Destruct Quotes & Sayings

We've seen a lot of people self-destruct because of a small taste of success. — Shannon Hoon

I don't know why, but there's always the part of you, the part that hides in the shadows protecting the self-destruct button, that doesn't ever want to leave the dark behind. — Cecelia Ahern

Sometimes you hit a point where you either change or self destruct. — Sam Stevens

The apparent incompatibility between the abundance of habitable planets in our Galaxy and the lack of extraterrestrial visitors, known as the Fermi paradox, suggest the existence of what Hanson calls a "Great Filter," an evolutionary/technological roadblock somewhere along the developmental path from nonliving matter to space-colonizing life. If we discover independently evolved primitive life in our Solar System, this would suggest that primitive life is not rare, and that the roadblock lies after our current human stage of development-perhaps because assumption 1 is false, or because almost all advanced civilizations self-destruct before they are able to colonize. I'm therefore crossing my fingers that all searches for life on Mars and elsewhere find nothing: this is consistent with the scenario where primitive life is rare but we humans got lucky, so that we have the roadblock behind us and have extraordinary future potential. — Max Tegmark

As John Adams said, all democracies will eventually self-destruct. We seem to be doing it very quickly. — Rosanne Cash

Putting the potential for damage into someone else's hands is scary. I have to have control, even if it is the power to self-destruct. — Samantha Schutz

I'm an ambitious person. I mean, if I did that ... I would self-destruct, in the sense that the decadence would be too strong an attraction for me. Whether that be in the form of gambling, fast cars, alcohol, drugs, whatever it happens to be ... I think the lure of that lifestyle would be too strong. — James Packer

I'll never understand how a man can live his life
With his finger on the self-destruct button,
Holding it there day after day,
Blinded by an obsession to press it
But lacking the conviction to do even that. — Neal Shusterman

Only in America could you find a way to make a healthy buck,
And still keep your attitude on self-destruct. — Daniel Dumile

Solitude. It is way underrated in our world of writing. We stay busy. We act busy. We thrive on busy. The truth is there is a lot of beauty that lives in the solitude. Quiet is not the enemy. Quiet is necessary for brains to not self-destruct. — Bonnie Baker

This quote will self-destruct in ... 4 ... 3 ... 2 ... 1 ... Just kidding ... Or am I? — Craig Benzine

Enlightenment isn't a vast field of open opportunities that will change your life, actually it is but first it will destruct anything in its path unattached to the version of you that is awake. That's the part no one prepares for, it will break you to the core but the break will make you something greater then you ever thought imagineable. — Nikki Rowe

Self-destruction is an art; cursed are the exponents. — Anurag Shourie

This is how women self-sabotage and self-destruct. Unless we have constant witnesses to our hard work, we are convinced we pull off every day of our lives through smoke and mirrors. (27) — Sarah Ban Breathnach

There's something about uncertainty...when things can go either way that make you secretly hope for the whole thing to self-destruct. — Justine Erler

Hold these wires and make sure they don't touch."
"What happens if they touch?"
"The ship will probably self-destruct. — Marissa Meyer

As long as we can tell stories about our ability to survive, the more we will hope, not self-destruct. — Christina Ricci

It ain't easy to do nothing, now that society is telling everyone that their body is fundamentally flawed and about to self-destruct. People are afraid they're on the verge of death all the time — Samuel Shem

Hadn't been able to avoid hearing about the Tea Party, a recrudescence of the far right sooner than I would've hoped. Depending on whom you ask, the Tea Party formed either as a spontaneous grassroots protest against the government's massive interventions in the economy after the financial collapse of 2008, an hysterical backlash against our first black president, or just a hasty rebranding of the Republican Party now that the name Republican had taken on the same stigma as the Pinto, DC-10, and other products that reliably self-destruct. Their platform was the usual Republican wish list - cut taxes, gut the government, repeal the last century and revoke the social contract - and happened to coincide with the financial interests of their billionaire backers. They were widely regarded, on the left,* as dingbats. But today I was going to resist the impulse to sneer and feel superior and instead try, for once, to listen. — Tim Kreider

A tenet of stoicism advises to live according to your nature. If you try to be something you aren't, you'll self-destruct. — Blake Crouch

Sink, suffer, self-destruct
Rise stronger, reconstruct — Lamb Of God

Nothing can intimidate me. I just go out and destruct and destroy ... — Marvin Hagler

The days of the digitals are numbered. The metaphor is built into them like a self-destruct mechanism. — Tom Stoppard

