Aggression Quotes

To rid the world of aggression and contention is the purpose of Aikido ~ Morihei Ueshiba

Sociological Explanations

Sociologists theorize that people can live together in peace because of the development of a social hierarchy that ranges from dominant to submissive. Everyone in a group takes his or her place in the hierarchy. A certain degree of anxiety around others allows people to assess the level of threat that they pose, and helps maintain the balance between aggression and inhibition.
However, people with social anxiety tend to misinterpret others' behavior as more aggressive or powerful than it really is. As a result, a socially anxious person often will become overly submissive--blushing, not making eye contact, freezing, or withdrawing.
Sociologists believe this response may be the result of a fundamental fear of rejection. In monkeys, apes, and humans, being left to fend for oneself usually is a threat to survival. In social anxiety, people may see being judged as a threat to their position in the group. To them, rejection means failure.

Kyoto went through her day at school constantly apologizing to everyone. Whenever she walked down the hall, opened her locker, sat down in an empty seat, or got in line in the cafeteria, she always said "Excuse me" or "I'm sorry." Most of the time, she didn't know why she was apologizing. She always wanted to please others.
Kyoto's mother took her to see a psychologist because of Kyoto's anxiety. The psychologist helped Kyoto see that she misinterpreted others' behavior as being more ~ Heather Moehn

Nationalism, on my opinion, is nothing more than an idealistic rationalization for militarism and aggression. ~ Albert Einstein

If all were nonviolent, there would be no anarchy and there would be no question of anybody being armed for meeting aggression from without. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

The concept that all men are created equal was a key to European Enlightenment philosophy. But the interpretation of "all men" has hovered over the Declaration of Independence since its creation. ~ Oscar Auliq-Ice

Determination is number one! You have to be trained physically. You have to have a good mental attitude - wanting it and enjoying the thrill of going fast. There is a certain level of aggression with competing at professional racing level but you have to control it as it is a high reaction, fast sport. ~ Liz Halliday

Women particularly should concern themselves with peace because men by nature are more foolhardy and headstrong, and their overwhelming desire to avenge themselves prevents them from foreseeing the resulting dangers and terrors of war. But woman by nature is more gentle and circumspect. Therefore, if she has sufficient will and wisdom she can provide the best possible means to pacify man. ~ Christine De Pizan

Passive Aggression – Being covertly spiteful with the intent of inflicting mental pain. ~ Ashta-Deb

During the rule of the Shah, arrogance, aggression, territorial expansion at the expense of the Arabs and attempts to harm Iraq's national sovereignty and the rights of the Arab nation were a constant pattern. Iraq and the Arab nation were regarded as a sphere of influence for the expansionist plans of Iranian interests. That policy has been followed throughout history by the State of Persia against its neighbours to the west, and as we have shown. ~ Saddam Hussein

By his own admission, Tom is nothing like his brother. He has neither the fierce ambition nor the compulsion for risk taking. ... Will relied on aggression to anchor the world while Tom passively accepted whatever the world would give or take away. Consequently Tom won no awards, achieved no fame, ... He drifted, bending to daily pressures, never protesting when he was deprived of what he should have rightfully claimed as his own. In his sad trip downstream, Tom dulled the pain with alcohol and a few joints a day - what he called his 'friendly haze'. ~ Mark Z. Danielewski

I would lay down my life to defend any one of the States from aggression, which endangered peace or threatened its institutions. I could do more for the union, but I wish to do more; for the destruction of the union would be the destruction of all the States. A stab in the heart is worse then a cut in a limb, for this may be healed. ~ Sam Houston

Fear and desire for pleasure. Aggressiveness comes out of fear, predominantly, and sexuality predominantly out of the other. But they mix in the middle. Anyway, both of these impulses can destroy order, which comes out of both drives, and which is another human need I haven't yet fit into my scheme. So both have to be controlled. But in fact, despite religious commands to the contrary, aggressiveness has never really been condemned. It's been exalted, from the Bible through Homer and Virgil right down to Humbert Hemingway. Have you ever heard of a John Wayne movie being censored? did you ever see them take war books off the bookstands? They leave the genitals off Barbie and Ken, but they manufacture every kind of war toy. Because sex is more threatening to us than aggression. There have been strict rules about sex since the beginning of written rules, and even before, if we can believe myth. I think that's because it's in sex that men feel most vulnerable. In war they can hype themselves up, or they have a weapon. Sex means being literally naked and exposing your feelings. And that's more terrifying to most men than the risk of dying while fighting a bear or a soldier. Look at the rules! You can have sex if you're married, and you have to marry a person of the opposite gender, the same color and religion, an age close to your own, of the right social and economic background, even the right height, for God's sake, or else everybody gets up in arms, they disinherit you or threa ~ Marilyn French

