Calamity Quotes - Page 10

• In fact, it comes to this: nobody is capable of really thinking about anyone, even in the worst calamity. For really to think about someone means thinking about that person every minute of the day, without letting one’s thoughts be diverted by anything- by meals, by a fly that settles on one’s cheek, by household duties, or by a sudden itch somewhere. But there are always flies and itches. That’s why life is difficult to live.

  Albert Camus

  Mean, Thinking, Meals

  Albert Camus (2012). “The Plague”, p.241, Vintage

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• For I was never able to understand, then or later on, why, if one wanted to do a thing, one should not do it. For I have never waited to do as I wished. This has frequently brought me to disaster and calamity, but at least I have had the the satisfaction of getting my own way.

  Isadora Duncan

  Able, Way, Satisfaction

  "My Life (Revised and Updated)".

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• It is in the thick of calamity that one gets hardened to the truth - in other words, to silence.

  Albert Camus

  Silence, Plague, Hardened

  ALBERT CAMUS (1971). “NOBEL PRIZE LIBRARY”

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• The only people who think the Internet is a calamity are people whose lives have been hurt by it; the only people who insist the Internet is wonderful are those who need it to give their life meaning.

  Chuck Klosterman

  Hurt, Thinking, People

  Chuck Klosterman (2009). “Eating the Dinosaur”, p.224, Simon and Schuster

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• Then again, you cannot stop the flood of desire as it moves through the world, inappropriate though it may sometimes be. It is the prerogative of all humans to make ludicrous choices, to fall in love with the most unlikely of partners, and to set themselves up for the most predicatable of calamities.

  Elizabeth Gilbert

  Falling In Love, Moving, Choices

  Elizabeth Gilbert (2010). “Committed: A Sceptic Makes Peace With Marriage”, p.52, A&C Black

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• We are not going to change the whole world, but we can change ourselves and feel free as birds. We can be serene even in the midst of calamities and, by our serenity, make others more tranquil. Serenity is contagious. If we smile at someone, he or she will smile back. And a smile costs nothing. We should plague everyone with joy. If we are to die in a minute, why not die happily, laughing? (136-137)

  Swami Satchidananda

  Change, Laughing, Bird

  Sri Swami Satchidananda (1984). “Integral Yoga: The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali”, Integral Yoga Dist

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• Whereupon a strange euphoria came over me. Not only was I exiled, paralyzed, mute, half deaf, deprived of all pleasures, and reduced to the existence of a jellyfish, but I was also horrible to behold. There comes a time when the heaping up of calamities brings on uncontrollable nervous laughter - when, after a final blow from fate, we decide to treat it all as a joke.

  Jean-Dominique Bauby

  Laughter, Fate, Blow

  Jean-Dominique Bauby (2008). “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”, p.25, Knopf Group E-Books

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• Be a man!... What good is religion if it collapses under calamity? Think of what earthquakes and floods, wars and volcanoes, have done before to men! Did you think that God had exempted [us]? He is not an insurance agent.

  H. G. Wells

  War, Men, Thinking

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• Loss is essential, loss is part and parcel of that necessary calamity called life. Mind you, I'm not complaining. Thanks to some inexplicable universal guiding force, it is always the worthless things we lose - slough off, like a moulting snake. Losing and losing again, is the very basis of the process, til all we are left with is the bare essence of human existence.

  Rohinton Mistry

  Loss, Essence, Snakes

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• A child's reaction to this type of calamity is twofold and extreme. Not knowing how deeply, powerfully, life drops anchor into its vast sources of recuperation, he is bound to envisage, at once, the very worst; yet at the same time, because of his inability to imagine death, the worst remains totally unreal to him. Gerard went on repeating: "Paul's dying; Paul's going to die"' but he did not believe it. Paul's death would be part of the dream, a dream of snow, of journeying forever.

  Jean Cocteau

  Dream, Children, Believe

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• Truly songs and tales fall utterly short of the reality, O Smaug the Chiefest and greatest of Calamities.

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  Song, Fall, Reality

  J.R.R. Tolkien (2012). “The Hobbit”, p.89, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Insomnia is a variant of Tourette's--the waking brain races, sampling the world after the world has turned away, touching it everywhere, refusing to settle, to join the collective nod. The insomniac brain is a sort of conspiracy theorist as well, believing too much in its own paranoiac importance--as though if it were to blink, then doze, the world might be overrun by some encroaching calamity, which its obsessive musings are somehow fending off.

