Quotes About Aggression

The triad of methods used to achieve this remarkable increase in killing are desensitization, conditioning, and denial defense mechanisms.

What about the other two percent? They were aggressive sociopaths. They were apparently having a good time. (At least that is the conclusion of two World War II researchers, Swank and Marchand. But recent research shows that that two percent breaks down into wolves and sheepdogs, which we will discuss later in the book.)

90 percent reduction in violence among the boys who had television and video games removed

a guy shoved a gun in my face. So I shoved my gun in his face and told him, 'Arrrrarrr-arggggh!

The fight-or-flight dichotomy is the appropriate set of choices for any creature faced with danger other than that which comes from its own species. When we examine the responses of creatures confronted with aggression from their own species, the set of options expands to include posturing and submission.

In developmental psychology there is a general understanding that an individual must master the twin areas of sexuality and aggression (Freud's Eros and Thanatos) in order to have truly achieved adulthood. In the same way, the maturation of the human race necessitates our collective mastery of these two areas.

When a man is frightened, he literally stops thinking with his forebrain (that is, with the mind of a human being) and begins to think with the midbrain (that is, with the portion of his brain that is essentially indistinguishable from that of an animal), and in the mind of an animal it is the one who makes the loudest noise or puffs himself up the largest who will win.

Bruno Bettelheim, a survivor of the Nazi death camps, argues that the root of our failure to deal with violence lies in our refusal to face up to it. We deny our fascination with the "dark beauty of violence," and we condemn aggression and repress it rather than look at it squarely and try to understand and control it.

There is strong evidence that there exists a genetic predisposition for aggression. In all species the best hunter, the best fighter, the most aggressive male, survives to pass his biological predispositions on to his descendants. There are also environmental processes that can fully develop this predisposition toward aggression; when we combine this genetic predisposition with environmental development we get a killer.

Per capita aggravated assaults in the U.S. increased almost sevenfold between 1957 and 1993.

the rate at which we are trying to kill or seriously injure each other, might be at the highest levels in peacetime history.

For the timbre of a human voice singing a single sustained note carries an abundance of information for those whose ears are tuned to such clues—information about the internal state of various organs in the singer's body, and the relative tension or ease in that person, the level of aggression or peaceful intent.

Dialogue with an AK47 always ends the same way. The AK47 is always right.

I'd love to see that rat nose smashed!

I ought to come up there and break your shuck nose.

I'm gonnna break your faces!

I should rip your eyes out," Newt said, spraying Thomas with spit. "Teach you a lesson in stupidity. Why'd you come over here? You expected a bloody hug? Huh? A nice sit-down to talk about the good times in the Glade?

I'm gonna kill you, shuck-face!

you slinthead shuck-faced piece of klunk.

His friend threw another couple of punches for good measure, then stood up, giving his guy one last kick. "I'm done. We can go.

One of these days we need to get Weber locked in a room with some nice torture devices. I'm ready to go medieval on her.

Minho laughed, then raised the palm of his hand and shoved Gally in the face. Thomas half stood as he watched the Glader crash down into his chair, tipping it over backward, cracking it in two pieces. Gally sprawled across the floor, then scrambled to stand up, struggling to get his hands and feet under him. Minho stepped closer and stomped the bottom of his foot down on Gally's back, driving his body flat to the ground.

Is it your goal in life to piss me off until I cut your arteries open one by one?

Aggression unopposed becomes a contagious disease.