Tragic Quotes
More Tragic Quotes
The Enlightenment worldview held by Du Bois is ultimately inadequate, and, in many ways, antiquated, for our time. The tragic plight and absurd predicament of Africans here and abroad requires a more profound interpretation of the human condition — one that goes beyond the false dichotomies of expert knowledge vs. mass ignorance, individual autonomy vs. dogmatic authority, and self-mastery vs. intolerant tradition.
cornel west— The Future of the Race by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Cornel West (1997, pg. 64)
Life would be tragic if it weren't funny.
stephen hawking— As quoted in "The Science of Second-Guessing", The New York Times (12 December 2004)
Our tragic age demands poetry of courage and not whimpers about the inevitable end of all maya. People still extract pain of each other even after Buddha , Nanak and Gandhi have been preaching peace .
— Mulk Raj Anand, in Mulk Raj Anand: A Reader : Selections from His Fictional and Non-fictional ...(1 January 2005), p.xxi
I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran (if it attacks Israel). In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them. That's a terrible thing to say but those people who run Iran need to understand that because that perhaps will deter them from doing something that would be reckless, foolish and tragic.
— Hilary Clinton, US presidential nominnee, former first lady and current secretary of state. Reuters
You see tragedy requires persons of heroic stature. It works on the principle of people being more than humansuper-humanand also being only too human. But there just aren't many great figures around now, so the tragic mechanisms can't work.
Martin Louis Amis— 1995 Explaining why only comedy can reflect contemporary reality. Quoted in an interview in The Scotsman,7 Apr.
The bitterest tragic element in life to be derived from an intellectual source is the belief in a brute Fate or Destiny.
ralph waldo emerson— The Natural History of Intellect (1893)
What is necessary is for workers and the left to obtain all the lessons the Chilean experience can offer, so that we never again make these errors. That’s why I maintain, that in Chile the left has not failed, socialism has not failed, nor has the revolution failed, nor have workers failed. What came to a tragic end in Chile was the reformist illusion of modifying socio-economic structures and making revolutions before the pasive consent of those to be most affected: the ruling classes.
miguel enríquez— Answer to the question: "In your opinion does the downfall of the left cancel for a long period the struggle for socialism in Chile?"
Ahab makes a great impression on his first appearance in Moby Dick... And if either by birth or by circumstance something pathological was at work deep in his nature, this did not detract from his dramatic character. For tragic greatness always derives from a morbid break with health, you can be sure of that.
gudrun ensslin— Stefan Aust, Terrorism in Germany: The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon
He was just so respected in the industry. It's just horribly tragic. He was just a fine actor and a good person, so this is horribly sad and very unexpected.
heath ledger— Kim Serafin, senior editor of In Touch Weekly. Kareen Wynter (January 22, 2008, Entertainment). "Actor Heath Ledger Dead at 28" (Web). CNN (cnn.com (Time Warner)). Retrieved on 2008-08-22.
What is so painful about that time is that nothing was disastrous. It was all wrong, ugly, unhappy and coloured with cynicism, but nothing was tragic, there were no moments that could change anything or anybody. From time to time the emotional lightning flashed and showed a landscape of private misery, and then — we went on dancing.
doris lessing— Anna Wulf, in "Free Women: 1"
As a rule people don’t think other people on drugs are funny. They think they are tragic. They have a point, but I still had the funny.
natasha lyonne— As quoted in "Spoonful of Sugar : Natasha Lyonne’s Sweet Comeback" by Shira Levine, in Heeb Magazine (20 January 2009)
If there was any doubt about the need for social transformation in 1970, that need is clear and urgent today. ... I am now more convinced than ever that the conflict and suffering now threatening to engulf us are entirely unnecessary, and a tragic waste of our energy and resources. We can create an economic system that is not at war with human beings or nature, and we can get from here to there by democratic means.
charles a. reich— Preface to 1995 edition of The Greening of America
"Given that a few days ago we had a terrible accident, a tragic terrorist attack in Barajas, in Madrid, I would like to propose to you that we show our complete condemnation, our most intense revulsion, and that we show profound solidarity with the victims."
josé luis rodríguez zapatero— Note: In reference to the ETA bombing at Madrid airport, El Confidencial (Spanish). That same day, Zapatero said that calling the attack an 'accident' had been a slip of the tongue, but it was seized by the press and provoked anger, for example the slogan "Killing people is not an accident" used in the protests of March, 2007.
