Ruthlessness Quotes

There is a ruthlessness to the creative act. It often involves a betrayal of the status quo. ~ Alan Watt

The man who did the shooting was a civilian, Peter Kakhovsky, a gifted intellectual of extreme purity of motive in whom the conviction of the necessity of regicide burned with a gem-like flame. Determined to kill, expecting to die, this brilliant and terrible apparition, his slender form bundled up in a sheepskin coat, his delicate features surmounted by a shabby top hat, shot to kill with that indiscriminate ruthlessness which was later to characterise a whole generation of revolutionary terrorists. If he could not yet murder the Tsar, he would do the next best thing. ~ Edward Crankshaw

At a certain age, he thought, it is better for one's health not to do what I am about to do. At a certain age, a man's outlook is best tempered by moderation, if not resignation, if not outright capitulation. At a certain age, one should live without either harking too much back to grievances of the past or inviting resistance in the present by embodying a challenge to the pieties that be. Yet to give up playing any but the role socially assigned, in this instance assigned to the respectably retired - at seventy-one, that is surely what is appropriate, and so, for Coleman Silk, as he long ago demonstrated with requisite ruthlessness to his very own mother, that is what is unacceptable. ~ Philip Roth

...while ruthlessness may have its place, I believe your brand of strength would garner greater loyalty. That is what makes you dangerous. Not because you would ride in with a blade and take control, but because you could quietly sit in this chair, in the dark, with your book...and you could determine the best way to achieve what needs to be done. ~ Brigid Kemmerer

Today is built on tragedies, which no one wants to face, nightmares to humanities and morally disgraced. Tonight is filled with rage, violence in the air, children bred with ruthlessness because no one at home cares. ~ Tupac Shakur

Peter the Great was probably the equal, in dedication, power and ruthlessness, of many of the most successful revolutionary or nationalist leaders. Yet he failed in his chief purpose, which was to turn Russia into a Western nation. And the reason he failed was that he did not infuse the Russian masses with some soul-stirring enthusiasm. He either did not think it necessary or did not know how to make of his purpose a holy cause. It is not strange that the Bolshevik revolutionaries who wiped out the last of the Czars and Romanovs should have a sense of kinship with Peter - a Czar and a Romanov. For his purpose is now theirs, and they hope to succeed where he failed. The Bolshevik revolution may figure in history as much an attempt to modernize a sixth of the world's surface as an attempt to build a Communist economy. The ~ Eric Hoffer

Surely," said Miss Marple, aghast at an idea that had come into her mind, "there can't be a bond of ruthlessness between us?" Was she, Jane Marple - could she ever be - ruthless? "D'you know," said Miss Marple to herself, "it's extraordinary, I never thought about it before. I believe, you know, I could be ruthless ... . ~ Agatha Christie

He had the ruthlessness of uninterrupted success. ~ Barbara W. Tuchman

The miracle of man is not how far he has sunk but how magnificently he has risen. We are known among the stars by our poems, not our corpses. No creature who began as a mathematical improbability, who was selected through millions of years of unprecedented environmental hardship and change for ruggedness, ruthlessness, cunning, and adaptability, and who in the short ten thousand years of what we may call civilization has achieved such wonders as we find about us, may be regarded as a creature without promise. ~ Robert Ardrey

She did not make monsters of us. She simply gave us the power to remake ourselves into those inviolable creatures the God of Equality had intended us to be. We knew she was deconstructing the old disabled versions of our sex, and that her ruthlessness was adopted because those constructs were built to endure. She broke down the walls that had kept us contained. There was a fresh red field on the other side, and in its rich soil were growing all the flowers of war that history never let us gather. It was beautiful to walk in. As beautiful as the fells that autumn. ~ Sarah Hall

Traits that are common among psychopathic serial killers
a grandiose sense of self-worth, persuasiveness, superficial charm, ruthlessness, lack of remorse, and the manipulation of others
are also shared by politicians and world leaders. ~ Kevin Dutton

You don't write a novel out of sheer pity any more than you blow a safe out of a vague longing to be rich. A certain ruthlessness and a sense of alienation from society is as essential to creative writing as it is to armed robbery. ~ Nelson Algren

