Quotes about destruction
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“These scars bear witness but whether to repair or to destruction I no longer know.”

Adrienne Rich (1929–2012) American poet, essayist and feminist

Source: Diving Into the Wreck

“Perfectionism is self destructive simply because there's no such thing as perfect. Perfection is an unattainable goal.”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Source: The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are

Perfection

“Did the destruction of one dream leave a vacuum that required filling with another? Is a broken heart more vulnerable?”

Cinda Williams Chima (1952) Novelist

Source: The Exiled Queen

Dreams, Heart

“Mutually assured destruction.”

Holly Black book Red Glove

Source: Red Glove

“Fire isn't always an element of destruction. Classical alchemical doctrine teaches that it also has dominion over another province: change.”

Jim Butcher book Cold Days

Source: Cold Days

Change

“Even when you self-destruct, you want to fail more, lose more, die more than others, stink more than others.”

Don DeLillo book Cosmopolis

Source: Cosmopolis

“The important task of literature is to free man, not to censor him, and that is why Puritanism was the most destructive and evil force which ever oppressed people and their literature: it created hypocrisy, perversion, fears, sterility.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

Source: The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 4: 1944-1947

People, Fear, Literature, Evil

“I have lost the faculty of enjoying their destruction, and I am too idle to destroy for nothing.”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Heathcliff (Ch. XXXIII).
Source: Wuthering Heights (1847)
Context: I get levers and mattocks to demolish the two houses, and train myself to be capable of working like Hercules, and when every thing is ready and in my power, I find the will to lift a slate off either roof has vanished! My old enemies have not beaten me — now would be the precise time to revenge myself on their representatives. I could do it, and none could hinder me; but where is the use? I don't care for striking — I can't take the trouble to raise my hand! That sounds as if I had been labouring the whole time only to exhibit a fine trait of magnanimity. It is far from being the case. I have lost the faculty of enjoying their destruction, and I am too idle to destroy for nothing.

“Beautiful. All this suffering at the moment of destruction.”

Naoko Takeuchi (1967) Japanese manga artist

Beauty, Suffering

“It may well be impossible for people who have lived and prospered under a given social system to imagine the point of view of those who feel it offers them nothing, and who can contemplate its destruction without any particular dismay.”

Michel Houellebecq (1956) writer

Source: Submission

People, Feeling, Imagination

“I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

Hate, Thinking

“One challenge of our adventure on earth is to rise above dead systems… wars, nations, destructions… to refuse to be a part of them, and express the highest selves we know how to be.”

Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer

Source: One

War, Parting, Dead

“She stared at me. "Fly,; ole, in an airplane, which you were warned never to do lest Zeus strike you out of the sky, AND carrying a weapon that has more destructive power than a nuclear bomb?"
"Yeah," I said. "Pretty much exactly like that.”

Rick Riordan book The Lightning Thief

Source: The Lightning Thief

Flying

“When you're at peace with yourself and love your self, it is virtually impossible to do things to yourself that are destructive.”

Wayne W. Dyer (1940–2015) American writer

Love, Peace

“Five years of destruction and mayhem, lives lost everywhere, shortages of food and fuel and clothing - and the insane mind behind it just urges us all on and on to more destruction. And we all keep playing.”

Elizabeth Wein book Rose Under Fire

Source: Rose Under Fire

Food, Clothes

“In a time of destruction, create something.”

Maxine Hong Kingston (1940) Chinese American author

Time, Hope

“She sings a dark destructive song.”

Euripidés Medea

Source: Medea

Singing

“The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the Prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Law

“Only the liberation of the natural capacity for love in human beings can master their sadistic destructiveness.”

Wilhelm Reich (1897–1957) Austrian-American psychoanalyst

Source: The Function of the Orgasm (1927), Ch. V : The Development of the Character-Analytic Technique

Love, Nature

“Artistic temperament sometimes seems a battleground, a dark angel of destruction and a bright angel of creativity wrestling.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Angels

“People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state on innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster.”

