Calamity Quotes - Page 13

• We are born to lose and to perish, to hope and to fear, to vex ourselves and others; and there is no antidote against a common calamity but virtue; for the foundation of true joy is in the conscience.

  Seneca the Younger

  True Joy, Foundation, Vex

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• Public calamity is a mighty leveller.

  Edmund Burke

  Adversity

  Edmund Burke, James BURKE (Barrister-at-Law.) (1854). “The Speeches of the Right Hon. Edmund Burke, with Memoir and Historical Introductions. By James Burke”, p.74

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• If, like the prophet Noah, you have patience in the distress of the flood, Calamity turns aside, and the desire of a thousand years comes forth.

  Hafez

  Patience, Years, Desire

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• At a time of multiple calamities in the world, we cannot allow the loss of essential antimicrobials, essential cures for many millions of people, to become the next global crisis.

  Margaret Chan

  Loss, People, World

  "Health chief warns: age of safe medicine is ending" by Jeremy Laurance, www.independent.co.uk. March 16, 2012.

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• There is no man more pusillanimous than I when I am planning a campaign. I purposely exaggerate all the dangers and all the calamities that the circumstances make possible. I am in a thoroughly painful state of agitation. This does not keep me from looking quite serene in front of my entourage; I am like an unmarried girl laboring with child. Once I have made up my mind, everything is forgotten except what leads to success.

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  Girl, Children, War

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• When Monarchs abuse the rights with which they have been invested by the confidence of the people, and bring down upon their heads the calamity of war, the people have the right to withdraw their allegiance.

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  War, Rights, People

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• All intelligent beings who are crowned with crowns of glory, immortality, and eternal lives must pass through every ordeal appointed for intelligent beings to pass through, to gain their glory and exaltation. Every calamity that can come upon mortal beings will be suffered ... to prepare them to enjoy the presence of the Lord. ... Every trial and experience you have passed through is necessary for your salvation.

  Brigham Young

  Intelligent, Exaltation, Crowns

  Brigham Young (1861). “Journal of Discourses”, p.150

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• One is ashamed to say how little is needed for all men to be delivered from those calamities which now oppress them; it is only needful not to lie.

  Leo Tolstoy

  Lying, Men, Littles

  Leo Tolstoy (graf) (1929). “Essays, letters, miscellanies (2 v. in 1)”

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• O SON OF MAN! My calamity is My providence, outwardly it is fire and vengeance, but inwardly it is light and mercy. Hasten thereunto that thou mayest become an eternal light and an immortal spirit. This is My command unto thee, do thou observe it.

  Bahá'u'lláh

  Son, Men, Fire

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• Every master of slaves is born a petty tyrant. They bring the judgment of heaven on a Country. As nations can not be rewarded or punished in the next world they must be in this. By an inevitable chain of causes & effects providence punishes national sins, by national calamities.

  George Mason

  Country, Tyrants, Heaven

  "The Journal of the Debates in the Convention which Framed the Constitution of the United States, May-September, 1787", Volume 2, as recorded by James Madison, 1908.

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• Those who have been indulged by fortune and have always thought of calamity as what happens to others, feel a blind incredulous rage at the reversal of their lot, and half believe that their wild cries will alter the course of the storm.

  George Eliot

  Believe, Storm, Half

  George Eliot (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)”, p.3429, Delphi Classics

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• As the vine which has long twined its graceful foliage about the oak and been lifted by it into sunshine, will, when the hardy plant is rifted by the thunderbolt, cling round it with its caressing tendrils and bind up its shattered boughs, so is it beautifully ordered by Providence that woman, who is the mere dependent and ornament of man in his happier hours, should be his stay and solace when smitten with sudden calamity, winding herself into the rugged recesses of his nature, tenderly supporting the drooping head, and binding up the broken heart.

  Washington Irving

  Women, Heart, Sunshine

  Washington Irving (2015). “The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. – The Complete Collection: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Rip Van Winkle, The Voyage, Roscoe, A Royal Poet, A Sunday in London and many more (Illustrated)”, p.30, e-artnow

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• The unknown ... became for our primitive forefathers a terrible and omnipotent source of boons and calamities visited upon mankind for cryptic and wholly extra-terrestrial reasons, and thus clearly belonging to spheres of existence whereof we know nothing and wherein we have no part.

