Catastrophe Quotes - Page 12

• Life is atrocious, we know. But precisely because I expect little of the human condition, man's periods of felicity, his partial progress, his efforts to begin over again and continue, all seem to me like so many prodigies which nearly compensate for the monstrous mass of ills and defeats, of indifference and error. Catastrophe and ruin will come; disorder will triumph, but order will too, from time to time.

  Marguerite Yourcenar

  Loss, Men, Order

  Marguerite Yourcenar (1954). “Memoirs of Hadrian”

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• In our grandparents' generation news of an earthquake in Nepal would reach around the world some days later. In our parents' day the nightly news communicated the catastrophe. Now it's a matter of minutes. We've barely processed one crisis, and then we hear of another.

  Max Lucado

  World, Crisis

  Source: www.biblegateway.com

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• The environmental catastrophes we're presently seeing are considered "normal" though they're horrific. Fracking has made drinking water flammable, families are dying from planned lead poisoning in Flint, Michigan, mountaintop removal is killing families throughout Appalachia, and oil/mining companies continue to denigrate Native American and indigenous rights throughout the world (see North Dakota Pipeline presently). This is horrific - and yet we somehow consider it normal.

  Alexander Weinstein

  Drinking, Native American, Oil

  Source: www.raintaxi.com

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• I think the Israelis are beginning to realize more that they are moving toward a one-state solution, which would be a catastrophe for Israel.

  Jimmy Carter

  Moving, Thinking, Israel

  "Carter is upbeat about peace talks in Mideast WORDS OF WISDOM The former president offers encouragement to new U.S. envoy - and the rest of us. Q&A". Interview with Bill Lambrecht, www.stltoday.com. February 1, 2009.

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• We have found ways to capture, kill and market ocean wildlife on an unprecedented scale. It's an absolute catastrophe.

  Sylvia Earle

  Ocean, Way, Wildlife

  Source: www.spiegel.de

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• The only concern which I have today is that we have a policy, a foreign policy, which enables us to avoid a catastrophe; which, if one understands it properly, is indescribable.

  Erich Fromm

  Today, Foreign Policy, Concern

  Source: www.hrc.utexas.edu

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• When I was touring with my Vladimir Putin biography, which was published all over the world, people would ask me, How come you're still there, why haven't you left? I would say, I'm staying, it's my home. He can leave! It felt very good to say that. But now - he wins. It's not natural for people in the opposition to leave. It's always a personal catastrophe. And yet he's gotten people out of the country. That's the most terrifying thing about the current situation, and for the future of the country.

  Masha Gessen

  Country, Home, Winning

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• Resurrecting American democracy is vital to averting climate catastrophe. We must first repeal the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling, which has flooded elections with billions of oily petrodollars from carbon tycoons.

  Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

  Democracy, Firsts, Climate

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• Our population is growing rapidly because of our good health policy. When I came into office, there were 14 million Ugandans, today there are 38 million, despite the catastrophe of AIDS, which we have also tackled. The Ugandans know and appreciate this, especially the elderly.

  Yoweri Museveni

  Elderly, Office, Appreciate

  Source: www.spiegel.de

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• Sometimes, the decisions have to be taken in minutes, even seconds, and there would be no time to make the right decision. We understood that this could have ended in catastrophe.

  Mikhail Gorbachev

  Taken, Decision, Would Be

  Interview with Amitabh Pal, www.sharedhost.progressive.org. November 12, 2003.

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• The communications revolution has given millions of people both a wider and more detailed understanding of the world. Because of technology, ordinary citizens enjoy access to information that formerly was available only to elites and nation-states. One consequence of this change is that citizens have become acutely conscious of environmental destruction, entrenched poverty, health catastrophes, human rights abuses, failing education systems, and escalating violence. Another consequence is that people possess powerful communication tools to coordinate efforts to attack those problems.

  David Bornstein

  Education, Powerful, Communication

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• It [making tron: Legacy movie] was everything. I got pulled into a different country, in a different language, and a different society. In a movie, it's a completely different feel. In car design you know you have one year, and you have to go step by step. This is an organized catastrophe.

