Tragic Quotes - Page 19

• The West has funded the war against itself by buying Arab oil. It is as simple and as tragic as that.

  Phyllis Chesler

  War, Simple, Oil

  Phyllis Chesler (2013). “An American Bride in Kabul: A Memoir”, p.188, Macmillan

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• The temper of mind that sees tragedy in life has not for its opposite the temper that sees joy. The opposite pole to the tragic view of life is the sordid view.

  Edith Hamilton

  Views, Opposites, Perspective

  Edith Hamilton (1987). “The Greek way ; The Roman way”, Random House Value Pub

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• I think it would be a tragic statement of the universe if Java was the last language that swept through.

  James Gosling

  Thinking, Would Be, Java

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• Are there many situations more sublimely tragic than the struggle of the soul with the demand to renounce a work which has been all the significance of its life--a significance which is to vanish as the waters which come and go where no man has need of them?

  George Eliot

  Work, Struggle, Men

  George Eliot (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)”, p.2423, Delphi Classics

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• What hasty preparations we make for our future. Think of it: it seems almost tragic, the things we're sure we ought to bring along. We pack too heavy with what we hope we'll use, and too light of what we must. We thus go forth misladen, ill equipped for the dawn.

  Chang-Rae Lee

  Thinking, Light, Preparation

  Chang-rae Lee (2014). “On Such a Full Sea: A Novel”, p.212, Penguin

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• In some mysterious way, once one has gained an insight into human nature, that insight grows from day to day, and he to whom it has given to experience vicariously even one single form of earthly suffering acquires, by reason of this tragic lesson, an understanding of all its forms, even those most foreign to him, and apparently abnormal.

  Stefan Zweig

  Understanding, Suffering, Abnormal

  "Beware of Pity". Book by Stefan Zweig, 1939.

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• It is tragic that the Fuehrer should have the whole nation behind him with the single exception of the Army generals. In my opinion it is only by action that they can now atone for their faults of lack of character and discipline.

  Alfred Jodl

  Character, Army, Should Have

  "The Trial of the Germans". Book by Eugene Davidson, p. 347 (August 10, 1938), 1997.

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• Western movies always seemed to show Indian women washing clothes at the creek and men with a tomahawk or spear in their hands, adorned with lots of feathers. That image has stayed in some people's minds. Many think we're either visionaries, `noble savages,' squaw drudges or tragic alcoholics. We're very rarely depicted as real people who have greater tenacity in terms of trying to hang on to our culture and values system than most people.

  Wilma Mankiller

  Real, Men, Thinking

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• Any evaluation which implies rightness or wrongness is a tragic, suicidal expression of an unmet need. Tragic, first because it decreases our likelihood of getting our need met! Even if we think it. And secondly, because it increases the likelihood of violence. That's why I'm suggesting any evaluation which implies rightness or wrongness is a tragic, suicidal expression of an unmet need. Say the need! Learn a need-consciousness.

  Marshall B. Rosenberg

  Communication, Suicidal, Thinking

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• Job was the greatest of all the children of the east, and his afflictions were well-nigh more than he could bear; but even if we imagined them wearing him to death, that would not make his story tragic.

  Andrew Coyle Bradley

  Jobs, Children, East

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• It seems so tragic to me that so many filmmakers are making movies up against this extra-ordinary revolution with one eye closed and two hands tied behind their backs.

  Peter Greenaway

  Eye, Hands, Two

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• I'm going to show you a technology today which takes insults and criticisms out of the airwaves. (Marshall puts on giraffe ears) With this technology, it will be impossible for you to hear criticisms, harsh remarks, or insults. All you can hear is what all people are ever saying, "please" and "thank you". What used to sound like criticism, judgment, or blame, you will see, are really tragic, suicidal expressions of "please".

  Marshall B. Rosenberg

  Communication, Suicidal, Technology

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• There are a lot of problems in the world, a lot of tragic things that have to be addressed, economic, medical, political, all kinds of things, but, to my way of thinking, they pale in comparison to the overall problem of the environmental deadline.