Perhaps this war will pass like the others which divided us leaving us dead, killing us along with the killers but the shame of this time puts its burning fingers to our faces. Who will erase the ruthlessness hidden in innocent blood? ~ Pablo Neruda

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 ... ~ Patrick Pearse

He may have confused honor with with with ruthlessness. ~ T. J. Stiles

Truthfulness so often goes with ruthlessness. ~ Dodie Smith

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. The Mesopotamian, for example, felt convinced that authorities were always right: "The command of the palace, like the command of Anu, cannot be altered. The king's word is right; his utterance, like that of a god, cannot be changed!" The prophets repudiated the work as well as the power of man as an object of supreme adoration. They denounced "arrogant boasting" and "haughty pride" (Isa. 10:12), the kings who ruled the nations in anger, the oppressors (Isa. 14:4-6), the destroyers of nations, who went forth to inflict waste, ruin, and death (Jer. 4:7), the "guilty men, whose own might is their god" (Hab. 1: 11).

Their course is evil,
Their might is not right.
Jeremiah 23:10

The end of public authority is to realize the moral law, a task for which both knowledge and understanding as well as the possession of power are indispensable means. Yet inherent in power is the tendency to breed conceit. " . . . one of the most striking and one of the most pervasive features of the prophetic polemic [is] the denunciation and distrust of power in all its forms and guises. The h ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel

The hatred and cruelty which have their source in selfishness are ineffectual things compared with the venom and ruthlessness born of selflessness. ~ Eric Hoffer

There's a ruthlessness to the city now that wasn't there before. I was in Dublin a few months ago, when we were shooting Breakfast on Pluto, and if I saw one kid throwing up on the street, I must have seen a hundred of them. ~ Liam Neeson

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. ~ S.I. Hayakawa

The public execution did not re-establish justice; it reactivated power. In the seventeenth century, and even in the early eighteenth century, it was not, therefore, with all its theatre of terror, a lingering hang-over from an earlier age. Its ruthlessness, its spectacle, its physical violence, its unbalanced play of forces, its meticulous ceremonial, its entire apparatus were inscribed in the political functioning of the penal system. ~ Michel Foucault

Standing at the window overlooking the lawn, Jordan and Alexandra Townsende watched the couple heading toward them. "If you'd asked me to name the last man on earth I would have expected to fall head over heels for a slip of a girl, it would have been Ian Thornton," he told her.
His wife heard that with a sidewise look of extreme amusement. "If I'd been asked, I rather think I would have named you."
"I'm sure you would have," he said, grinning. He saw her smile fade, and he put his arm around her waist, instantly concerned that her pregnancy was causing her discomfort. "Is it the babe, darling?"
She burst out laughing and shook her head, but she sobered again almost instantly. "Do you think," she asked pensively, "he can be trusted not to hurt her? He's done so much damage that I-I just cannot like him, Jordan. He's handsome, I'll grant you that, extraordinarily handsome-"
"Not that handsome," Jordan said, stung. And this time Alexandra dissolved in mirth. Turning, she wrapped her arms around him and kissed him soundly. "Actually, he rather reminds me of you," she said, "in his coloring and height and build."
"I hope that hasn't anything to do with why you can't like him," her husband teased.
"Jordan, do stop. I'm worried, really I am. He's-well, he almost frightens me. Even though he seems very civilized on the surface, there's a forcefulness, maybe even a ruthlessness beneath his polished manners. And he stops at nothing when he wants something ~ Judith McNaught

Sam's shoulders shifted. He thought Frank was just being smart-arsed. but Sam's never done undercover, he had no way of knowing: undercovers are different: there's nothing they won't do, to themselves or anyone else, to take their guy down. There was no point arguing on this one because he meant what he said: if his kid were killed, he would take it without a murmur. It's one of the most powerful lures of undercover, the ruthlessness, no borderlines: strong stuff, strong enough to take your breath away.It's one of the reasons I left. ~ Tana French

