Catastrophe Quotes - Page 11

• Notwithstanding, therefore, that we have not witnessed of a large continent, yet, as we may predict the future occurrence of such catastrophes, we are authorized to regard them as part of the present order of Nature.

  Charles Lyell

  Nature, Science, Order

  Charles Lyell (1837). “Principles of Geology0: Being an Inquiry how Far the Former Changes of the Earth's Surface are Referable to Causes Now in Operation : In 4 Volumes”, p.134

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• As modern physics started with the Newtonian revolution, so modern philosophy starts with what one might call the Cartesian Catastrophe. The catastrophe consisted in the splitting up of the world into the realms of matter and mind, and the identification of 'mind' with conscious thinking. The result of this identification was the shallow rationalism of l' esprit Cartesien, and an impoverishment of psychology which it took three centuries to remedy even in part.

  Arthur Koestler

  Philosophy, Science, Thinking

  Arthur Koestler (1969). “The Act of Creation”

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• All the parties of capitalist society, all its moralists and all its sycophants will perish beneath the debris of the impending catastrophe. The only party that will survive is the party of the world socialist revolution.

  Leon Trotsky

  Communication, Party, Revolution

  Leon Trotsky (2000). “Their Morals and Ours: The Marxist View of Morality”, p.49, Resistance Books

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• An announcement of [Christopher] Zeeman's lecture at Northwestern University in the spring of 1977 contains a quote describing catastrophe theory as the most important development in mathematics since the invention of calculus 300 years ago.

  Stephen Smale

  Spring, Science, Years

  Stephen Smale, Roderick Wong (2000). “The Collected Papers of Stephen Smale”, p.814, World Scientific

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• The issue of climate change is one that we ignore at our own peril. There may still be disputes about exactly how much we're contributing to the warming of the earth's atmosphere and how much is naturally occurring, but what we can be scientifically certain of is that our continued use of fossil fuels is pushing us to a point of no return. And unless we free ourselves from a dependence on these fossil fuels and chart a new course on energy in this country, we are condemning future generations to global catastrophe.

  Barack Obama

  Country, Ignorance, Issues

  Barack Obama (2009). “Barack Obama: Speeches on the Road to the White House”

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• With its array of gadgets and machines, all powered by energies that are destructive of land or air or water, and connected to work, market, school, recreation, etc., by gasoline engines, the modern home is a veritable factory of waste and destruction. It is the mainstay of the economy of money. But within the economies of energy and nature, it is a catastrophe. It takes in the world's goods and converts them into garbage, sewage, and noxious fumes-for none of which have we found a use.

  Wendell Berry

  Money, Home, School

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• Every once in a while I feel despair over the fate of the planet. If you’ve been following climate science, you know what I mean: the sense that we’re hurtling toward catastrophe but nobody wants to hear about it or do anything to avert it.

  Paul Krugman

  Mean, Fate, Despair

  "Cassandras of Climate". www.nytimes.com. September 27, 2009.

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• Unless we act boldly and quickly to deal with the underlying causes of global warming, our world will undergo a string of terrible catastrophes.

  Al Gore

  Our World, Energy, Causes

  Al Gore (2006). “An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It”, p.10, Rodale

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• Nuclear terrorism is one of the most serious threats of our time. Even one such attack could inflict mass casualties and create immense suffering and unwanted change in the world forever. This prospect should compel all of us to act to prevent such a catastrophe.

  Ban Ki-moon

  Nuclear Terrorism, Forever, Suffering

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• Just remember, without discipline, a clear strategy, and a concise plan, the speculator will fall into all the emotional pitfalls of the market - jump from one stock to another, hold a losing position too long, and cut out of a winner too soon, for no reason other than fear of losing profit. Greed, Fear, Impatience, Ignorance, and Hope will all fight for mental dominance over the speculator. Then, after a few failures and catastrophes the speculator may become demoralised, depressed, despondent, and abandon the market and the chance to make a fortune from what the market has to offer.

  Jesse Lauriston Livermore

  Fall, Ignorance, Cutting

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• Because of Christ, even our catastrophes have purpose. God is preparing our character for the time when we will see Him face to face.

  Kenneth Boa

  Christian, Jesus, Character

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• But my belief is growing that our political and social evils are remediable, if only all of us who want a change for the better just get up and work for it, all the time, with as much knowledge and intelligence as we can muster for it. Half the wrongs of human life exist because of the inertia of people who simply will not use their energies in fighting for what they believe in. And finally the wrongs roll up into world catastrophes and millions of deaths and a terrible set-back for all mankind.

