Disaster Quotes - Page 35

• Armaments, universal debt, and planned obsolescence - those are the three pillars of Western prosperity. If war, waste, and moneylenders were abolished, you'd collapse. And while you people are overconsuming the rest of the world sinks more and more deeply into chronic disaster.

  Aldous Huxley

  War, People, Three

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• Death and disaster are at our shoulders every second of our lives, trying to get at us. Missing, a lot of the time. A lot of miles on the motorway without a front wheel blow-out. A lot of viruses that slither through our bodies without snagging. A lot of pianos that fall a minute after we've passed. Or a month, it makes no difference. So unless we're going to get down on our knees and give thanks every time disaster misses, it makes no sense to moan when it strikes.

  Hugh Laurie

  Fall, Blow, Piano

  "The Gun Seller". Book by Hugh Laurie, 1996.

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• the natural condition is one of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster. strangely enough it all works out in the end... it's a mystery.

  Tom Stoppard

  Work Out, Obstacles, Mystery

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• I do not think that tragedy is our natural fate and I do not live in chronic dread of disaster. It is no happiness, but suffering that I consider unnatural. It is not success, but calamity that I regard as the abnormal exception in Human Life.

  Ayn Rand

  Fate, Thinking, Suffering

  Ayn Rand (2016). “Atlas Shrugged”, p.580, Hamilton Books

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• Canadians are fond of a good disaster, especially if it has ice, water, or snow in it. You thought the national flag was about a leaf, didn't you? Look harder. It's where someone got axed in the snow.

  Margaret Atwood

  Ice Water, Snow, Looks

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• The yearning to know what cannot be known, to comprehend the incomprehensible, to touch and taste the unapproachable, arises from the image of God in the nature of man. Deep calleth unto deep, and though polluted and landlocked by the mighty disaster theologians call the Fall, the soul senses its origin and longs to return to its source.

  Aiden Wilson Tozer

  Fall, Men, Soul

  Aiden Wilson Tozer (1965). “The Knowledge of the Holy”, p.12, Fig

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• In Brueghel’s Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away Quite leisurely from the disaster, the ploughman may Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry, But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green water, And the expensive ship that must have seen Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky, Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

  W. H. Auden

  Fall, Boys, Sky

  W.H. Auden (2016). “Canción de cuna y otros poemas”, p.122, DEBOLS!LLO

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• There is a saying in Tibetan, 'Tragedy should be utilized as a source of strength.' No matter what sort of difficulties, how painful experience is, if we lose our hope, that's our real disaster.

  Dalai Lama

  Inspirational, Life, Strength

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• Every cataclysm is welcomed by somebody; there is always someone to rejoice at disaster and see in it the prospect of a new beginning and a better world.

  Iain Pears

  New Beginnings, World, Rejoice

  Iain Pears (2003). “Dream of Scipio”, p.157, Penguin

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• Whenever women have insisted on absolute equality with men, they have invariably wound up with the dirty end of the stick. What they are and what they can do makes them superior to men, and their proper tactic is to demand special privileges, all the traffic will bear. They should never settle merely for equality. For women, "equality" is a disaster.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Dirty, Men, Special

  Robert A. Heinlein (1987). “Time Enough for Love”, p.236, Penguin

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• This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are sick in fortune,--often the surfeit of our own behavior,--we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars: as if we were villains by necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treachers, by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers, by an enforced obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on: an admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposition to the charge of a star.

  William Shakespeare

  Stars, Liars, Men

  'King Lear' (1605-6) act 1, sc. 2, l. [132]

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• The aim of education is to develop resources in the child that will contribute to his well-being as long as life endures; to develop power of self-mastery that he may never be a slave to indulgence or other weaknesses, to develop [strong] manhood, beautiful womanhood that in every child and every youth may be found at least the promise of a friend, a companion, one who later may be fit for husband or wife, an exemplary father or a loving intelligent mother, one who can face life with courage, meet disaster with fortitude, and face death without fear.

  David O. McKay

  Beautiful, Mother, Strong

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• They found out about him in July and stayed angry all through August. They tried to kill him in September. It was way too soon. They weren't ready. The attempt was a failure. It could have been a disaster, but it was actually a miracle. Because nobody noticed.

  Lee Child

  July, August, Miracle

  Lee Child (2001). “Echo Burning: A Jack Reacher Novel”, p.292, Penguin

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• In a world of disorder and disaster and fraud, sometimes only beauty can be trusted. Only artistic excellence is incorruptible. Pleasure cannot be bargained down. And sometimes the meal is the only currency that is real.