  H. P. Lovecraft

  Spheres, Reason, Source

  H. P. Lovecraft (2013). “The Classic Horror Stories”, p.413, OUP Oxford

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• See thou, whatsoever be thy name -- whether Fate, Life, or Devil! I cast thee down my gauntlet, I challenge thee to battle! Men of faint heart may bow before thy mysterious power, thy face of stone may inspire them with dread, in thy unbroken silence they may discern the birth of calamity and an impending avalanche of woe. But I am daring and strong, and I challenge thee to battle! Let us draw our swords, and join our bucklers, and rain such blows upon each other's crests as shall cause the very earth to shake again! Ha! Come forth and fight with me!

  Leonid Andreyev

  Strong, Rain, Heart

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• Surely it is a matter of joy, that your faith in Jesus has been preserved; the Comforter that should relieve you is not far from you. But as you are a Christian, in the name of that Saviour, who was filled with bitterness and made druken with wormwood, I conjre you to have recourse in frequent prayer to 'his God and your God,' the God of mercies, and father of all comfort. Your poor father is, I hope, almost senseless of the calamity; the unconscious instrument of Divine Providence knows it not, and your mother is in heaven.

  Charles Lamb

  Christian, Mother, Jesus

  Charles Lamb, Mary Lamb (1935). “The Letters of Charles Lamb: To which are Added Those of His Sister, Mary Lamb. Edited by E.V. Lucas”

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• No greater mischief can happen to a Christian people, than to have God's word taken from them, or falsified, so that they no longer have it pure and clear. God grant we and our descendants be not witness to such a calamity.

  Martin Luther

  Christian, Taken, People

  Martin Luther (1848). “The table talk or familiar discourse of Martin Luther, tr. by W. Hazlitt”, p.6

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• We all know by theory that there is no permanent happiness in this life: But the weight of the precept is not felt in the same manner as when it is confirmed to us by a heavy calamity.

  Samuel Richardson

  Happiness, Weight, Heavy

  Samuel Richardson (1980). “A collection of the moral and instructive sentiments: a facsimile reproduction”, Scholars Facsimilies & Reprint

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• The constitutionality and propriety of the Federal Government assuming to enter into a novel and vast field of legislation, namely, that of providing for the care and support of all those ... who by any form of calamity become fit objects of public philanthropy. ... I cannot find any authority in the Constitution for making the Federal Government the great almoner of public charity throughout the United States. To do so would, in my judgment, be contrary to the letter and spirit of the Constitution and subversive of the whole theory upon which the Union of these States is founded.

  Franklin Pierce

  Power, Government, Support

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• Awaken your heart to kindness and mercy for the people and love and tenderness for them. Never, never act with them like a predatory beast which seeks to be satiated by devouring them, for the people fall into two categories: they are either your brethren in faith or your kindred in creation.

  Ali ibn Abi Talib

  Kindness, Fall, Heart

  "Nahj al-Balagha". "Nahj al-Balagha" by Ali ibn Abi Talib. Letter 53: An order to Malik Al-Ashtar,

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• It is a persistent evil to persecute a man who belongs to the grace of God. It is a calamity without remedy to hate the happy.

  Cyprian

  Hate, Men, Evil

  "Treatise on Jealousy and Envy". Book by Cyprian, Ch.9,

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• Men naturally sympathize with the calamities of individuals; but they are inclined to look on a fallen party with contempt rather than with pity.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Party, Men, Looks

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• In the days of peace every precaution should be taken to insure that there are no forces making for war. Just as we now forbid the trafficking in certain drugs, in the sale of poisons, just as we forbid the making of any imprint that suggests a coin or currency, just as experience has demonstrated that men may not make profit out of certain things because of the danger of abuse, so in the gravest of all dangers laws should be passed taking from those who might gain from war or preparations for war every hope that advantage could come to them by such a calamity.

  Frederic C. Howe

  War, Taken, Men

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• Which class is happiest, the rich, the middle class or the poor? A very successful executive of a large organization touches upon this vital subject in a long letter to all his salesmen. He uses as his text a passage from Robinson Crusoe which included this: ""My Father bid me observe it, and I should always find that the calamities of life were shared among the upper and lower part of mankind; but that the middle station had the fewest disasters, and were not exposed to so many vicissitudes as the higher or lower part of mankind.

  B. C. Forbes

  Father, Successful, Class

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• When a man has calamity upon calamity the world generally concludes that he must be a very wicked man to deserve them. Perhaps the world is right; but it is also just possible that the world ... may be wrong.

  Amelia Barr

  Men, Wicked, World

  Amelia Barr (2017). “Jan Vedder's Wife”, p.67, Litres

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• By flying, men often rush into the midst of calamities.

  Livy

  Men, Flying, Midst

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