115 Destruction Quotes

How can we still speak of the salvation and reformation of Europe, when we have to ask Europe's destroyer for help?

As soon as the war ended, we located the one spot on earth that hadn't been touched by the war and blew it to hell.

White as a winding sheet, Masks blowing down the street: Moscow, Paris London, Vienna - all are undone. The drums of death are mumbling, rumbling, and tumbling, Mumbling, rumbling, and tumbling, The world's floors are quaking, crumbling and breaking.

If what was supposed to have been destroyed in Paradise was destructible, then it was not decisive; but if it was indestructible, then we are living in a false belief.

Towards the avoidance of a piece of verbal confusion: What is intended to be actively destroyed must first of all have been firmly grasped; what crumbles away crumbles away, but cannot be destroyed.

A nuclear war does not defend a country and it does not defend a system. I've put it the same way many times; not even the most accomplished ideologue will be able to tell the difference between the ashes of capitalism and the ashes of communism.

The great Emathian conqueror bid spare The house of Pindarus, when temple and tower Went to the ground.

Once more a red fire blows steeply upwards...the factory will do no more work for Herr Churchill...tomorrow morning Coventry will lie in smoke and ruins.

What is all our histories, but God showing himself, shaking and trampling on everything that he has not planted.

And many more Destructions played In this ghastly masquerade, All disguised, even to the eyes, Like Bishops, lawyers, peers, or spies.

The true beauty of nature is her amplitude; she exists neither for nor because of us, and possesses a staying power that all our nuclear arsenals cannot threaten (much as we can easily destroy our puny selves).

Beauty is desired in order that it may be befouled; not for its own sake, but for the joy brought by the certainty of profaning it.

We are living in the most destructive and, hence, the most stupid period of the history of our species.

Every seemingly arbitrary destructive action is a reaction of the organism to the frustration of a gratification of a vital need, especially of a sexual need.

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

Destruction can be beautiful!

When the lamp is shattered The light in the dust lies dead - When the cloud is scattered, The rainbow's glory is shed.

Broken glass. It's just like glitter, isn't it?

'Each man kills the things he loves'. I recognise that in myself, in relationships, even with guitars, beautiful things that I've had and wilfully destroyed.

We read our mail and counted up our missions - In bombers named for girls, we burned The cities we had learned about in school - Till our lives wore out; our bodies lay among The people we had killed and never seen. When we lasted long enough they gave us medals; When we died they said, 'Our casualties were low.' They said, 'Here are the maps'; we burned the cities.

To contrive a little kingdom, in the midst of the universal muck, then shit on it, ah that was me all over.

'Insane sects grow with the same rhythm as big organizations. It is the rhythm of total destruction. '

'To hate destructiveness, one must hate life as well: only death is an image of undistorted life... organic life is an illness peculiar to our unlovely planet.'

O rose, thou art sick! The invisible worm, That flies in the night, In the howling storm, Has found out thy bed Of crimson joy, And his dark secret love Does thy life destroy.

The good die first, And they whose hearts are dry as summer dust Burn to the socket.

Of course, Alexander the Great was a hero, but why smash the chairs?

The more destruction there is everywhere, the more it shows the activity of town authorities.

Nothing we can do outrages Nature directly. Our acts of destruction give her new vigour and feed her energy, but none of our wreckings can weaken her power.

For over five years this man has been chasing around Europe like a madman in search of something he could set on fire. Unfortunately he again and again finds hirelings who open the gates of their country to this international incendiary.

Final Ruin fiercely drives Her plowshare o'er creation.

That man can destroy life is just as miraculous a feat as that he can create it, for life is the miracle, the inexplicable. In the act of destruction, man sets himself above life; he transcends himself as a creature.

Leopards break into the temple and drink to the dregs what is in the sacrificial pitchers; this is repeated over and over again; finally it can be calculated in advance, and it becomes a part of the ceremony.

The thornbush is old obstacle in the road. It must catch fire if you want to go further.

