Calamity Quotes - Page 8

• It were no virtue to bear calamities if we did not feel them.

  Suzanne Curchod

  Bears, Virtue, Resignation

  4 Copy quote

• Riches are of little avail in many of the calamities to which mankind are liable.

  Miguel de Cervantes

  Littles, Riches, Liable

  Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Quixote de la Mancha (don, fict.name.) (1847). “The history of don Quixote de la Mancha. From the Span. To which is prefixed a sketch of the life and writings of the author. Select libr. ed”, p.73

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The whole trouble with the Republicans is their fear of an increase in income tax, especially on higher incomes. They speak of it almost like a national calamity. I really believe if it come to a vote whether to go to war with England, France and Germany combined, or raise the rate on incomes of over $100,000, they would vote war.

  Will Rogers

  War, Believe, France

  17 Copy quote

• If the Richter scale could measure human calamities, the loss of a child would register a ten.

  Letty Cottin Pogrebin

  Death, Children, Loss

  Letty Cottin Pogrebin (2013). “How to Be a Friend to a Friend Who's Sick”, p.120, PublicAffairs

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Man little knows what calamities are beyond his patience to bear till he tries them; as in ascending the heights of ambition, which look bright from below, every step we rise shows us some new and gloomy prospect of hidden disappointment; so in our descent from the summits of pleasure, though the vale of misery below may appear, at first, dark and gloomy, yet the busy mind, still attentive to its own amusement, finds, as we descend, something to flatter and to please. Still as we approach, the darkest objects appear to brighten, and the mortal eye becomes adapted to its gloomy situation.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Disappointment, Ambition, Eye

  Oliver Goldsmith (1854). “The Works of Oliver Goldsmith: Poetical works. Dramas. The vicar of Wakefield”, p.376

  19 Copy quote

  Show source

• I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved - the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!

  John Adams

  Grief, Faith Religion, Historical

  Letter to Thomas Jefferson, founders.archives.gov. September 03, 1816.

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• I can anticipate no greater calamity for the country than the dissolution of the Union. It would be an accumulation of all the evils we complain of, and I am willing to sacrifice everything but honor for its preservation.

  Robert E. Lee

  Country, War, Sacrifice

  Letter to his son, G. W. Custis Lee, January 23, 1861.

  23 Copy quote

  Show source

• Such exceptional suffering and calamity, then, affecting the hero, and-we must now add-generally extending far and wide beyond him, so as to make the whole scene a scene of woe, are an essential ingredient in tragedy and a chief source of the tragic emotions, and especially of pity. But the proportions of this ingredient, and the direction taken by tragic pity, will naturally vary greatly.

  A. C. Bradley

  Taken, Hero, Suffering

  9 Copy quote

• The calamities of tragedy do not simply happen, nor are they sent; they proceed mainly from actions, and those the actions of men.We see a number of human beings placed in certain circumstances; and we see, arising from the co-operation of their characters in these circumstances, certain actions. These actions beget others, and these others beget others again, until this series of inter-connected deeds leads by an apparently inevitable sequence to a catastrophe.

  A. C. Bradley

  Character, Men, Numbers

  A. C. Bradley (2016). “Shakespearean Tragedy”, p.13, A. C. Bradley

  25 Copy quote

  Show source

• Suffering is a privilege. It moves us toward thinking of essential things and shakes us out of complacency. Calamity cracks you open, moves you to change your ways.

  Pico Iyer

  Moving, Thinking, Suffering

  4 Copy quote

• That family glaze of common references, jokes, events, calamities-that sense of a family being like a kitchen midden: layer upon layer of the things daily life is made of. The edifice that lovers build is by comparison delicate and one-dimensional.

  Laurie Colwin

  Kitchen, Layers, Events

  4 Copy quote

• In this world, man is a target of death, an easy prey to calamities, here every morsel and every draught is liable to choke one, here one never receives a favour until he loses another instead, here every additional day in one's life is a day reduced from the total span of his existence, when death is the natural outcome of life, how can we expect immortality.

