Devastating Quotes

President Bush's emergency declaration for the State of Texas is great news for the people and communities that have experienced the devastating wildfires firsthand. Already, communities have rallied to help neighbors in need. ~ Randy Neugebauer

Whether the color of your skin is black, white, yellow, brown or purple
the extent of this tragedy is so incredibly devastating that we had to do something. ~ Bert McCracken

My relationship to the desecration of the earth was very theoretical and intellectual until I got sick. I could never watch anything about polar bears dying or the death of bees. There were certain things I knew I couldn't go near because they were too devastating. But I don't think until I got cancer did I get it in my body, what was happening to the earth. I finally went: "Oh! Earth! Organism!" ~ Eve Ensler

He sucked in a deep breath, his eyes travelling back and forth between mine as he swiped his thumb across my bottom lip. His voice was husky when he spoke, The way you come is fucking devastating. ~ L. H. Cosway

The townsfolk in their darkened rooms were dazed as if by some cataclysm, some devastating earthquake, against which all wisdom and all resistance is of no avail. Such a feeling is produced every time the established order of things is upset, when security is destroyed and everything is hitherto protected by the laws of man or nature is suddenly at the mercy of wild unreasoning brutality. ~ Guy De Maupassant

Month by month, year by year, there took shape in Paul's mind a new and lucid image of his world, an image at once terrible and exquisite, tragic and farcical. It is difficult to give an idea of this new vision of Paul's, for its power depended largely on the immense intricacy and diversity of his recent experience; on his sense of the hosts of individuals swarming upon the planet, here sparsely scattered, there congested into great clusters and lumps of humanity. Speaking in ten thousand mutually incomprehensible dialects, living in manners reprehensible or ludicrous to one another, thinking by concepts unintelligible to one another, they worshipped in modes repugnant to one another. This new sense of the mere bulk and variety of men was deepened in Paul's mind by his enhanced apprehension of individuality in himself and others, his awed realization that each single unit in all these earth-devastating locust armies carried about with it a whole cognized universe. On the other hand, since he was never wholly forgetful of the stars, the shock between his sense of human littleness in the cosmos and his new sense of man's physical bulk and spiritual intensity increased his wonder. Thus in spite of his perception of the indefeasible reality of everyday things, he had also an overwhelming conviction that the whole fabric of common experience, nay the whole agreed universe of human and biological and astronomical fact, though real, concealed some vaster reality. ~ Olaf Stapledon

In the music business, to survive for so long, you have to be able to cut off from your emotions sometimes. And being a father, you're faced with that situation. I know that my father was, with me. I understand why he had to be distant, because to rip yourself away, time after time, is almost more devastating. ~ Rufus Wainwright

When I look round to see how we can win the war I see that there is only one sure path ... and that is absolutely devastating, exterminating attack by very heavy bombers from this country upon the Nazi homeland. We must be able to overwhelm them by this means, without which I do not see a way through. ~ Winston Churchill

The translucence that comes when life hardens into a bead of such cruel perfection you see it with the purest clarity. Everything suddenly there
life as it truly is, enormous, appalling, devastating. You see the great sinkholes it makes in people and the harrowing lengths to which love will go to fill them. ~ Sue Monk Kidd

My power is discombobulatingly devastating. ~ Mike Tyson

In a devastating critique, the sociologist Pitirim Sorokin once showed that if Terman had simply put together a randomly selected group of children from the same kinds of family backgrounds as the Termites - and ~ Malcolm Gladwell

I've seen the devastating effects of acting before seeking God's will. ~ Norma Gail

Donald Trump is not running for president. This is devastating news for Trump's supporters - all of whom are late night comedians. ~ Conan O'Brien

The weird, weird thing about devastating loss is that life actually goes on. When you're faced with a tragedy, a loss so huge that you have no idea how you can live through it, somehow, the world keeps turning, the seconds keep ticking. ~ James Patterson

The gigantic catastrophes that threaten us today are not elemental happenings of a physical or biological order, but psychic events. To a quite terrifying degree we are threatened by wars and revolutions which are nothing other than psychic epidemics. At any moment several million human beings may be smitten with a new madness, and then we shall have another world war or devastating revolution. Instead of being at the mercy of wild beasts, earthquakes, landslides, and inundations, modern man is battered by the elemental forces of his own psyche. ~ Carl Jung

It was many years ago that I got out of a crewtruck in the national forest and ran toward a large glowing object hovering in the darkening Arizona sky. But when I made that fateful choice to leavethe truck, I was leaving behind more than just my six fellow workmen. I was leaving behind forever all semblance of a normal life, running headlong toward an experience so overwhelmingly mind-rending in its effects, so devastating in itsaftermath, that my life would never - could never - be the same again. ~ Travis Walton