There are not many beginnings but there is a single Beginning, prior to multitude. But if you were to say that the beginnings are plural apart from their partaking of the One, that statement would self-destruct. For, surely, these plural beginnings would be both alike, by virtue of their not partaking of the One, and not alike, by virtue of their not partaking of the One. — Nicholas Of Cusa

In the heat of leadership, with the adrenaline pumping, it is easy to convince yourself that you are not subject to the normal human frailties that can defeat ordinary mortals. You begin to act as if you are indestructible. But the intellectual, physical, and emotional challenges of leadership are fierce. So, in addition to getting on the being and assess the tolls those changes are taking. If you don't, your seemingly indestructible self can self-destruct. This, by the way, is an ideal outcome for your foes-and even friends who oppose your initiative- because no one has to feel responsible for your downfall.
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When you take "personal" attacks personally, you unwittingly conspire in one of the common ways you can be taken out of action-you make yourself the issue.
Attacks may be personal, understand that they are basically attacks on positions you represent and the role you are seeking to play — Ronald A. Heifetz

You're dealing with people who are suiciding slowly. You've got to get to the bottom of what is psychologically motivating them to self-destruct. — Jillian Michaels

It's a wholly illogical but nonetheless powerful belief that things will change for the better in a new place; that the urge to self-destruct will magically disappear. — Stephen King

Mom put a note in my lunch again, I see ... Dear son, I hope you will study hard in summer school ... Do not look upon it as a punishment, but rather as a privilege ... We are very proud of you, and want you to have a good education. This note will self-destruct in five seconds. — Charles M. Schulz

The best way to reclaim your dignity is to act rationally and treat yourself lovingly. Do not self-destruct. — Ben Newman

Lena wished that love were something you could flip on and off. You could turn it on when you felt good about yourself and worthy of it and generous enough to return it. You could flip it off when you needed to hide or self-destruct ad had nothing at all to give. — Ann Brashares

You know, we worry about the Bomb, a thought interceded, and yet just look around: there are millions of people out there, just like you and me, with their thumb on the self-destruct button. — Etienne De L'Amour

self-defense - since any society that's violent and stupid enough to self-destruct on H-bombs might easily destroy the entire universe if it survives long enough to invent something with real firepower. — Rob Reid

There will be a time when loud-mouthed, incompetent people seem to be getting the best of you. When that happens, you only have to be patient and wait for them to self-destruct. It never fails. — Richard Rybolt

Humans are strong, but if you hit them at the right point, they destruct. — Cath Crowley

Denial and the desire to self-destruct are elemental cousins; mining one yields the other in equal proportion. — Domenica Ruta

You couldn't get more original than Laura. Laura. Yes, she was an original, all right. One of a kind. Did they break her mold or what, pal? Or ... or did it self-destruct? Still, Laura. The one and the only. Such a plain name for a unique cutie. But perhaps my acuity is not without its problems. I ruin everything: a stupid story to be tapped out on my tomb's stone. I ruined even Laura. And an original ruin is rare. Just ask the archaeologist, "Egypt, again?" Just ask me, "Laura, again?" and we'll both respond: "Yes, again and again. And again. — Vladimir Nabokov

Who is to blame for this most recent of sports disgraces in America? The culture that flings young athletes like Tyson up out of obscurity, makes millionaires of them and watches them self-destruct? — Joyce Carol Oates

This brief century of ours is arguably the most significant one in the history of our universe. We'll have the technology either to self-destruct, or [to] seed our cosmos with life. The situation is so unstable that I doubt we can dwell at this fork in the road for more than another hundred years. But if we end up going the life route instead of the death route, then in a distant future our cosmos will be teaming with life, all of which can be traced back to what we do-here and now. I don't know how we'll be thought of, but I'm sure that we won't be remembered as insignificant. — Max Tegmark

One's god dictates the kind of law one implements and also controls the application and development of that law over time. Given enough time, all non-Christian systems of law self-destruct in a fit of tyranny. — George Washington

Boarding a ship was one of the riskiest maneuvers in naval combat. It was basically a race between the boarders rushing to the engine room and the collective will of those who had their fingers on the self-destruct button. — James S.A. Corey

We were never supposed to live until 40. We were built to self-destruct at 30, whether from cancer or mental illness. We're all going way beyond our expiration date. — Douglas Coupland

