Catastrophe Quotes - Page 13

• Marcuse wrote: "Perhaps an accident may alter the situation, but unless the recognition of what is being done and what is being prevented subverts the consciousness and the behavior of man, not even a catastrophe will bring about the change.".

  Daniel Pinchbeck

  Freedom, Men, Done

  Daniel Pinchbeck (2012). “The 2012 Collection”, p.66, Penguin

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• Ensnared in his starvation, Chaplin-man is always just below political awareness. A strike is a catastrophe for him because it threatens a man truly blinded by his hunger; this man achieves an awareness of the working-class condition only when the poor man and the proletarian coincide under the gaze (and the blows) of the police.

  Roland Barthes

  Blow, Men, Class

  Roland Barthes (1973). “Mythologies”

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• Today's coastal development along with hurricane amnesia places modern man on a collision course with catastrophe if the lessons of history are ignored.

  Max Mayfield

  Men, Hurricanes, Lessons

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• The Battle of Waterloo is a work of art with tension and drama with its unceasing change from hope to fear and back again, changewhich suddenly dissolves into a moment of extreme catastrophe, a model tragedy because the fate of Europe was determined within this individual fate.

  Stefan Zweig

  Art, Drama, Fate

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• Without collective awakening the catastrophe will come. I think people in the mass media, journalists, film makers and others, you can contribute to the collective awakening if you are awake and then your life will embody that awakening.

  Nhat Hanh

  Thinking, Media, People

  "The role of journalists and corporates in combating climate change" by Jo Confino, www.theguardian.com. August 26, 2010.

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• These days, everything is magnified very quickly by the media - the slightest slip can turn into a catastrophe.

  Valerie Trierweiler

  Media, These Days, Turns

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• Why is Netanyahu pushing war? Among several reasons, demonizing Iran reduces pressure on Israel to negotiate seriously with the Palestinians. Many Israelis prefer building Jewish settlements on Palestinians' land instead. Moreover, Israel's rulers oppose any development-such as an Iranian-U.S. detente-that could diminish Israel's U.S.-financed hegemony in the region. War with Iran would be a catastrophe all around. Netanyahu and his hawkish American allies-the same people who gave us the disastrous Iraq war and ISIS-must be repudiated.

  Sheldon Richman

  War, Isis, Iran

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• We have not done the things that are necessary to lower emissions because those things fundamentally conflict with deregulated capitalism. ... We are stuck because the actions that would give us the best chance of averting catastrophe - and would benefit the vast majority - are extremely threatening to an elite minority that has a stranglehold over our economy, our political process, and most of our major media outlets.

  Naomi Klein

  Media, Giving, Political

  "This Changes Everything". Book by Naomi Klein, 2014.

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• Pending catastrophe is not an easy notion to entertain, much less sustain. Americans, moreover, have a low tolerance for doom and gloom. We are the nation of optimism, after all. We elect leaders who promise hope and change. We are the shining city on a hill. But what happens when the lights go out?

  Kathleen Parker

  Money, Doom And Gloom, Light

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• Ill never forget Hurricane Katrina - the mix of a natural and a man-made catastrophe that resulted in the death of over 1,500 of our neighbors. Millions of folks were marked by the tragedy.

  Cedric Richmond

  Men, Tragedy, Hurricanes

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• Marrying any man is risky. Marrying a famous man is kissing catastrophe.

  John Colton

  Marriage, Kissing, Men

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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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• Ecology movements, futurism, feminism, urbanism, protest and disarmament, personal individuation cannot alone save the world from the catastrophe inherent in our very idea of the world. They require a cosmological vision that saves the phenomenon 'world' itself, a move in soul that goes beyond measures of expediency to the archetypal source of our world's continuing peril: the fateful neglect, the repression, of the anima mundi.

  James Hillman

  Moving, Ideas, Our World

  James Hillman (2006). “City and Soul: Uniform Edition”, Spring Publications

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• As the idea imparted by the term Cataclysm, Catastrophe, or Revolution, is extremely vague, and may comprehend any thing you choose to imagine, it answers for the time very well as an explanation; that is, it stops further inquiry. But it also has had the disadvantage of effectually stopping the advance of science, by involving it in obscurity and confusion.

  George Julius Poulett Scrope

  Science, Ideas, Imagination

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• The pace of consumption, waste and environmental change has so stretched the planet's capacity that our contemporary lifestyle, unsustainable as it is, can only precipitate catastrophes, such as those which even now periodically occur in different areas of the world ... we need to reflect on our accountability before those who will have to endure the dire consequences.

  Pope Francis

  Change, Accountability, Environmental

  Pope Francis (2016). “Care for Creation: A Call for Ecological Conversion”, p.33, Orbis Books

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• How would you describe the difference between modern war and modern industry-between say, bombing and strip mining, or between chemical warfare and chemical manufacturing? The difference seems to be only that in war the victimization of humans is directly intentional and in industry it is "accepted" as a "trade-off." Were the catastrophes of Love Canal, Bhopal, Chernobyl, and the Exxon Valdez episodes of war or of peace? They were in fact, peacetime acts of aggression, intentional to the extent that the risks were known and ignored.

  Wendell Berry

  War, Differences, Risk

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• While the rich reap most of the benefits of technological development, the poor bear an unequal burden of dealing with the consequences of the resulting increased pollution. The poor continue to live in greatest proximity to the sources of pollution, the infrastructure and machinery of industry. They work in the most polluted and physically dangerous workplaces. And these same individuals, living and working closest to the sources of environmental catastrophe, are also the ones most lacking decent health care.

  James H. Cone

  Technological Development, Environmental, Bears

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• Man has sought to take from the natural world not only that which is necessary for his stability and survival, but often seeks to satisfy his perceived and ultimately false psychological needs, such as his need for self-display, luxuries and the like. Twenty percent of humanity consumes eighty percent of the world's wealth and is accountable for an equal percentage of the world's ecological catastrophes.

  Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople

  Men, Self, Luxury

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• Rather than saying 'I hate mess', it might draw more compassion to say, 'mess terrifies me as a harbinger of catastrophe'.

  Alain de Botton

  Hate, Compassion, Might

  Twitter post from Feb 24, 2013

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• As far as being a Republican is concerned, I come from a place, New York City, which is virtually, I mean, it is almost exclusively Democrat. And I have really started to see some of the negatives - as an example, and I have a lot of liking for this man, but the last number of months of his brother's administration were a catastrophe. And unfortunately, those few months gave us President Obama. And you can't be happy about that.

  Donald Trump

  Brother, New York, Mean

  Source: www.cbsnews.com

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• I think it's so much fun to create a space. As the world has gotten more and more hectic - with these horrible catastrophes [happening] - people are going out less, ordering in, [having guests over]. People love to be in their homes.

  Aerin Lauder

  Fun, Home, Thinking

  Interview with Michael Kors, aspenpeak-magazine.com. May 22, 2013.

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