Ruthlessness Quotes

Children are remarkable for their intelligence and ardor, for their curiosity, their intolerance of shams, the clarity and ruthlessness of their vision. (Aldous Huxley)
One of the most terrible things about the English education System in Ireland is its ruthlessness...it is cold and mechanical, like the ruthlessness of an immensely powerful engine. A machine vast, complicated... It grinds night and day; it obeys immutable and predetermined laws; it is as devoid of understanding, of sympathy, of imagination, as is any other piece of machinery that performs an appointed task. Into it is fed all raw human material in Ireland; it seizes upon it inexorably and rends and compresses and remoulds... View quote
Patrick Pearse
Success always necessitates a degree of ruthlessness. Given the choice of friendship or success, I'd probably choose success. View quote
Sting (musician)
The Great War through which we have passed differed from all ancient wars in the immense power of the combatants and their fearful agencies of destruction, and from all modern wars in the utter ruthlessness with which it was fought. ... Europe and large parts of Asia and Africa became one vast battlefield on which after years of struggle not armies but nations broke and ran. When all was over, Torture and Cannibalism were the only two expedients that the civilized, scientific, Christian States had been able to deny themselves: and these were of doubtful utility. View quote
Winston Churchill
People who think of themselves as tough-minded and realistic, among them influential political leaders and businessmen as well as go-getters and hustlers of smaller caliber, tend to take it for granted that human nature is selfish and that life is a struggle in which only the fittest may survive. According to this philosophy, the basic law by which man must live, in spite of his surface veneer of civilization, is the law of the jungle. The "fittest" are those who can bring to the struggle superior force, superior cunning, and superior ruthlessness. View quote
S. I. Hayakawa
It is possible that the distinction between moral relativism and moral absolutism has sometimes been blurred because an excessively consistent practice of either leads to the same practical result - ruthlessness in political life. View quote
Richard Hofstadter
Truthfulness so often goes with ruthlessness. View quote
Dodie Smith
The Coolidge Bull market was a remarkable phenomenon. The ruthlessness of its liquidation was, in its own way, equally remarkable. View quote
John Kenneth Galbraith
How does he do it? How does he master people without bluster or bullying? How does he make people fear him or love him, not in spite of his ruthlessness but because of it? View quote
Orson Scott Card
You have ruthlessness in your bones and ice in your heart, Clarissa. Don't tell me any differently. View quote
Cassandra Clare
It is painful to think about ruthlessness as an engine of improvement. (Nassim Nicholas Taleb)
In reading Jung's account of his cases, it is impossible not to be aware that his success was due partly to an element of ruthlessness; he was dominated by curiosity rather than compassion. View quote
Colin Wilson
But make no mistake. My counterpart is capable of a great deal of ruthlessness in pursuit of a just cause. He believes he has right on his side. And men who think they have right on their side are always the most dangerous sort. View quote
Alastair Reynolds
The Führer once again expressed his determination to clean up the Jews in Europe pitilessly. There must be no squeamish sentimentalism about it. The Jews have deserved the catastrophe that has now overtaken them. Their destruction will go hand in hand with the destruction of our enemies. We must hasten this process with cold ruthlessness. View quote
Joseph Goebbels
I can imagine nothing more wonderful than always wanting to keep a man. It's this NOT wanting to keep them, and yet not quite being able to disentangle one's self, never quite having the ruthlessness to stike at the hands on the gunwale with an oar until they let go - that's the horrible thing. View quote
Rose Wilder Lane
In both cases, weakness and scruples had defeated strength and ruthlessness. View quote
Ken Follett
From the time Muslims started arriving, around 632 AD, the history of India becomes a long, monotonous series of murders, massacres, spoliations, and destructions. It is, as usual, in the name of 'a holy war' of their faith, of their sole God, that the barbarians have destroyed civilizations, wiped out entire races. Mahmoud Ghazni was an early example of Muslim ruthlessness, burning in 1018 of the temples of Mathura, razing Kanauj to the ground and destroying the famous temple of Somnath, sacred to all Hindus. His successors were as ruthless as Ghazni: 103 temples in the holy city of Benaras were razed to the ground, its marvelous temples destroyed, its magnificent palaces wrecked. View quote
Alain Daniélou
Today, to put down Modi, Congressmen don't tire of praising Atal Bihari Vajpayee as a moderate consensus builder. But while Vajpayee was prime minister he was targeted with as much ruthlessness as Modi-only that it cut less ice with the media or the people at large because Vajpayee was a well known national figure. By contrast, Modi was a relatively obscure regional leader for most Indians, as well as for most media professionals. View quote
Atal Bihari Vajpayee
I suspect that one of capitalism's crucial assets derives from the fact that the imagination of economists, including its critics, lags well behind its own inventiveness, the arbitrariness of its undertaking and the ruthlessness of the way in which it proceeds. View quote
Zygmunt Bauman
Why were so few voices raised in the ancient world in protest against the ruthlessness of man? Why are human beings so obsequious, ready to kill and ready to die at the call of kings and chieftains? Perhaps it is because they worship might, venerate those who command might, and are convinced that it is by force that man prevails. The splendor and the pride of kings blind the people. View quote
Abraham Joshua Heschel
Such as contribute most to human progress and human enlightenment consume no more bread than the simplest of their fellow mortals. Indeed such men are often in want. How many a genius has perished inarticulate because unable to stand the strain of social conditions where animal standards prevail and "survival of the fittest" means, not survival of the "fittest in time-binding capacity," but survival of the strongest in ruthlessness and guile - in space-binding competition! (Alfred Korzybski)
How many a genius has perished inarticulate because unable to stand the strain of social conditions where animal standards prevail and "survival of the fittest" means, not survival of the "fittest in time-binding capacity," but survival of the strongest in ruthlessness and guile - in space-binding competition! View quote
Alfred Korzybski
A certain ruthlessness and a sense of alienation from society is as essential to creative writing as it is to armed robbery. View quote
Nelson Algren
Today is filled with anger, fueled with hidden hate. Scared of being outkast, afraid of common fate. Today is build on tragedies which no one want's to face. Nightmares to humanity and morally disgraced. Tonight is filled with Rage, violence in the air. Children bred with ruthlessness cause no one at home cares. Tonight I lay my head down but the pressure never stops, knowing that my sanity content when I'm droped. But tomorrow I see change, a chance to build a new, build on spirit intent of heart and ideas based on truth. Tomorrow I wake with second wind and strong because of pride. I know I fought with all my heart to keep the dream alive. View quote
Tupac Shakur
Devotion to duty, or pragmatic ruthlessness, which was which? He would never know, now. View quote
Lois McMaster Bujold