- Child is abused, perpetrator threatens to hurt mother. Child feels protective of mother.
- Struggle to escape perp reinforces feelings of mutual protection. It's Mom and I against the world.
- Something necessary at the time later creates "enmeshment." Child doesn't see her actions as separate from mother. Even during normal adolescent individuation. But
- Normal individuation doesn't happen in abuse survivors. They don't feel normal, so they
- Act out in unhealthy or self-destructive ways, which creates
- Fear and pain for mother, which creates
- Guilt for child who still feels responsible for mother's emotional health.
- Child seeks release from the guilt and from not feeling normal, which leads to
- Escape to the world of other not normal people, where mother can't see her child self-destruct, which leads to
"The bad news. — Claire Fontaine

That goes for old wounds, too, you know. I really wish we'd had the chance to talk before this," he says, cracking the window so the smoke can escape. "There's a Longfellow quote I have stuck on my bulletin board at the church office- 'There is no grief like the grief that does not speak'- and it's true. I've found that keeping pain inside doesn't give it a chance to heal, but bringing it out into the light, holding it right there in your hands and trusting that you're strong enough to make it through, not hating the pain, not loving it, just seeing it for what it really is can change how you go on from there. Time alone doesn't heal emotional wounds, Sayre, and you don't want to live the rest of your life bottled up with anger and guilt and bitterness. That's how people self-destruct. — Laura Wiess

Also she signed away the right to self-destruct years ago. The fine print on the birth certificate, her friends call it. — Jenny Offill

I hit the self-destruct button hard. — Nina Lane

Anything short of the discipline and honesty of a true gold coin standard will inevitably self-destruct, consuming our wealth and liberties, and nurturing the omnipotent state. — Lawrence Reed

My default button was set to self-destruct. It had been since birth. — Mercy Celeste

If you say to yourself, okay, I will not self-destruct. I don't have to be the most talented person. I don't have to be everybody's best friend, I don't have to be liked, I don't have to be successful, well, one thing I will not do is self-destruct. If you take that out, your chances for success just went up like 800 percent. — Ethan Hawke

In a world of beings who don't exist, who self-destruct and erase themselves, perhaps one should make a valiant effort to at least draw oneself. Maybe that's where all the sex comes from- to feel real. — Luisa Valenzuela

Drug cartels have taken the driver's seat, training our young
men and women on how best to self destruct, while the larger
community watches on helplessly as these bands of renegades lead
our people towards the path of self annihilation — Oche Otorkpa

My desire to self-destruct is a one-night stand
on Groundhog Day.
Fucking repetitive. Repetitively fucking. — Kris Kidd

The problem here is that you're questioning yourself. Self-doubt will cripple you more surely than fear ever could...if you fall apart after every major engagement, you'll self-destruct before long. — Claudia Gray

Found myself screaming in a hotel room. I didn't want to self-destruct. — Kendrick Lamar

You know a lot of times wrestlers get too full of themselves. They can't separate themselves from the characters. They get used to the excitement, the energy, the lifestyle and the money and with a lot of these guys, when it stops, they self-destruct. — Hulk Hogan

And now as we ready to self-destruct there is very little left to kill which makes the tragedy less and more much much more. — Charles Bukowski

I am beholden to my own peculiar irony: to survive I self-destruct. — Jill Alexander Essbaum

... and I so badly needed to self-destruct. — Michelle Hodkin

People don't die from panic attacks. It just doesn't happen. You're body is a dick, but it's not going to let you self-destruct like that. Even though the emotional pain and physical discomfort may be quite unbearable, anxiety will not physically hurt you. — Robert Duff

Perhaps, in retrospect, there would be little motivation even for malevolent extraterrestrials to attack the Earth; perhaps, after a preliminary survey, they might decide it is more expedient just to be patient for a little while and wait for us to self-destruct. — Carl Sagan

Let's form a committee tasked with exploring why committees are so ineffective. Then we'll stand-back and watch it argue and self-destruct. — Ryan Lilly

Even when you self-destruct, you want to fail more, lose more, die more than others, stink more than others. — Don DeLillo

want you, it's their loss," Grandma said. "Why don't we just wait and see what they say?" Ms. Donatello told me. "I have to go to the bathroom," Georgia said. I didn't want to talk anymore, so I just made like Leonardo the Silent and kept my mouth shut after that. Finally, the office door opened, and Mr. Crawley, the director of the school, came over to talk to us. I tried not to look like I wanted to disappear. Or self-destruct. Or both. "First of all, Rafe," he said, "you should know there are three things we look for in an applicant. One of those is experience. A lot of the students at Cathedral have been studying art since before they could write." "Sure," I said. "I get it. No problem." But he wasn't done yet. "The other two things we look for are talent and persistence," he said. "Not only is that portfolio of yours full of artistic promise, it's also just full. When I see that, I see a boy who would probably keep drawing whether anyone was paying attention or not. — James Patterson