How very important it is to bring about in the human mind the radical revolution. The crisis is a crisis in consciousness, a crisis that cannot anymore accept the old norms, the old patterns, the ancient traditions. Considering what the world is now with all the misery, conflict, destructive brutality, aggression and so on ... man is still as he was, is still brutal, violent, aggressive, acquisitive, competitive and has built a society along these lines. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

There comes a time in the affairs of man when he must take the bull by the tail and face the situation. ~ W.C. Fields

The mass of the population before the modern era rarely ate meat as the mass of the peasantry rarely do in underdeveloped countries today. In Europe, in the Middle Ages, meat, especially red meat, was associated with aristocracy, landed gentry and their militaristic and hunting culture. It was this, also, that tended to strengthen the association of meat with power and aggression. ~ Malcolm Hamilton

To my abusers, the act of setting appropriate boundaries was viewed as hostile aggression. They believed that I was denying them something that belonged to them if I resisted. I was a resource to be exploited for their personal use. I was property who didn't have any rights over my time, my energy, my body, or my possessions. I viewed myself that way too. I believed that they were justified in being angry with me for saying no but I wasn't justified in being angry with them for abusing me. ~ Christina Enevoldsen

Ideas for my first experiments in human aggression came from discussions we had in a research seminar about William Golding's 'Lord of the Flies.' ~ Philip Zimbardo

Debunking the myth of the 'mean girl,' new research has found that boys use relational aggression - malicious rumors, social exclusion and rejection - to harm or manipulate others more often than girls. The longitudinal study followed a cohort of students from middle to high school and found that, at every grade level, boys engaged in relationally aggressive behavior more often than girls. ~ Anonymous

Equality cannot be imagined outside of tyranny. ~ Charles Forbes Rene De Montalembert

Society had grown cruel. People who felt they were unwanted or unwelcome in their own country, reacted with aggression. There was no such thing as meaningless violence. Every violent act had a meaning for the person who committed it. Only when you dared accept this truth could you hope to turn society in another direction. ~ Henning Mankell

The purge is made to release the aggression, anger, rage everything just in on place. ~ Deyth Banger

God works to over throw the ungodly, and increasingly the world will come under the dominion of Christians, not by military aggression, but by godly labor, saving, in vestment, and orientation toward the future ... This is where history is going. The future belongs to the people of God, who obey His laws ~ David Chilton

By deafening ourselves to the emotional consequences of violence we have become confused by its relationship to sex. We have come to believe that violence equals aggression, and we have come to base our model of sexuality on our model of violence ... converting an act of aggression into an act of consensual sexuality. ~ Derrick Jensen

Imperialism will not last long because it always does evil things. It persists in grooming and supporting reactionaries in all countries who are against the people, it has forcibly seized many colonies and semi-colonies and many military bases, and it threatens the peace with atomic war. Thus, forced by imperialism to do so, more than 90 per cent of the people of the world are rising or will rise in struggle against it. Yet, imperialism is still alive, still running amuck in Asia, Africa and Latin America. In the West imperialism is still oppressing the people at home. This situation must change. It is the task of the people of the whole world to put an end to the aggression and oppression perpetrated by imperialism, and chiefly by U.S. imperialism. ~ Mao Zedong

To be an anarchist only means that you believe that aggression is not justified, and that states necessarily employ aggression. And, therefore, that states, and the aggression they necessarily employ, are unjustified. It's quite simple, really. It's an ethical view, so no surprise it confuses utilitarians. ~ Stephan Kinsella

Without opposition, there could be no creation. All life would cease without resistance. Emotions also have their polar opposites: attraction – repulsion, love – hate, aggression – meekness, and mercy – callousness. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

I'm not going to appeal to violence or aggression - of course not. ~ Alexei Navalny

Our greater beastliness lies not in a penchant for brute force,but in our greater corruption, nihilism, and decadence; in our servitude to the
overwhelming systems we create; in the sociopathic rationalism we adopt to master natural forces and to compete with the machines we build;and in the scientistic idolatry that co-opts the religious impulse. Of course the ancients resorted more to brute force: they lacked the infrastructure to punish their enemies and victims in a safer, more
sophisticated fashion, with advanced legal regimes and mass-produced, maximum security prisons; with engineered propaganda for social conditioning; and with economic, cyber, and drone warfare. We channel our aggression with more sophisticated instruments, but the use of those instruments doesn't ennoble us. ~ Benjamin Cain