Arms and legs thrashing. The hammer of blood.
I'm coming, says Jude.
And holds her breath. Orgasm is brief, nonviolent.
What color? I say
Devastating blue, she says. The pale blue eyes of a murdered boy.
Very nice.
You remembered, she says.
Jude comes in colors. How could I forget. Trembling blond orgasms that seem to piss her off and rare pink orgasms that never end. Chemical red orgasms that fill her with guilt and perfect orgasms black as fresh earth. Orgasms shadowy and gray that may or may not cause her to weep and orgasms the color of bruised skin, orgasms that fade from purple to yellow and remain visible for days. ~ Will Christopher Baer

Losing a mate to death is devastating but it's not a personal attack like divorce. When somebody you love stops loving you and walks away, it's an insult beyond comparison. ~ Sue Merrell

And are you thirsty," she asked, "or were you merely being polite?"
"I am always polite," he said with a wicked grin, "but I am thirsty as well."
Kate took one look at that grin, lethally combined with those devastating green eyes, and nearly groaned. "You are a rake as well," she said with a sigh.
Colin choked - on what, she did not know, but he choked nonetheless. "I beg your pardon?"
Kate's face flushed as she realized with horror that she'd spoken aloud. "No, it is I who should beg your pardon. Please forgive me. That was unforgivably rude."
"No, no," he said quickly, looking terribly interested and not a little bit amused, "do continue."
Kate swallowed. There was really no way to get out of it now. "I was merely - " She cleared her throat. "If I might be frank . . ."
He nodded, his sly grin telling her that he could not imagine her being anything but frank.
Kate cleared her throat yet again. Really, this was getting ridiculous. She was starting to sound as if she'd swallowed a toad. "It had occurred to me that you might be rather like your brother, that is all."
"My brother?"
"The viscount," she said, thinking it must be obvious.
"I have three brothers," he explained.
"Oh." Now she felt stupid. "I'm sorry."
"I'm sorry, too," he said with great feeling. "Most of the time they're a dreadful nuisance."

-Kate & Colin ~ Julia Quinn

Kezia looked down her nose at him - the haughty school-teacher stare less devastating when the school-teacher in question wore penguins. ~ Tracey Alvarez

We are not born women of color. We become women of color. In order to become women of color, we would need to become fluent in each others' histories, to resist and unlearn an impulse to claim first oppression, most-devastating oppression, one-of-a-kind oppression, defying comparison oppression. We would have to unlearn an impulse that allows mythologies about each other to replace knowing about one another. We would need to cultivate a way of knowing in which we direct our social, cultural, psychic, and spiritually marked attention on each other. We cannot afford to cease yearning for each others' company. ~ M. Jacqui Alexander

I loved you too much, wanted you too much, had for you too great a tenderness. Now all of this is like a twisted root in my heart, a deadly poison in my brain. You have made of me a madman. You fill me with a kind of horror, a devastating hate that is akin to love – a hunger that is nausea. ~ Daphne Du Maurier

Although it might seem paradoxical, growing up in a family of liberal-minded atheists, committed but never militant, tends to have devastating consequences. Being raised without a rigid backdrop of religious, political, or spiritual beliefs makes it hard to have a real crises later in life. There is no way forward if your point of departure is the comfortable passivity of someone who has been a self-professed agnostic since the age of twelve, without ever having considered those important - one might say grave - matters, such as God, death, love, failure, or fear. For a precocious agnostic, the virtues offered by skepticism become terrifying hands that strangle and suffocate the already rare capacity of an individual to question things. Conversely, intelligent people who grow up thinking one thing and, on reaching a certain age, realize that everything they believe is open to doubt - stark, brutal doubt - can truly enjoy a profound crises that, in the worst cases, leads them to know themselves a little better. ~ Valeria Luiselli

When families are strong and stable, so are children - showing higher levels of wellbeing and more positive outcomes. But when things go wrong - either through family breakdown or a damaged parental relationship - the impact on a child's later life can be devastating. ~ Iain Duncan Smith

Proves to be a devastating hunter. Hyenas attack ~ Yann Martel

But still, it was not the desire to 'write' that was his real motive. To get out of the money-world - that was what he wanted. Vaguely he looked forward to some kind of moneyless, anchorite existence. He had a feeling that if you genuinely despise money you can keep going somehow, like the birds of the air. He forgot that the birds of the air don't pay room-rent. The poet starving in a garret - but starving, somehow, not uncomfortably - that was his vision of himself.