  Daniel Simon

  Country, Years, Car

  Source: www.tribute.ca

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• Look, look, Jeb [Bush] said we were safe with my brother. We were safe. Well, the World Trade Center just fell down! Now, am I trying to blame him? I'm not blaming anybody. But the World Trade Center came down. So when he said, we were safe, that's not safe. We lost 3,000 people, it was one of the greatest - probably the greatest catastrophe ever in this country if you think about it, right?

  Donald Trump

  Country, Brother, Thinking

  Source: www.realclearpolitics.com

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• We have come so far. It's become a real bipartisan cause, which I'm very happy to see. And in the case of America, and it's - certainly, without America, we'd be facing catastrophe.

  Elton John

  Real, America, Causes

  "Elton John on AIDS: Compassion is Part of the Cure". "PBS Newshour", www.pbs.org. July 24, 2012.

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• The establishment of the Republican Party, which I've been watching all my life. They always seem to win. I mean, there was the exception, of course, with Goldwater back in '64, which turned out to be a catastrophe. But it always seems that the Mitt Romneys and the East Coast types always end up winning the fights.

  Chris Matthews

  Party, Mean, Fighting

  Source: www.msnbc.com

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• In China, it was always said that a double-digit rate of growth would be dangerous. Now, the country has a growth rate of 6.9 percent and suddenly that is supposed to be a catastrophe for the global economy.

  Wolfgang Schauble

  Country, Growth, Would Be

  Source: www.spiegel.de

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• To you, the people of Flint, I say, as I have before, I am sorry and I will fix it. No citizen of this great state should endure this kind of catastrophe. Government failed you. Federal, state and local leaders by breaking the trust you placed in us.

  Rick Snyder

  Sorry, Government, People

  Source: www.msnbc.com

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• Refugees have been displaced by war or natural disaster or political catastrophes, and they are much more threatening because they are reminders to people that all the comforts that we take for granted can be taken away in just a moment.

  Nguyen Viet Thang

  War, Taken, People

  "Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author Viet Thanh Nguyen 'Never Stopped Being a Refugee'". Interview with Kanyakrit Vongkiatkajorn, www.motherjones.com. January/February 2017.

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• You will vote for first choice candidate whether or not you think he'll win. But I'm saying you may find yourself for a candidate, a middling candidate, a candidate you don't think very well of, really. And you really don't like to avoid a catastrophe. Well, maybe that's a good thing. You can argue that back and forth.

  Kenneth Arrow

  Thinking, Winning, Choices

  Source: electology.org

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• Now we have a whole series of problems - energy, environment, proliferation - which go beyond the nation. And we also know that a conflict between major powers would be a catastrophe for which there is no compensation in anything you can gain.

  Henry A. Kissinger

  Gains, Energy, Would Be

  Source: www.nytimes.com

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• Nobody can deny that we have a lot of wars going on; brothers killing brothers; we have a lot of diseases and catastrophes. But on the other hand, we have a majority of individuals, both men and women, who are struggling on a daily basis in a heroic way and the outcome of whose struggle leaves no doubt. This is a struggle whose purpose is not to seize power, and I think the strength of our entire society rests on that struggle.

  Ousmane Sembene

  Brother, War, Struggle

  Source: www.theguardian.com

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• We always seem to be surprised by events, especially by catastrophes, but also by wonderful events. Look at 1990, the year that the Soviet Union collapsed and apartheid in South Africa collapsed and the Berlin Wall came down. I don't know anyone who foresaw those events. It seems to me that as a species we are constantly trying to adapt ourselves to the unexpected. In the meantime, we talk as if we are in control, and we're not. This seems to me to be the truth about the twentieth century.

  Doris Lessing

  Wall, Trying, Unexpected

  Source: progressive.org

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• The 20th century saw far greater catastrophes than September 11th, as bad as it was, and they didn't render literature or art or music irrelevant. In fact, I think that literature and art help us to understand - sometimes they provide narratives and metaphors for understanding history, for understanding recent catastrophes.

  Jay McInerney

  Art, Thinking, Understanding

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• Today, the danger of some sort of a nuclear catastrophe is greater than it was during the Cold War, and most people are blissfully unaware of this danger.

  Noam Chomsky

  War, People, Today

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• Nobody's interests are served by what's happening in Syria today. It's a catastrophe. It's the worst human catastrophe since World War II. And, as I said just now, it represents a failure of the entire international community to come to grips with solving it.

  John F. Kerry

  War, Community, World

  Source: www.pbs.org

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