Tragic Quotes - Page 23

• A senseless tragedy remains forever tragic, but it is up to us whether it remains forever senseless.

  Robert Breault

  Perspective, Forever, Tragedy

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• There can be no doubt that this possessive clinging to things is one of the most harmful habits in the [christian] life. Because it is so natural, it is rarely recognized for the evil that it is. But its outworkings are tragic.

  Aiden Wilson Tozer

  Christian, Evil, Doubt

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• A tragic writer does not have to believe in God, but he must believe in man.

  Joseph Wood Krutch

  Believe, Men, Tragedy

  1929 The Modern Temper,'The Tragic Fallacy'.

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• We scientists, whose tragic destination has been to help in making the methods of annihilation more gruesome and more effective, must consider it our solemn and transcendent duty to do all in our power in preventing these weapons from being used for the brutal purpose for which they were invented.

  Albert Einstein

  Science, Purpose, Weapons

  Albert Einstein (2016). “The Albert Einstein Collection: Essays in Humanism, The Theory of Relativity, and The World As I See It”, p.25, Open Road Media

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• I (God) will leave man to make the fateful guess, Will leave him torn between the no and yes, Leave him unresting till he rests in me, Drawn upward by the choice that makes him free, Leave him in tragic loneliness to choose, With all in life to win or all to lose.

  Edwin Markham

  Loneliness, Winning, Men

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• One cannot balance tragedy in the scales Unless one weighs it with the tragic heart.

  Stephen Vincent Benet

  Heart, Balance, Tragedy

  1928 'John Brown's Body'.

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• If American politics does not look to you like a joke, a tragic dance; if you have enough blindness left in you, on any plea, on any excuse, to vote for the Democratic Party or the Republican Party (for at present machine and party are one), or for any candidate who does not stand for a new era, -- then you yourself pass into the slide of the magic-lantern; you are an exhibit, a quaint product, a curiosity of the American soil. You are part of the problem.

  John Jay Chapman

  Party, Curiosity, Magic

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• World history is tragic.

  Friedrich Durrenmatt

  World, World History

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• Auschwitz stands as a tragic reminder of the terrible potential man has for violence and inhumanity.

  Billy Graham

  Men, Violence, Reminders

  "Billy Graham, on Satan and Jonestown" by Edwin Clark, www.nytimes.com. December 05, 1978.

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• The tragic solemnity of existence strikes us with terrible force on that morning when we wake to find the mournful words "too late" ringing in our ears.

  Henri Frederic Amiel

  Morning, Too Late, Ears

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• The difference between farce and humour in literature is, I suppose, that farce strums louder and louder on one string, while humour varies its note, changes its key, grows and spreads and deepens until it may indeed reach tragic depths.

  V. S. Pritchett

  Funny, Humor, Keys

  V.S. Pritchett (2011). “In My Good Books”, p.42, A&C Black

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• You see tragedy requires persons of heroic stature. It works on the principle of people being more than humansuper-humanand also being only too human. But there just aren't many great figures around now, so the tragic mechanisms can't work.

  Martin Amis

  People, Tragedy, Principles

  1995 Explaining why only comedy can reflect contemporary reality. Quoted in an interview in The Scotsman, 7 Apr.

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• There's something tragic in the fate of almost every person--it's just that the tragic is often concealed from a person by the banal surface of life.... A woman will complain of indigestion and not even know that what she means is that her whole life has been shattered.

  Ivan Turgenev

  Life, Mean, Fate

  Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev (1994). “Essential Turgenev”, p.485, Northwestern University Press

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• Jealousy ought to be tragic, to save it from being ridiculous.

  Letitia Elizabeth Landon

  Jealousy, Ridiculous, Ought

  Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1831). “Romance and Reality”, p.160

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• Behind us, as we go, all things assume pleasing forms, as clouds do far off. Not only things familiar and stale, but even the tragic and terrible, are comely, as they take their place in the pictures of memory.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Memories, Clouds, Assuming

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “The Selected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.48, Graphic Arts Books

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• When a man or a woman holds fast to youth, even if successfully, there is something of the pitiful and the tragic involved. It is the everlasting struggle of the soul to retain the joy of earth, whose fleeing distinguishes it from heaven, and whose retention is not accomplished without an inner knowledge of its futility.

  Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman

  Struggle, Men, Joy

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• People evolve and grow, and life is fascinating and fun and tragic.

  Fred Durst

  Fun, People, Life Is

  "Fred Durst Digs Wes Borland's New Band But Still Wants To Get Back To Bizkit" by Chris Harris, www.mtv.com. April 26, 2007.

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• I think that there is a tragic misfit at the core of me, and I've just done a lot of work on myself. I love a good self-help book; I've read a ton of them. I love self-help seminars and therapy and all that.

  Jenna Fischer

  Book, Thinking, Self

  Interview with Sam Adams, www.avclub.com. July 22, 2011.

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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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• I don't know anyone who was never a geek, really, when they look at their own lives. I think that from the outside looking in, you think that you weren't necessarily a tragic geek, but yes, you did lean in that direction.

  Jennifer Garner

  Thinking, Looks, Geek

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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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• Among all the tragic consequences of depression and war, this suppression of personal self-expression through one's life work is among the most poignant.

  Henry Wriston

  Life, War, Self

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• I tried once in my life to write a novel. I had written something like 80 pages of it when my laptop got stolen. When I told people this, they acted as if something tragic had happened, but I kind of felt relieved, grateful to the thief who saved me from another year of something that felt more like homework than fun.

  Etgar Keret

  Fun, Grateful, Writing

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• I respond very well to well-written material and women who have had an effect on society, something tragic or monumental has happened to them.

  Samantha Morton

  Wells, Materials, Happened

  "Not afraid of the dark" by Chrissy Iley, www.theguardian.com. September 25, 2007.

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• I've seen enough successful writers who no longer seem to care when they are recognized with an award, and I think that's just tragic.

  Louise Penny

  Successful, Thinking, Awards

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