You're serious."
"As serious as an accountant at an IRS audit."
His face closed off, reminding her of the ruthlessness she had first noticed about him on the front steps. "You have no business opening a restaurant."
"Says who?"
"Says the guy who watched you try to extricate yourself from a burger suit with a knife."
Her mouth fell open. "Burger suits and restaurants are two different kettles of fish."
"Kettles of fish? Now there's great business terminology."
"Yep, Texas style."
"You're in New York, sweetheart."
"I am not your sweetheart, thank my lucky stars."
"Another of your quaint Texas sayings? What was the last one I heard you use? 'Bless your heart'?"
She sliced him a tooth-grinding smile. "While you might not like them, you can bet your backside that a cafe that serves the kind of fare we create in Texas would have people lined up around the corner. Or, as we say in Texas, till the cows come home. ~ Linda Francis Lee

Success always necessitates a degree of ruthlessness. Given the choice of friendship or success, I'd probably choose success. ~ Sting

Within days they'd formed an unholy alliance with a foppish young French vampire in the Garden District who had implausibly golden hair and a streak of ruthlessness as wide as the Mississippi ~ Deborah Harkness

Elizabeth was counting on Marco to keep cousin Mary occupied until after the board meeting was over. A piece of cheese might catch a mouse, but an afternoon alone with a muscular masseur would ensnare her cousin far more effectively. And afterwards, while Mary lay sated and sleeping upon a massage table, wiser heads could determine the company's future. There were times, Elizabeth thought, when success in business demanded utter ruthlessness. ~ Barbara Taylor Bradford

You have ruthlessness in your bones and ice in your heart, Clarissa. Don't tell me any differently. ~ Cassandra Clare

The worst continued to worsen. What looked one day like the end proved on the next day to have been only the beginning. Nothing could have been more ingeniously designed to maximize the suffering, and also to insure that as few people as possible escape the common misfortune. The fortunate speculator who had funds to answer the first margin call presently got another and equally urgent one, and if he met that there would still be another. In the end all the money he had was extracted from him and lost. The man with the smart money, who was safely out of the market when the first crash came, naturally went back in to pick up bargains. The bargains then suffered a ruinous fall. Even the man who waited for volume of trading to return to normal and saw Wall Street become as placid as a produce market, and who then bought common stocks would see their value drop to a third or a fourth of the purchase price in the next 24 months. The Coolidge bull market was a remarkable phenomenon. The ruthlessness of its liquidation was, in its own way, equally remarkable. ~ John Kenneth Galbraith

He was a longtime street thug who had just enough ruthlessness to rise to legitimate businesses and not quite enough intelligence to leave his dark life behind him. Aptly suited as a banker. ~ Brian McClellan

Naturally, society has an indisputable right to protect itself against arrant subjectivisms, but, in so far as society is itself composed of de-individualized human beings, it is completely at the mercy of ruthless individualists. Let it band together into groups and organizations as much as it likes – it is just this banding together and the resultant extinction of the individual personality that makes it succumb so readily to a dictator. A million zeros joined together do not, unfortunately, add up to one. Ultimately everything depends on the quality of the individual, but our fatally short-sighted age thinks only in terms of large numbers and mass organizations, though one would think that the world had seen more than enough of what a well-disciplined mob can do in the hand of a single madman. Unfortunately, this realization does not seem to have penetrated very far - and our blindness is extremely dangerous. People go on blithely organizing and believing in the remedy of mass action, without the least consciousness of the fact that the most powerful organizations can be maintained only by the greatest ruthlessness of their leaders and the cheapest of slogans.

Curiously enough, the Churches too want to avail themselves of mass action in order to cast out the devil with Beelzebub – the very Churches whose care is the salvation of the individual soul. They too do not appear to have heard anything of the elementary axiom of mass psychology, that the individual beco ~ C.G. Jung

The only men ruthless enough to fight against tyranny were themselves inclined to it. ~ Susan Wise Bauer

You have to enjoy power, have a certain ruthlessness, to accept the beauty and not mourn the fact that it overshadows everything else. As with any exaggerated trait that sets you apart and makes you exceptional - and enviable, and hateable - to accept your beauty, to accept its effect on others, to play with it, to make the best of it, you're well advised to develop a sense of humor. ~ Philip Roth