O if we but knew what we do When we delve or hew- Hack and rack the growing green! Since country is so tender To touch, her being so slender, That, like this sleek and seeing ball But a prick will make no eye at all, Where we, even where we mean To mend her we end her, When we hew or delve: After-comers cannot guess the beauty been.

We Americans are not usually thought to be a submissive people, but of course we are. Why else would we allow our country to be destroyed? Why else would we be rewarding its destroyers? Why else would we all- by proxies we have given to greedy corporations and corrupt politicians- be participating in its destruction? Most of us are still too sane to piss in our own cistern, but we allow others to do so and we reward them for it. We reward them so well, in fact, that those who piss in our cistern are wealthier than the rest of us.

A living creature develops a destructive impulse when it wants to destroy a source of danger. In this case, the destruction or killing of the object is the biologically purposeful goal. The original motive is not pleasure in destruction. Rather the destruction serves the 'life instinct'...and is an attempt to avoid anxiety and to preserve the ego in its totality. I destroy in a dangerous situation because I want to live and do not want to have any anxiety. In short, the impulse to destroy serves a primary biological will to live...

It is not much to be able to do violence when you have been simply preparing for it for years and when violence is more natural to you than thinking. It is a great deal, on the other hand, to face torture and death when you know for a fact that hatred and violence are empty things in themselves. It is a great deal to fight while despising war, to accept losing everything while still preferring happiness, to face destruction while cherishing the idea of a higher civilization.

Destructiveness is the outcome of unlived lives.

The daimonic is any natural function which has the power to take over the whole person... it can be either creative and destructive and is usually both ...

it wont be long now it wont be long man is making deserts of the earth it wont be long now before man will have used it up so that nothing but ants and centipedes and scorpions can find a living on it man has oppressed us for a million years but he goes on steadily cutting the ground from under his own feet making deserts deserts deserts

Bombs do not choose. They will hit everything. -BOOM!-

You never cease to amaze me, the way you turn people into plasma

But he who dares to use the word 'God' for such devilish activity blasphemes against Providence and, according to our belief, he cannot end except in destruction.

All you have to do is kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will crumble to the ground.

So easily can we destroy those things we love. Had his moment of wounded pride, his stupid frenzy, snuffed out that fragile courage? Would the strong spirit that survived so much anguish be ended as easily as this?

Spite, spite, is the word of your undoing!

Corruption: 'Sometimes power is all a person has, so they will protect it even unto their own destruction, for without power they have nothing.'

You praise a man for having killed his enemy by means of an advantage; and by praising him for boldness you praise him for a sin against nature, because boldness leads to destruction.

Nuclear weapons could destroy all life on earth, if used properly.

It is said he made his earth-journey, and lost what he sought. It is said they felled him and cut up his limbs for firewood. And it is said his head still sang and was swept out to sea singing.

I'm a roman candle My head is full of flames I want to hurt him I want to give him pain And make him feel this pretty burn.

By necrophilia is meant love for all that is violence and destruction; the desire to kill; the worship of force; attraction to death, to suicide, to sadism; the desire to transform the organic into the inorganic by means of 'order.' The necrophile, lacking the necessary qualities to create, in his impotence finds it easy to destroy because for him it serves only one quality: force.

It is the nature of extreme self-lovers, as they will set an house on fire, and it were but to roast their eggs.

In the distance huge trees were still blazing, around us was a waste of ashes and of half-consumed boughs, and the falling rain seemed only to quicken the dying conflagration. In some of the great green boles were fearful gaping wounds through which the sap was oozing, while some tall trees still stretched to heaven their triumphant crown of foliage above a trunk all charred that would never sprout again. The Brazilians contemplate spectacles such as this with a wholly indifferent eye, and, indeed, even with satisfaction, for they see in the ruin only a promise of future harvests. To me the scene possessed only the horror of a slaughter-house.

My aspens dear, whose airy cages quelled, Quelled or quenched in leaves the leaping sun, All felled, felled, are all felled; Of a fresh and following folded rank Not spared, not one That dandled a sandalled Shadow that swam or sank On meadow and river and wind-wandering weed-winding bank.

