Quotes About Tragedy

Comedy is an intellectual affair, and deals chiefly with logic. Tragedy is an emotional affair, and deals chiefly with value. Horace Walpole once said that "life is a comedy to the man who thinks and a tragedy to the man who feels." Comedy is negative; it is a criticism of limitations and an unwillingness to accept them. Tragedy is positive; it is an uncritical acceptance of the positive content of that which is delimited. Since comedy deals with the limitations of actual situations and tragedy with their positive content, comedy must ridicule and tragedy must endorse.

Hysterical optimism will prevail until the world again admits the existence of tragedy, and it cannot admit the existence of tragedy until it again distinguishes between good and evil. . . Hysterical optimism as a sin against knowledge.

The tragedy of life doesn't lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach. It isn't a calamity to die with dreams unfulfilled, but it is a calamity not to dream...It is not a disgrace not to reach the stars, but it is a disgrace to have no stars to reach for. Not failure, but low aim is sin.

I think it's a tragedy that our schools don't teach kids about money. I think it's a tragedy that it has to come to an emergency before we evolve.

The sense of tragedy - according to Aristotle - comes, ironically enough, not from the protagonist's weak points but from his good qualities. Do you know what I'm getting at? People are drawn deeper into tragedy not by their defects but by their virtues. ... [But] we accept irony through a device called metaphor. And through that we grow and become deeper human beings.

The tragedy is not that things are broken. The tragedy is that things are not mended again.

Every woman becomes their mother. That's their tragedy. And no man becomes his. That's his tragedy.

Happy ending are only a pause. There are three kinds of big endings: Revenge. Tragedy. Forgiveness. Revenge and Tragedy often happen together. Forgiveness redeems the past. Forgiveness unblocks the future.

Human life is a combination of tragedy and comedy. The shapes and designs that surround us are the music accompanying this tragedy and this comedy.

The greatest tragedy in life is not death. The greatest tragedy is to be alive and not know why

And those who only know the non-platonic love have no need to talk of tragedy. In such love there can be no sort of tragedy.

The tragedy is not so much the experience that you're having. The tragedy is that we don't take the time to understand the meaning and purpose behind what we're going through.

When death comes too near, comedy and tragedy fall silent.

Though Stalinism may have been a needless tragedy for both the Russian people and communism as an ideal, there is the intellectually tantalizing possibility that for the world at large it was, as we shall see, a blessing in disguise.

Autumn is an honest month; it does not delude man like spring does! It shows him the dark face of life, the tragedy, the rot, the separation, the sadness!

As far as the environment is concerned, I am becoming pessimistic because I do not see anybody stepping up and taking the long view approach. It seems like we're stuck in a tragedy of the commons where everyone is trying to contribute as little as possible to get out of this situation.

Tragedy is in the eye of the observer, and not in the heart of the sufferer.

To choose a writer for a friend is like palling around with your cardiologist, who might be musing as you talk to him that you are a sinking man. A writer's love for another writer is never quite free of malice. He may enjoy discussing your failures even more than you do. He probably sees you as tragic, like his characters - or unworthy of tragedy, which is worse.

I'm connected to the event of 9/11 by my desire to do something to honor the 9/11 survivors and those who didn't survive. Something that moves our society forward, something that engages children in what it means to be a citizen and encourages them to love and be inclusive. Because if we don't live our lives well - if I don't live my life well - it's an affront to all the people who were involved in the tragedy of 9/11.

If the whole world is evil, then the tragedy that befell you is justified," she went on. "That would make it easier for you to accept the deaths of your wife and daughters. But if good people do exist, then, however much you deny it, your life will be unbearable; because fate set a trap for you, and you know you didn't deserve it. It isn't the light you want to recover, it's the certainty that there is only darkness.

I doubt I would have written a line ... unless some minor tragedy had sort of twisted my mind out of the normal rut.

The best way to prepare for a night out with a Shakespearean tragedy is to do a bit of reading up in the afternoon, eat a light supper - perhaps Welsh rarebit - and then arrive early to do some stretching exercises in the foyer before curtain-up.