James Baldwin (1924–1987) (1924-1987) writer from the United States

People, Reality, Dead

“What obsession do men have for destruction and murder? Who do we electrocute men for murdering an individual and then pin a purple heart on them for mass slaughter of someone arbitrarily labeled 'enemy?”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Source: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

Men, Heart

“Once one becomes a man, he can and must make his own decisions. But I do offer warning. Even a good thing can become destructive if taken to excess.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Alloy of Law

Decision

“And he has to live like this on the edge of destruction, alone, with nobody at all to understand or pity him”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

Source: The Death of Ivan Ilych

Understanding

“Writing is the destruction of every voice, of every point of origin.”

Roland Barthes (1915–1980) French philosopher, critic and literary theorist

“Also she signed away the right to self-destruct years ago. The fine print on the birth certificate, her friend calls it.”

Jenny Offill book Dept. of Speculation

Source: Dept. of Speculation

Birth

“Perfectionism is a self destructive and addictive belief system that fuels this primary thought: If I look perfect, and do everything perfectly, I can avoid or minimize the painful feelings of shame, judgment, and blame.”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Source: The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are

Pain, Feeling, Perfection

“Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.”

Robert Frost Fire and Ice

"Fire and Ice" (1923)
General sources

Hate, World, Thinking

“Nothing is more creative… nor destructive… than a brilliant mind with a purpose.”

Dan Brown book Inferno

Source: Inferno

“Sometimes the best offense was avoiding self-destruction.”

Brandon Mull (1974) American fiction writer

Source: Seeds of Rebellion

“Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends [life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness] it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government…”

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

1770s, Declaration of Independence (1776)
Context: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Life, Happiness, People

“The destructive character knows only one watchword: make room. And only one activity: clearing away. His need for fresh air and open space is stronger than any hatred.”

Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) German literary critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)

"The Destructive Character" Frankfurter Zeitung (20 November 1931)
Source: Reflections: Essays, Aphorisms, Autobiographical Writings

“The monster I kill every day is the monster of realism. The monster who attacks me every day is destruction. Out of the duel comes the transformation. I turn destruction into creation over and over again.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

Source: Henry and June: From "A Journal of Love"--The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin

“Because there is no greater evil than ignorance and the destruction of genius. Ignorance has been responsible for more death, more bigotry, and more sin than any other force. It is the destroyer of mankind.”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

Source: Succubus Shadows

Death, Evil

“Self-destruction would be a brief, almost autoerotic free-fall into a great velvet darkness.”

Mark Mirabello (1955) American writer

Source: The Cannibal Within

“You said your mom is the goddess of balance," I reminded him. "The minor gods deserve better, Ethan, but total destruction isn't balance. Kronos doesn't build. He only destroys.”

Rick Riordan (1964) American writer

God, Moms

“The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government.”

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

To the Republican Citizens of Washington County, Maryland (31 March 1809)
1800s, Post-Presidency (1809)

Life, Happiness

“I suddenly realized. The zebra. It is not something outside of us. The zebra is something inside of us. Our fears. Our own self-destructive nature. The zebra is the worst part of us when we are face-to-face with our worst times. The demon is us!”

Garth Stein The Art of Racing in the Rain

Source: The Art of Racing in the Rain

Fear, Nature, Time, Parting

“The road of denial leads to the precipice of destruction”

John Bunyan (1628–1688) English Christian writer and preacher

“I am a lover and have not found my thing to love. That is a big point if you know enough to realize what I mean. It makes my destruction inevitable, you see. There are few who understand that.”

Sherwood Anderson book Winesburg, Ohio

Source: Winesburg, Ohio

Love, Lovers, Understanding

“When we don’t put the brakes on our self-absorption, we have nothing stopping us from total self-destruction. We become the fruits of our actions.”

Zeena Schreck (1963) Tantric Buddhist/Sethian

Source: Beatdom #11: The Nature Issue

“Storms rumble beyond the horizon, and the fires of heaven purge the earth. There is no salvation without destruction, no hope this side of death.”