  Elizabeth Gilbert

  Art, Real, Lovely

  Elizabeth Gilbert (2010). “The Complete Elizabeth Gilbert: Eat, Pray, Love; Committed; The Last American Man; Stern Men & Pilgrims”, p.112, A&C Black

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• What you and I might rate as an absolute disaster, God may rate as a pimple-level problem that will pass. He views your life the way you view a movie after you've read the book. When something bad happens, you feel the air sucked out of the theater. Everyone else gasps at the crisis on the screen. Not you. Why? You've read the book. You know how the good guy gets out of the tight spot. God views your life with the same confidence. He's not only read your story...he wrote it.

  Max Lucado

  Inspirational, Book, Air

  Max Lucado (2014). “One God, One Plan, One Life: A 365 Devotional”, p.171, Thomas Nelson Inc

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• This is how....life happens. One small thing at a time. A series of inconsequential junctions, any or none of which can lead to salvation or disaster. There are no grand moments where a person does or does not perform the act that defines their humanity. There are only moments that appear, briefly, to be this way.

  Steven Galloway

  Humanity, Doe, Way

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• The thing I hate the most about advertising is that it attracts all the bright, creative and ambitious young people, leaving us mainly with the slow and self-obsessed to become our artists.. Modern art is a disaster area. Never in the field of human history has so much been used by so many to say so little.

  Banksy

  Art, Hate, Creativity

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• Happiness and strength endure only in the absence of hate. To hate alone is the road to disaster. To love is the road to strength. To love in spite of all is the secret of greatness. And may very well be the greatest secret in this universe.

  L. Ron Hubbard

  Strength, Hate, Greatness

  "A New Slant on Life". Book by L. Ron Hubbard, 1965.

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• Love is like the little red toy wagon you get for your Christmas or your sixth birthday. It makes you deliriously happy and you just can't leave it alone. But sooner or later the wheels come off. Then you leave it in a corner and forget it. Falling in love is great. Being in love is a disaster

  Mario Puzo

  Falling In Love, Being In Love, Love Is

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• The tree of nonsense is watered with error, and from its branches swing the pumpkins of disaster.

  Nick Harkaway

  Errors, Swings, Tree

  "The Gone-Away World". Book by Nick Harkaway, June 2008.

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• Though men in the mass forget the origins of their need, they still bring wolfhounds into city apartments, where dog and man both sit brooding in wistful discomfort. The magic that gleams an instant between Argos and Odysseus is both the recognition of diversity and the need for affection across the illusions of form. It is nature's cry to homeless, far-wandering, insatiable man: "Do not forget your brethren, nor the green wood from which you sprang. To do so is to invite disaster.

  Loren Eiseley

  Dog, Men, Cities

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• That night Demosthenes published a scathing denunciation of the population limitation laws. People should be allowed to have as many children as they like, and the surplus population should be sent to other worlds, to spread mankind so far across the galaxy that no disaster, no invasion could ever threaten the human race with annihilation. "The most noble title any child can have," Demosthenes wrote, "is Third.

  Orson Scott Card

  Children, Night, Law

  Orson Scott Card (2013). “Ender's Game Boxed Set: Ender's Game, Ender's Shadow”, p.94, Macmillan

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• While a few pertinent points have to be marked, the general impression I desire to convey is of a side door crashing open in life's full flight, and a rush of roaring black time drowning with its whipping wind the cry of lone disaster.

  Vladimir Nabokov

  Doors, Wind, Black

  Vladimir Nabokov (2016). “Lolita”, p.140, Hamilton Books

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• Except for the people who were there that one day they discovered the polio vaccine, being part of history is rarely a good idea. History is one war after another with a bunch of murders and natural disasters in between.

  Sarah Vowell

  War, Polio Vaccine, Ideas

  Sarah Vowell (2005). “Assassination Vacation”, p.208, Simon and Schuster

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• The cat Horus shot out from under the table and headed for the door, his ears flattened and his tail straight out. There he encountered Abdullah, who had been waiting for us on the verandah and who had, I supposed, been alarmed by Emerson's shouts and hurried to discover what disaster had prompted them. The cat got entangled in Abdullah's skirts and a brief interval of staggering (by Abdullah), scratching (by Horus) and swearing (by both parties) ensued before Horus freed himself and departed.

  Barbara Mertz

  Party, Cat, Doors

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