We have been counseled to "seek . . . out of the best books words of wisdom." It is pointed out in Proverbs, "Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom." (Proverbs 4:7.) But in getting wisdom and getting knowledge, above all we should "get understanding." It is important to learn a profession, learn a trade. That applies not only to the young men, but it applies to you young women as well. You girls should place yourselves in a position to be self-supporting and independent in the event that tragedy or an emergency comes, for emergencies have come and will continue to come.

Whatever you do to recover from a loss, people will be critical because they believe that the only way to recover is their way. And you will even run into some people who should be run into by rhinos because they actually don't want to see you get over your tragedy at all; grief is a spectator sport for them.

The tragedy in sports is seeing a team beaten not by a better team, but by themselves.

This must be a world of democracy and respect for human rights, a world freed from the horrors of poverty, hunger, deprivation and ignorance, relieved of the threat and the scourge of civil wars and external aggression and unburdened of the great tragedy of millions forced to become refugees.

Lord, spit on our eyes that we may see, how to wake up from this tragedy.

Tragedy and adversary are the stones we sharpen our swords against so we can fight new battles.

Is there anyone’s life story you don’t want to know?” “Not really.” His expression was unexpectedly serious. “Because people make a story of their lives. Gains, losses, tragedy and triumph—you can tell a lot about someone simply by what they put into each category. You can learn a lot about what you put into each category by your reaction to them. They teach you about yourself without ever intending to do it—and they teach you a lot about life.

Let us see as steadily and completely as possible the realities of our age: the wasted lives, the scattered and misused resources (human and material), the steel magic of the misdirected machinery, the mad clockwork tragedy of it all.

For me, a desert island is no tragedy, neither is a deserted planet.

Always be comic in a tragedy. What the deuce else can you do?

When you reflect on Sept. 11 and the tragedy of that day, one of the things that came out of that was the goodness of humanity

And I'm dying to know, is it killing you like it's killing me? And the story of us looks a lot like a tragedy now.

Preparation through education is less costly than learning through tragedy.

If you don’t learn how to cry, you cannot be a good Christian. When they posed this question to us – why children suffer, why this or that tragedy occurs in life – our response must be either silence or a word that is born of our tears. Be courageous, don’t be afraid to cry.

It was fun figuring out the science of the world as much as we wanted to figure out, and then playing fast and loose in other places. Which we do with our show in general. One of the things we love about the BoJack Horseman show is that we can always fall back on, "It's a ridiculous cartoon." And it is! It's a serious, relationship-based grounded character tragedy, but it is also a ridiculous cartoon.

Everyone gets wounded in this world and everyone has within them some golden qualities that can serve to heal the wounds of time and the traumatic effects of human tragedy.

Abraham Lincoln comes from nothing, has no education, no money, lives in the middle of nowhere on the frontier. And despite the fact that he suffers one tragedy and one setback after another, through sheer force of will, he becomes something extraordinary: not only the president but the person who almost single-handedly united the country.

What a tragedy it was that the only thing age could offer to youth was its own experience, and that the experiences of others were never profitable.

The main cause of my difficulties stemmed from the tragedy of my daughter's unsound birth and my inability to face my feelings.

Kids do have to learn that life is a humiliating charade of endless disappointment and tragedy ultimately culminating in pain, decay, and death. My parents used to sing me to sleep with that one.

No matter how devastating our struggles, disappointments, and troubles are, they are only temporary. No matter what happens to you, no matter the depth of tragedy or pain you face, no matter how death stalks you and your loved ones, the Resurrection promises you a future of immeasurable good.

The temper of mind that sees tragedy in life has not for its opposite the temper that sees joy. The opposite pole to the tragic view of life is the sordid view.

The great challenge is to refuse to let the bad things that happen to us do bad things to us. That is the crucial difference between adversity and tragedy.

To live two days in succession on the same spiritual plane is a tragedy

The greater the love, the greater the tragedy when it's over.

By now it was clear that Howl was in a mood to produce green slime any second. Sophie hurriedly put her sewing away. "I'll make some hot buttered toast," she said. "Is that all you can do in the face of tragedy??" Howl asked. "Make toast!