The next seven months were devastating. They scared him and almost broke his spirit. He learned what it means to live for weeks on end on bread and margarine, to try to 'write' when you are half starved, to pawn your clothes, to sneak trembling up the stairs when you owe three weeks' rent and your landlady is listening for you. Moreover, in those seven months he wrote practically nothing. The first effect of poverty is that it kills thought. He grasped, as though it were a new discovery, that you do not escape from money merely by being moneyless. On the contrary, you are the hopeless slave of money until you have enough of it to live on - a 'competence', as the beastly middle-class phrase goes. ~ George Orwell

The primary culprit is assumed to be peer rejection: shunning, exclusion, shaming, taunting, mocking, bullying. The conclusion reached by some experts is that peer acceptance is absolutely necessary for a child's emotional health and well-being, and that there is nothing worse than not being liked by peers. It is assumed that peer rejection is an automatic sentence to lifelong self-doubt. Many parents today live in fear of their children's not having friends, not being esteemed by their peers.

This way of thinking fails to consider two fundamental questions: What renders a child so vulnerable in the first place? And why is this vulnerability increasing? It is absolutely true that children snub, ignore, shun, shame, taunt, and mock. Children have always done these things when not sufficiently supervised by the adults in charge. But it is attachment, not the insensitive behavior or language of peers, that creates vulnerability. The current focus on the impact of peer rejection and peer acceptance has completely overlooked the role of attachment.

If the child is attached primarily to the parents, it is parental acceptance that is vital to emotional health and well-being, and not being liked by parents is the devastating blow to self-esteem. The capacity of children to be inhumane has probably not changed, but, as research shows, the wounding of our children by one another is increasing. If many kids are damaged these days by the insensitivity of their pee ~ Gabor Mate

Just learning that you have MS is such a devastating shock. ~ Annette Funicello

We live in perilous times and at crossroads. On the one hand, we risk our extinction and that of our planet because of the devastating combination of ancient tribal habits and modern technologies that have the ability to obliterate every living being on the planet several times over. On the other hand, we also possess a nervous system through which the universe is becoming self-aware. More than ever, we have the means and insight to create a brave new world in which our current stage of survival of the fittest can evolve to one of survival of the wisest. The road we choose will determine our future. ~ Deepak Chopra

I had, in my legal practice, often encountered really shocking examples of the devastating impact of the costs of long-term medical care on meagre incomes. And, just before I was elected, I had my own personal experience in paying very considerable bills for my mother's terminal illness. ~ Judy LaMarsh

A devastating culmination of the elegant and the funky, a really sensational musician with enormous depth. ~ Nick Lowe

Like Oz, life is full of beauty and horror. Whether you're in the magical realm or the so-called civilized one, you can look at the world around you and see both things at almost any time. But what being in Oz taught me is that no matter how horrific a situation may be, no matter how devastating or scary or chaotic, there is still always beauty in the colors of it all, even in the grays. As I look back on the last four years of my life, on everything that led me to the place where my life changed forever for a second time, I might think I wasted too many crucial years perceiving my world through a lens that leeched the color from everything I set my eyes on, but now I can forgive myself for my mistakes and maybe even be grateful for the trials I've faced. After all, a rainbow only comes out when it rains. The most spectacular rainbows are set against a backdrop of a half dark sky where gray clouds hover and rain batters the surface of the earth, but the horizon is clear and bright - a pure, radiant blue surrounding a shining golden sun. When I'm in Oz, that rainbow is who I am - a vivid, radiant spectrum of colors with a clear bright landscape ahead only made more rich-hued and vibrant by the darkness that lies behind it. ~ Garten Gevedon

The intuition of those residing in ghetto communities that they had suddenly become disposable was rooted in real changes in the economy - changes that have been devastating to poor black communities as factories have closed, low-skill jobs have disappeared, and all those who had the means to flee the ghetto did. The sense among those left behind that society no longer has use for them, and that the government now aims simply to get rid of them, reflects a reality that many of us who claim to care prefer to avoid simply by changing channels. ~ Michelle Alexander

David would enter the crucible of suffering where truly great servants of God are made. Perhaps you are there now. One of the most devastating realities of this kind of suffering is that often the one you thought would be your protector becomes the one who measures out the pain. All that longing for justice, for fairness, for having everything as it should be seems useless. As you think on the glory days of the past, your heart aches to turn back the clock, but you can't. In these moments it's tempting to believe that God has forgotten about us, or even worse, that He simply doesn't care - His favor has moved on. If you are there right now, my heart aches for you. No one signs up for this school of suffering, and yet the deep work that God does in this painful, lonely place is rarely produced anywhere else. ~ Sheila Walsh

