Quotes about damage

A collection of quotes on the topic of damage, doing, people, other.

Quotes about damage

Johnny Depp photo

“We're all damaged in our own way. Nobody's perfect. I think we're all somewhat screwy. Every single one of us.”

Johnny Depp (1963) American actor, film producer, and musician

Quoted in Bernard Weintraub, "Playboy Interview: Johnny Depp," Playboy (May 2004)
Context: I do have an affinity for damaged people, in life, in roles. I don't know why. We're all damaged in our own way. Nobody's perfect. I think we are all somewhat screwy, every single one of us.

Sophie Scholl photo

“The real damage is done by those millions who want to "survive." The honest men who just want to be left in peace. Those who don't want their little lives disturbed by anything bigger than themselves. Those with no sides and no causes.”

Sophie Scholl (1921–1943) White Rose member

As quoted in O<sub>2</sub> : Breathing New Life Into Faith (2008) by Richard Dahlstrom, Ch. 4 : Artisans of Hope: Stepping into God's Kingdom Story, p. 63; this source is disputed as it does not cite an original document for the quote. It is also used in <i> The White Rose </i> (1991) by Lillian Garrett-Groag, a monologue during Sophie's interrogation.
Disputed
Context: The real damage is done by those millions who want to "survive." The honest men who just want to be left in peace. Those who don't want their little lives disturbed by anything bigger than themselves. Those with no sides and no causes. Those who won't take measure of their own strength, for fear of antagonizing their own weakness. Those who don't like to make waves — or enemies. Those for whom freedom, honor, truth, and principles are only literature. Those who live small, mate small, die small. It's the reductionist approach to life: if you keep it small, you'll keep it under control. If you don't make any noise, the bogeyman won't find you. But it's all an illusion, because they die too, those people who roll up their spirits into tiny little balls so as to be safe. Safe?! From what? Life is always on the edge of death; narrow streets lead to the same place as wide avenues, and a little candle burns itself out just like a flaming torch does. I choose my own way to burn.

Ahmad Shah Massoud photo

“If President Bush doesn't help us, these terrorists will damage the U. S. and Europe very soon.”

Ahmad Shah Massoud (1953–2001) Afghan military leader

Remark to a reporter (April 2001), quoted in Time (4 August 2002) " The Secret History https://archive.is/20120919170542/www.time.com/time/covers/1101020812/story.html" by Michael Elliott.

Jacque Fresco photo
Tupac Shakur photo
Sun Myung Moon photo

“God is not stupid. Don't make excuses before Him. God will not make excuses, even though man may cause damage to His promise. You must take that degree of responsibility too.”

Sun Myung Moon (1920–2012) Korean religious leader

The Way of God's Will Chapter 1-5. Tradition, Official Business, and Responsibility http://www.unification.org/ucbooks/WofGW/wogw1-05.htm Translated 1980.

Alfred Denning, Baron Denning photo
Martin Luther photo

“And I must speak plainly. If I were a judge, I would have such a poisonous, syphilitic whore tortured by being broken on the wheel and having her veins lacerated, for it is not to be denied what damage such a filthy whore does to young blood, so that it is unspeakably damaged before it is even fully grown and destroyed in the blood.”

Source: Table Talk (1569), pp. 552-554 (1566); cited in Susan C. Karant-Nunn & Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks [editors and translators], Luther on Women: a Sourcebook, Cambridge University Press, 2003, pp. 157-158)

George Orwell photo
Tamora Pierce photo

“Libraries are places where the damaged go to find friends”

Tamora Pierce (1954) American writer of fantasy novels for children
Erich Fromm photo
Robert Walser photo
Martin Luther photo
Kurt Vonnegut photo
Robin Williams photo

“Parry is a man with a previous life that was so damaged that he had to create another personality.”

Robin Williams (1951–2014) American actor and stand-up comedian

On his role in The Fisher King (1991), as quoted in "Dreams: The Fisher King" (2006) edited by Phil Stubbs http://www.smart.co.uk/dreams/fkprod1.htm
Context: Parry is a man with a previous life that was so damaged that he had to create another personality. … It's like post-traumatic stress syndrome: Some people respond to traumatic or tragic events by withdrawal; some even create other personalities. Parry is a creation — somewhat Don Quixote, somewhat Groucho Marx — but he's a creation designed to avoid a past event.

George Orwell photo

“The lady in the Rolls-Royce car is more damaging to morale than a fleet of Göring’s bombing planes.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

Part II : Shopkeepers At War, § II
The Lion and the Unicorn (1941)

Jean Paul Sartre photo

“One could only damage oneself through the harm one did to others. One could never get directly at oneself.”

Jean Paul Sartre (1905–1980) French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and …
Abraham Lincoln photo

“Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled, or hanged.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

This was the lead sentence in an article "Democrats Usher in An Age of Treason" by conservative author J. Michael Waller in Insight magazine (23 December 2003) which a copyeditor (http://www.factcheck.org/misquoting_lincoln.html) mistakenly put quotation marks around, making it seem a quote of Lincoln.
Misattributed

Bertrand Russell photo

“Stupidity and unconscious bias often work more damage than venality.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Source: Sceptical Essays

Barack Obama photo
Erwin Rommel photo

“Thus the British lost the very able and adaptable commander David Stirling of the desert group SAS which had caused us more damage than any other British unit of equal strength.”