Rising early. Of course. The second greatest virtue. It comes just behind ruthlessness. ~ Joe Abercrombie

It's true, that in concrete battles the tyrants may have the upper hand in terms of tactics, weapons, ruthlessness. What our means of protest attempt to do is to move the battles towards abstract space. Force tyranny to defend itself in language. Weaken it with public opinion, with supreme court judgements, with debates and subversive curriculum. Take hold of the media, take hold of the printing presses and the newspapers, broadcast your views from pirate radio channels, spread the word. Don't do anything less than all you are capable of, and remember that history outlives you. It may not be until your grandchildren's days that they'll point back and say, there were sown the seeds of what we've now achieved. ~ Kamila Shamsie

A ruthless man extends his ruthlessness from those he does not love to those he loves. ~ Confucius

Outside, Her Ladyship coaxed her dog back toward the house, lifting both dog and cart up the few steps to her door. Gabe turned away from the window, rubbing his temples.
"The situation is untenable, and that makes the house unsellable. No one wants to live next to a barnyard. I've tried reasoning with her, but when it comes to those animals, she's surprisingly tenacious."
Tenacious, indeed. And sufficiently reckless to trespass in a house after midnight and recover a parrot from a near-naked stranger's shoulder.
However, even that degree of tenacity had poor odds against sheer ruthlessness. Lady Penelope Campion had a softness for animals. ~ Tessa Dare

Children are remarkable for their intelligence and ardor, for their curiosity, their intolerance of shams, the clarity and ruthlessness of their vision. ~ Aldous Huxley

Throughout the history of the Deutschritter the German genius is very evident, romantic idealism implemented with utter ruthlessness. ~ Desmond Seward

Is it not necessary for each to know for oneself what is the right means of livelihood? If we were avaricious, envious, seeking power, then our means of livelihood will correspond to our inward demands and so produce a world of competition, ruthlessness, oppression, ultimately ending in war. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

Recognize the malice, cunning, and hypocrisy that power produces, and the peculiar ruthlessness often shown by people from good families. ~ Marcus Aurelius

Though he never articulated it, I know Tiger believed in the idea of the Package. It went along with the sense of destiny his father had passed to him - that he was put on this earth to do something extraordinary with his special qualities, to "let the legend grow."
But those qualities, foremost among them an extraordinary ability to focus and stay calm under pressure, also included selfishness, obsessiveness, stubbornness, coldness, ruthlessness, pettiness, and cheapness.
When they were all at work in the competitive arena, they helped him win. And winning gave him permission to remain a flawed and in some ways immature person. ~ Hank Haney

Rigour and ruthlessness do not preclude sympathy with another's point of view. ~ Kiran Nagarkar

Being the commander of a Ruminarii war vessel meant that he had risen to the rank by means of assassination and ruthlessness and was therefore implicitly distrusted by the Tidhii Mah'k'hai (Naval Command, that is The Queen Of Suth Herself.) He was expected to mete out, in generous portions, brutality to conquered subjects and to act swiftly and mercilessly in dealing with alien encounters. In short, he was expected to be a bad example. ~ Christina Engela

A materialistic person is ruthless with other people but kind to himself. A spiritual person is ruthless with himself but kind to everybody else. ~ Jaggi Vasudev

All humankind is born of the same inner goodness and fundamental ruthlessness as all the other creatures of nature. Man can never totally divorce himself from the beast that comprises part of his essential nature. It is not that our inner natures are entirely self-centered or completely filled with goodness. We can choose to make moral or immoral choices. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Clusters of distant lights was the view of Mankind that he liked the best. The lights had the archaic charm of little fires on a plain, and the frailty about them, if it did not excuse anything, at least explained a lot of Man's stubborn ruthlessness. Mankind had not started the mess that was life, after all. And on the whole, it had been an interesting species to be a part of, the girls especially, as long as you remembered to watch your back. ~ Jean-Christophe Valtat