I believe that all technological societies tend to self-destruct. The reason is that the very things that make us a successful technological society, such as our curiosity, our ambition and determination, will also cause us to fall. — Pete Seeger

I so badly needed to self-destruct. — Michelle Hodkin

But, it has something to do with having belief in a human future and what that human future is. What is the future of humanity? How does this whole experiment not self-destruct with the environment and everything else going on? — Brit Marling

You are the most dangerous kind of female the world can ever know. You carry the seeds for your own destruction and the destruction of everyone who loves you. And a great many will love you for your beautiful face for your seductive body; but you will fail them all because you will believe they all fail you first. You are an idealist of the worst kind - the romantic idealist. Born to destroy and self destruct. — V.C. Andrews

Although Jobs later said that he was not plotting to take over Apple at the time, Ellison thought it was inevitable. " Anyone who spent more than a half hour with Amelio would realize that he couldn't do anything but self destruct," he later said — Walter Isaacson

Life has two choices: create or destruct. These choices are the backbone for all, within oneself and outside oneself. Too many ways of thinking are described by too many people that have no idea. If you're attached to your ways then detach, so you can change. Use this detachment in your writing, relationships, and understanding of life. Our future as individuals, as nations, and as mankind can only go one way. It's our choice whether we want the painful path or the peaceful path. — Mark Donnelly

In the past I would self destruct when it came to love - I was immature, throwing myself into things but now times have changed, I want a relationship where you understand the other person. — Elisabetta Canalis

It was frustrating when people loved you and took an interest in you and sometimes worried about you and personally cared what you did with yourself. Lena wished that love were something you could flip on and off. You could turn it on when you felt good bout yourself and worthy of it and generous enough to return it. You could clip it off when you needed to hide or self-destruct and had nothing at all to give. (Lena, 194) — Ann Brashares

We Destruct more than we Build. . . We are humans. . . We are the best and more powerful creature on earth. . . We are Humans and our greatest enemy is Human . . . What the fu** do we want ? — Guru

A Bluesman hates to be told what to do. Authority rankles him, inspires his rebellion, and plays to his need to self-destruct. A Bluesman doesn't take to having a boss unless he's on a chain gang (for the chain gang boss ranks below only a mean old woman and a sweet young thing in the hierarchy of the Blues Muse, followed closely by bad liquor, a dead dog, and the Man). — Christopher Moore

My body is both weapon and wound, predator and prey. I will self-destruct without any help. — Meg Haston

Our whole social order could self-destruct over the obsession with freedom disconnected from responsibility; where choice is imagined to be somehow independent of consequences. — Boyd K. Packer

When the pain that the little me creates for itself becomes intense enough, the ego will self-destruct. It has a self-destruct mechanism built in, fortunately, so eventually every ego dies. — Eckhart Tolle

Construct your life plans before satan attempts to destruct you with his death plots. I know this for sure; he is not in to heal! He just came to kill, to steal and destroy! Satan is not wise, it is only crafty! — Israelmore Ayivor

There are people who are just suicidal, regardless. They are built to self-destruct. It seems, in my family, like a virus that's resistant to any kind of help or care or medication. — Miriam Toews

I was addicted to amphetamines at the time I got busted, but I tend to think I was on a determined, self-destruct course that had little to do with the effect of Benzedrine. — Patricia McConnell

There was a time when I was unable to get out of bed because my body, its muscles eating themselves away, refused to sit up. There was a time when the lies rolled off my tongue with ease, when it was far more important to me to self-destruct than to admit I had a problem, let alone allow anyone to help. — Marya Hornbacher

Well, even a garden grows stranglers, love. It grows them naturally, all by itself. They creep up and choke the plants that are growing from the very same soil as they are. We each have our demons, our self-destruct button. Even in gardens. Pretty as they may be. If you don't potter, you don't notice them. — Cecelia Ahern

It would be lovely if we could gather up all the evil people and put them together on one island, leaving them to self-destruct in their collective sinfulness. — Matthew Kelly

It's a singular sort of pain, watching the most beautiful creature self-destruct because you weren't able to find the red wire. — Joyce Rachelle

Confucius himself taught that the more laws a society has, the less people will obey them and that societies that depend on laws to control the behavior of their citizens will eventually self-destruct. — Boye Lafayette De Mente

I experienced it as a compulsion to self-destruct. I could not finish what I started. The closer I got, the more different ways I'd find to screw it up. — Steven Pressfield