Nothing remains idle and thrives. Life needs a moving force to prevent the devastating effects of stagnancy. That is why life employs change. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

But heaven seems a place where truth cannot hurt. Here, the truth can be devastating. ~ Susan Meissner

Wearied with the commonplaces of a prosaic world; where even the joys of romance and adventure soon grow stale, St John and I had followed enthusiastically every aesthetic and intellectual movement which promised respite from our devastating ennui. The enigmas of the symbolists and the ecstasies of the pre-Raphaelites all were ours in their time, but each new mood was drained too soon, of its diverting novelty and appeal. Only the somber philosophy of the decadents could help us, and this we found potent only by increasing gradually the depth and diablism of our penetrations. Baudelaire and Huysmans were soon exhausted of thrills, till finally there remained for us only the more direct stimuli of unnatural personal experiences and adventures. It was this frightful emotional need which led us eventually to that detestable course which even in my present fear I mention with shame and timidity
that hideous extremity of human outrage, the abhorred practice of grave-robbing. ~ H.P. Lovecraft

Straight linearity, which we have come to take for granted in everything from physics to fiction, simply does not exist. Linearity is an artificial way of viewing the world. Real life isn't a series of interconnected events occurring one after another like beads strung on a necklace. Life is actually a series of encounters in which one event may change those that follow in a wholly unpredictable, even devastating way. That's a deep truth about the structure of our universe. But, for some reason, we insist behaving as if it were not true. ~ Michael Crichton

Still, for the moment he was keeping quiet about his interest in cancer. "You have to realize, cancer was a devastating disease," said Druker. "Everybody died." The disease was a grim, dark domain where only the most morbid physician dared tread, and Druker was unwilling to admit, even to himself, that he was fascinated by it. "Everybody was afraid of it, and people in oncology [were] weird because this disease was so hopeless," he recalled. "Why would you go take care of patients with no hope? You were crazy if you were going to do that. ~ Jessica Wapner

Like a long wave, like a roll of heavy waters, he went over me, his devastating presence - dragging me open, laying bare the pebbles on the shore of my soul. ~ Virginia Woolf

Over the years our research team has repeatedly found that chronic emotional abuse and neglect can be just as devastating as physical abuse and sexual molestation. ~ Bessel A. Van Der Kolk

Coming to terms with the fact that my marriage was a failure was devastating and very difficult. ~ Sarah McLachlan

He couldn't be -

Oh, Lord. He was. He was going to kiss her.

"Wait." Panicked, Maddie put both hands on his chest, holding him off.

"Your men, my servants … they could be watching us."

"I'm certain they're watching us. That's why we're going to kiss."

"But I don't know how. You know I don't know how."

His lips quirked. "I know how."

Those three little words, spoken in that low, devastating Scottish burr, did absolutely nothing to ease Maddie's concerns.

Thankfully, she had a reprieve. He pulled back and peered at her hair. He looked like a boy marveling at clockwork, wondering how it all worked. After a few moments, she felt him grasp the pencil holding her chignon.
With one long, slow tug, he eased it loose and cast it aside.

It landed in the loch with a splash.

His fingers sifted through her hair, teasing the locks free of their haphazard knot and arranging them about her shoulders. Tenderly. Like she'd always imagined a lover would. Sparks of sensation danced from her scalp to her toes.

"That was my best drawing pencil," she said.

"It's just a pencil."

"It came from London. I have a limited supply."

His thumb caressed her cheek. "It almost put out my eye. I've a limited supply of those, too. And it's better this way."

"But - " Her breath caught. "Oh."

He bracketed her cheeks with his hands, til ~ Tessa Dare

Love is quite violent. It is so painful at times, so devastating. And there is nothing worse or better. We find the highs and lows equally unbearable. But then again, the absence of them is more so. ~ Danielle Steel

All the present bureaucracies of political governments, great religious organizations, and all big businesses find that physical success for all humanity would be devastating to the perpetuation of their ongoing activities. This is because all of them are founded on the premise of ameliorating individual cases while generally exploiting on behalf of their respective political, religious, or business organizations the condition of no-where-nearly-enough-life-support-for-all and its resultant great human suffering and discontent. ~ R. Buckminster Fuller

Diana can read power levels," Astrid said. "Did she ever…"
Sam nodded. "She said the baby is a three bar. As a fetus. Who knows what it will be when it's born. Or as it grows. Diana's only, like, four or five months along. I should know exactly, but I forget. When she would talk about it I would kind of, you know." He made a shivering move, like it all gave him the creeps.
Astrid shook her head in disbelief. "Really. That's the part of all this that makes you squirm: pregnancy."
"She made me touch her, you know, stomach. And she talked about her, um, her things." He pointed at his chest and whispered, "Nipples."
"Yeah," Astrid said dryly. "I could see where that would be devastating. ~ Michael Grant