It is as if Protestantism by clinging to the Scripture wished to preserve the last faint echoes of God's Word in a world that has fallen silent, a world where only things speak dumbly, a world delivered over to the silence and ruthlessness of the Absolute, - and in his fear of God the Protestant has realized that it is his own goal before which he cowers. For in excluding all other values, in casting himself in the last resort on an autonomous religious experience, he has assumed a final abstraction of a logical rigour that urges him unambiguously to strip all sensory trappings from his faith, to empty it of all content but the naked Absolute, retaining nothing but the pure form, the pure, empty and neutral form of a 'religion in itself', a 'mysticism in itself'. ~ Hermann Broch

I'd much rather be hold up with a ball of yarn, tucked inside the safety of the house with my mother. Out there, you must come to grips with the rot and bone, bloom and disintegration. It's part of the world, this ruthlessness, this severed leg, this sun-bleached skull. I can't really stand it. All the signs point toward change, and all that means is death. - 140-141 ~ Robin Romm

Everest is a harsh and hostile immensity. Whoever challenges it declares war. He must mount his assault with the skill and ruthlessness of a military operation. And when the battle ends, the mountain remains unvanquished. There are no true victors, only survivors. ~ Barry Bishop

She didn't want to handle him. She didn't want anything to do with him - this man with his cold, intense eyes and clipped speech, this stranger, this Yankee. He made her feel like a rabbit facing a cobra: terrified, but fascinated at the same time. He tried to hide his ruthlessness behind smooth, cosmopolitan manners, but Evie had no doubts about the real nature of the man.

He wanted her. He intended to have her. And he wouldn't care if he destroyed her in the taking. ~ Linda Howard

He'd been given an assignment to write about teen beauty pageants [ ... ], which he'd accepted because he enjoyed blood sports as much as the next person. ~ David Baldacci

A gentle boy with a gentle soul, but every soul contains its own opposite, and the opposite of gentleness was ruthlessness - the beautiful wreckage of mercy. ~ Cassandra Clare

In the long run everything with the most minute vulnerability breaks, given the ruthlessness of time. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Crossing out is an art that is, perhaps, even more difficult than writing. It requires the sharpest eye to decide what is superfluous and must be removed. And it requires ruthlessness toward yourself
the greatest ruthlessness and self-sacrifice. You must know how to sacrifice parts in the name of the whole. ~ Yevgeny Zamyatin

There are always those who wish to sanitize war by portraying its grand and noble deeds-which sometimes occur-while drawing a veil over its shameless side. By its nature, war is harsh, brutal, and pitiless, and while it can call out the best in humankind, it can also awaken the darkest side of human nature, arousing in many participants a coldhearted callousness. For most, danger begets fear. For some, fear sires ferocity, and ferocity spawns a ruthlessness that subsumes compassion. For still other men, more than is gratifying to acknowledge, soldiering is a license to unleash iniquitous qualities that they struggled to suppress in peacetime. ~ John Ferling

He was the quintessential bad boy, complete with a ruthlessness that appeared to simmer dangerously close to the surface. Couple that with his devil-may-care swagger and panty-dropping smile, it was a small wonder she hadn't fainted from the sheer emotional overload. ~ B.B. Cruz

You must firmly, absolutely and ruthlessly protect your safety and sanity. ~ Bryant McGill

When you die, no matter who you are,
you may be remembered for your courage
or despised for your cowardice,
you may be remembered for your gratitude
or despised for your bitterness,
you may be remembered for your benevolence
or despised for your meanness,
you may be remembered for your modesty
or despised for your arrogance,
you may be remembered for your peace
or despised for your violence,
you may be remembered for your compassion
or despised for your ruthlessness,
you may be remembered for your mercy
or despised for your vengeance,
you may be remembered for your love
or despised for your unkindness,
you may be remembered for your strengths
or despised for your weaknesses,
you may be remembered for your virtues
or despised for your unrighteousness,
you may be remembered for your knowledge
or despised for your ignorance,
you may be remembered for your wisdom
or despised for your foolishness,
and you may be remembered for your accomplishments
or despised for your incompetence.

