Suicidal Quotes (2 quotes)
If this cynicism and apathy are allowed to continue to fester, it will not only be dangerous, but in our democracy it will be suicidal.
Stating (1998) his commitment upon the announcement of the creation of the John Glenn Institute of Public Service and Public Policy Institute. As quoted on the OSU website, which also gives that in letters and documents from 1997, when he announced his retirement after four U.S. Senate terms, Glenn underscored his intent to dedicate his time toward dispelling “the apathy, mistrust and outright cynicism among our young people", which he saw as “a looming danger for the future of the country.”
It is hard to exaggerate Mr Erdos’s passion. For 19 hours a day, seven days a week, stimulated by coffee, and later by amphetamines, he worked on mathematics. He might start a game of chess, but would probably doze off until the conversation returned to maths. To find another life this century as intensely devoted to abstraction, one must reach back to Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951), who stripped his life bare for philosophy. But whereas Wittgenstein discarded his family fortune as a form of self-torture, Mr Erdos gave away most of the money he earned because he simply did not need it. “Private property is a nuisance,” he would say. And where Wittgenstein was driven by near suicidal compulsions, Mr Erdos simply constructed his life to extract from his magnificent obsession the maximum amount of happiness.
— Magazine
In obituary 'Paul Erdos', The Economist (5 Oct 1996), 83.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
