Earthquakes Quotes

• You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.

  Jeannette Rankin

  Peace, Military, War

  Quoted in Hannah Josephson, Jeannette Rankin: First Lady in Congress (1974)

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• It was one of those hot, silent nights, when people sit at windows listening for the thunder which they know will shortly break; when they recall dismal tales of hurricanes and earthquakes; and of lonely travellers on open plains, and lonely ships at sea, struck by lightning.

  Charles Dickens

  Lonely, Nature, Night

  Charles Dickens (2015). “Martin Chuzzlewit”, p.731, Booklassic

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• Nationalism stems from catastrophes, whether they are caused by earthquakes or lost wars.

  Orhan Pamuk

  War, Lost, Stem

  Source: www.spiegel.de

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• There is a lot that happens around the world we cannot control. We cannot stop earthquakes, we cannot prevent droughts, and we cannot prevent all conflict, but when we know where the hungry, the homeless and the sick exist, then we can help.

  Jan Schakowsky

  Sick, Around The World, Helping

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• We learn geology the morning after the earthquake.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Art, Morning, Philosophy

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2366, Delphi Classics

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• An earthquake achieves what the law promises but does not in practice maintain - the equality of all men.

  Ignazio Silone

  Equality, Men, Law

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• We know we cannot underestimate the importance of emergency planning in our region, nor can we assume we'll have ample warning time. If an earthquake or terrorist attack hits, we won't necessarily have advance alerts or opportunities to double- and triple-check our plans.

  Ellen Tauscher

  Opportunity, Warning, Emergencies

  "Martyrs in Paradise". Book by Terry Reese Downing, 2009.

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• All Nature's wildness tells the same story: the shocks and outbursts of earthquakes, volcanoes, geysers, roaring, thundering waves and floods, the silent uprush of sap in plants, storms of every sort, each and all, are the orderly, beauty-making love-beats of Nature's heart.

  John Muir

  Heart, Volcanoes, Making Love

  John Muir, Peter Browning (1988). “John Muir, in His Own Words: A Book of Quotations”, p.66, Great West Books

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• Love is an earthquake that relocates the center of the universe.

  Mike Mason

  Love Is, Center Of The Universe, Universe

  Mike Mason (1985). “Mystery of Marriage: Meditations on the Miracle”, Multnomah

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• The earthquake, however, must be to every one a most impressive event: the earth, considered from our earliest childhood as the type of solidity, has oscillated like a thin crust beneath our feet; and in seeing the laboured works of man in a moment overthrown, we feel the insignificance of his boasted power.

  Charles Darwin

  Men, Feet, Childhood

  Charles Darwin (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of Charles Darwin (Illustrated)”, p.444, Delphi Classics

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• Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides.

  Louis de Bernieres

  Sad Love, Love Is, Literature History

  FaceBook post by Louis de Bernieres from Dec 18, 2011

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• Don't you know
  That lovers make the rains,
  Call forth the sun,
  Re-route hurricanes,
  And exorcise earthquakes for fun.

  James Kavanaugh

  Fun, Rain, Sun

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• The world should have stopped, but it didn't. The world kept on going. How can the world just keep on going? An earthquake in India kills a thousand people, and the world keeps on going. A famine in China kills a million people, and the world keeps on going. The twin towers of the World Trade Center buckle and fall, and the world, the world keeps on going.

  Alison McGhee

  Fall, Should Have, People

  Alison McGhee (2013). “All Rivers Flow to the Sea”, p.2, Candlewick Press

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• I think we’re like farm animals before an earthquake.

  Moby

  Animal, Thinking, Farms

  "David Bowie EW Cover: Inside David Bowie and Moby's out-of-this-world 2002 tour". Interview with Jeff Gordinier, ew.com. January 11, 2016.

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• I used to sleep nude - until the earthquake.

  Alyssa Milano

  Sleep, Used

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• A man like me cannot but believe that this earthquake is a divine chastisement sent by God for our sins.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Believe, Men, Sin

  Mahatma Gandhi (1994). “Volume of prefaces”

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• Those who survived the San Francisco earthquake said, 'Thank God, I'm still alive.' But, of course, those who died, their lives will never be the same again.

  Barbara Boxer

  Funny, Thanksgiving, Stupid

  "Jews in the Senior Chamber" by Dan Klein, www.tabletmag.com. October 12, 2010.

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• No one can argue any longer about the rights of women. It's like arguing about earthquakes.

  Lillian Hellman

  Equality, Rights, Justice

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• Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being in love which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident.

  Saint Augustine

  Love, Art, Passion

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• Only fools, liars, and charlatans predict earthquakes

  Charles Francis Richter

  Liars, Fool, Charlatans

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• A bad earthquake at once destroys the oldest associations: the world, the very emblem of all that is solid, has moved beneath our feet like a crust over a fluid; one second of time has conveyed to the mind a strange idea of insecurity, which hours of reflection would never have created.

  Charles Darwin

  Reflection, Ideas, Feet

  Charles Darwin, R. D. Keynes (2001). “Charles Darwin's Beagle Diary”, p.292, Cambridge University Press

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• It is not light that we need, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.

  Frederick Douglass

  Fire, Light, Storm

  Speech, Rochester, N.Y., 5 July 1852

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• It is the lava of the imagination whose eruption prevents an earthquake.

  Lord Byron

  Imagination, Poetry, Eruption

  Letter to Annabella Milbanke, 29 November 1813, in L. A. Marchand (ed.) 'Byron's Letters and Journals' vol. 3 (1974)

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• If that god is described as being all-powerful and all-knowing and all-good, I don't see evidence for it anywhere in the world. So I remain unconvinced. If that god is all-powerful and all-good, I don't see that when a tsunami kills a quarter-million or an earthquake kills a quarter-million people. I'd like to think of good as something in the interest of your health or longevity.

  Neil deGrasse Tyson

  Powerful, Thinking, Knowing

  "Neil deGrasse Tyson Talks God, Aliens, And Multiverses". Interview With David Freeman, www.huffingtonpost.com. October 5, 2015.

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• In an earthquake, I shouldn't run out of the house - I should run into it.

  Tony Danza

  Running, House, Should

  "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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