Tragedy Quotes - Page 6

• Few tragedies can be more extensive than the stunting of life, few injustices deeper than the denial of an opportunity to strive or even to hope, by a limit imposed from without, but falsely identified as lying within.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Hope, Fear, Lying

  Stephen Jay Gould (2006). “The Mismeasure of Man (Revised & Expanded)”, p.36, W. W. Norton & Company

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• Life is a dream for the wise, a game for the fool, a comedy for the rich, a tragedy for the poor.

  Sholom Aleichem

  Life, Wise, Dream

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• The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion.

  Arthur C. Clarke

  Atheist, Religion, Atheism

  "Credo". Essay by Arthur C. Clarke (1991), later published in Arthur C. Clarke "Greetings, Carbon-Based Bipeds!: Collected Essays, 1934-1998" (p. 360), 1999.

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• In human intercourse the tragedy begins, not when there is misunderstanding about words, but when silence is not understood.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Sad, Live Life, Silence

  Henry David Thoreau, Carl Hovde (1980). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.278, Princeton University Press

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• Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy.

  William Butler Yeats

  Joy, Abiding, Ireland And The Irish

  "Spencer Tracy: A Biography". Book by James Curtis, www.indiewire.com. 2011.

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• The courage of life is often a less dramatic spectacle than the courage of a final moment; but it is no less a magnificent mixture of triumph and tragedy.

  John F. Kennedy

  Life, Courage, Bravery

  John F. Kennedy (1964). “Profiles In Courage”

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• Show me a hero and I'll write you a tragedy.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Life, Hero, Writing

  The Crack-Up "Note-Books" (1945)

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• It is restful, tragedy, because one knows that there is no more lousy hope left. You know you're caught, caught at last like a rat with all the world on its back. And the only thing left to do is shout - not moan, or complain, but yell out at the top of your voice whatever it was you had to say. What you've never said before. What perhaps you don't even know till now.

  Jean Anouilh

  Voice, Complaining, World

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• Faith in God offers no insurance against tragedy.

  Philip Yancey

  Suffering, Faith In God, Inevitable

  Philip Yancey (1997). “Where Is God When It Hurts?”, p.85, Zondervan

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• The salvation of a single soul is more important than the production or preservation of all the epics and tragedies in the world.

  C. S. Lewis

  Epic, Soul, Important

  C. S. Lewis (2003). “A Mind Awake: An Anthology of C. S. Lewis”, p.128, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• I know this year hasn't gone as we'd all like it. But please, please, everyone do not forget about that 2013 season - the worst to first, the tragedy of the Boston Marathon, everyone rallying around the city, the finish line, the duck boats, everything, celebrating at home. Might be down a little bit in the win/loss column right now, but do not let that erase any of those memories from last year that I get to wear a ring on my finger for. I'm proud to be a Red Sox for those times.

  Jonny Gomes

  Memories, Home, Loss

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• The tragedy of life is in what dies inside a man while he lives - the death of genuine feeling, the death of inspired response, the awareness that makes it possible to feel the pain or the glory of other men in yourself.

  Norman Cousins

  Life, Pain, Men

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• Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.

  William Shakespeare

  Inspirational, Death, Running

  'Julius Caesar' (1599) act 2, sc. 2, l. 30

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• But that night as I drove back to Montreal, I at least discovered this: that there is no simple explanation for anything important any of us do, and that the human tragedy, or the human irony, consists in the necessity of living with the consequences of actions performed under the pressure of compulsions so obscure we do not and cannot understand them.

  Hugh MacLennan

  Simple, Night, Important

  Hugh MacLennan (2009). “Watch that Ends the Night”, p.266, McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP

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• The constant struggle in mature life, I think, is to accept the necessity of tragedy and conflict, and not to try to escape to some falsely simple solution which does not include these more somber complexities.

  Sylvia Plath

  Struggle, Simple, Thinking

  Sylvia Plath (2011). “Letters Home”, p.301, Faber & Faber

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• Tragedy is the highest form of art.

  Joyce Carol Oates

  Art, Form, Highest

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• A Shakespearean tragedy as so far considered may be called a story of exceptional calamity leading to the death of a man in high estate. But it is clearly much more than this, and we have now to regard it from another side.

  Andrew Coyle Bradley

  Men, Stories, May

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• Sorrow, terror, anguish, despair itself are often the chosen expressions of an approximation to the highest good. Our sympathy in tragic fiction depends on this principle; tragedy delights by affording a shadow of the pleasure which exists in pain. This is the source also of the melancholy which is inseparable from the sweetest melody. The pleasure that is in sorrow is sweeter than the pleasure of pleasure itself.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Pain, Expression, Sorrow

  Percy Bysshe Shelley (2006). “A Defence of Poetry: an Essay: Easyread Large Edition”, p.57, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• Death is not a tragedy to the one who dies; to have wasted the life before that death, that is the tragedy.

  Orson Scott Card

  Life, Dies

  Orson Scott Card (2013). “The Shadow Quintet”, p.479, Macmillan

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• Poetry, like jazz, is one of those dazzling diamonds of creative industry that help human beings make sense out of the comedies and tragedies that contextualize our lives.

  Aberjhani

  Creative, Helping, Comedy

  Aberjhani (2014). “Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry”, p.2, Lulu.com

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• Anybody can rise to a crisis and face a crushing tragedy with courage, but to meet the petty hazards of the day with a laugh- I really think that requires spirit!

  Jean Webster

  Crush, Thinking, Laughing

  Jean Webster (2016). “Daddy Long-Legs and Dear Enemy: Illustrated”, p.34, Jester House Publishing

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• I think whenever you go through something of that nature, you get to see who's really on your side and who's really there for you. That happened in my case. And it really let me understand that no matter how small of a decision you make, it's going to have a subsequent action or reaction, and something that started out very innocent turned into the tragedy that it was.

  Donte Stallworth

  Thinking, Decision, Action

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• There is no absolute knowledge. And those who claim it, whether they are scientists or dogmatists, open the door to tragedy.

  Jacob Bronowski

  Doors, Scientist, Claims

  Jacob Bronowski (1976). “The ascent of man”

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• ...she merely wished to find a way out of the maze. She knew that she had become a burden to him: she took things too seriously, turning everything into a tragedy, and failed to grasp the lightness and amusing insignificance of physical love. How she wished she could learn lightness! She yearned for someone to help her out of her anachronistic shell.

  Milan Kundera

  Mazes, Shells, Way

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• That scent she threw off was not anything by Chanel. Unless they’d recently added a Tragedy line.

  J.R. Ward

  Scent, Lines

  J.R. Ward (2012). “Lover Reborn: A Novel of the Black Dagger Brotherhood”, p.30, Penguin

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