  Ali ibn Abi Talib

  Men, Target, World

  23 Copy quote

• He who faces no calamity gains no courage.

  Rudyard Kipling

  Gains, Faces

  22 Copy quote

• The trick at every turn was to endure the test of living for as long as possible. The odds of survival were punishingly slim, for the world was naught by a school of calamity and an endless burning furnace of tribulation. But those who survived the world shaped it--even as the world, simultaneously, shaped them.

  Elizabeth Gilbert

  School, Odds, Long

  Elizabeth Gilbert (2013). “The Signature of All Things”, p.443, A&C Black

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Secret griefs are more cruel than public calamities.

  Voltaire

  Grief, Secret

  Voltaire (2016). “Candide”, p.59, Xist Publishing

  18 Copy quote

  Show source

• Christianity, unlike any other religion in the world, begins with catastrophe and defeat. Sunshine religions and psychological inspirations collapse in calamity and wither in adversity. But the Life of the Founder of Christianity, having begun with the Cross, ends with the empty tomb and victory.

  Fulton J. Sheen

  Inspiration, Adversity, Sunshine

  Fulton J. Sheen (2008). “Life of Christ”, p.22, Image

  29 Copy quote

  Show source

• ...one can't avoid the storms and calamities of life, but one can at least find the right partner to face them with.

  Lisa Kleypas

  Storm, Faces, Partners

  Lisa Kleypas (2009). “Tempt Me at Twilight”, p.372, Macmillan

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Cookie had taken her daughter amber to school then walked the thirty-something feet to work earlier. Our business was on the second floor of Calamity's, my dad's bar, which sat right in front of our apartment building. The short commute was nice and rarely invloved rabid raccoons.

  Darynda Jones

  Daughter, Dad, Nice

  Darynda Jones (2015). “The Charley Davidson Series”, p.750, St. Martin's Press

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• We are all members of the same flawed species. Putting our moral vision into practice means imposing our will on others. The human lust for power and esteem, coupled with its vulnerability to self-deception and self-righteousness, makes that an invitation to a calamity, all the worse when the power is directed at a goal as quixotic as eradicating human self-interest.

  Steven Pinker

  Mean, Self, Practice

  24 Copy quote

• The suffering and calamity are, moreover, exceptional. They befall a conspicuous person. They are themselves of some striking kind. They are also, as a rule, unexpected, and contrasted with previous happiness or glory. A tale, for example, of a man slowly worn to death by disease, poverty, little cares, sordid vices, petty persecutions, however piteous or dreadful it might be, would not be tragic in the Shakespearean sense.

  A. C. Bradley

  Men, Suffering, Vices

  A. C. Bradley (2016). “Shakespearean Tragedy”, p.9, A. C. Bradley

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• The Maharashtra government is working out a package for the worst-affected villages of the state in the recent floods. But we know whenever such calamities occur; whatever we do is not enough...more has to be done.

  Sonia Gandhi

  Government, Work Out, Done

  11 Copy quote

• Scientists are also unnerved by the summer's implications for the future...proof that human activities are propelling a slide toward climate calamity...humans may have tipped the balance...a particularly harsh jolt to polar bears.

  Andrew Revkin

  Summer, Balance, May

  4 Copy quote

• A defeat in war is not the greatest of all evils; but when the defeat has been inflicted by enemies who are not worthy of you, then the calamity is doubled.

  Aeschines

  War, Evil, Enemy

  13 Copy quote

• There is no calamity greater than lavish desires. There is no greater guilt than discontent. And there is no greater disaster than greed.

  Laozi

  Money, Greed, Guilt

  21 Copy quote

• Circumstances may appear to wreck our lives and God's plans, but God is not helpless among the ruins. God's love is still working. He comes in and takes the calamity and uses it victoriously, working out His wonderful plan of love.

  Eric Liddell

  Optimistic, Love Is, Work Out

  292 Copy quote