Robert Jordan The Fires of Heaven

Source: The Fires of Heaven

Death, Hope

“Maybe self-improvement isn't the answer, maybe self-destruction is the answer.”

Chuck Palahniuk Fight Club

Source: Fight Club

“There is perhaps no phenomenon which contains so much destructive feeling as 'moral indignation,' which permits envy or hate to be acted out under the guise of virtue.”

Erich Fromm (1900–1980) German social psychologist and psychoanalyst

Source: Man for Himself: An Inquiry into the Psychology of Ethics

Hate, Feeling, Envy

“I wonder why progress looks so much like destruction.”

John Steinbeck book Travels with Charley: In Search of America

Pt. 3
Travels With Charley: In Search of America (1962)
Source: Travels with Charley: In Search of America

“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 destruction.”

Rachel Carson (1907–1964) American marine biologist and conservationist

Speech accepting the John Burroughs Medal (April 1952); also in Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson (1999) edited by Linda Lear, p. 94
Context: Mankind has gone very far into an artificial world of his own creation. He has sought to insulate himself, in his cities of steel and concrete, from the realities of earth and water and the growing seed. Intoxicated with a sense of his own power, he seems to be going farther and farther into more experiments for the destruction of himself and his world.
There is certainly no single remedy for this condition and I am offering no panacea. But it seems reasonable to believe — and I do believe — that 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.

Reality, Universe

“People living in the vanity of their own mind not only destroy themselves, but far too often, they bring destruction to others around them.”

Joyce Meyer (1943) American author and speaker

Source: Battlefield of the Mind: Winning the Battle in Your Mind

People

“Anger is the most useless emotion," Henchick intoned, "destructive to the mind and hurtful to the heart.”

Stephen King book The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah

Source: Song of Susannah

Heart, Hurt, Anger

“Now we're in that sweet period where everyone agrees that our recent horrors should never be repeated. But collective thinking is usually short-lived. We're fickle, stupid beings with poor memories and a great gift for self-destruction.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Katniss and Plutarch Heavensbee (p. 379)
Source: The Hunger Games trilogy, Mockingjay (2010)
Context: “Are you preparing for another war, Plutarch?” I ask.
“Oh, not now. Now we’re in that sweet period where everyone agrees that our recent horrors should never be repeated,” he says. “But collective thinking is usually short-lived. We’re fickle, stupid beings with a great gift for self-destruction. Although who knows? Maybe this will be it, Katniss.”
“What?” I ask.
“The time it sticks. Maybe we are witnessing the evolution of the human race. Think about that.“

Stupidity, Thinking, Memory

“Luckily, even as a young man not yet become himself, John Bridgens had two things besides indecision that kept him from self-destruction - books and a sense of irony.”

Dan Simmons book The Terror

Source: The Terror

Books, Sense, Indecision

“The more the drive toward life is thwarted, the stronger is the drive toward destruction; the more life is realized, the less is the strength of destructiveness. Destructiveness is the outcome of unlived life.”

Erich Fromm book Escape from Freedom

Source: Escape from Freedom

Life

“Art is the symbol of the two noblest human efforts: to construct and to refrain from destruction.”

Simone Weil (1909–1943) French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist

The Pre-War Notebook (1933-1939), published in First and Last Notebooks (1970) edited by Richard Rees

Art, Effort

“The obliterated place is equal parts destruction and creation. The obliterated place is pitch black and bright light. It is water and parched earth. It is mud and it is manna. The real work of deep grief is making a home there.”

Cheryl Strayed book Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar

Source: Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar

Home, Light, Water, Parting

“The purposeful destruction of information is the essence of intelligent work.”

Ray Kurzweil (1948) Author, scientist, inventor, and futurist

Source: The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence

Intelligence

“Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am -- not stuck in the middle, but hovering above the entire farcical spectrum, weeping as I behold my fellow man's devotion to political illusion and self-destruction.”