  Katherine Anne Porter

  Believe, Fighting, People

  Katherine Anne Porter, Isabel Bayley (1994). “Letters of Katherine Anne Porter”, p.291, Atlantic Monthly Press

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• Very serious mistakes were made by previous governments, and Greece was ready to be abandoned by its partners and to leave the eurozone, which would have created total catastrophe.

  Antonis Samaras

  Mistake, Government, Serious

  "Everybody Knows We Are Serious". Interview with Lally Weymouth, www.slate.com. September 14, 2012.

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• The magic will which makes us see the other side of our natures-dream and disaster, catastrophe and fulfillment-is the great permanent challenge of humanity.

  Herbert Gold

  Dream, Challenges, Humanity

  Herbert Gold (1971). “The Magic Will: Stories & Essays”, p.50, Transaction Publishers

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• I really like Barack Obama. I think that he's working very hard. He's trying to rebuild our reputation throughout the world. The previous administration was a total disaster, a total catastrophe. He was handed a pretty bad deck of cards. And I'm not saying I agree with everything he's doing. He's a champion. I mean, he won against all odds. When he first announced, people were giving him virtually no chance. And he's just done something that's amazing.

  Donald Trump

  Mean, Thinking, Odds

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• Newspapers have developed what might be called a vested interest in catastrophe. If they can spot a fight, they play up that fight. If they can uncover a tragedy, they will headline that tragedy.

  Harry Allen Overstreet

  Fighting, Play, Tragedy

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• Life is atrocious, we know. But precisely because I expect little of the human condition, man's periods of felicity, his partial progress, his efforts to begin over again and continue, all seem to me like so many prodigies which nearly compensate for the monstrous mass of ills and defeats, of indifference and error. Catastrophe and ruin will come; disorder will triumph, but order will too, from time to time.

  Marguerite Yourcenar

  Loss, Men, Order

  Marguerite Yourcenar (1954). “Memoirs of Hadrian”

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• The only way to get our society to truly change is to frighten people with the possibility of a catastrophe.

  Daniel Botkin

  People, Historical, Our Society

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• Never think that wars are irrational catastrophes: they happen when wrong ways of thinking and living bring about intolerable situations ... the root causes of conflict are usually to be found in some wrong way of life in which all parties have acquiesced, and for which everybody must, to some extent, bear the blame.

  Dorothy L. Sayers

  War, Party, Thinking

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• [On Marilyn Monroe:] I think my response to her death was the common one: it came to me with the impact of a personal deprivation but I also felt it as I might a catastrophe in history or in nature; there was less in life, there was less of life, because she had ceased to exist. In her loss life itself had been injured.

  Diana Trilling

  Death, Loss, Thinking

  Diana Trilling (1964). “Claremont essays”

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• The nature of catastrophe is, after all, reasonably unvarying in the way it ruins, destroys, wounds and devastates. But if something can be learned from the event - not least something as profound as the theory of plate tectonics - then it somehow puts the ruination into a much more positive light.

  Simon Winchester

  Light, Profound, Events

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• A clever man reaps some benefit from the worst catastrophe, and a fool can turn even good luck to his disadvantage.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Clever, Good Luck, Men

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• 100,000,000 Guinea Pigs sparked a rising wave of consumer indignation. But...it takes a major catastrophe to carry legal and enforcement action over the hump of lethargy and inaction....Today, nearly forty years later, the situation is worse, not better.

  John Grant Fuller

  Dark, Years, Pigs

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• The Fed was largely responsible for converting what might have been a garden-variety recession, although perhaps a fairly severe one, into a major catastrophe. Instead of using its powers to offset the depression, it presided over a decline in the quantity of money by one-third from 1929 to 1933 ... Far from the depression being a failure of the free-enterprise system, it was a tragic failure of government.

  Milton Friedman

  Garden, Government, Investing

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• For years I've wanted to live according to everyone else's morals. I've forced myself to live like everyone else, to look like everyone else. I said what was necessary to join together, even when I felt separate. And after all of this, catastrophe came. Now I wander amid the debris, I am lawless, torn to pieces, alone and accepting to be so, resigned to my singularity and to my infirmities. And I must rebuild a truth-after having lived all my life in a sort of lie.

  Albert Camus

  Inspirational, Lying, Years

  Albert Camus (2008). “Notebooks, 1951-1959”, Ivan R Dee

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