Erwin Rommel (1891–1944) German field marshal of World War II

Ch XVIII : Back to Tunisia, p. 393.
The Rommel Papers (1953)

Stefan Zweig photo
Barack Obama photo
Ronald Reagan photo
Leonardo Da Vinci photo
Yoshijirō Umezu photo
Ransom Riggs photo
Theodore Roosevelt photo
Richard Wagner photo
Barack Obama photo

“Now, those who were killed and injured here were gunned down by a single killer with a powerful assault weapon. The motives of this killer may have been different than the mass shooters in Aurora or Newtown. But the instruments of death were so similar. And now another 49 innocent people are dead; another 53 are injured; some are still fighting for their lives; some will have wounds that will last a lifetime. We can’t anticipate or catch every single deranged person that may wish to do harm to his neighbors or his friends or his coworkers or strangers. But we can do something about the amount of damage that they do. Unfortunately, our politics have conspired to make it as easy as possible for a terrorist or just a disturbed individual like those in Aurora and Newtown to buy extraordinarily powerful weapons, and they can do so legally.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

In Orlando after the Orlando nightclub shooting ([President Obama: Orlando Families' Grief Is 'Beyond Description', Time, Maya, Rhodan, June 16, 2016, September 2, 2018, http://time.com/4372190/orlando-shooting-barack-obama-joe-biden-grief/]; [‘Our hearts are broken, too’: Obama visits survivors of Orlando rampage, Katie, Zezima, Ellen, Nakashima, Mark, Berman, June 16, 2016, September 2, 2018, The Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/06/16/obama-looks-toward-grieving-orlando-in-visit-as-political-showdowns-expand-after-massacre/]; [After meeting with Orlando victims, Obama renews call for gun control, Gregory, Korte, USA Today, June 16, 2016, September 6, 2018, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2016/06/16/obama-biden-visit-orlando-emotional-visit-after-shooting/85973066/]).
2016, After the Orlando nightclub shooting (June 2016)

Karl Marx photo

“The Irish famine of 1846 killed more than 1,000,000 people, but it killed poor devils only. To the wealth of the country it did not the slightest damage.”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Vol. I, Ch. 25, Section 4(f), pg. 774.
(Buch I) (1867)

Socrates photo
Barack Obama photo
James Tobin photo
Thomas Henry Huxley photo

“It may be quite true that some negroes are better than some white men; but no rational man, cognisant of the facts, believes that the average negro is the equal, still less the superior, of the average white man. And, if this be true, it is simply incredible that, when all his disabilities are removed, and our prognathous relative has a fair field and no favour, as well as no oppressor, he will be able to compete successfully with his bigger-brained and smaller-jawed rival, in a contest which is to be carried on by thoughts and not by bites. The highest places in the hierarchy of civilisation will assuredly not be within the reach of our dusky cousins, though it is by no means necessary that they should be restricted to the lowest.
But whatever the position of stable equilibrium into which the laws of social gravitation may bring the negro, all responsibility for the result will henceforward lie between nature and him. The white man may wash his hands of it, and the Caucasian conscience be void of reproach for evermore. And this, if we look to the bottom of the matter, is the real justification for the abolition policy.
The doctrine of equal natural rights may be an illogical delusion; emancipation may convert the slave from a well-fed animal into a pauperised man; mankind may even have to do without cotton-shirts; but all these evils must be faced if the moral law, that no human being can arbitrarily dominate over another without grievous damage to his own nature, be, as many think, as readily demonstrable by experiment as any physical truth. If this be true, no slavery can be abolished without a double emancipation, and the master will benefit by freedom more than the freed-man.”

Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895) English biologist and comparative anatomist

"Emancipation — Black and White" (1865) http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/CE3/B&W.html, later published in Lay Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews (1871) Comments accepting many racist and sexist assumptions made in the context of rejecting oppressions based on racist and sexist arguments. More information is available at the Talk Origins Archive http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA005_3.html
1860s

Mark Twain photo
Charles Spurgeon photo

“It is a great deal easier to set a story afloat than to stop it. If you want truth to go round the world you must hire an express train to pull it; but if you want a lie to go round the world, it will fly: it is as light as a feather, and a breath will carry it. It is well said in the old proverb, "A lie will go round the world while truth is pulling its boots on." Nevertheless, it does not injure us; for if light as feather it travels as fast, its effect is just about as tremendous as the effect of down, when it is blown against the walls of a castle; it produces no damage whatever, on account of its lightness and littleness. Fear not, Christian. Let slander fly, let envy send forth its forked tongue, let it hiss at you, your bow shall abide in strength. Oh! shielded warrior, remain quiet, fear no ill; but, like the eagle in its lofty eyrie, look thou down upon the fowlers in the plain, turn thy bold eye upon them and say, "Shoot ye may, but your shots will not reach half-way to the pinnacle where I stand. Waste your powder upon me if ye will; I am beyond your reach."”