Robert Higgs (1944) economist

“Balance every thought with its opposition. Because the marriage of them is the destruction of illusion.”

Aleister Crowley (1875–1947) poet, mountaineer, occultist

Marriage

“But collective thinking is usually short-lived. We're fickle, stupid beings with poor memories and a great gift for self-destruction.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Variant: We're fickle, stupid beings with poor memories and a great gift for self destruction.
Source: Mockingjay

Stupidity, Thinking, Memory

“And they would all smile at the beauty of destruction.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

Smile, Beauty

“We are like water, aren’t we? We can be fluid, flexible when we have to be. But strong and destructive, too.” And something else, I think to myself. Like water, we mostly follow the path of least resistance.”

Wally Lamb (1950) american novelist

Source: We Are Water

Thinking, Strong, Water

“What's so funny 'bout peace, love, and world destruction?”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: Angel

Love, World, Peace

“Together, they would watch everything that was so carefully planned collapse, and they would smile at the beauty of destruction.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

Smile, Beauty

“I allowed myself to suffer how jarringly destructive the present feels and how fragile the past.”

Ann Brashares book My Name is Memory

Source: My Name Is Memory

Feeling, Suffering, Past

“Nix: We're not leaving without her. So unless you want permanent houseguests of the destructive sort, just hand her over.”

Kresley Cole book A Hunger Like No Other

Source: A Hunger Like No Other

“Evil's just destructive? Then storms are evil, if it's that simple. And we have fire, and there there's hail. Underwriters lump it all under 'Acts of God.”

Thomas Harris The Silence of the Lambs

Source: The Silence of the Lambs

God, Evil

“The passive ironic attitude is not cool or romantic, but pathetic and destructive.”

Robert Greene book Mastery

Source: Mastery

“Along with the idea of romantic love, she was introduced to another--physical beauty. Probably the most destructive ideas in the history of human thought. Both originated in envy, thrived in insecurity, and ended in disillusion.”

Toni Morrison book The Bluest Eye

Source: The Bluest Eye

Love, Beauty, History, Idea

“Nothing is more dangerous than a dogmatic worldview - nothing more constraining, more blinding to innovation, more destructive of openness to novelty.”

Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002) American evolutionary biologist

“That is the challenge Companion. To take what has happened to you and learn from it. Nothing is quite so destructive as pity, especially self-pity. No event in life is so terrible that one cannot rise above it.”

Robin Hobb book Ship of Destiny

Source: Ship of Destiny

Life, Learning

“YOU DO NOT need to be a victim of worry. Reduced to its simplest form, what is worry? It is simply an unhealthy and destructive mental habit.”

Norman Vincent Peale book The Power of Positive Thinking

Source: The Power of Positive Thinking

“Lord, grant that my work increase knowledge and help other men. Failing that, Lord, grant that it will not lead to man’s destruction. Failing that, Lord, grant that my article in Brain be published before the destruction takes place.”

Walker Percy book Love in the Ruins

Source: Love in the Ruins

Men, Knowledge, Help

“Perhaps in the world's destruction it would be possible at last to see how it was made. Oceans, mountains. The ponderous counterspectacle of things ceasing to be. The sweeping waste, hydroptic and coldly secular. The silence.”

Cormac McCarthy book The Road

Source: The Road

World, Mountain, Silence

“Man (and woman) has an infinite capacity for self-development. Equally, he has an infinite capacity for self-destruction. A human being may be clinically alive and yet, despite all appearances, spiritually dead.”

Idries Shah book Learning How to Learn: Psychology and Spirituality in the Sufi Way

Source: Learning How to Learn: Psychology and Spirituality in the Sufi Way

Appearance, Dead

“And the distinction between violent and non-violent action is that the former is exclusively bent upon the destruction of the old, and the latter is chiefly concerned with the establishment of something new.”

Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) Jewish-American political theorist

“Lies and secrets, Tessa, they are like a cancer in the soul. They eat away what is good and leave only destruction behind.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

Secret, Soul

“I guess humans like to watch a little destruction. Sand castles, houses of cards, that's where they begin. Their great skills is their capacity to escalate.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

Housing

“That girl will rain destruction down on you and your ship. She is an albatross, Captain.

Way I remember it, albatross was a ship's good luck, 'til some idiot killed it. (to Inara) Yes, I've read a poem. Try not to faint.”

Joss Whedon (1964) American director, writer, and producer for television and film

Way, Girl, Reading

“What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Katniss and Peeta (p. 388; closing words of the main text)
Source: The Hunger Games trilogy, Mockingjay (2010)
Context: I know this would have happened anyway. That what I need to survive is not Gale's fire, kindled with rage and hatred. I have plenty of fire myself. What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again. And only Peeta can give me that.
So after, when he whispers, "You love me. Real or not real?"
I tell him, "Real."

Life, Spring, Loss

“To hell, to hell with balance! I break glasses; I want to burn, even if I break myself. I want to live only for ecstasy. I’m neurotic, perverted, destructive, fiery, dangerous - lava, inflammable, unrestrained.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

Hell

“.., by universal custom, your enemy is never more polite than when he is planning or has planned your destruction.”

James Clavell book Shōgun

Source: Shōgun

Universe

“This is insane," I said blankly. "I'm the instrument of an all-powerful primordial deity's wave of chaos and destruction."

"That's kind of extreme" said Dante jovially. "It's not like you work for Google or anything.”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

Source: Succubus Dreams

“Judging oneself to be inferior to other people was one of the worst acts of pride because it was the most destructive way of being different.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

People, Way

“He describes him in general terms, as the most incomprehensible and formidable among men; as engaged in schemes, reasonably suspected to be, in the highest degree, criminal, but such as no human intelligence is able to unravel: that his ends are pursued by means which leave it in doubt whether he be not in league with some infernal spirit: that his crimes have hitherto been perpetrated with the aid of some unknown but desperate accomplices: that he wages a perpetual war against the happiness of mankind, and sets his engines of destruction at work against every object that presents itself.”

Charles Brockden Brown (1771–1810) American novelist, historian and editor

Wieland; or, the Transformation (1798)

Men, War, Happiness, Intelligence

“Robert F. Kennedy used to say, 'Some men see things as they are and ask why. Others dream things that never were and ask why not?'; that outlook has become a far too common and destructive approach to interpreting the law”

Antonin Scalia (1936–2016) former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Speech at Catholic University, Columbus School of Law http://web.archive.org/web/20040704015129/http://www.law.cua.edu/News/Things%20That%20Never%20Were.cfm (2004). <br class="br">2000s

Men, Law, Dreams

“This situation [alienation] can therefore [according to Durkheim] be remedied by providing the individual with a moral awareness of the social importance of his particular role in the division of labour. He is then no longer an alienated automaton. but is a useful part of an organic whole: ‘from that time, as special and uniform as his activity may be, it is that of an intelligent being, for it has direction, and he is aware of it.’ This is entirely consistent with Durkheim’s general account of the growth of the division of labour, and its relationship to human freedom. It is only through moral acceptance in his particular role in the division of labour that the individual is able to achieve a high degree of autonomy as a self-conscious being, and can escape both the tyranny of rigid moral conformity demanded in undifferentiated societies on the one hand and the tyranny of unrealisable desires on the other.
Not the moral integration of the individual within a differentiated division of labour but the effective dissolution of the division of labour as an organising principle of human social intercourse, is the premise of Marx’s conception. Marx nowhere specifies in detail how this future society would be organised socially, but, at any rate,. this perspective differs decisively from that of Durkheim. The vision of a highly differentiated division of labour integrated upon the basis of moral norms of individual obligation and corporate solidarity. is quite at variance with Marx’s anticipation of the future form of society.
According to Durkheim’s standpoint. the criteria underlying Marx’s hopes for the elimination of technological alienation represent a reversion to moral principles which are no longer appropriate to the modern form of society. This is exactly the problem which Durkheim poses at the opening of The Division of Labour: ‘Is it our duty to seek to become a thorough and complete human being. one quite sufficient unto himself; or, on the contrary, to be only a part of a whole, the organ of an organism?’ The analysis contained in the work, in Durkheim’s view, demonstrates conclusively that organic solidarity is the ‘normal’ type in modern societies, and consequently that the era of the ‘universal man’ is finished. The latter ideal, which predominated up to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in western Europe is incompatible with the diversity of the contemporary order. In preserving this ideal. by contrast. Marx argues the obverse: that the tendencies which are leading to the destruction of capitalism are themselves capable of effecting a recovery of the ‘universal’ properties of man. which are shared by every individual.”