When I die, I want to be remembered
for my smile, not my tears;
for my laughter, not my pain;
for my joy, not my grief;
for my patience, not my anger;
for my friends, not my enemies;
for my mind, not my riches;
for my heart, not my titles;
for my soul, not my achievements;
for my triumphs, not my tragedies; ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

Percival guessed that his prey preferred to listen, letting her friends carry on with whatever amusing nonsense filled their lives, while she privately assessed their habits, cataloging their strengths and faults with clinical ruthlessness. ~ Danielle Trussoni

In both cases, weakness and scruples had defeated strength and ruthlessness. ~ Ken Follett

I was shocked at the revelation of her vaulting ambition, her greed. I should have loathed her or, knowing what kind of a person she was, I should have realized the futility of any personal attachment, the impossibility of its maturing into something warm, human enduring. By then, I had known a bit of the prostitute's psychology, the ruthlessness which marked her relationship with men,
but I ignored these. ~ F. Sionil Jose

Common sense was exactly what kingship, almost by definition, lacked: when the king's orders were executed no one dared to tell him honestly how they had turned out. With the absolute powers bestowed by kingship came an arrogance, a ruthlessness, an inflexibility, a habit of compulsion, an unwillingness to listen to reason, that no small community would have endured from any of its members-though the aggressive and humanly disagreeable qualities that make for such ambitious leadership might be found anywhere-as Margaret Mead discovered among the Mundugumor, whose leaders were known to the community as "really bad men," aggressive, gluttonous for power and prestige. ~ Lewis Mumford

I admire people who are very successful. But if that success has been achieved through too much ruthlessness, then I may admire that person, but I can't respect him. ~ Ratan Tata

This is a ruthless world and one must be ruthless to cope with it. ~ Charlie Chaplin

I realized that if I was going to assume the responsibility of writing about my home, I needed narrative ruthlessness. I couldn't dull the edges and fall in love with my characters and spare them. Life does not spare us. ~ Jesmyn Ward

Unless they're utterly heartless, people put a certain value on human life. It keeps us from killing each other off for no reason. But for leaders like you and me, a moral high ground is too absolute. There are choices to be made. ~ Amanda Bouchet

Always, always, I had had to balance compassion with wisdom, love with judgment, humanity with ruthlessness. ~ Diana Gabaldon

He'd wanted me to believe in his ruthlessness.
Then I remembered his words from so long ago: Make me your villain. ~ Leigh Bardugo

Henri-Georges Clouzot's cool, clammy, twisty 1955 thriller Diabolique is an almost perfect movie about a very nearly perfect murder, a film in which the artist's methods and the killers' are ideally matched, equal in cunning and in ruthlessness. The screenplay, adapted by Clouzot and three other writers from a novel by the crack French crime-fiction team of Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac, is a fantastically elaborate piece of contrivance, but the scrupulous realism of the direction makes the unnatural tale somehow feel entirely likely. ~ Terrence Rafferty

They are as smart as they are ruthless. That's why they've been around for all five years. ~ Joe Reyes

He was young, gorgeous, a Ruthledge, and just enough ruthlessness to put him on the right side of edgy. ~ Sylvia Day

The bodies in my floor all trusted someone. Now I walk on them to tea. ~ Victoria Schwab

Levi's motives were never quite as obvious. There was an Old Testament ruthlessness about him, Shambler thought, something inscrutably tribal at the root. ~ Michael Crummey

There is no telling to what extremes of cruelty and ruthlessness a man will go when he is freed from the fears, hesitations, doubts and the vague stirrings of decency that go with individual judgment. ~ Eric Hoffer

People go on blithely organizing and believing in the remedy of mass action, without the least consciousness of the fact that the most powerful organizations can be maintained only by the greatest ruthlessness of their leaders and the cheapest of slogans. ~ C. G. Jung

Thomas had inherited his father's reason without his ruthlessness and his mother's love of good without her tendency to pursue it. His plan for all practical action was to wait and see what developed. ~ Flannery O'Connor

We admire people who work hard, who are objective and thorough. We detest office politicians, toadies, bullies, and pompous asses. We abhor ruthlessness. The way up our ladder is open to everybody. In promoting people to top jobs, we are influenced as much by their character as anything else. ~ David Ogilvy

Never underestimate the ruthlessness of the ego to keep you in a state of suffering in which you voluntarily participate. ~ Iyanla Vanzant

