quotations about aggression
Sooner or later all the people of the world will have to discover a way to live together in peace, and thereby transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. If this is to be achieved, man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.
MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Dec. 10, 1964
Aggression is an effective form of energy when focused on the right direction and shielded from all others.
JOHN DRISCOLL
The Sales Warrior Within
Aggression is the first step on the slippery slope to selfishness and chaos.
ANNE CAMPBELL
Men, Women, and Aggression
To control aggression without inflicting injury is the Art of Peace.
MORIHEI UESHIBA
The Art of Peace
Aggression is a biological response to a life-threatening situation. When there is an immediate threat to life, aggressive energy provides the power to do what needs to be done. Aggression in normal daily interactions is like activating a smoke alarm when there is no smoke. Actually, it is worse. The ringing alarm would be annoying, but it would do no harm. Aggression at best is annoying, and at worst, itself, becomes life threatening.
GWEN RANDALL-YOUNG
Growing Into Soul
Aggression is different from anger. Anger is an emotion; aggression is a behavior. There are better ways to deal with anger than behaving aggressively. Aggressive talk, gestures or behaviors belong to the old way of being. Once we tune in to a higher level of consciousness, aggression is as unnecessary as is the hand-held plow in modern day agriculture.
GWEN RANDALL-YOUNG
Growing Into Soul
By reacting to aggression with aggression we lose the opportunity to spiritually benefit from the experience.
KYRIACOS C. MARKIDES
The Mountain of Silence
Success only feeds the appetite of aggression.
LYNDON B. JOHNSON
press conference, Jul. 28, 1965
Men are not gentle, friendly creatures wishing for love, who simply defend themselves if they are attacked, but ... a powerful measure of desire for aggression had to be reckoned as part of their instinctual endowment.
SIGMUND FREUD
Civilization and its Discontents
Aggression is part of the masculine design, we are hardwired for it.... Little girls do not invent games where large numbers of people die, where bloodshed is a prerequisite for having fun. Hockey, for example, was not a feminine creation. Nor was boxing. A boy wants to attack something -- and so does a man, even if it's only a little white ball on a tee.
JOHN ELDREDGE
Wild at Heart
By conceptualizing it as a bully/victim problem, the aggressive behavior is placed or anchored in a social context: The recipient of the aggression, the victim, comes into focus in addition to the aggressor. In this way, the repeated humiliation and suffering of the victim are brought into the foreground.
L. ROWELL HUESMANN
Aggressive Behavior: Current Perspectives
The most important distinction between aggression and assertion is its intent. During assertion, we move ourselves toward another; during aggression, we move ourselves against another.
GEORGIA LANOIL
The Female Stress Syndrome
Drive is considered aggression today; I knew it then as purpose.
BETTE DAVIS
attributed, Witty Words From Wise Women
Put your sword back into its place. For all who take the sword will perish by the sword.
MATTHEW 26:52
Aggression is a constructive energy at the service of development, differentiation, mastery, object relations, and the maintenance of a satisfactory balance between the self and the environment.
ANA-MARIA RIZZUTO
The Dynamics of Human Aggression
History teaches that wars begin when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.
RONALD REAGAN
speech, Jan. 16, 1984
Male aggression and lust are the energizing factors in culture. They are men's tools of survival in the pagan vastness of female nature.
CAMILLE PAGLIA
Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson
The fact that bad is stronger than good is nowhere more apparent than in acts of violence and aggression. This principle is sometimes called the magnitude gap, referring to one important difference between the perpetrator and the victim: Almost inevitably, the victim loses more than the perpetrator gains. Aggression is thus not just a simple transfer or exchange; it lowers the total value available.
ROY F. BAUMEISTER & BRAD J. BUSHMAN
Social Psychology and Human Nature
Aggression unopposed becomes a contagious disease.
JIMMY CARTER
speech, Jan. 11, 1980
We are only just beginning to understand the power of love because we are just beginning to understand the weakness of force and aggression.
B. F. SKINNER
Walden Two