Anthony Giddens (1938) British sociologist

Source: Capitalism and Modern Social Theory (1971), pp. 230-231.

Hope, Intelligence, Problem, Decision

“The self-delusion that mysterious forces and persons unknown are conspiring against us is, surprisingly, a comforting belief, because it means we’re significant enough in this anarchic world to warrant someone’s enmity. That delusion saves us from the far more difficult to accept reality: that we’re not that important to anyone. That the universe just isn’t “into” us.
Paranoia is the emotive-psychestructure’s response to feeling ignored, unloved, or forgotten in an existence filled with random acts of destructive indifference emphasizing the inherent futility of life and struggle. If you’re ever to achieve serenity, ultimately you must accept that in such a vast cosmos, you simply don’t matter very much.”

Malcolm Azania book From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain

Source: From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain (2007), Chapter 6 “Up is Down: The Path Inside is Outside” (p. 185)

Life, World, Feeling, Reality

“Art is the symbol of the two noblest human efforts: to construct and to refrain from destruction.”

Evelyn Waugh (1903–1966) British writer

Simone Weil, The Pre-War Notebook (1933-1939), published in First and Last Notebooks (1970) edited by Richard Rees
Misattributed

Art, Effort

“Darab Khan who had been sent with a strong force to punish the Rajputs of Khandela and to demolish the great temple of the place, attacked the place on the 8th March/5th Safar, and slew the three hundred and odd men who made a bold defence, not one of them escaping alive. [16 October 1678] The temples of Khandela and Sanula and all other temples in the neighbourhood were demolished…'On Sunday, the 25th May/24th Rabi. S., Khan Jahan Bahadur came from Jodhpur, after demolishing the temples and bringing with himself some cart-loads of idols, and had audience of the Emperor, who highly praised him and ordered that the idols, which were mostly jewelled, gold en, silver y, bronze, copper or stone, should be cast in the yard (jilaukhanah) of the Court and under the steps of the Jam'a mosque, to be trodden on. They remained so for some time and at last their very names were lost' [25 May 1679]…Ruhullah Khan and Ekkataz Khan went to demolish the great temple in front of the Rana's palace, which was one of the rarest buildings of the age and the chief cause of the destruction of life and property of the despised worshippers Twenty machator Rajputs who were sitting in the temple vowed to give up their lives; first one of them came out to fight, killed some and was then himself slain, then came out another and so on, until every one of the twenty perished, after killing a large number of the imperialists including the trusted slave, Ikhlas. The temple was found empty. The hewers broke the images…..”

Aurangzeb (1618–1707) Sixth Mughal Emperor

Maasir-i-alamgiri, translated into English by Sir Jadu-Nath Sarkar, Calcutta, 1947, pp. 107-120, also quoted in part in Shourie, Arun (2014). Eminent historians: Their technology, their line, their fraud. Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India : HarperCollins Publishers. Different translation: “Darab Khan was sent with a strong force to punish the Rajputs of Khandela and demolish the great temple of that place.” (M.A. 171.) “He attacked the place on 8th March 1679, and pulled down the temples of Khandela and Sanula and all other temples in the neighbourhood.”(M.A. 173.) Sarkar, Jadunath (1972). History of Aurangzib: Volume III. App. V.
Quotes from late medieval histories, 1670s

Life, Men, Age, Strong

“Conflicts do not arise out of the blue. They occur as a result of causes and conditions, many of which are within the antagonists’ control. This is where leadership is important. Terrorism cannot be overcome by the use of force because it does not address the underlying problems. In fact the use of force may not only fail to solve the problems, it may exacerbate them, and frequently leaves destruction and suffering in its wake.”

