Quotes About Tragedy

Hope? Hope is not the absence of tragedy, my friend. It is the conviction that tragedy can be endured. Hope is the spark in you that is not subdued in the face of the vast and callous indifference of the universe. Hope is that which is not shattered by hardship. Hope is the urge to fight what is wrong even when you know it will destroy you. Hope is the decision to love and need someone knowing that they will one day die. For me to promise that there are no obstacles would be the cruelest lie I could possibly tell. That lie is not hope. Hope is the will which needs no lies.

Death is not the greatest tragedy in life. The greatest tragedy is what dies inside us while we live. We need not fear death. We need fear only that we may exist without having sensed something of the possibilities that lie within human existence.

Classical tragedy was the war between good and evil. We wanted evil to be defeated and good to be victorious. But the battle in modern tragedy is between good and good. And no matter which side wins, we'll still be heartbroken.

It's remarkable - most remarkable, the way these people manage, from time to time, a tragedy or a near-tragedy to break the even tenor of their ways,' said Mr. Tingley, in a tone of half-humorous superiority, by which he considered that he distinguished himself, subtly and inoffensively, from 'these people.

There is a warning. The path of God-exalting joy will cost you your life. Jesus said, “Whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.” In other words, it is better to lose your life than to waste it. If you live gladly to make others glad in God, your life will be hard, your risks will be high, and your joy will be full. This is not a book about how to avoid a wounded life, but how to avoid a wasted life. Some of you will die in the service of Christ. That will not be a tragedy. Treasuring life above Christ is a tragedy.

The real Tragedy is the tragedy of the man who never in his life braces himself for his one supreme effort-he never stretches to his full capacity, never stands up to his full stature.

Tragedy is one of the larger prices we pay for being alive. No one ever sidesteps tragedy. It is always there, shadowing us.

It was a total and absolute surprise to find out that what was inside the concentration camps was a sea of skeletons. What is clear to me, therefore, is that while the tragedy of war grinds on, the contemporary aesthetics of the tragedy seem not only confused but, in some way, suspicious.

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 tapestry of history that seems so full of tragedy when viewed from the front has countless comic scenes woven into its reverse side. In truth, tragedy and comedy are the twin masks of history - its mass appeal.

The greatest tragedy in life is not death; the greatest tragedy takes place when our talents and capabilities are underutilized and allowed to rust while we are living.

In writing a little tragedy, 'The Gaol Gate,' I made the scenario in three lines, 'He is an informer; he is dead; he is hanged.' I wrote that play very quickly.

If we had a terrorist attack, the way the people respond is going to determine whether that attack is just a tragedy or whether that attack becomes an all-out disaster.

One could say the higher the spirit goes, the more deeply the soul sinks down into the waters of melancholy and tragedy. Drowning in that water is as sweet as rising.

It was in Spain that [my generation] learned that one can be right and yet be beaten, that force can vanquish spirit, that there are times when courage is not its own recompense. It is this, doubtless, which explains why so many, the world over, feel the Spanish drama as a personal tragedy.

Ultimately, tragedy on earth can only be understood rightly from the perspective of heaven.

Love is blind, as they say, and because love is blind, it often leads to tragedy: to conflicts in which one love is pitted against another love, and something has to give, with suffering guaranteed in any resolution.

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.

William Shakespeare was the most remarkable storyteller that the world has ever known. Homer told of adventure and men at war, Sophocles and Tolstoy told of tragedies and of people in trouble. Terence and Mark Twain told cosmic stories, Dickens told melodramatic ones, Plutarch told histories and Hans Christian Andersen told fairy tales. But Shakespeare told every kind of story – comedy, tragedy, history, melodrama, adventure, love stories and fairy tales – and each of them so well that they have become immortal. In all the world of storytelling he has become the greatest name.

The Holocaust is the most documented tragedy in recorded history. And therefore, later on, if there will be a later on, anyone wishing to know will know where to go for knowledge.

This familiarity with a respected physician and my appreciation of his work, or the tragedy I experienced with the long, tormented agony and death of my mother might have influenced me in wanting to study medicine. It was not the case.

That there should one man die ignorant who had capacity for knowledge, this I call a tragedy.

The nature of tragedy and accident is that we cannot predict.

There's no greater tragedy than an equal intensity, in the same soul or the same man, of the intellectual sentiment and the moral sentiment. For a man to be utterly and absolutely moral, he has to be a bit stupid. For a man to be absolutely intellectual, he has to be a bit immoral.

I don't have to experience tragedy to understand it.

Look at Mann's reading habits, his explicit comments on Nietzsche, and his copy of Birth of Tragedy, and it starts to seem doubtful that this work of Nietzsche's played much role in the gestation of the novella.

How important can it be that I suffer and think? My presence in this world will disturb a few tranquil lives and will unsettle the unconscious and pleasant naiveté of others. Although I feel that my tragedy is the greatest in history - greater than the fall of empires - I am nevertheless aware of my total insignificance. I am absolutely persuaded that I am nothing in this universe; yet I feel that mine is the only real existence.

One can play comedy, two are required for melodrama, but a tragedy demands three.

What an ironic tragedy that an affluent, “Christian” minority in the world continues to hoard its wealth while hundreds of millions of people hover on the edge of starvation!

Childhood hunger in America is as much a paradox as it is a tragedy. Why, in the wealthiest country in the world, should hunger darken the lives and dreams of 12 million children and their families? I believe that, when Americans learn the facts and understand how their involvement can make a difference, banishing childhood hunger will be a national, local and personal priority.

Laughter is very young, whereas tragedy, except the very highest of all, quickly becomes haggard.

The film, 'Aftershock,' for me is really about how the minor problems in life that we think are so major ultimately mean nothing when a tragedy happens, when a real problem happens.

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

As the web becomes more and more of a part of our every day lives, it would be a horrible tragedy if it was locked up inside of companies and proprietary software.

Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday. Tragedy isn't getting something or failure to get it; it's losing something you already have. Waste not fresh tears over old griefs.

You can perceive life as tragic, or you can laugh at the tragedy of it and that turns it into comedy. It doesn't change the circumstances.

I love John Irving's stuff. It's that marriage of comedy and tragedy. It's really terrific.

Tragedy had sent me headlong into reality. All the things I had seen before now looked different, even nature.

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.

I think a resumption of the Cold War would be a historic tragedy. If a conflict is avoidable, on a basis reflecting morality and security, one should try to avoid it.

As Agatha Swanburne once said, 'To be kept waiting is unfortunate, but to be kept waiting with nothing interesting to read is a tragedy of Greek proportions.

It made me have a much greater understanding of loss, of loneliness, and the level of intense tragedy that so many people have experienced in this world, I take a lot less for granted.

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

My thing was always more character-driven comedies, not sketch comedy - not that there's not room for both or one isn't enjoyable, just my personal taste, I like movies that comedy comes from out of flaws of people, things that are uncomfortable, out of tragedy.

The ability to understand and deliver comedy and tragedy is extremely rare in one composer.

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

City government can and must help San Franciscans prepare for emergencies in order to avoid tragedy where possible and minimize loss of life and property when emergencies occur

You will not leave the theater with nothing to talk about. For me, comedy and tragedy when you get them both in one evening, that's the most satisfying.