And he said 'God, make it a dream!' as he rode his last ride down. And he sideswiped nineteen neat parked cars, clipped off thirteen telephone poles, hit two houses, bruised eight trees, and Blue-Crossed seven people. it was then he lost his head, not to mention an arm or two before he stopped.

Camel caravans bear witness guns to Caesar. Hordes crawl and seep inside the walls. The streets flow stone. Life goes on absorbing war. Violence kills the temple of no sex.

A great storm destroys much that is precious, but it may also clear the air and blow down trees which might have been obscuring the view and making our life stuffy, and reveal in our estate possibilities of development that we had not thought of.

Disparting towers Trembling all precipitate down dash'd, Rattling around, loud thundering to the moon.

There are too many ironies in the fire!

I look at you and see my life that might have been your face just ghostly in the smoke. They're setting fire to the cornfields as you're taking me home. The smell of burning fields will now mean you and here.

6) It is easier to destroy than create. Bin Laden tore down the World Trade Center? Let's see him build one. If human beings didn't have a strong preference for creation, nothing would get built, ever.

I heard the screams through the thin mist of night and kicked the car to a stop at the curb. It wasn't that screams were new to the city, but they were out of place in this part of New York that was being gutted to make room for a new skyline. There was nothing but almost totally disemboweled buildings and piles of rubble for three blocks, every scrap of value long since carted away and only the junk wanted by nobody left remaining. And there was a quality to the screams that was out of place too. There was total hysteria that only complete terror can induce and it was made by a child.

No one can want to destroy without having some idea, true or false, of the order of things that should, according to him or her, replace what presently exists.

'Unfortunately I cannot show it to you,' replied the master, 'because I burned it in my stove.' 'I'm sorry but I don't believe you,' said Woland. 'You can't have done. Manuscripts don't burn.'

I think Earth Day is very powerful: A day completely focused on the destructive tendencies of human beings on the planet.

God confronts me with terror and love - for I am His only hope - and says: 'This Ecstatic, who gives birth to all things, who rejoices in them all and yet destroys them, this Ecstatic is my Son!'

Cries rise up on every side. Who shouts? It is we who shout - the living, the dead, and the unborn. But at once we are crushed by fear, and we fall silent. And then we forget - out of laziness, out of habit, out of cowardice. But suddenly the Cry tears at our entrails once more, like an eagle. For the Cry is not outside us, it does not come from a great distance that we may escape it. It sits in the center of our hearts, and cries out. God shouts: 'Burn your houses! I am coming! Whoever has a house cannot receive me! 'Burn your ideas, smash your thoughts! Whoever has found the solution cannot find me.'

One day our Sodom and Gomorrah would be trampled by some all-powerful foot, and this world which laughed, reveled, and forgot God would be transformed, in its turn, into a Dead Sea. At the end of every period God's foot comes along in this way and tramples the cities of the overindulged belly, the overdeveloped mind. I felt afraid (Sometimes it seems to me that this world is another Sodom and Gomorrah just before God's passage above it. I think the terrible foot can already be heard approaching).

God destroyed the world before. Once in a flood, when Noah rode it out in the ark. And once the tower of the worlds pride was destroyed in the confusion of tongues. The other times, if there were any other times, those times are all forgotten.

Don't say nothing bout the old house. Cos I burned it to the ground. And when the darkness comes, I lie awake. Playing lost and found ~ 'All At Once'

With drugs, I think the sort of person that would die from an overdose is gonna die soon enough anyway, because they've got that will to destroy what's left of their life.

I returned to civilization shortly after that and went to Cornell to teach, and my first impression was a very strange one. I can't understand it any more, but I felt very strongly then. I sat in a restaurant in New York, for example, and I looked out at the buildings and I began to think, you know, about how much the radius of the Hiroshima bomb damage was and so forth... How far from here was 34th street?... All those buildings, all smashed - and so on. And I would see people building a bridge, or they'd be making a new road, and I thought, they're crazy, they just don't understand, they don't understand. Why are they making new things? It's so useless. But, fortunately, it's been useless for almost forty years now, hasn't it? So I've been wrong about it being useless making bridges and I'm glad those other people had the sense to go ahead.

