Escalating Quotes & Sayings

The Media are corporations so ... It's the concentrations of private power which have an enormous, not total control, but enormous influence over Congress and the White House and that's increasing sharply with sharp concentration of private power and escalating cost of elections and so on. — Noam Chomsky

London wasn't the first city I'd lived in, but it was certainly the largest. Anywhere else there is always the chance of seeing someone you know or, at the very least, a smiling face. Not here. Commuters crowd the trains, eager to outdo their fellow travelers in an escalating privacy war of paperbacks, headphones and newspapers. A woman next to me on the Northern Line on day held the Metro just inches from her face; it was only three stops later that I noticed she was not reading but crying. It was hard not to offer sympathy and harder still to not start crying myself. — Belle De Jour

When it's me in my living room, it's pretty pure, and then what gets recorded involves more people, and it keeps escalating from there. — Liz Phair

Terrorism is escalating to the point that Americans soon may have to choose between civil liberties and more intrusive means of protection. — William S. Cohen

Today, as we have seen, fascism and communism are discredited, but are replaced by a paraphilic consumer culture driven by fantasy, desperately in search of distractions and escalating sensations, and a fundamentalist culture wherein the rigors of a private journey are shunned in favor of an ideology that, at the expense of the paradoxes and complexities of truth, favors one-sided resolutions, black-and-white values, and a privileging of one's own complexes as the norm for others. — James Hollis

I think there's a greater detriment with our escalating progression toward the opposite extremity - the increasingly common ideology that assures people they're right about what they believe. And note that I used the word "detriment." I did not use the word "danger," because I don't think the notion of people living under the misguided premise that they're right is often dangerous. Most day-to-day issues are minor, the passage of time will dictate who was right and who was wrong, and the future will sort out the past. It is, however, socially detrimental. It hijacks conversation and aborts ideas. It engenders a delusion of simplicity that benefits people with inflexible minds. It makes the experience of living in a society slightly worse than it should be. — Chuck Klosterman

The time he'd cheated on Syl, Syl had seen through him, broken off their engagement, and cheated on him with Charles, which had fried his ass possibly worse than any single other ass frying he'd ever had, in a life that, it recently seemed, was simply a series of escalating ass fries. — George Saunders

Like clockwork, the powerful end up dictating, and so everyone is forced to compete for power, which only leads to an ever-escalating quest for control over others. This is the condition in which we live in early twenty-first century America. Without viable alternatives, everyone must adhere to the dictates of those in power, whether it is the Democrats or Republicans, the corporations or the unions. Given such a predicament, it is only reasonable to strive to achieve control, and so ensues a never ending struggle to obtain and hold power over everyone else. — Eric Robert Morse

You want sanity, democracy, community, an intact Earth? We can't get there, obeying Constitutional theory and law crafted by slave masters, imperialists, corporate masters, and Nature destroyers. We can't get there, kneeling before robed lawyers stockpiling class plunder precedent up their venerable sleeves. So isn't disobedience the challenge of our age? Principled, inventive, escalating disobedience to liberate our souls, to transfigure our work as humans on this Earth. — Richard Grossman

The Black Friend can prevent misunderstandings from escalating into an all-out conflagration, and all black people benefit from these quiet acts of diplomacy, not just those who serve as Black Friends. — Baratunde R. Thurston

Amy [Schumer] and I each have our cross to bear when it comes to tattoos. Amy and I are funny when we fight. It just keeps escalating until one of us starts laughing. Then it's over. I'm happy that we're friends. — Anthony Jeselnik

Not to forgive is to be imprisoned by the past, by old grievances that do not permit life to proceed with new business. Not to forgive is to yield oneself to another's control ... to be locked into a sequence of act and response, of outrage and revenge, tit for tat, escalating always. The present is endlessly overwhelmed and devoured by the past. Forgiveness frees the forgiver. It extracts the forgiver from someone else's nightmare. — Lance Morrow

He had never talked to her this way before, his soft voice underlaid with with steel. Amanda had no choice but to believe him. She wanted to rail and scream, her frustration escalating to an unbearable pitch. To her utter self-disgust, she found herself near tears, like the witless heroines of the sensation novels she had always enjoyed making jest of. Her mouth trembled as she struggled to control her explosive emotions.
Jack saw that sign of weakness, and something in his face relaxed. "Don't cry. There is no need for tears, mhuirnin," he said in a gentler tone. — Lisa Kleypas

Recent events in the Middle East and North Africa clearly show just how dangerous the world is, and how great the challenges facing the intelligence community are going to be in the future as threats to U.S. national security continuously evolve. The U.S. intelligence community did not foresee the sudden collapse of the pro-U.S. regimes in Egypt and Tunisia, the eruption of a civil war in Libya, and the escalating wave of street protests across the Middle East. Then again, no one else in the U.S. government or among our allies abroad did either. — Matthew M. Aid