  Dean Stockwell

  Thinking, Political, Environmental

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• It is not... That some people do not know what to do with truth when it is offered to them, But the tragic fate is to reach, after patient search, a condition of mind-blindness, in which. The truth is not recognized, though it stares you in the face.

  William Osler

  Health, Fate, Medicine

  Sir William Osler (2001). “Osler's "a Way of Life" and Other Addresses, with Commentary and Annotations”, p.337, Duke University Press

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• Our children think our world will end. It's a tragic thing. Adults don't think that. They don't see that we are eating the planet. But we are. If you take all the biomass of vertebrates on the planet, 98% are men and their domestic animals. All the wild animals in the world make up only 2%.

  Yann Arthus-Bertrand

  Children, Animal, Men

  "Yann Arthus-Bertrand: Looking down on creation". Interview With Tim Adams, www.theguardian.com. March 19, 2011.

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• He's the best of us. The best of our best, the best that each of us will ever build or ever love. So pray for this Guardian of our growth and choose him well, for if he be not truly blessed, then our designs are surely frivolous and our future but a tragic waste of hope. Bless our best and adore for he doth bear our measure to the Cosmos.

  John Steakley

  Blessed, Design, Growth

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• You'll come back, because yours is an error of knowledge, not a moral failure, not an act of surrender to evil, but only the last act of being victim to your own virtue. We'll wait for you and when you come back, you will have discovered that there need never be any conflict among your desires, nor so tragic a clash of values as the one you've borne so well.

  Ayn Rand

  Knowledge, Errors, Evil

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• The most difficult task, phase-out over the next 20-25 years of coal use that does not capture CO₂, is Herculean, yet feasible when compared with the efforts that went into World War II. The stakes, for all life on the planet, surpass those of any previous crisis. The greatest danger is continued ignorance and denial, which could make tragic consequences unavoidable.

  James Hansen

  War, Ignorance, Years

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• For those who need a name, there's a gift basket of medical terms. All I know is cutting made me feel safe. It was proof. Thoughts and words, captured where I could see them and track them. The truth, stinging, on my skin, in a freakish shorthand. Tell me you're going to the doctor, and I'll want to cut worrisome on my arm. Say you've fallen in love and I buzz the outlines of tragic over my breast. I hadn't necessarily wanted to be cured.

  Gillian Flynn

  Cutting, Doctors, Names

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• The paradoxical and tragic situation of man is that his conscience is weakest when he needs it most.

  Erich Fromm

  Men, Needs, Situation

  Erich Fromm (2013). “Man for Himself: An Inquiry Into the Psychology of Ethics”, p.166, Open Road Media

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• The utter helplessness of a conquered people is perhaps the most tragic feature of a civil war or any other sort of war.

  Rebecca Latimer Felton

  War, Hippie, People

  Rebecca Latimer Felton (1919). “Country Life in Georgia in the Days of My Youth: Also Addresses Before Georgia Legislature Woman's Clubs, Women's Organizations and Other Noted Occasions”

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• Supporting a murderous political agenda with such an argument is tragic!

  Joseph Bayly

  Abortion, Political, Agendas

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• A tragic mistake that is often made is to assume that the will of God is bound to be something very dull and uninviting, if not positively unpleasant. Consciously or not some persons look upon God as a hard taskmaster, or a severe parent. . . . The truth is that the will of God for us always means greater freedom, greater self-expression, newer and brighter experience, wider opportunity of service to others-life more abundant.

  Emmet Fox

  God, Mistake, Mean

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• It is a tragic hour, that hour when we are finally driven to reckon with ourselves, when every avenue of mental distraction has been cut off and our own life and all its ineffaceable failures closes about us like the walls of that old torture chamber of the Inquisition.

  Willa Cather

  Wall, Failure, Cutting

  Willa Cather (2016). “The First Willa Cather MEGAPACK®: 50 Classic Short Works”, p.134, Wildside Press LLC

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• The profound mistake of Reverend Wright's sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It's that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country - a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old - is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past.

  Barack Obama

  Inspiring, Running, Country

  Barack Obama, (2008). “Change We Can Believe In”, p.237, Canongate Books

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