Disaster Quotes - Page 18

• The pain of loss, moreover, however agonizing, however haunting in memory, quiets imperceptibly into acceptance as the currents of active living and of fresh emotions flow over it.

  Elizabeth Drew

  Pain, Memories, Acceptance

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• How can I no longer bear my weary doom? Alas! what have I gain'd for all I lost?

  Maria Gowen Brooks

  Loss, Gains, Bears

  Maria Gowen Brooks (1834). “Zóphiël: Or, The Bride of Seven”, p.140

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• In the absence of a natural disaster we are left again to our own uneasy devices.

  Joan Didion

  Loss, Absence, Natural

  Joan Didion (2013). “The White Album”, p.89, Zola Books

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• "Look here," I said, "people like to collect disasters."

  Agatha Christie

  Loss, People, Looks

  Agatha Christie (1992). “Endless Night”, HarperCollins

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• My mind shrank from the menace sweeping down on us, as children's do from belief in death and misfortune, vainly clinging to the fancy that great disasters only happen to other people.

  Sylvia Pankhurst

  Children, Loss, People

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• We call it "Nature"; only reluctantly admitting ourselves to be "Nature" too.

  Denise Levertov

  Loss, Admitting

  Denise Levertov (1997). “The Life Around Us: Selected Poems on Nature”, p.75, New Directions Publishing

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• So, in the physical world mankind are prone to seek an explanation of uncommon phenomena only, while the ordinary changes of nature, which are in themselves equally wonderful, are disregarded.

  Almira Hart Lincoln Phelps

  Loss, Ordinary, World

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• What is pretty in nature is confined to the thin skin of the globe upon which we huddle. Scratch that skin, and nature's daemonic ugliness will erupt.

  Camille Paglia

  Loss, Skins, Scratches

  Camille Paglia (2018). “Free Women, Free Men: Sex, Gender, Feminism”, p.31, Canongate Books

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• Nature lies, disheveled, pale, With her feverish lips apart,- Day by day the pulses fail, Nearer to her bounding heart.

  Goodale Sisters

  Lying, Heart, Loss

  Elaine Goodale Eastman, “Goldenrod”

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• The fears of what may come to pass, I cast them all away, Among the clover scented grass, Among the new-mown hay.

  Louise Imogen Guiney

  Loss, Hay, May

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• To us, from the beginning, Nature has been but a poor plastic thing, to be toyed with this way or that, as man happens to please his deity or not; to go to church or not; to say his prayers right or not; to travel on a Sunday or not.Was it possible for us in an instant to see Nature as she is-the flowing vestment of an unchanging reality?

  Olive Schreiner

  Prayer, Sunday, Loss

  Olive Schreiner (2013). “The Story of an African Farm”, p.130, Courier Corporation

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• This notion that man can, and should, have absolute dominion over the "chaotic" powers of nature and woman...is what ultimately lies behind man's famous "conquest of nature" - a conquest that is today puncturing holes in the earth's ozone layer, destroying our forests, polluting our air and water, and increasingly threatening the welfare, and even survival, of thousands of living species, including our own.

  Riane Eisler

  Lying, Loss, Men

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• For as long as human beings are forced to live in a system that at every turn impedes the fulfillment of their basic human needs - not only for love but for creative and spiritual expression - they will try to compensate for this in other ways, including the compulsive acquisition of ever more material goods.

  Riane Eisler

  Spiritual, Loss, Expression

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• Nature is neither reasonable nor just. Nature is exact.

  Beah Richards

  Loss, Reasonable

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• Nature was taking back what had once been hers.

  Nevada Barr

  Loss

  Nevada Barr (2010). “Liberty Falling”, p.2, Penguin

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• Never have nights been more beautiful than these nights of anxiety. In the sky have been shining in trinity the moon, Venus and Mars. Nature has been more splendid than man.

  Janet Flanner

  Beautiful, Loss, Moon

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• Whatever the country, capitalist or socialist, man was everywhere crushed by technology, made a stranger to his own work, imprisoned, forced into stupidity. The evil all arose from the fact that he had increased his needs rather than limited them; . . . As long as fresh needs continued to be created, so new frustrations would come into being. When had the decline begun? The day knowledge was preferred to wisdom and mere usefulness to beauty. . . . Only a moral revolution - not a social or political revolution - only a moral revolution would lead man back to his lost truth.

  Simone de Beauvoir

  Country, Loss, Frustration

  Simone de Beauvoir (1968). “Les Belles Images”

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• These ways to make people buy were strange and new to us, and many bought for the sheer pleasure at first of holding in the hand and talking of something new. And once this was done, it was like opium, we could no longer do without this new bauble, and thus, though we hated the foreigners and though we knew they were ruining us, we bought their goods. Thus I learned the art of the foreigners, the art of creating in the human heart restlessness, disquiet, hunger for new things, and these new desires became their best helpers.

  Han Suyin

  Art, Loss, Hands

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• [The] whirlwind fife-and-drum of the storm bends the salt marsh grass, disturbs stars in the sky and the star on the steeple; it is a privilege to see so much confusion.

  Marianne Moore

  Stars, Loss, Sky

  Marianne Moore (1994). “Complete Poems”, p.5, Penguin

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• The elements were "seeking" each other in rage and confusion, and in the fury of the conflict boastful man was utterly humiliated, sucked down, drowned.

  Elizabeth Goudge

  Loss, Men, Confusion

  Elizabeth Goudge (1944). “Green Dolphin Street”

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• When you've cooked the marrow of the sun and moon, The pearl is so bright you don't worry about poverty.

  Sun Bu'er

  Loss, Moon, Worry

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• Disasters teach us humility.

  Anselm of Canterbury

  Humility, Teach

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• All human beings hang by a thread, an abyss may open under their feet at any moment, and yet they have to go and invent all sortsof difficulties for themselves and spoil their lives.

  Ivan Turgenev

  Feet, May, Human Nature

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• The truth is, we like to talk over our disasters, because they are ours; and others like to listen, because they are not theirs.

  Letitia Elizabeth Landon

  Trouble, Truth Is

  Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1860). “The Complete Works of L.E. Landon”, p.392

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• God never promises exemption. He does promise companionship, which is better. He does not promise do deliver you or me or any other individual from pain, sorrow, or economic disaster, but He does give assurance the He will help us through and that there will be compensations. "I will not leave you comfortless, I will come to you." These are the words of Jesus.

  Daniel A. Poling

  Jesus, Pain, Giving

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