But what has happened during the last year and a half has forced all reasonably farsighted men to understand that we are living in a new world. We have let our navy deteriorate to a degree both shameful and alarming. We have shown by our own conduct when the Hague Conventions were violated that all such treaties are utterly worthless, as offering even the smallest safeguard against aggression. Above all, the immense efficiency, the utter ruthlessness, and the gigantic scale of the present military operations show that we need military preparedness on a scale never hitherto ~ Theodore Roosevelt

I know Tiger believed in the idea of the Package. It went along with the sense of destiny his father had passed to him- that he was put on this earth to do something extraordinary with his special qualities, to "let the legend grow" But those qualities, foremost among them an extraordinary ability to focus and stay calm under stress, also included selfishness, obsessiveness, stubbornness, coldness, ruthlessness, pettiness, and cheapness." (132) ~ Hank Haney

There's more that we need to be liberated from: maybe a system that prizes competition and ruthlessness and short-term thinking and rugged individualism, a system that serves environmental destruction and limitless consumption so well - that arrangement you can call capitalism. It embodies the worst of machismo while it destroys what's best on Earth. More men fit into it better, but it doesn't really serve any of us. ~ Rebecca Solnit

The problem is that the things demanded by an empire, which is staying power, ruthlessness, the ability and the willingness to use its power around the world, it's something that democracies tend to be quite skeptical about. ~ Mark Danner

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. ~ Rose Wilder Lane

The polite conversation that carried over from cocktails into dinner was so stifling that it carried a certain ruthlessness, ~ Bret Easton Ellis

There is an efficiency inspired by love which goes far beyond and is much greater than the efficiency of ambition; and without love, which brings an integrated understanding of life, efficiency breeds ruthlessness. Is this not what is actually taking place all over the world? Our present education is geared to industrialization and war, its principal aim being to develop efficiency; and we are caught in this machine of ruthless competition and mutual destruction. If education leads to war, if it teaches us to destroy or be destroyed, has it not utterly failed? ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

The true lesson of the Vietnam War is: certainty of purpose and ruthlessness of execution win wars. ~ Ronald Reagan

It is important to have a perspective then only through seeing the world is it possible to transcend ideas such as the Flyers, and other aberrant thought forms. With ruthlessness, cunning patience and sweetness, it can be cracked. ~ Carlos Castaneda

Baseball, like some other sports, poses as a sacred institution dedicated to the public good, but it is actually a big, selfish business with a ruthlessness that many big businesses would never think of displaying. ~ Jackie Robinson

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. ~ Richard Hofstadter

In a sense life in the high-rise had begun to resemble the world outside - there were the same ruthlessness and agression concealed within a set of polite conventions. ~ J.G. Ballard

... the repression of primitive, violent impulses in favor of civilized behavior was a control mechanism for the more shrewdly aggressive dominators who successfully channeled *their* primitive, violent impulses into a socially acceptable form known as 'ruthlessness,' while monopolizing the right to use outright violence as a last resort for maintaining an otherwise indefensible accumulation of power and wealth. ~ R.U. Sirius

Do these past days mean nothing?" he asked, so gently that my weak self curled around his words.
But I would no longer be weak. I tapped into that power in my veins and a shimmering wall of flames sprang up between us. Amar jumped back, shocked and then…amused.
"A little ruthlessness is to be admired, but it's cruel to play with a powerless heart."
"Crueler still to promise equality and hide a person's true self."
"I thought it was best for you," he repeated.
"Strange how something that only affected me was decided by you."
Amar's smile turned cold. "My promises were true. You seek to punish an illusion without fully knowing. What were your kisses, then? Vengeance?"
The wall of flames shimmered away. Anger still flared inside me, but now it was mixed with something else. Something I couldn't push away, despite fury. Want.
"They were nothing," I lied. "They meant nothing."
I didn't look at him. And then, a bloom of cold erupted beside me and Amar was at my side. His fingers traced a secret calligraphy along my arms.
"Nothing at all?"
My heart twisted. I reached forward, my hands tangling in his hair as I kissed him. It was a kiss meant to devour, to summon war. And when I broke it, my voice was harsh:
"My kisses mean nothing."
"Cruel queen," he murmured, tilting my head back. His lips skimmed down my neck. Amar's hands gripped my waist, before tracing the outline of my hips. Heat flared through my body. But just ~ Roshani Chokshi