  Jonathan Lethem

  Believe, Insomnia, Race

  FaceBook post by Jonathan Lethem from Jul 01, 2016

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• The thing is, Obama is right that it would be a calamity for the government to default on its debt by not meeting its obligations. Such a thing has never happened and can't be allowed to happen.

  John Podhoretz

  Government, Would Be, Debt

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• We love and we value peace; we know its blessings from experience. We abhor the follies of war, and are not untried in its distresses and calamities.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Peace, War, Blessing

  Thomas Jefferson, Brett F. Woods (2009). “Thomas Jefferson: Thoughts on War and Revolution : Annotated Correspondence”, p.115, Algora Publishing

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• I can scarcely contemplate a greater calamity that could befall this country, than be loaded with a debt exceeding their ability ever to discharge. If this be a just remark, it is unwise and improvident to vest in the general government a power to borrow at discretion, without any limitation or restriction.

  Marcus Junius Brutus the Younger

  Country, Government, Debt

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• The wisdom of the chess player is displayed more in winning over a capable opponent than a novice. The wisdom of the general is displayed more in defeating a superior army than in subduing an inferior one. Even more so, the wisdom of God is displayed when He brings good to us and glory to Himself out of confusion and calamity rather than out of pleasant times.

  Jerry Bridges

  Army, Winning, Player

  Jerry Bridges (2016). “Trusting God”, p.123, NavPress

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• We can be serene even in the midst of calamities and, by our serenity, make others more tranquil.

  Swami Satchidananda

  Serenity, Midst, Serene

  Sri Swami Satchidananda (1984). “Integral Yoga: The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali”, Integral Yoga Dist

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• Have I mentioned that I expect death around every turn, that every blue sky has a safe sailing out of it, that every bus runs me over, that every low, mean syllable uttered in my direction seems to intimate the violence of murder, that every family seems like an opportunity for ruin and every marriage a ceremony into which calamity will fall and hearts will be broken and lives destroyed and people branded by the mortifications of love?

  Rick Moody

  Love, Running, Fall

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• I want to express my closeness to the people of the Philippines who have been struck by a strong earthquake, and I invite you to pray for that dear nation, which in recent days has suffered different calamities.

  Pope Francis

  Strong, Earthquakes, People

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• Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. 3 Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.

  Jonah

  Home, Fleeing, Lord

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• The benevolent have the advantage of the envious, even in this present life; for the envious man is tormented not only by all the ill that befalls himself, but by all the good that happens to another; whereas the benevolent man is the better prepared to bear his own calamities unruffled, from the complacency and serenity he has secured from contemplating the prosperity of all around him.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Gratitude, Men, Serenity

  Charles Caleb Colton (1832). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”

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• [During difficult times and after mistakes and failures it is helpful to remember ...] Oftentimes calamity turns to our advantage and great ruins make way for greater glories.

  Seneca the Younger

  Mistake, Way, Ruins

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• Thou hast seen many sorrows, travel-stained pilgrim of the world, But that which hath vexed thee most, hath been the looking for evil; And though calamities have crossed thee, and misery been heaped on thy head, Yet ills that never happened, have chiefly made thee wretched.

  Martin Farquhar Tupper

  Life, Evil, Sorrow

  Martin Farquhar Tupper (1839). “Proverbial philosophy: a book of thoughts and arguments”, p.27

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• Whenever calamity howlers shake their heads and impress upon you that this, that, and the next dire catastrophe is to befall this nation or the nations of the world-such as, for example, that exhaustion of the world's oil supply will bring all transportation and machinery to a standstill through lack of lubrication, or that exhaustion of the earth's stores of coal will make life unlivable in these cold climates-just smile and reply that the worst troubles of all are those that never happen [and] that you prefer not to cross shaky bridges until you come to them.

  B. C. Forbes

  Bridges, Oil, Next

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• Today, no walls can separate humanitarian or human rights crises in one part of the world from national security crises in another. What begins with the failure to uphold the dignity of one life all too often ends with a calamity for entire nations.

  Kofi Annan

  Wall, Rights, World

  "Kofi Annan and U.N. Accept 2001 Nobel Peace Prize", www.foxnews.com. December 10, 2001.

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