It seems to me the worst possible concept, militarily, that we would simply stay there, resisting aggression, so-called ... it seems to me that the way to "resist aggression" is to destroy the potentialities of the aggressor to continually hit you ... When you say, merely, "we are going to continue to fight aggression," that is not what the enemy is fighting for. The enemy is fighting for a very definite purpose-to destroy our forces ... ~ Douglas MacArthur

I love watching Virat Kohli bat. I love his aggression and serious passion that I used to have. He reminds me of myself, ~ Viv Richards

There is an association between the number of hours that the television is on at home and early childhood aggression. ~ Catherine Taylor

On the journey of the warrior-bodhisattva, the path goes down, not up, as if the mountain pointed toward the earth instead of the sky. Instead of transcending the suffering of all creatures, we move toward turbulence and doubt however we can. We explore the reality and unpredictability of insecurity and pain, and we try not to push it away. If it takes years, if it takes lifetimes, we let it be as it is. At our own pace, without speed or aggression, we move down and down and down. With us move millions of others, companions in awakening from fear. ~ Pema Chodron

Why do you think news of violence and aggression receive huge ratings! It's because the human mind is conditioned to pay more attention to negative events than positive ones, because even if you ignore a positive event, it's very unlikely that something bad will happen to you because of your ignorance, but if you are inattentive to a negative event, you may just lose your life. ~ Abhijit Naskar

We do this in order to slow down aggression. We do this to increase the confidence of the brave people of South Vietnam who have bravely born this brutal battle for so many years with so many casualties. And we do this to convince the leaders of North Vietnam-and all who seek to share their conquest-of a simple fact: We will not be defeated. We will not grow tired. We will not withdraw either openly or under the cloak of a meaningless agreement. ~ Lyndon B. Johnson

That's the thing with women's movies - there's so much about kind of catfighting. And my experience is women aren't - look, we all get in fights with people, but it's not that face-to-face aggression. ~ Paul Feig

The inclination to aggression constitutes the greatest impediment to civilization. ~ Sigmund Freud

I have no concern with any economic criticisms of the communist system; I cannot inquire into whether the abolition of private property is expedient or advantageous. But I am able to recognize that the psychological premisses on which the system is based are an untenable illusion. In abolishing private property we deprive the human love of aggression of one of its instruments ... but we have in no way altered the differences in power and influence which are misused by aggressiveness. ~ Sigmund Freud

Is world peace possible or is the human race too innately aggressive? For instance: Have you ever seen women at a sample sale? ~ Woody Allen

Union means so many millions a year lost to the South; secession means the loss of the same millions to the North. The love of money is the root of this …. The quarrel between the North and the South is, as it stands, solely a fiscal quarrel."
--Charles Dickens, 1861 article on the cause of the American Civil War ~ Charles Dickens

It's very easy, if you come from a place like Pakistan, to imagine that there's a narrative of American aggression towards the place that you come from. But that, in itself, is just a political view. ~ Mohsin Hamid

The sun will not shine on any country that has borders with ours. ~ Herodotus

Aggression in bears can be and often is a stepping stone to friendship. Friendship and alliances frequently develop by repeated interactions, with initial aggression that lessens over time. ~ Benjamin Kilham

Outside of my professional life, I have known many couples over the years who had passion and electricity between them and who treated each other well. But unfortunately there is wide acceptance in our society of the unhealthy notion that passion and aggression are interwoven and that cruel verbal exchanges and bomblike explosions are the price you pay for a relationship that is exciting, deep, and sexy. Popular romantic movies and soap operas sometimes reinforce this image. ~ Lundy Bancroft

Power is required for communication. To stand before an indifferent or hostile group and have one's say, or to speak honestly to a friend truths that go deep and hurt these require self-affirmation, self-assertion, and even at times aggression ... My experience in psychotherapy convinces me that the act which requires the most courage is the simple communication, unpropelled by rage or anger, of one's deepest thoughts to another. ~ Rollo May

Aggression is not necessarily destructive at all. It springs from an innate tendency to grow and master life which seems to be characteristic of all living matter. Only when this life force is obstructed in its development do ingredients of anger, rage, or hate become connected with it. ~ Clara Thompson