We had a little slave boy whom we had hired from some one, there in Hannibal. He was from the Eastern Shore of Maryland, and had been brought away from his family and his friends, half way across the American continent, and sold. He was a cheery spirit, innocent and gentle, and the noisiest creature that ever was, perhaps. All day long he was singing, whistling, yelling, whooping, laughing - it was maddening, devastating, unendurable. At last, one day, I lost all my temper, and went raging to my mother, and said Sandy had been singing for an hour without a single break, and I couldn't stand it, and wouldn't she please shut him up.
The tears came into her eyes, and her lip trembled, and she said something like this - 'Poor thing, when he sings, it shows that he is not remembering, and that comforts me; but when he is still, I am afraid he is thinking, and I cannot bear it. He will never see his mother again; if he can sing, I must not hinder it, but be thankful for it. If you were older, you would understand me; then that friendless child's noise would make you glad.' It was a simple speech, and made up of small words, but it went home, and Sandy's noise was not a trouble to me any more. ~ Mark Twain

She's a work of art
And as such
There's nothing more devastating
Than watching her break ~ L.J. Shen

All sensible people know that vanity is the most devastating, the most universal, and the most ineradicable of the passions that afflict the soul of man, and it is only vanity that makes him deny its power. It is more consuming than love. With advancing years, mercifully, you can snap your fingers at the terror and the servitude of love, but age cannot free you from the thraldom of vanity. Time can assuage the pangs of love, but only death can still the anguish of wounded vanity. Love is simple and seeks no subterfuge, but vanity cozens you with a hundred disguises. It is part and parcel of every virtue: it is mainspring of courage and the strength of ambition; it gives constancy to the lover and endurance to the stoic; it adds fuel to the fire of the artist's desire for fame and is at once the support and the compensation of the honest man's integrity; it leers even cynically in the humility of the saint. You cannot escape it, and should you take pains to guard against it, it will make use of those very pains to trip you up. You are defenseless against its onslaught because you know not on what unprotected side it will attack you. Sincerity cannot protect you from its snare nor humour from its mockery.
[His Excellency] ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Until African-Americans and Hispanics can get serious, not just about area studies, which are important, but also about science and technology, they're not going to generate that wealth and that job within those communities. And that has absolutely devastating consequences for the places where people live, for the jobs and for the wealth. ~ Juan Enriquez

AN ABSOLUTELY VITAL FILM. Exacting, enraging and revelatory. A clear, temperate and devastating account of high level arrogance and incompetence. ~ A.O. Scott

But man has other needs as well: emotional needs. These, too, are few, but every bit as important as his physical requirements, yet not so simple. If they aren't met, they can be as devastating as physical hunger, as uncomfortable as a lack of shelter, as incapacitating as thirst. The frustration, isolation and anxiety brought about by unmet emotional needs can, like physical privation, produce death or a degree of living death - neurosis and psychosis. ~ Leo Buscaglia

We live in a culture right now that pits girls against each other. We are brought up socially to be in competition with each other -who has the best body, more boyfriends, better clothes. And this kind of competition can be devastating on female friendships because it emphasizes a mentality that there isn't enough to go around, Enough love. Enough attention. Enough success. But there is . There is enough to share with your girlfriends. ~ Jessica Weiner

Idolatry, like all sin, is devastating to the soul. It cuts us off from the comforts of grace, the peace of conscience, and the joy that is to be our strength. ~ Elyse M. Fitzpatrick

One thing was certain: Human Time was the saddest, maddest, most devastating variety of time that had ever existed. She tried her best to ignore it. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

Over the years, the diamond industry has had a devastating impact in countries such as Sierra Leone, Angola and the Congo, where profits from the sale of diamonds have been used to fund brutal wars, with disastrous effects on local communities. ~ Sheherazade Goldsmith

[The] women's movement has been a blessing in many ways. [But] even as we have gained more physical and social opportunities, we are more spiritually and emotionally enslaved than ever in other arenas. Why? Because Satan has cleverly switched one form of oppression -- the undervaluing of women by men -- for another and perhaps more devastating form-- the undervaluing of women by themselves. ~ Wendy C. Top

