Calamity Quotes - page 4

Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep; To sleep, perchance to dream-For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause, there's the respect, That makes calamity of so long life. (William Shakespeare)
After all, our lives are but a sequence of accidents - a clanking chain of chance events. A string of choices, casual or deliberate, which add up to that one big calamity we call life. View quote
Rohinton Mistry
Hatred and unpopularity at the moment have fallen to the lot of all who have aspired to rule others; but where odium must be incurred, true wisdom incurs it for the highest objects. Hatred also is short-lived; but that which makes the splendour of the present and the glory of the future remains for ever unforgotten. Make your decision, therefore, for glory then and honour now, and attain both objects by instant and zealous effort: do not send heralds to Lacedaemon, and do not betray any sign of being oppressed by your present sufferings, since they whose minds are least sensitive to calamity, and whose hands are most quick to meet it, are the greatest men and the greatest communities. View quote
Pericles
The difference between a misfortune and a calamity is this: If Gladstone fell into the Thames, it would be a misfortune. But if someone dragged him out again, that would be a calamity. View quote
Benjamin Disraeli
While I have not lost faith in its potentialities, my views have changed since. War can not be avoided until the physical cause for its recurrence is removed and this, in the last analysis, is the vast extent of the planet on which we live. Only though annihilation of distance in every respect, as the conveyance of intelligence, transport of passengers and supplies and transmission of energy will conditions be brought about some day, insuring permanency of friendly relations. What we now want most is closer contact and better understanding between individuals and communities all over the earth and the elimination of that fanatic devotion to exalted ideals of national egoism and pride, which is always prone to plunge the world into primeval barbarism and strife. No league or parliamentary act of any kind will ever prevent such a calamity. These are only new devices for putting the weak at the mercy of the strong. View quote
Nikola Tesla
You have a strange relationship with calamity when you're a writer: you write about it; as an artist, you objectify and fetishize it. You render life into material, and that's a creepy thing to do. View quote
Tony Kushner
Calamity is a blessing when it brings one to God. --- Hadassah. View quote
Francine Rivers
There is no worse calamity for science and for scholarship than those intruders who are foreign to them. They are ignorant and yet think they know; they ruin everything whilst convinced they are fixing all. View quote
Ibn Hazm
What nation on earth could have maintained the semblance of civilization, the spirit or the customs of their forefathers, during so many centuries of overwhelming depression, but one of such singular character as the Rajpoot?... Rajast'han exhibits the sole example in the history of mankind, of a people withstanding every outrage barbarity could inflict, or human nature sustain, from a foe whose religion commands annihilation; and bent to the earth, yet rising buoyant from the pressure, and making calamity a whetstone to courage.... Not an iota of their religion or customs have they lost.... View quote
James Tod
A calamity that makes you turn to Allah is better for you then a blessing which makes you forget the remembrance of Allah. View quote
Ibn Taymiyyah
I met with my name a hundred times; I never saw it without fear: some heavy calamity always, followed it, I saw yours too, equally unhappy. (Heloise)
Four hundred or so people lived in Knockemstiff in 1957, nearly all of them connected by blood through one godforsaken calamity or another, be it lust or necessity or just plain ignorance. View quote
Donald Ray Pollock
What remains constant for me, during the last 15 years, has been the conviction that the cold war was a calamity for the entire world, and that it can be justified by no consideration of theory, nor by any supposed national interest. View quote
Earl Browder
These hands which stretch out, implore, beg, then rise to the head in a gesture of calamity. View quote
Frederick Leboyer
The thing is, Obama is right that it would be a calamity for the government to default on its debt by not meeting its obligations. Such a thing has never happened and can't be allowed to happen. View quote
John Podhoretz
Too-easy credit and millions of bad loans made during the U.S. housing bubble paved the way for the financial calamity and Great Recession that followed. Today, by contrast, credit is too tight. Mortgage loans are particularly hard to get, creating a problem for the housing market and the broader economy. View quote
Mark Zandi
Therefore the elect shall go forth... to see the torments of the impious, seeing which they will not be grieved, but will be satiated with joy at the sight of the unutterable calamity of the impious. View quote
Peter Lombard
My History of the Jesuits is in four volumes.... This society has been a greater calamity to mankind than the French Revolution, or Napoleon's despotism or ideology. It has obstructed progress of reformation and the improvement of the human mind in society much longer and more fatally. View quote
John Adams
I cannot but add that I have always been a supporter and defender of your policy when you were Prime Minister. I am sure that it was right. In view of the attitude of France and of the unreadiness of this country for which you were in no way to be blamed, it would have been folly to precipitate then a war with Germany. It was your strength of will and purpose and self-restraint that saved us from that mistake. When the time to meet the challenge of Hitler came, you had made it plain to the whole impartial world that you had done everything possible to keep Europe from war, and to fix the blame for that calamity on the unbridled ambition of Hitler. You enabled your country to enter the war with a clear conscience and a united will. View quote
Neville Chamberlain
The "original calamity" was either caused by God or arose without leave of God, in either case degrading God to man. View quote
Richard Francis Burton
Today, no walls can separate humanitarian or human rights crises in one part of the world from national security crises in another. What begins with the failure to uphold the dignity of one life all too often ends with a calamity for entire nations. (Kofi Annan)
Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries BY A GOVERNMENT, which we might expect in a country WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer. View quote
Thomas Paine
What quarrel, what harshness, what unbelief in each other can subsist in the presence of a great calamity, when all the artificial vesture of our life is gone, and we are all one with each other in primitive mortal needs. View quote
George Eliot
In this sterile statecraft, centred on the politics of the maNDalayoni, one's neighbour was always an enemy, and the enemy of an enemy always a friend! Hindu princes, therefore, failed to hang together in the face of a common calamity. In the event, they were hanged separately. View quote
Sita Ram Goel
Would you treat this world like home? It isn't. The greatest calamity is not to feel far from home when you are, but to feel right at home when you are not. Don't squelch, but rather, stir this longing for heaven. View quote
Max Lucado