such as they had never known vis-à-vis Muslim aggression…. Anyone who questioned the pious proposition that the Quran was as good as the Vedas and the Puranas, ran the risk of being nailed down as an “enemy of communal harmony”….. That part of the “Muslim minority” which had voted for Pakistan but had chosen to stay in India, restarted the old game when India was proclaimed a secular state pledged to freedom of propagation for all religions. It revived its tried and tested trick of masquerading as a “poor and persecuted minority”. It cooked up any number of Pirpur Reports. The wail went up that the “lives, liberties and honour of the Muslims were not safe” in India, in spite of India’s “secular pretensions”. At the same time, street riots were staged on every possible pretext. The “communal situation” started becoming critical once again. …. And once again, the political leadership came out with a make-belief. The big-wigs from all political parties were collected in a “National Integration Council”. It was pointed out by the leftist professors that the major cause of “communal trouble” was the “bad habit” of living in the past on the part of “our people”. Most of the politicians knew no history and no religion for that matter. They all agreed with one voice that Indian history, particularly that of the “medieval Muslim period”, should be re-written. That, they pleaded, was the royal road to “national integration.””

The Calcutta Quran Petition (1986)

“He was exceptionally aggressive. He said I would do anything to get on television. That's rubbish. The fact is that out of the 10 tasks we were given to do in the series I was on the winning side eight times.”

James Max (1970) British journalist

Of Apprentice judge Paul Kemsley. Daily Telegraph 28 Apr 2005 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/2914680/Had-bad-day-at-the-office---I-got-fired-and-2.5m-were-watching.html

P. W. Botha photo

“It should be noted that refugees are crossing the border from southern Angola to South-West Africa – not the other way round. There is no aggression from our side.”

P. W. Botha (1916–2006) South African prime minister

As Minister of Defence, denying shelling of southern Angola by the SADF, 9 November 1976, as cited in PW Botha in his own words, Pieter-Dirk Uys, 1987, p. 63

Michele Bachmann photo
A. James Gregor photo
Andrew Sega photo
Hassan Nasrallah photo

“Israel is our enemy. This is an aggressive, illegal, and illegitimate entity, which has no future in our land. Its destiny is manifested in our motto: 'Death to Israel.”

Hassan Nasrallah (1960) Secretary General of Hezbollah

Al-Manar television, February 2, 2005
Quote, 2005
Source: Britain Israel Communication & Research Centre http://www.bicom.org.uk/publications/

Muhammad al-Taqi photo

“The one who commits aggression and tyranny, and the one who helps him upon it, and the one who is pleased over it - all are party and participants in it.”

Muhammad al-Taqi (811–835) ninth of the Twelve Imams of Twelver Shi'ism

al-Shahid al-Tustari, Ihqaqul-Haq, vol.12, p. 432
Religious Wisdom

Elbridge G. Spaulding photo
Rob Enderle photo

“We want Futurist clothes to be comfortable and practical
Dynamic
Aggressive
Shocking
Energetic
Violent
Flying (i. e. giving the idea of flying, rising and running)
Peppy
Joyful
Illuminating (in order to have light even in the rain)
Phosphorescent
Lit by electric lamps.”

Giacomo Balla (1871–1958) Italian artist

(Manuscript, 1913); as quoted at dekorera.tumblr: Futurist manifesto of men's clothing http://dekorera.tumblr.com/post/3212646425/futurist-manifesto-of-mens-clothing-by-giacomo
Futurist Manifesto of Men's clothing,' 1913/1914