A knock at the door pulled me from my thoughts. I opened it, expecting to see Gupta, but it was Amar. His expression looked carved in stone and his lips were set in a grim line. But the moment we held each other's gaze, something in him relented. His hands tightened at his side.
"I would never want to cause you pain."
I flinched. "I am not in pain."
Lie.
"I am not some animal you wounded," I added.
Truth.
"It is only a night longer," he said.
The warning voice from the halls echoed back to me: You are running out of moon time. Listen to my warning rhyme. What would happen tomorrow?
Amar hesitated, before reaching out to hold my hand. I stared at the circlet of my hair around his wrist. Bitterness rose in my throat. I glanced from my bracelet to the other one on his wrist--black leather and knotted--dull and malevolent.
"Do these past days mean nothing?" he asked, so gently that my weak self curled around his words.
But I would no longer be weak. I tapped into that power in my veins and a shimmering wall of flames sprang up between us. Amar jumped back, shocked and then…amused.
"A little ruthlessness is to be admired, but it's cruel to play with a powerless heart. ~ Roshani Chokshi

I am sure you understand that a reputation for ruthlessness can be useful. A great ruler, especially one of as wide and various a country as Gurkhul, must first be feared. He would desire to be loved also, but that is a luxury. Fear is essential. Whatever you may have heard, Uthman is neither a man of peace, nor of war. He is a man of ... what would be your word? Necessity. He is a man of the right tool at the right time. ~ Joe Abercrombie

In your 20s - and these are generalizations of course - I feel like I didn't care about as many things or as many people, or even myself, as much. There's more recklessness and more ruthlessness; you're not as considerate of how things land with other people I think. ~ Naomi Watts

Eric penned nearly a dozen new journal entries in the next two months.
"I have a goal to destroy as much as possible," he wrote, "so I must not be sidetracked by my feelings of sympathy, mercy, or any of that."
It was a mark of Eric's ruthlessness that he comprehended the pain and consciously fought the urge to spare it. "I will force myself to believe that everyone is just another monster from Doom," [the computer game he played day and night] he wrote. "I have to turn off my feelings. ~ Dave Cullen

It is she who has a hold on him. Doesn't she see how much he needs her? She has nothing to be afraid of, her conscience is clear. It is he who should be ashamed, and terrified of her giving him away. But that is just what she will never do. To do this she does not have the necessary ruthlessness
Komarovsky's chief asset in dealing with subordinates and weaklings. This is precisely the difference between them. And it is this that makes the whole of life so terrifying. Does it crush you by thunder and lightning? No, by oblique glances and whispered calumny. It is all treachery and ambiguity. Any single thread is as fragile as a cobweb, but just try to pull yourself out of the net, you only become more entangled. And the strong are dominated by the weak and ignoble. ~ Boris Pasternak

IN WORKING WITH MIRRORS IT IS NECESSARY TO RECAPITULATE YOUR ENTIRE LIFE, FROM THE PRESENT MOMENT RIGHT BACK TO THE MOMENT OF BIRTH. SUCH A RECAPITULATION DEMANDS A LEVEL OF HONESTY WHICH IS ONLY ATTAINABLE THROUGH AN ACT OF RUTHLESSNESS. RUTHLESSNESS MUST BEGIN WITH YOURSELF. ONLY WHEN RUTHLESSNESS HAS REPLACED SELF-PITY CAN YOU ACHIEVE THE SOBRIETY NEEDED IN ORDER TO DISCRIMINATE WITH WISDOM. ~ Théun Mares

I love you, your courage and your stubbornness and your fire and your utter ruthlessness. How much do I love you? So much that a moment ago I would have outraged the hospitality of the house which has sheltered me and my family, forgotten the best wife any man ever had - enough to take you here in the mud like a - "
She struggled with a chaos of thoughts and there was a cold pain in her heart as if an icicle had pierced it. She said haltingly: "If you felt like that - and didn't take me - then you don't love me."
"I can never make you understand. ~ Margaret Mitchell