Tenzin Gyatso (1935) spiritual leader of Tibet

:Dalai Lama in his “Commemoration of the First Anniversary of September 11, 2001

Problem, Suffering

“The summer of 1971 was perhaps one of the most difficult of my life. It was clear to me that the road to destruction was paved with anger, resentment and rage. But where were we to go? I would often spend hours in our small efficiency apartment in New Haven pondering this question and listening to Marvin Gaye's then new album, "What's Going On?" To say the least, it was a depressing summer. What were we to do? What's going on?”

Clarence Thomas (1948) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

1990s, I Am a Man, a Black Man, an American (1998)

Life, Question, Rage, Summer

“We comprehend… that nuclear power is a real danger for mankind, that over-crowding of the planet is the greatest danger of all. We have understood that the destruction of the environment is another enormous danger. But I truly believe that the lack of adequate imagery is a danger of the same magnitude. It is as serious a defect as being without memory. What have we done to our images? What have we done to our embarrassed landscapes? I have said this before and will repeat it again as long as I am able to talk: if we do not develop adequate images we will die out like dinosaurs.”

Werner Herzog (1942) German film director, producer, screenwriter, actor and opera director

Herzog on Herzog (2002)

Memory

“The temple of Wakenkhera in the fort was demolished on 2 March, 1705.'…'The newswriter of Ranthambore reported the destruction of a temple in Parganah Bhagwant Garh. Gaj Singh Gor had repaired the temple and made some additions thereto.'…'Royal orders for the destruction of temples in Malpura Toda were received and the officers were assigned for this work.”

Aurangzeb (1618–1707) Sixth Mughal Emperor

Akhbarat, cited in : Sharma, Sri Ram, Religious Policy of the Mughal Emperors, Bombay, 1962. p. 136-139
Quotes from late medieval histories, 1700s

“Like proselytization, desecrating and demolishing the temples of non-Muslims is also central to Islam…. India too suffered terribly as thousands of Hindu temples and sacred edifices disappeared in northern India by the time of Sikandar Lodi and Babur. Will Durant rightly laments in the Story of Civilization that "We can never know from looking at India today, what grandeur and beauty it once possessed". In Delhi, after the demolition of twenty-seven Hindu and Jain temples, the materials of which were utilized to construct the Quwwat-ul-Islam masjid, it was after 700 years that the Birla Mandir could be constructed in 1930s. Sita Ram Goel has brought out two excellent volumes on Hindu Temples: What happened to them. These informative volumes give a list of Hindu shrines and their history of destruction in the medieval period on the basis of Muslim evidence itself. This of course does not cover all the shrines razed. Muslims broke temples recklessly. Those held in special veneration by Hindus like the ones at Somnath, Ayodhya, Kashi and Mathura, were special targets of Muslims, and whenever the Hindus could manage to rebuild their shrines at these places, they were again destroyed by Muslim rulers. From the time of Mahmud of Ghazni who destroyed the temples at Somnath and Mathura to Babur who struck at Ayodhya to Aurangzeb who razed the temples at Kashi Mathura and Somnath, the story is repeated again and again.”

K. S. Lal book Theory and Practice of Muslim State in India

Theory and Practice of Muslim State in India (1999)

Beauty, History, Suffering, Time

“History gets thicker as it approaches recent times: more people, more events, and more books written about them. More evidence is preserved, often, one is tempted to say, too much. Decay and destruction have hardly begun their beneficent work.”