Many business leaders today view their jobs as entailing responsibility for the welfare of the wider community. These individuals do not define themselves as profit-making machines whose only reason for existing is to satisfy escalating expectation for immediate gain. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Without reverence we [people] will gradually descend into ecocide. In the degree that the imperatives of the market - the temple of the Mall - govern our lives, we are in escalating danger of destroying the commonwealth of all sentient beings - bugs and bees and buntings - on which we depend for a luxurious life on planet earth. — Sam Keen

Vicki M. Taylor's "Not Without Anna," is a gripping, hard-hitting, thought-provoking look at the escalating crisis of teen alcohol and drug abuse.
Charlene Austin — Vicki M. Taylor

On average, the real incomes of middle-class families have grown twice as fast under Democrats as they have under Republicans, while the real incomes of working poor families have grown six times as fast under Democrats as they have under Republicans. These substantial partisan differences persist even after allowing for differences in economic circumstances and historical trends beyond the control of individual presidents. They suggest that escalating inequality is not simply an inevitable economic trend - and that a great deal of economic inequality in the contemporary United States is specifically attributable to the policies and priorities of Republican presidents. — Larry M. Bartels

The world is near escalating to World War Three and where are the leaders of each religion? Why aren't they having a conclave; why aren't they coming together? — Elton John

The communications revolution has given millions of people both a wider and more detailed understanding of the world. Because of technology, ordinary citizens enjoy access to information that formerly was available only to elites and nation-states. One consequence of this change is that citizens have become acutely conscious of environmental destruction, entrenched poverty, health catastrophes, human rights abuses, failing education systems, and escalating violence. Another consequence is that people possess powerful communication tools to coordinate efforts to attack those problems. — David Bornstein

Growth has become addictive. Like heroin addiction, the habit distorts basic value judgments. Addicts of any kind are willing to pay increasing amounts for declining satisfactions. They have become tolerant to
escalating marginal disutility. They are blind to deeper frustration because they are absorbed in playing for always mounting stakes. — Ivan Illich

Have you ever played a video game that didn't have escalating levels of difficulty? Well, life can feel like play, too, when we purposefully engage in activities that demand we test and develop our skills. — Brendon Burchard

Alice sat at her desk in their bedroom distracted by the sounds of John racing through each of the rooms on the first floor. She needed to finish her peer review of a paper submitted to the Journal of Cognitive Psychology before her flight, and she'd just read the same sentence three times without comprehending it. It was 7:30 according to their alarm clock, which she guessed was about ten minutes fast. She knew from the approximate time and the escalating volume of his racing that he was trying to leave, but he'd forgotten something and couldn't find it. She tapped her red pen on her bottom lip as she watched the digital numbers on the clock and listened for what she knew was coming. — Lisa Genova

The single-minded focus on scoring political points over solving problems, escalating over the last several decades, has reached a level of such intensity and bitterness that the government seems incapable of taking and sustaining public decisions responsive to the existential challenges facing the country. — Thomas E. Mann

The symptoms of abuse are there, and the woman usually sees them: the escalating frequency of put-downs. Early generosity turning more and more to selfishness. Verbal explosions when he is irritated or when he doesn't get his way. Her grievances constantly turned around on her, so that everything is her own fault. His growing attitude that he knows what is good for her better than she does. And, in many relationships, a mounting sense of fear or intimidation. But the woman also sees that her partner is a human being who can be caring and affectionate at times, and she loves him. She wants to figure out why he gets so upset, so that she can help him break his pattern of ups and downs. She gets drawn into the complexities of his inner world, trying to uncover clues, moving pieces around in an attempt to solve an elaborate puzzle. — Lundy Bancroft

three conclusions: (1) at least weak forms of superintelligence are achievable by means of biotechnological enhancements; (2) the feasibility of cognitively enhanced humans adds to the plausibility that advanced forms of machine intelligence are feasible - because even if we were fundamentally unable to create machine intelligence (which there is no reason to suppose), machine intelligence might still be within reach of cognitively enhanced humans; and (3) when we consider scenarios stretching significantly into the second half of this century and beyond, we must take into account the probable emergence of a generation of genetically enhanced populations - voters, inventors, scientists - with the magnitude of enhancement escalating rapidly over subsequent decades. — Nick Bostrom

Zionism was originally a rebellion against religious Judaism and the PLO Charter was essentially secularist. But because the conflict was allowed to fester without a resolution, religion got sucked into the escalating cycle of violence and became part of the problem. — Karen Armstrong

So the Bush-Obama administration has taken a fiscal stance diametrically opposed to that of the patron saint of free enterprise. While escalating war in Afghanistan and maintaining over 850 military bases around the world, the administration has run up the national debt that Smith decried. By shifting the tax burden off property and off rent-seeking monopolies - above all, off the financial sector - this policy has raised America's cost of living and doing business, thereby undercutting its competitive power and running up larger and larger foreign debt. — Michael Hudson

These days, our senses are bombarded with aggression. We are constantly confronted with global images of unending, escalating war and violence. — Margaret J. Wheatley

You cherry-pick events that are relevant to the story question and construct a gauntlet of challenge (read: the plot) that will force the protagonist to put his money where his mouth is. Think baptism by ever-escalating fire. — Lisa Cron