[I]t's impossible to evade the fact that Endless War will inevitably degrade the citizenry of the country that engages in it. A country which venerates its military above all other institutions, which demands that its soldiers be spoken of only with religious-like worship, and which continuously indoctrinates its population to believe that endless violence against numerous countries is necessary and just - all by instilling intense fear of the minorities who are the target of that endless violence - will be a country filled with citizens convinced of the virtues and nobility of aggression. ~ Glenn Greenwald

My own feeling is that one should refuse to participate in any activity that implements American aggression - thus tax refusal, draft refusal, avoidance of work that can be used by the agencies of militarism and repression, all seem to me essential. ~ Noam Chomsky

Why does forgiveness irritate me so much?" I ask Chuck.
"Because it's the ultimate act of passive aggression," he says.
"Because it keeps sin alive," says my sister. ~ Abigail Thomas

It wasn't about the age-old battle of Arum versus Luxen. I wasn't fighting to feed or to work off aggression. I wasn't fighting because I was told or was obligated.
I was fighting for Serena.
She meant everything to me.
Knowing that, fully understanding what that mean, I was on a motherfucking warpath. ~ Jennifer L. Armentrout

If all the thought which had been expended on the construction of engines of agony and death - the modes of aggression and defence, the raising of armies, and the acquirement of those arts of tyranny and falsehood without which mixed multitudes could neither be led nor governed - had been employed to promote the true welfare and extend the real empire of man, how different would have been the present situation of human society! ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

Courting is always difficult when the one being courted has an elderly female relative in the house; they tend to mutter or cackle or bum cigarettes or, in the worst cases, get out the family photograph album, an act of aggression in the sex war which ought to be banned by a Geneva Convention. ~ Terry Pratchett

Men may or may not be better drivers than women, but they seem to die more often trying to prove that they are. ~ Tom Vanderbilt

We have agreed that peace can be achieved with the removal of the occupation and the end of aggression. ~ Khaled Mashal

What do nations care about the cost of war, if by spending a few hundred millions in steel and gunpowder they can gain a thousand millions in diamonds and cocoa? ~ W.E.B. Du Bois

Undertaking initially to protect its citizens against aggression, [government] has often itself become ... a far greater aggressor. ~ John Hospers

Faced with a problem, then, try to remain humble, while keeping a sincere attitude, and think about the right solution. No doubt some people will try to take advantage of your attitude. If your calm seems to encourage unfair aggression, be firm, but with compassion. If it turns out to be necessary for you to prove your point by severe countermeasures, do so without resentment or bad intentions. ~ Dalai Lama XIV

In short, pornography is not about sex. It's about an imbalance of male-female power that allows and even requires sex to be used as a form of aggression ... But until we finally untangle sexuality and aggression, there will be more pornography and less erotica. There will be little murders in our beds - and very little love. ~ Gloria Steinem

There seems to be a fear that if men are raised to be people of integrity, people who can love, they will be unable to be forceful and act violently if needed ... We see that females that are raised with the traits any person of integrity embodies can act with tenderness, with assertiveness, and with aggression if and when aggression is needed. ~ Bell Hooks

This country of ours has committed the most serious act of aggression in its history by engaging in a war of aggression without a declaration of war by Congress. ~ Ramsey Clark

I thought it was important to speak about what I believe would be the right response to Russian aggression in Ukraine. I'm pleased to hear there is more sanctions maybe coming tomorrow. But the truth of the matter is I think we need less talk and more deeds. ~ Mike Pence

Food is so fundamental, more so than sexuality, aggression, or learning, that it is astounding to realize the neglect of food and eating in depth psychology. ~ James Hillman

I got really interested in the language used in blogs written by young girls - a young person's aggression, which is always lacking from the visual world. ~ Jenny Hval

No one in al-Nahda believes that jihad is a way to impose Islam on the world. But we believe that jihad is self-control, is social and political struggle, and even military jihad is only a way to defend oneself in the case of aggression. ~ Rashid Al-Ghannushi

If you personally advocate that I be caged if I don't pay for whatever "government" things YOU want, please don't pretend to be tolerant, or non-violent, or enlightened, or compassionate. Don't pretend you believe in "live and let live," and don't pretend you want peace, freedom or harmony. It's a simple truism that the only people in the world who are willing to "live and let live" are voluntaryists. So you can either PRETEND to care about and respect your fellow man while continuing to advocate widespread authoritarian violence, or you can embrace the concepts of self-ownership and peaceful coexistence, and become an anarchist. ~ Larken Rose

I want to work beyond external aggressions, forget that one has something to do for others if it's not for oneself. ~ Isabelle Adjani

