Collapses Quotes

When government disappears, it's not as if paradise will take its place. When governments are gone, other interests will take their place.

At regular intervals in Chinese history it suffers complete collapse and the central government disintegrates.

We are witnessing the collapse of Bolshevism.

A Taliban collapse could be rapid, with the enemy shrinking to a small number of hard-core Mullah Omar supporters in the early days or weeks of a military campaign.

An economic failure becomes a radicalizing force only when an alternative exists

Civilizations do not collapse because the citizenry are corrupt or lazy or anti-intellectual. These people do not have the power and influence to either lead or destroy. Civilizations collapse when those who have power fail to do their jobs.

What if a small group of world leaders were to conclude that the principal risk to the Earth comes from the actions of the rich countries? And if the world is to survive, those rich countries would have to sign an agreement reducing their impact on the environment. Will they do it? The group's conclusion is 'no'. The rich countries won't do it. They won't change. So, in order to save the planet, the group decides: Isn't the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn't it our responsibility to bring that about?

The overpopulation of the earth The destruction of our natural habitat The rat race of humanity against itself The disappearance of all strong emotions and passions through pampering Genetic deterioration through deficient selection pressure on development and the lack of preservation of the norms of social behavior The breakdown of tradition; and The increasing susceptibility of humans to indoctrination

Today the Soviet Union is a friend and an ally. We need this friendship. However, no one can know what will happen tomorrow. Just like the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires, it may tear itself apart or shrink in size. Those peoples that it holds so tightly in its grip may one day slip away. The world may see a new balance of power.

The average CIA agent was far more comfortable in the refinement of an embassy, a presidential palace, or sitting at the bar in a five-star hotel, than in the marketplace or a peasant hut--a preference that equipped them poorly, to say the least, for the task of gathering real grass-roots information or assessing levels of popular feeling. Time and again, in the Middle East, in Indochina, and in Central America, the CIA agents made disastrous miscalculations that repeatedly left the US utterly unprepared for various violent upheavals. The CIA failed completely to predict the fall of the Shah of Iran, and didn't see the collapse of the Soviet Union until it was right on top of them. To put it bluntly, frequently the CIA had too high an opinion of itself to get down with the mass of the people and find out what was really going on.

I went back in British history. Some 204 people died there after a mine collapsed in 1838. In 1866, 361 miners died in Britain. In an explosion in 1894, 290 people died there.

I yield ... to the conviction that our Constitution cannot last. The Union has been prolonged thus far by miracles ... they cannot continue.

Economic development has a reverse gear.