Calamity Quotes - Page 6

• Children seldom have a proper sense of their own tragedy, discounting and keeping hidden the true horrors of their short lives, humbly imagining real calamity to be some prestigious drama of the grown-up world.

  Shirley Hazzard

  Inspirational, Children, Real

  Shirley Hazzard (2003). “The Bay of Noon: A Novel”, p.13, Macmillan

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• marriage was a calamity, but it was not an occupation.

  Marthe Bibesco

  Occupation

  Marthe Bibesco (1928). “Catherine-Paris”

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• Socrates pointed out that we carry on as though death were the greatest of all calamities-yet, for all we know, it might be the greatest of all blessings. What are we going to call good? What are we going to call bad? Good or bad is never our choice, or even the issue.

  Steve Hagen

  Blessing, Issues, Choices

  Steve Hagen (2011). “Buddhism Plain and Simple”, p.47, Tuttle Publishing

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• Times of calamity and distress have always been producers of the greatest men. The hardest steel is produced from the hottest fire; the brightest star shreds the darkest night.

  Andy Andrews

  Motivational, Stars, Men

  Andy Andrews (2002). “The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success”, Thomas Nelson Incorporated

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• The fact is, out of all the possible reasons for going bankrupt, only three account for nearly 90 percent of bankruptcy: a job loss, a medical problem, or a divorce. And the fact is that those are exactly the kind of calamities that the bankruptcy courts were designed to help people through.

  Amelia Warren Tyagi

  Jobs, Divorce, Loss

  Source: www.motherjones.com

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• A bad short story or novel or poem leaves one comparatively calm because it does not exist, unless it gets a fake prestige throughbeing mistaken for good work. It is essentially negative, it is something that has not come through. But over bad criticism one has a sense of real calamity.

  Rebecca West

  Real, Fake, Criticism

  Rebecca West (2010). “The Strange Necessity: Essays and Reviews”, p.161, Open Road Media

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• We're an amazingly adaptive and resilient species. Once we put our mind to global warming, I have no doubt we'll figure a way through here that won't lead to utter calamity.

  Andrew Revkin

  Doubt, Mind, Way

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• By an increase in anger, warfare arises. By an increase of greed, famine arises. By an increase of stupidity, pestilence arises. Because these three calamities occur, the people's earthly desires grow all the more intense, and their false views thrive and multiply.

  Nichiren

  Views, People, Stupidity

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• On all the walls, wherever walls exist, I will inscribe this eternal indictment of Christianity--I have letters to make even blindmen see.... I call Christianity the single great curse, the single great innermost depravity, the single great instinct of revenge, for which no means is poisonous, secretive, subterranean, small enough--I call it mankind's single immortal blemish.... And we reckon time from the dies nefastus with which this calamity arose--following Christianity's first day!--Why not following its last day, instead?--Following today?--Transvaluation of all values!

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Time, Wall, Revenge

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• If the foundation is firm the building can withstand calamities. The practice of yoga is the foundation so that the self is not shaken under any circumstances.

  B.K.S. Iyengar

  Yoga, Practice, Self

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• The humanity and the humility, which are very different than the biological species homo sapiens. Humanity versus homo sapiens - very different things. We are biological creatures, we are animals, no doubt, but when you talk about "humando," you're talking about that particular kind of animals who are aware of their impending extinction, who have the capacity to be sensitive to catastrophe and disaster and calamity and profound crisis.

  Cornel West

  Humility, Animal, Talking

  Source: blogs.ssrc.org

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• Woman is a necessary evil, a natural temptation, a desirable calamity, a domestic peril, a deadly fascination, and a painted ill.

  Saint John Chrysostom

  Evil, Scary, Temptation

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• Whenever an important event, a revolution, or a calamity turns to the profit of the church, such is always signalised as the Finger of God.

  Voltaire

  Important Events, Atheism, Church

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• Single misfortunes never come alone, and the greatest of all national calamities is generally followed by one greater.

  Boyle Roche

  Greater, Me Alone, Misfortunes

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• War is to be ranked among the most dreadful calamities which fall on a guilty world; and, what deserves consideration, it tends to multiply and perpetuate itself without end. It feeds and grows on the blood which it sheds. The passions, from which it springs, gain strength and fury from indulgence.

  William Ellery Channing

  Spring, War, Fall

  William Ellery CHANNING (1816). “A Sermon on War: delivered before the Convention of Congregational Ministers of Massachusetts, May 30, 1816, etc”, p.12

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• ... it isn't in my nature to cry for very long. It is one of the blessings of my life that things that are past -- are past. Yesterday's calamities are merely today's challenge. I can get down -- but I can't stay there.

  Louella Parsons

  Blessing, Past, Yesterday

  Louella Oettinger Parsons (1944). “The Gay Illiterate”

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• It is not every calamity that is a curse, and early adversity is often a blessing. Perhaps Madame de Maintenon would never have mounted a throne had not her cradle been rocked in a prison. Surmounted obstacles not only teach, but hearten us in our future struggles; for virtue must be learnt, though, unfortunately, some of the vices come as it were by inspiration.

  James Sharp

  Struggle, Inspiration, Adversity

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• But once a fool always a fool, and the greater the power in his hands the more disastrous is likely to be the use he makes of it. The heaviest calamity in English history, the breach with America, might never have occurred if George the Third had not been an honest dullard.

  James G. Frazer

  Hands, English History, America

  "The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion". Book by James G. Frazer, 1890.

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• Every calamity is to be overcome by endurance.

  Virgil

  Determination, Philosophical, Endurance

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• The Athenians regularly maintained a number of degraded and useless beings at the public expense; and when any calamity, such as plague, drought, or famine, befell the city, they sacrificed two of these outcast scapegoats.

  James G. Frazer

  Cities, Two, Numbers

  "The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion". Book by James G. Frazer, 1890.

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• A man who has been assiduous in acquiring the fruits of love will not cease loving even if he suffers a thousand calamities. Let Stephen, the disciple of Christ, and others like him persuade you of the truth of this (cf. Acts 7:60). Our Lord Himself prayed for His murderers and asked the Father to forgive them because they did not know what they were doing (cf. Luke 23:34).

  Maximus the Confessor

  Forgiveness, Father, Men

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• The stabbing horror of life is not contained in calamities and disasters, because these things wake one up and one gets very familiar and intimate with them and finally they become tame again. No, it is more like being in a hotel room in Hoboken let us say, and just enough money in one's pocket for another meal.

  Henry Miller

  Life, Pockets, Meals

  Henry Miller (1966). “Tropic of Capricorn”

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• The real effect of the WTC calamity has been depressed spirits, anxiety, and uncertainty among publishers, and of course those emotions are not restricted to publishers.

  Richard Curtis

  Depressing, Real, Anxiety

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• It is my opinion that the Christian conception of God current in these middle years of the twentieth century is so decadent as to be utterly beneath the dignity of the Most High God and
  actually to constitute for professed believers something amounting to a moral calamity.

  Aiden Wilson Tozer

  Christian, Years, Opinion

  Aiden Wilson Tozer (1965). “The Knowledge of the Holy”, p.5, Fig

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• Hatred is internal calamity that destroys the keeper

  Aftab Alam

  Hatred, Keepers, Internals

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