Soccer matches in Europe have riot police. Metal is just people sloshing around drunk and sloppy and having fun, and there's nothing wrong with that. It is a great outlet for aggression. ~ Chris Reifert

Provision must be made for the extension of speedy and effective assistance when any African State is threatened with military aggression. We cannot rely solely on international morality. ~ Haile Selassie

Cinema is the culmination of the obsessive, mechanistic male drive in western culture. The movie projector is an Apollonian straight-shooter, demonstrating the link between aggression and art. Every pictorial framing is a ritual limitation, a barred precinct. ~ Camille Paglia

The intelligence is clear: (Saddam) continues to believe his WMD programme is essential both for internal repression and for external aggression. ~ Tony Blair

Germany has concluded a Non-Aggression Pact with Poland. We shall adhere to it unconditionally. We recognize Poland as the home of a great and nationally conscious people. ~ Adolf Hitler

If Pakistan has any ideas of annexing any part of our territories by force, she should think afresh. I want to state categorically that force will be met with force and aggression against us will never be allowed to succeed. ~ Lal Bahadur Shastri

I listened, I understood and I didn't understand. Long ago she had threatened Marcello with the shoemaker's knife simply because he had dared to grab my wrist and break the bracelet. From that point on, I was sure that if Marcello had just brushed against her she would have killed him. But toward Stefano, now, she showed no explicit aggression. Of course, the explanation was simple: we had seen our fathers beat our mothers from childhood. We had grown up thinking that a stranger must not even touch us, but that our father, our boyfriend, and our husband could hit us when they liked, out of love, to educate us, to reeducate us. As ~ Elena Ferrante

The term girl not only serves to avoid certain anxiety-arousing connotations inherent in the word woman regarding aggression, sexuality, and reproduction, it also serves to impart a tone of frivolousness and lack of seriousness to ambitious, intellectual, and competitive striving that women may pursue. ~ Harriet Lerner

There is a crucial omission. The front page should display the words of the Nuremberg judgment of prominent Nazis - words that must be repeated until they penetrate general consciousness: Aggression is "the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." And alongside these words there should be the admonition of the chief prosecutor for the United States, Robert Jackson: "The record on which we judge these defendants is the record on which history will judge us tomorrow. To pass these defendants a poisoned chalice is to put it to our own lips as well. ~ Noam Chomsky

Furthermore, when citizens are all almost equal, it becomes difficult for them to defend their independence against the aggressions of power. ~ Alexis De Tocqueville

There is something ineluctably male about coalitional aggression - men bonding with men to engage in aggression against other men, ~ Rose McDermott

I have been observing China for more than 30 years and am impressed how logically and wisely it tackles its problems. Obviously the international system could be unbalanced by China's rising power - if we don't prepare ourselves for the new competitive situation, that is. But it is an economic challenge, not aggression on the level of Hitler. ~ Henry A. Kissinger

Freud has said in Totem and Taboo that acts that are illegal for the individual can be justified in another way: the one who initiates the act takes upon himself both the risk and the guilt. The result is truly magic: each member of the group can repeat the act without guilt. They are not responsible, only the leader is. Redl calls this, aptly, "priority magic." But it does something even more than relieve guilt: it actually transforms the fact of murder. This crucial point initiates us directly into the phenomenology of group transformation of the everyday world. If one murders without guilt, and in imitation of the hero who runs the risk, why then it is no longer murder: it is "holy aggression. For the first one it was not." In other words, participation in the group redistills everyday reality and gives it the aura of the sacred-just as, in childhood, play created a heightened reality. ~ Ernest Becker

INITIATIVE, AGGRESSION, AIR DISCIPLINE, and TEAM WORK are words that MEAN something in Air Fighting. ~ Adolph Malan

Since the beginning, the US presidents (all of European stock, of course), had been promoting slavery, extermination campaigns against the native population of North America, barbaric wars of aggression against Mexico, and other Latin American countries, the Philippines, etc. Has anything changed now? I highly doubt it. ~ Andre Vltchek

What took me decades to learn, these kids can get on the Internet ... What I learned by brute force, dealing out hands, they learn on computers. It tends to make for fairly technical players, but they make up for it with aggression, the kind that comes when you learn things fast. ~ Doyle Brunson

Always you have to train yourself to swim with sharks. ~ Sivaprakash Sidhu

It's easier to play aggression and malevolence onscreen, often, than to hit softer notes. ~ Joel Edgerton

