Catastrophe Quotes - Page 4

• Yes, I did support the Soviet Union, and I think the disappearance of the Soviet Union is the biggest catastrophe of my life.

  George Galloway

  Thinking, Support, Unions

  "Saddam and me". Interview with Simon Hattenstone, www.theguardian.com. September 16, 2002.

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• This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceived a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. This storm irresistably propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. The storm is what we call progress.

  Walter Benjamin

  Angel, Past, Wings

  "Theses on the Philosophy of History". Book by Walter Benjamin, 1955.

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• Mankind will someday realize that we are actually in contact with the dead and with the other world, whatever it is; right now we could predict, if we only exerted enough mental will, what is going to happen within the next hundred years and be able to take steps to avoid all kinds of catastrophes. When a man dies he undergoes a mutation in his brain that we know nothing about now but which will be very clear someday if scientists get on the ball. The bastards right now are only interested in seeing if they can blow up the world.

  Jack Kerouac

  Men, Blow, Years

  Jack Kerouac (1995). “The Portable Jack Kerouac”, Viking Adult

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• I saw clearly how those who saved the state so heroically and courageously in the War of Independence would be capable of bringing a catastrophe upon it if they are given the chance in normal times.

  Moshe Sharett

  War, Independence, Would Be

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• Many people believe the whole catastrophe is the oil we spill, but that gets diluted and eventually disarmed over time. In fact, the oil we don't spill, the oil we collect, refine and use, produces CO2 and other gases that don't get diluted.

  Carl Safina

  Believe, Science, Oil

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• The catastrophe now threatening us is unprecedented - and we often confuse the unprecedented with the improbable.

  Al Gore

  Threatening Us, Climate, Improbable

  Nobel Peace Prize Lecture, delivered 10 December 2007, Oslo, Norway

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• The future is our responsibility, but change will not take place until the majority loose confidence in their dictator’s and elected officials’ ability to solve problems.  It will likely take an economic catastrophe resulting in enormous human suffering to bring about true social change.

  Jacque Fresco

  Responsibility, Suffering, Majority

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• The best newspapermen I know are those most thrilled by the daily pump of city room excitements; they long fondly for a good murder; they pray that assassinations, wars, catastrophes break on their editions.

  Pete Hamill

  War, Cities, Long

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• What degree of proof about the human catastrophe from global climate change do we need, before we are motivated to act to prevent it?

  Eric Chivian

  Climate, Degrees, Needs

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• The world can, in effect, get along without natural resources, so exhaustion is just an event, not a catastrophe.

  Robert Solow

  Events, World, Natural

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• I would be very happy to see 3.5 billion humans wiped out from the face of the earth within the next 150 or 200 years and I am quite prepared to go myself with this majority... let us all look forward to the day when the catastrophe strikes us down!

  John Aspinall

  Years, Majority, Would Be

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• Bopha, Sandy, floods in Pakistan, droughts in China… How many reports from the likes of the World Bank, NASA and the International Energy Agency will it take? How many preventable catastrophes until our leaders realize that climate change will not be solved by nice speeches and empty promises? Countries like Canada and the U.S. have promised to reduce their greenhouse gas pollution and provide adequate financial support for developing countries, they have so far failed on both counts.

  Steven Guilbeault

  Country, Nice, Agency

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• Any one who studies the state of things which preceded the French Revolution will see that that tremendous catastrophe came about from so excessive a regulation of men's actions in all their details, and such an enormous drafting away of the products of their actions to maintain the regulating organization, that life was fast becoming impracticable. And if we ask what then made, and now makes, this error possible, we find it to be the political superstition that governmental power is subject to no restraints.

  Herbert Spencer

  Life, Men, Errors

  "The Man versus the State: Great Essays".

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• We live in our language like blind men walking on the edge of an abyss. This language is laden with future catastrophes. The day will come when it will turn against those who speak it.

  Gershom Scholem

  Men, Language, Speak

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• With the situation as gray as it could be, no one was more conspicuous in his calm presence of mind than Washington. They must be "cool but determined" he had told the men before the battle, when spirits were high. Now, in the face of catastrophe, he was demonstrating what he meant by his own example. Whatever anger or torment or despair he felt, he kept to himself.

  David McCullough

  Men, Presence Of Mind, Despair

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• The problem of environmental children's health is very urgent in Russia. Environmental situation now is the main factor, which determines young generation's health... the volume of pollutant emissions in atmosphere and water grew and scale of ecological man-caused catastrophes increased. More than half of Russian territories, where 60-70 percent of the of population lives, have unsafe ecological situation.

  Maria Cherkasova

  Children, Men, Russia

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• The recent past always presents itself as if destroyed by catastrophes.

  Theodor Adorno

  Past, Ifs, Destroyed

  Theodor W. Adorno, E. F. N. Jephcott (2005). “Minima Moralia: Reflections on a Damaged Life”, p.49, Verso

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• Cannot the nation that has absorbed ten million foreigners into its political life without catastrophe absorb ten million Negro Americans into that same political life at less cost than their unjust and illegal exclusion will involve?

  W. E. B. Du Bois

  Justice, Diversity, Political

  W.E.B. Du Bois, Bob Blaisdell (2013). “W. E. B. Du Bois: Selections from His Writings”, p.66, Courier Corporation

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• In the Atlantean period there were many energies being used and information and knowledge being used which were, for particular reasons of safety, withdrawn, shall we say, to prevent complete catastrophe, to prevent total destruction of your planet.

  David Icke

  Safety, Energy, Information

  David Icke (1999). “The Robots' Rebellion – The Story of Spiritual Renaissance: David Icke’s History of the New World Order”, p.27, Gill & Macmillan Ltd

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• I think psychology and self-reflection is one of the major catastrophes of the twentieth century.

  Werner Herzog

  Thinking, Reflection, Self

  "Mad German Auteur, Now in 3-D!". Interview with Chris Heath, www.gq.com. April 29, 2011.

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• Now financial liberalization is just a catastrophe waiting to happen, and there are very well understood reasons for that.

  Noam Chomsky

  Waiting, Financial, Reason

  "My Interview With Noam Chomsky on the Economy". Interview with Ben Cohen, www.huffingtonpost.com. December 4, 2008.

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• There are two problems for our species' survival - nuclear war and environmental catastrophe - and we're hurtling towards them. Knowingly.

  Noam Chomsky

  War, Two, Survival

  "The NS Interview: Noam Chomsky". Interview with Alyssa Mcdonald, www.newstatesman.com. September 13, 2010.

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• Whenever there is a catastrophe, some religious people inevitably ask, 'Why didn't God do something? Where was God when all those people died?'

  Tony Campolo

  Religious, People, Died

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• Certainly I'm still mining my experiences as a journalist. I think it's no coincidence that all three of my novels basically are about how people act in a time of catastrophe. Do they go to their best self or their worst self?

  Geraldine Brooks

  Thinking, Self, People

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• One man's death: that is a catastrophe. A hundred thousand dead: that is a statistic

  Kurt Tucholsky

  Men, Hundred, Thousand

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