Charles Spurgeon (1834–1892) British preacher, author, pastor and evangelist

Then clap your wings, mount to heaven, and there laugh them to scorn, for ye have made your refuge God, and shall find a most secure abode.
"No. 17: Joseph Attacked by the Archers (Genesis 49:23–24, delivered on Sunday 1855-04-01)" pp.130
Sermons delivered in Exeter Hall, Strand, during the enlargement of New Park Street Chapel, Southmark (1855)

Amrita Sher-Gil photo

“I am always in love, but unfortunately for the party concerned, I fall out of love or rather fall in love with someone else before any damage can be done.”

Amrita Sher-Gil (1913–1941) Hungarian Indian artist

About her love life
Sikh Heritage,Amrita Shergil

Theodore Roosevelt photo

“We grudge no man a fortune in civil life if it is honorably obtained and well used. It is not even enough that it should have been gained without doing damage to the community. We should permit it to be gained only so long as the gaining represents benefit to the community.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1910s, The New Nationalism (1910)
Variant: It is not even enough that the fortune should have been gained without doing damage to the community. We should only permit it to be gained and kept so long as the gaining and the keeping represent benefit to the community.
Context: We grudge no man a fortune which represents his own power and sagacity, when exercised with entire regard to the welfare of his fellows. Again, comrades over there, take the lesson from your own experience. Not only did you not grudge, but you gloried in the promotion of the great generals who gained their promotion by leading their army to victory. So it is with us. We grudge no man a fortune in civil life if it is honorably obtained and well used. It is not even enough that it should have been gained without doing damage to the community. We should permit it to be gained only so long as the gaining represents benefit to the community.

Jacque Fresco photo
Frédéric Bastiat photo
Theodore Roosevelt photo
Jimmy Carter photo

“Penalties against drug use should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself. Nowhere is this more clear than in the laws against the possession of marijuana in private for personal use.”

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

Message to Congress (2 August 1977)
Presidency (1977–1981), 1977

Kanye West photo
Kay Redfield Jamison photo

“It took me far too long to realize that lost years and relationships cannot be recovered. That damage done to oneself and others cannot always be put right again.”

Kay Redfield Jamison (1946) American bipolar disorder researcher

Source: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness

Khaled Hosseini photo

“the past held only this wisdom: that love was a damaging mistake, and its accomplice, hope, a treacherous illusion”

Variant: Love was a damaging mistake and its accomplice, hope, a treacherous illusion".
Source: A Thousand Splendid Suns

Libba Bray photo
Henry Rollins photo

“I will do my best to dodge tonight's depression
Hide in sleep
Damage myself in dreams
Wake up older, slightly more used.”

Henry Rollins (1961) American singer-songwriter

Source: See A Grown Man Cry/Now Watch Him Die

John Muir photo
David Levithan photo
Chuck Palahniuk photo
Haruki Murakami photo
George Carlin photo
Chuck Palahniuk photo

“The damaged loves the damaged.”

Variant: The damaged love the damaged. True fact.
Source: Snuff

Pat Conroy photo
Kelly Link photo
Patrick Rothfuss photo
Maureen Johnson photo
Sherrilyn Kenyon photo

“Acheron: You're really not right, are you?
Nick: Yeah. I know. It was all the paint chips I ate as a kid. They were good, but chromosomally damaging”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Variant: You’re really not right, are you?
Yeah, I know. It was all the paint chips I ate as a kid. They were good, but chromosomally damaging. (Nick)
Source: Infinity

Cassandra Clare photo

“All my life I've felt like there was something wrong with me. Something missing or damaged."
"Every teenager in the world feels like that, feels broken or out of place, different somehow, royalty mistakenly born into a family of peasants.”

Variant: Every teenager in the world feels like that, feels broken or out of place, different somehow, royalty mistakenly born into a family of peasants. The difference in your case is that it's true.
Source: City of Bones

Haruki Murakami photo
Kay Redfield Jamison photo
Stephen King photo
Suzanne Collins photo
Eric Jerome Dickey photo

“hate isn't healthy, it damages the hater more than the one who's hated!”

Eric Jerome Dickey (1961) American author

Source: Liar's Game

Karen Marie Moning photo

“You can’t do damage control dead.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Burned

Suzanne Collins photo
Jodi Picoult photo
Bill Cosby photo

“All Children Have Brain Damage!”

Bill Cosby (1937) American actor, comedian, author, producer, musician, activist

Source: Childhood

Sarah Dessen photo
Margaret Atwood photo
Dorothy L. Sayers photo
Steven Wright photo
William James photo
Pat Conroy photo
Emma Donoghue photo

“Everybody's damaged by something.”

Source: Room

Neal Shusterman photo

“In this world, there is a fine line between enlightenment and brain damage.”

Neal Shusterman (1962) American novelist

Source: Antsy Does Time

John Kennedy Toole photo
Henry Jenkins photo
Lev Grossman photo