I know that, physically, I'm a very demure-looking person. But I certainly have as much aggression or anger as the next person, and that's got to come out somehow. I'm lucky that I get to play music, and that it's not going to come out in some totally destructive way. ~ Annie E. Clark

I refuse to be silent any longer. I refuse to be party to an illegal and immoral war against people who did nothing to deserve our aggression. My oath of office is to protect and defend America's laws and its people. By refusing unlawful orders for an illegal war, I fulfill that oath today. ~ Ehren Watada

Where there is fear there is aggression. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

The inflated ego of the tyrant is a curse to himself and his world – no matter how his affairs may prosper. Self-terrorized, fear-haunted, alert at every hand to meet and battle back the anticipated aggressions of his environment, which are primarily the reflections of the uncontrollable impulses to acquisition within himself. The giant of self-achieved independence is the world's messenger of disaster, even though, in his mind, he may entertain himself with humane intentions. ~ Joseph Campbell

What many teachers observe as violent behavior is often really just playful aggression. ~ Brian Sutton-Smith

We can see beyond the present shadows of war in the Middle East to a new world order where the strong work together to deter and stop aggression. This was precisely Franklin Roosevelt's and Winston Churchill's vision for peace for the post-war period. ~ Dick Gephardt

I understand why so many female comics quit or change their path, because it is hard. It's hard to be a comedian, and people have so much aggression towards women. I don't really know where that comes from, but I feel a total responsibility, and I'm gonna do my part, to continue on the path that I'm on. ~ Amy Schumer

The State has a legal monopoly on the right to use aggression against others in the form of taxation and compulsory edicts (legislation). Not only must "customers" pay into its operation without regard to their consent, but they must surrender to the rules its internal processes determine at all times. Additionally, the State has a monopoly on the provision of security, and has anointed itself as the ultimate arbiter in all conflicts, including those conflicts which involve its own agents. It ~ Christopher Chase Rachels

We have never said that the fight against the Iranian aggression and against the expansionist Persian tendencies (which have been demonstrated by various means under successive regimes in Iran) is the decisive battle for the Arabs. What we have said, and still say, is that the fight against Zionism is the main decisive battle for the Arabs. This is a great objective reality, which cannot be denied or underestimated except by someone who would not only harm the Arab nation and its main causes, but would also overlook the main danger. ~ Saddam Hussein

high levels of time spent engaging in media can have a negative impact on romantic relationships, specifically on levels of relational aggression. ~ Douglas A. Gentile

Mystery is gone to the certainty of technological principles. So the real terror, the real aggression against life comes in the form of the pursuit of our technological happiness. ~ Godfrey Reggio

There's something about a wah pedal that really gets my gut going! People will probably say, 'He's just hiding behind the wah.' But that isn't the case. It's just that those frequencies really bring out a lot of aggression in my approach. ~ Kirk Hammett

Rage can easily convert to hatred. There is a wish to control the bad object in order to avoid persecution or fear. This control is achieved by the development of obsessive control mechanisms, which psychopathologically regulate the repression of aggression in such an individual. ~ Sam Vaknin

Individuals have rights and there are things no person or group may do to them (without violating their rights). ~ Robert Nozick

For some reason, these days we tend to downplay the importance of aggression, of taking risks, of barreling forward. It's probably because it's been negatively associated with certain notions of violence or masculinity. But of course Earhart shows that that isn't true. In fact, on the side of her plane she painted the words, "Always think with your stick forward." That is: You can't ever let up your flying speed - if you do, you crash. ~ Ryan Holiday

The whole concept of European culture as a cornucopia from which things are freely given is misleading. It does not take a specialist in anthropology to see that the European "give" is always highly selective. We never give any native people under our control – and we never shall, for it would be sheer folly as long as we stand on the basis of our present Realpolitik – the following elements of culture:

1. The instruments of physical power: fire-arms, bombing planes, poison gas, and all that makes an effective defence or aggression possible
2. We do not give out instruments of political mastery [i.e. sovereignty or voting rights]
3. We do not share with them the substance of economic wealth and advantages…. Even when under indirect economic exploitation… we allow the native a share of the profits, the full control of the economic organization remains in the hands of Western enterprise.
4. We do not admit them as equals to Church, Assembly, school, or drawing room… Full political, social and even religious equality is nowhere granted. ~ Bronisław Malinowski

A fundamental reason why Britain was not torn apart by civil war after 1688 was that its inhabitants' aggression was channelled so regularly and so remorsely into war and imperial expansion abroad. ~ Linda Colley