Wee, modest, crimson-tipped flow'r, Thou's met me in an evil hour; For I maun crush amang the stoure Thy slender stem: To spare thee now is past my pow'r, Thou bonie gem.

Stern Ruin's plowshare drives elate, Full on thy bloom.

Not to recognize the daimonic itself turns out to be daimonic, it makes us accomplices on the side of the destructive possession.

I believed that crematoriums could be erected fast and so wanted to burn the corpses in the mass graves in the crematory, but when I saw that the crematory could not be erected fast enough to keep up with the ever-increasing numbers exterminated, we started to burn the corpses in open ditches like in Treblinka. A layer of wood, then a layer of corpses, another layer of corpses, et cetera. To start the fire, we used a bundle of straw dipped in gasoline. The fire was usually started with about five layers of wood and five layers of corpses. When the fire was going strong, the fresh corpses which came from the gas chambers could merely be thrown on the fire and would burn by themselves.

'Science Must Destroy Religion' (2006)[11]

'Just as human beings have an almost infinite power to destroy, they also possess an enormous capacity to learn, to grow and to create.' : Shashi Tharoor, Under-Secretary-General, at the UN's Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust, 29 January 2007.

'It is not man's lapse into luxurious indolence that is to be feared, but the savage spread of the social under the mask of universal nature, the collective as a blind fury of activity.'

War means fighting. The business of the soldier is to fight. Armies are not called out to dig trenches, to throw up breastworks, to live in camps, but to find the enemy and strike him; to invade his country, and do him all possible damage in the shortest possible time. This will involve great destruction of life and property while it lasts; but such a war will of necessity be of brief continuance, and so would be an economy of life and property in the end. To move swiftly, strike vigorously, and secure all the fruits of victory is the secret of successful war.

'I created Hulkamania. And I will destroy it'

You are afraid of life, Little Man, deadly afraid. You will murder it in the belief of doing it for the sake of 'socialism,' or 'the state,' or 'national honor,' or 'the glory of God.'

In war, science has proven itself an evil genius; it has made war more terrible than it ever was before. Man used to be content to slaughter his fellowmen on a single plane - the earth's surface. Science has taught him to go down into the water and shoot up from below and to go up into the clouds and shoot down from above, thus making the battlefield three times a bloody as it was before; but science does not teach brotherly love. Science has made war so hellish that civilization was about to commit suicide; and now we are told that newly discovered instruments of destruction will make the cruelties of the late war seem trivial in comparison with the cruelties of wars that may come in the future.

On the ice flow they grip, cut, twist, break open seeds throwing out the white salt, revive volcanic dreams: unable to satisfy their diminuated lust the allegoric flesh learns the thrill of return.

The ancient owls' nest must have burned. Hastily, all alone, a glistening armadillo left the scene, rose-flecked, head down, tail down

He ought to have his safety glasses on, but he was too mad and it felt too good to be tearing at something

The world will probably be destroyed again, unless we repent. And don't think you can hide from the angels. They start out as ordinary people, and you never know which ones. Suddenly god put the power of destruction in their hands, and they destroy. And just as suddenly, when all the destruction is done, the angels leaves them, and they're ordinary people

BAM! Set my plan in mode, time to exterminate my foes/I can't stand you hoes, uhh

For when ?at ?e Helle herde ?e houndez of heuen, He watz ferlyly fayn, vnfolded bylyue; ?e grete barrez of ?e abyme he barst vp at onez, ?at alle ?e regioun torof in riftes ful grete, & clouen alle in lyttel cloutes ?e clyffez aywhere, As lauce leuez of ?e boke ?at lepes in twynne.

Are we like the God of the Old Testament, that we in Washington can decide which cities, towns, and hamlets in Vietnam will be destroyed? Do we have to accept that? I don't think we do. I think we can do something about it.

'If one looks with a cold eye at the mess man has made of history, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that he has been afflicted by some built-in mental disorder which drives him towards self-destruction' (The Ghost in the Machine)