The fact that we are I don't know how many millions of people, yet communication, complete communication, is completely impossible between two of those people, is to me one of the biggest tragic themes in the world.
georges simenon— Interviewed in Paris Review, Summer 1955; reprinted in Malcolm Cowley (ed.) Writers at Work (New York: Viking Press, 1959) p. 153.
I've found him to be a disappointment. Wonderful speech in Egypt, and good intentions aside, foreign policy needs to be firmly grounded in reality, and understanding of a sort of chaos theory...[that is to say] it needs to be part good intention, part political intelligence, and part political savvy and knowledge of international interests and national burdens. President Obama has been extremely short-sighted in this sense, and if he fails, it will be a tragic blow for peaceniks and multilateralists the world over, and a manna from heaven for the Republican party.
munir butt— Source: Foreign Affairs. 2009
What must be remembered in any case is that secret complicity that joins the logical and the everyday to the tragic.
Albert Camus— "Hope and the Absurd in the work of Franz Kafka"
But that is the way of the place: down our many twisting corridors, one encounters story after story, some heroic, some villainous, some true, some false, some funny, some tragic, and all of them combining to form the mystical, undefinable entity we call the school . Not exactly the building, not exactly the faculty or the students or the alumni more than all those things but also less, a paradox, an order, a mystery, a monster, an utter joy.
stephen l. carter— Ch. 9, A Pedagogical Disagreement, II
For a people, as for an individual, it is tragic to have ambitions and to lack both the means essential to their fulfillment and any hope of acquiring those means.
Adolf Hitler— 2nd April 1945, talking about Italians
Ah, what a dusty answer gets the soul When hot for certainties in this our life! - In tragic hints here see what evermore Moves dark as yonder midnight ocean's force, Thundering like ramping hosts of warrior horse, To throw that faint thin fine upon the shore!
George Meredith— St. 50. (Modern Love (1862))
All those who try to unveil the mysteries always have tragic lives. At the end they are always punished.
anaïs nin— "The Mohican"
A tragic situation exists precisely when virtue does not triumph but when it is still felt that man is nobler than the forces which destroy him.
george orwell— "Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool," Polemic (March 1947) - Full text online]
A society, in the process of moving forward, often appears to be tearing itself apart. Certainly, an age of rapid change, such as ours, produces many paradoxes. But perhaps the most tragic paradox of our time is to be found in the failure of nation-states to recognize the imperatives of internationalism.
Earl Warren— Writing in Saturday Review (23 October 1971), p. 16
I believe in this tragic hour you can make the right choice. The honor and glory of Russian men of arms shall not be stained with the blood of the people.
Boris Yeltsin— Appeal to the military to not participate in the coup attempt. (19 August 1991)
The French public seem to estimate the master pieces of their favorite tragic poets chiefly by the number of fine quotable passages they supply; while their critics estimate their worth by their conformity with certain purely artificial rules.
— Arthur Thomas Malkin, Distinguished Men of Modern Times Charles Knight & Co., Ludgate-Street, (1838)
Those persons who were responsible for his tragic death had only the faintest understanding of what he was seeking to accomplish. Even his own disciples so completely misinterpreted his teaching that at the very end they argued among themselves as to who should have the chief places. ...they still visualized twelve thrones of solid gold and quarreled among themselves over the seats of honor on the right and left of the king. How much less able to fathom the meaning of his words and deeds were the ecclesiastical leaders.
— Kirby Page, Jesus or Christianity A Study In Contrasts (1929)
Unfortunately, Climate Science has become Political Science. It is tragic that some perhaps well-meaning but politically motivated scientists who should know better have whipped up a global frenzy about a phenomena which is statistically questionable at best.
— Robert H. Austin, in Update: More Than 700 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims, U.S. Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works, March 16, 2009
Between "just desserts" and "tragic irony" we are given quite a large scope for our particular talent. Generally speaking, things have gone about as far as they can possibly go when things have gotten about as bad as they can reasonably get.
— Tom Stoppard, in Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (1990 film, based on his 1966 play); Player
To wake the soul by tender strokes of art,To raise the genius, and to mend the heart;To make mankind, in conscious virtue bold,Live o'er each scene, and be what they behold:For this the tragic Muse first trod the stage.
Alexander Pope— Line 1.
tragic experience indicates that the most sacred obligations are utterly disregarded when their observance means losing the war.
— Kirby Page, "What is War?" (1924) (P)