It was around this time that a routine medical screening warned that Chris might have tuberculosis.
We talked about it on the phone. I remember the discussion vividly, not because of the disease--I thought further testing would say he was fine, which it did--but because of his attitude.
Namely, that he was replaceable.
"If I die, you could just get a new husband and Bubba can get a new dad," he told me.
It made me furious. Heartbroken. It was as if he didn't understand how irreplaceable he was to me, to our son, and to the rest of the family.
It was as if he didn't know how much I loved him.
I realized later that, in his mind, he was only being realistic. He wanted what was best for me. He had seen death up close and watched the mission go on, lives go on, whether people wanted it to or not. If he couldn't be there, he still wanted me to be happy.
Even so, it was a devastating statement at the time. In some ways, I never got over it. ~ Taya Kyle

Evolutionary naturalism takes the inherent limitations of science and turns them into a devastating philosophical weapon: because science is our only real way of knowing anything, what science cannot know cannot be real. ~ Phillip E. Johnson

If this practice [of totalitarianism] is compared with [ ... ] [the desert] of tyranny, it seems as if a way had been found to set the desert itself in motion, to let loose a sand storm that could cover all parts of the inhabited earth.
The conditions under which we exist today in the field of politics are indeed threatened by these devastating sand storms. ~ Hannah Arendt

No realm was too petty: The Ministry of Posts ruled that henceforth when trying to spell a word over the telephone a caller could no longer say "D as in David," because "David" was a Jewish name. The caller had to use "Dora." "Samuel" became "Siegfried." And so forth. "There has been nothing in social history more implacable, more heartless and more devastating than the present policy in Germany against the Jews," Consul General Messersmith told Undersecretary Phillips in a long letter dated September 29, 1933. He wrote, "It is definitely the aim of the Government, no matter what it may say to the outside or in Germany, to eliminate the Jews from German life. ~ Erik Larson

We now operate in a world in which we can assume neither competence nor good faith from the authorities, and the consequences of this simple, devastating realization is the defining feature of American life at the end of this low, dishonest decade. ~ Christopher L. Hayes

The most devastating thing though that biology did to Christianity was the discovery of biological evolution. Now that we know that Adam and Eve never were real people the central myth of Christianity is destroyed. If there never was an Adam and Eve there never was an original sin. If there never was an original sin there is no need of salvation. If there is no need of salvation there is no need of a Savior. And I submit that puts Jesus, historical or otherwise, into the ranks of the unemployed. I think that evolution is absolutely the death knell of Christianity. ~ Frank Zindler

If you look at [Donald] Trump's attacks on Jeb Bush, they've been pretty devastating. ~ Sean Hannity

Boys are unpredictable and stupid and brash. They do creepy, stalkerish things because they believe in extreme measures. They love to the fullest and ignore completely. They heal hearts and grind them to dust. To have nothing from a boy is devastating, but when he gives his all, the world becomes an electric place, and that is why women love them so - their all is worth the risk. ~ Caroline George

The results of that charismatic takeover have been devastating. In recent history, no other movement has done more to damage the cause of the gospel, to distort the truth, and to smother the articulation of sound doctrine. Charismatic theology has turned the evangelical church into a cesspool of error and a breeding ground for false teachers. It has warped genuine worship through unbridled emotionalism, polluted prayer with private gibberish, contaminated true spirituality with unbiblical mysticism, and corrupted faith by turning it into a creative force for speaking worldly desires into existence. By elevating the authority of experience over the authority of Scripture, the Charismatic Movement has destroyed the church's immune system - uncritically granting free access to every imaginable form of heretical teaching and practice. ~ John F. MacArthur Jr.

The pressure to get over, to forget, to wipe away the past, is often reinforced by one particular way of reading Christian redemption. The narrative of triumphant resurrection can often operate in such a way as to promise a radically new beginning to those who have experienced a devastating event. A linear reading of cross and resurrection places death and life in a continuum; death is behind and life is ahead; life emerges victoriously from death. This way of reading can, at its best, provide a sense of hope and promise for the future. But it can also gloss of the realities of pain and loss, glorify suffering, and justify violence. ~ Shelly Rambo

The fact that for tens of thousands of years humanity has used warfare as a solution for states of disequilibrium has no more demonstrable value than the fact that in the same period humanity learned to resolve states of psychological imbalance by using alcohol or other equally devastating substances. ~ Umberto Eco

The lies most devastating to our self-esteem are not so much the lies we tell as the lies we live. ~ Nathaniel Branden

Joel Lane documents a life we don't quite live, in a city we can't quite find: half glimpsed and half imagined, we know it's out there somewhere. Waiting, maybe. Mixing fear with desire, reputation with regret. Touching the blood-beat of our secret hunger with the rhythms of a music that never felt alien till now. Wasted lives, with never a wasted word. It's an extraordinary achievement: vivid as neon, real as rain. Devastating. ~ Chaz Brenchley