A.J.P. Taylor (1906–1990) Historian

English History 1914 – 1945 ([1965] 1975), "Revised Bibliography", p. 729

People, Books, History, Time

“[The German Legion] which, in conjunction with Blucher and the Prussians at Waterloo, saved the British Army from destruction.”

Wilhelm II, German Emperor (1859–1941) German Emperor and King of Prussia

Speech celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Hanoverian regiments (19 December 1903), quoted in The Times (21 December 1903), p. 9
1900s

“In the past, socializing men to become the best killer-protectors led to the survival of the “fittest.” In the future, with nuclear technology, training killers is more likely to lead to the destruction of everyone.”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Women Can't Hear What Men Don't Say (2000)

Men, Past, Future, Training

“When we ask ourselves by what means a certain moral level can be maintained in a human or animal society, we find only three such means: the repression of anti-social acts; moral teaching; and the practice of mutual help itself. And as all three have already been put to the test of practice, we can judge them by their effects.
As to the impotence of repression — it is sufficiently demonstrated by the disorder of present society and by the necessity of a revolution that we all desire or feel inevitable. In the domain of economy, coercion has led us to industrial servitude; in the domain of politics — to the State, that is to say, to the destruction of all ties that formerly existed among citizens, and to the nation becoming nothing but an incoherent mass of obedient subjects of a central authority.”

Peter Kropotkin (1842–1921) Russian zoologist, evolutionary theorist, philosopher, scientist, revolutionary, economist, activist, geogr…

Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Ideal (1896)

Feeling, Help, Animals

“The proposition has… been laid down in the most general terms, "All evils are negations." Thus for man death is evil; death is his non-existence. Illness, poverty, and ignorance are evils for man; all these are privations of properties…. The destruction of other things is likewise nothing but the absence of their form. After these propositions, it must be admitted as a fact that it cannot be said of God that He directly creates evil, or He has the direct intention to produce evil; this is impossible. His works are all perfectly good. He only produces existence, and all existence is good; whilst evils are of a negative character, and cannot be acted upon.”

Maimónides book The Guide for the Perplexed

Source: Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part III, Ch.10

Death, God, Evil

“The repercussions of the coup on nascent democracies in the Arab world will be destructive. People may soon lose faith in the democratic process, paving the way for the revival of extremist groups…The coup serves to strengthen the radicals, interrupting the course of peaceful change.”

Tawakkol Karman (1979) Yemeni journalist, politician, human rights activist, and Nobel Peace Prize recipient

2010s, Egypt's coup has crushed all the freedoms won in the revolution (2013)

People, World, Peace, Faith

“I don't suppose any first-class work in science is done now outside of the war work … Of course … science has fallen into discredit. It has brought no solution to our human problems, and has added greatly to our engines of destruction in this war. Not that science is to blame for this misuse, but people judge by results, and by that standard science has a heavy account to liquidate. Science so far has had far too much to do with the things of sense and of matter, and the things of the spirit have been by-passed.”

Jan Smuts (1870–1950) military leader, politician and statesman from South Africa

As quoted by W. K. Hancock in SMUTS 2: The Fields of Force 1919-1950, p. 395

War, People, Problem, Sense

“The same society which receives the rewards of technology must, as a cooperating whole, take responsibility for control. To deal with these new problems will require a new conservation. We must not only protect the countryside and save it from destruction, we must restore what has been destroyed and salvage the beauty and charm of our cities. Our conservation must be not just the classic conservation of protection and development, but a creative conservation of restoration and innovation. Its concern is not with nature alone, but with the total relation between man and the world around him. Its object is not just man's welfare, but the dignity of man's spirit.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

Message to Congress on Conservation and Restoration of Natural Beauty written to Congress (8 Feb 1965), in Lyndon B. Johnson: Containing the Public Messages, Speeches, and Statements of the President (1965), Vol.1, 156. United States. President (1963-1969 : Johnson), Lyndon Baines Johnson, United States. Office of the Federal Register — 1970
1960s

World, Beauty, Nature, Problem

Quotes about destruction page 3

Quotes about destruction
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