I also do not believe that the United States can let itself be driven into a political role by escalating terrorism, and therefore, the leaders of the Arab world and Arafat should do their utmost to put an end to this and then the United States should do its utmost to produce a political solution. — Henry A. Kissinger

When we seek to escape from inner conflict and pain, we are running away from unresolved childhood trauma or original pain. Most people with serious addictive natures who are in the process of recovery have found that trauma played a huge role in escalating their addictions. It certainly did for me. — Christopher Dines

You need to suspend your reaction when you feel like striking back, to listen when you feel like talking back, to ask questions when you feel like telling your opponent the answers, to bridge your differences when you feel like pushing for your way, and to educate when you feel like escalating. Breakthrough — William Ury

Saudi Arabia is, of course, the keystone of OPEC. Saudi Arabia has had the distinction of remaining stable through all the escalating tumult of recent decades, reliably pumping out its roughly 10 million barrels a day like Bossy the cow in America's oil import barn. — James Howard Kunstler

Poverty is a human-engineered product per excellence. It results primarily from inequitable distribution of national revenues coupled with escalating levels of corruption and mismanagement of national resources. — Moutasem Algharati

Inside the White House there were always extreme amounts of doubt about whether they should be escalating in Afghanistan. In fact, most of the president's advisers said, "This is probably not going to work." A lot of people in the military said, "This is probably not going to work." — Michael Hastings

Fraternity means that the father no longer sacrifices the sons; instead the brothers kill one another. Wars between nations have been replaced by civil war. The great settling of accounts, first under national 'pretexts,' led to a rapidly escalating world civil war. — Ernst Junger

If we don't reform how healthcare is delivered in this country, then we are not going to be able to get a handle on that escalating healthcare costs. — Barack Obama

No, Newt, I don't understand," Minho said, the frustration in his voice escalating. "We risked our necks to come to this place and you're our friend and we're taking you home. You wanna whine and cry while you go crazy, that's fine. But you're gonna do it with us, not with these shuck Cranks. — James Dashner

Then, as understanding began to trickle through his shock, he felt an escalating sense of horror. It had finally happened; he had finally lost enough of his mind so that other people would be able to *tell*. — Stephen King

The first outbreak of America's 11-year skyjacking epidemic occurred in the summer of 1961, when four planes were seized in the nation's airspace. The last of these incidents, involving 16-year-old Cody Bearden and his father, Leon, is the one that finally forced the federal government to pay attention to the escalating crisis. — Brendan I. Koerner

Loser lit antiheroes aren't well intentioned or earnest; they don't care whether you like them or not. They're self-mocking, ironic and inventive; they narrate their downfalls with manic wordplay, rampant metaphors, wisecracks, and escalating flights of spleen-fueled lyricism. — Kate Christensen

Working with the UN's diplomacy and development arms, we can prevent minor differences from escalating into wars. When conflicts do break out, UN peacekeepers should play a role in defusing and settling them. Without giving up our sovereignty, we can help the UN with better training and better command and control in order to develop more effective peacekeeping forces. — Bill Bradley

A sharp decline in actual deprivation may, paradoxically, have been accompanied by an ongoing and even escalating sense of fear of deprivation. — Alain De Botton

If women understand by emancipation the adoption of the masculine role then we are lost indeed. If women can supply no counterbalance to the blindness of male drive the aggressive society will run to its lunatic extremes at ever-escalating speed. Who will safeguard the despised animal faculties of compassion, empathy, innocence and sensuality? — Germaine Greer

Each time you dip into the well of existence it changes you. Rapid mental development is that process. It is a process of escalating your evolution. — Frederick Lenz

The reports from the scientific world are that there is a very severe and escalating impact of HIV and AIDS in South Africa, and from what I have read, it is assuming particular, distinct characteristics, which, for instance, were atypical of how this phenomenon had developed in the States. This meant that we must look at what it is that results in all of this, specific to our country. — Thabo Mbeki

As a mother, I - like everyone else - have to fill my gas tank in my car. I have to feed my family. I have to be able to make sure that I can keep a roof over their heads and, with things escalating the way they are, it's very difficult. People are losing their homes. — Cindy McCain

With the global economy in chaos and the environment of the planet at risk, with war raging and suffering escalating, it is time for each of us in our own lives to take the leap and do whatever we can to help turn things around. — Pema Chodron

The Matisse seemed to respond to the decreasing light by increasing its own wattage. Every object in the room was drained of color, but the Matisse stood firm in the de-escalating illumination, its beauty turning functionality inside out, making itself a more practical and useful presence than anything else in sight. — Steve Martin

An escalating, violent tit-for-tat may lead to terrorism. — Mary Douglas

The new wrinkle is that escalating advances in technology are nourishing the narcissistic ego the way chicken manure nourishes a rose bush, while exploding worldwide population is allowing its effects to multiply geometrically. — Tom Robbins

In response to the escalating violence in Iraq, President Bush is delaying the return home of 25,000 troops and will actually add reinforcements to the south. Then in a symbolic gesture he pulled down the mission accomplished banner, put on a flight suit, walked backwards to a jet fighter and flew it in reverse off an aircraft carrier. — Tina Fey