Pain and grief have been kept buried for ages, bred in secrecy and shame, wrapped by an ongoing conspiracy of smiles and well-being. Pain and grief are most healing and ecstatic emotions. Yes, sure, they can be hard, yet what makes them most devastating is the perverted idea that they are wrong, that they need to be hidden and fixed. The greatest perversion I can conceive is the idea that illness and pain are a sign that there is something wrong in our life, that we have unresolved issues, that we have made mistakes. In this world everyone is bound to get ill, experience pain and die. The greatest gift I can give to myself and the world is the joyful acceptance of this. Today I want to be real, I will not hide my pain as well as my happiness. I will not care if my gloomy face or desperate words cause concern or embarrassment in others. I do not need be fed with reassuring words about the beauty of life. The beauty of life resides in the full acceptance of All That Is. ~ Franco Santoro

Real change will only happen when we fall in love with our planet. Only love can show us how to live in harmony with nature and with each other and save us from the devastating effects of environmental destruction and climate change ~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

During part of 1941 and 1942, when the Luftwaffe was busy in Russia, the German radio regaled its home audience with stories of devastating air raids on London. Now, we are aware that those raids did not happen. But what use would our knowledge be if the Germans conquered Britain? For the purpose of a future historian, did those raids happen, or didn't they? The answer is: If Hitler survives, they happened, and if he falls they didn't happen. ~ George Orwell

Climate change hype has grave real world consequences. It gets rich countries to adopt silly policies and to impose devastating eco-imperialism on poor countries. The world's rich millions can afford environmental extremism; its poor billions can't. Climate change pseudo-science about human causality has been exposed repeatedly. What's less appreciated is that there aren't more natural disasters in need of an explanation. ~ Leon Louw

And why is Grant so solemn today upon our great achievement, except he knows this unmeaning inhuman planet will need our warring imprint to give it value, and that our civil war, the devastating manufacture of the bones of our sons, is but a war after a war, a war before a war. ~ E.L. Doctorow

Of all the hardships and deprivations a people can suffer, I am not sure if the deprivations of art and culture are not the most devastating. As meat and rice are food for the body, art and culture are food for the soul. Starve the body and the person dies; starve the soul and the spirit dies. ~ Gerard De Marigny

Men are accustomed to making objective assessments of devastating situations, as long as they are not immersed in them. Rare is he who maintains objectivity in the midst of personal affliction. ~ Michael D. O'Brien

Honestly kiddo? You're beautiful. You use your weight as an excuse but you're just all woman. Not every woman has to look like a stripper. Or a model. Or Megan Fox. You're petite, have a tiny waist, a fantastic rack, a devastating ass ... what the hell more do you want? You should know it. Everyone else knows it ... that's why you're getting all these asinine comments. Can't you just see that it's just jealously that's ripping these people apart? ~ Karina Halle

Failing to continue to support the public higher-ed system in California will have devastating long-term consequences. ~ Mitch Kapor

The higher mental activities are pretty tough and resilient, but it is a devastating experience if the drive does stop. Some people lose it in their forties and can only stop. In England they are a source of Vice-Chancellors. ~ John Edensor Littlewood

Whenever a group of people who are designed to primarily unite around one thing try to unite around something else, the result is devastating for all. ~ Rob Tims

One of the things that is devastating is I realise I haven't been living a different life than when I was, like, 12. I'm shocked at how reclusive I've been since then. I was unaware of it until recently. ~ Gus Van Sant

Hulk Hogan's wife has filed for divorce. This is the most devastating breakup since Pam Anderson and Tommy Lee. And then Pam Anderson and Kid Rock. And soon, Pam Anderson and Rick Salomon. ~ Chelsea Handler

Hear him now as he toils. He has a long garden-implement in his hand, and he is sending up the death-rate in slug circles with a devastating rapidity. "Ta-ra-ra boom-de-ay Ta-ra-ra BOOM - " And the boom is a death-knell. As it rings softly out on the pleasant spring air, another stout slug has made the Great Change. ~ P.G. Wodehouse

The machinery of compulsory equalization works against the finest trait of the human species, the fact that we recognize ourselves in our differences and build links based on them. The best of the world lies in the many worlds the world contains, the different melodies of life, their pains and strains: the thousand and one ways of living and speaking, thinking and creating, eating, working, dancing, playing, loving, suffering, and celebrating that we have discovered over so many thousands of years. Equalization, which makes us all goofy and all the same, can't be measured. No computer could count the crimes that the pop culture business commits each day against the human rainbow and the human right to identity. But its devastating progress is mind-boggling. Time is emptied of history, and space no longer acknowledges the astonishing diversity of its parts. Through the mass media the owners of the world inform us all of our obligation to look at ourselves in a single mirror. ~ Eduardo Galeano

The language is spare and under control and has a genuine immediacy ... The poems never preach but are lined out with a cool and therefore devastating effect ~ Vern Rutsala

Hepatitis C was a devastating disease but because fundamental research was done in hepatitis C, it is now curable. It is now absolutely curable with new medications. So this is transformative. ~ Laurie Glimcher

When I was young, my mother [folk singer Kate McGarrigle] brought home this recording of Verdi's Requiem and we listened to it from top to bottom. By the end of it, I was a completely different person. It was literally a requiem mass for my former self. I was about 12 or 13. The Requiem just totally hooked into what I was going through emotionally - discovering my sexuality right at the time when AIDS was devastating my community and dealing with intense parental situations. ~ Rufus Wainwright

Islam is a religion of success. Unlike Christianity, which has as its main image, in the west at least, a man dying in a devastating, disgraceful, helpless death. ~ Karen Armstrong

What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating. I didn't really know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down ... I was a very public failure. ~ Steve Jobs

Oh. I get it." Abby laughed. "This is where you bid on someone to wash your car."

"Naked," Charli said.

"Or check the shower tiles."

"Also naked."

Abby laughed. "I'm guessing that as long as there's wet and naked, we're all good."

Fiona let out a long sigh.

"What was that?" Charli asked with a lift to her perfect brows. "Have you got a victim---I mean a participant in mind?"

Fiona glanced across the hall. "Have you seen Jackson's fireman buddy?"

"No." Charli looked across the room. "Should we?"

"Too late," Fiona said. "I've got first dibs."

At that moment, Abby noticed the Wilder boys walk across the front of the room near the stage. Individually, they were stunning. As a group, they looked as appetizing as a decadent box of chocolates. Abby couldn't tear her eyes away from Jackson. Put him in a fireman suit, a tux jacket and jeans, or a simple T-shirt and cargo shorts, and he took her breath away.

Truthfully, she liked him best in noting at all.

"Holy guacamole." Charli gestured to a tall, dark, and devastating man walking with the group. "Is that who you are talking about?"

Fiona nodded. "I want to lick him up one side and down the other like a cherry Popsicle."

"Honey, you bid as high as you can go," Charli said. "And if you run out of money, you just let me know. I'd be happy to chip in. ~ Candis Terry

Subordinates look for their bosses to be positive, in good humor, and cheerful. They aren't supposed to be emotional or have bad days. but leaders are guman, too, and when they are in a lousy mood and snap at a subordinate, it can have a devastating effect. ~ Donald T. Phillips

The visual impact of a United States battleship springs from its ability to put Soviet ships on the bottom of the sea and to put devastating firepower ashore - nothing else. ~ John Lehman

I think Irish women are strong as horses, incredibly loyal and for the most part, funny, witty, bright and optimistic in the face of devastating reality. ~ Fionnula Flanagan

And then another letter had come from Christopher, so devastating that Amelia wondered how mere scratches of ink on paper could rip someone's soul to shreds. She had wondered how she could feel so much pain and still survive. ~ Lisa Kleypas

In our society, as people pass out of young adulthood, they tend to relate to themselves more in terms of what they are no longer than what they are now, and that's psychologically low-grade devastating. ~ Marianne Williamson

Martin's Monsanto poem holds devastating power. I heard the first public reading at the Resurgence Festival of well-being in London. It brought truth with clarity, not least with a kind of conviction and passion that is all too rare ~ Tony Juniper

The dried blood from the wounds leaves dark and repulsive stains on the ground. Cleaning them up, I think of the identical nature of men: the same red blood irrigating the same organs. These organs, situated in the same places, carry out the same functions. The same remedies cure the same illnesses everywhere under the sun, whether the individual be white or black. Everything united men. Why, then, do they kill each other in ignoble wars for causes that are futile when compared with the massacre of human lives? So many devastating wars! And yet man takes himself to be a superior being. In what way is his intelligence useful to him? His intelligence begets both good and ill, more often ill than good. ~ Mariama Ba

Alzheimer's is a devastating disease. It was painful for me and my family to watch my grandfather deteriorate. We must find a cure for this horrible disease. ~ David Hyde Pierce

Pain is the perfecting of our souls, for it cuts in order to create, it hurts in order to hone, and it knocks us down with great force so that our resolve to get up becomes unimaginably greater than the force that knocked us down. And although we have come to know it differently, such is the spirit of pain. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough