Tragedy Quotes

The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic.

~ Joseph Stalin

I'll never forget Hurricane Katrina - the mix of a natural and a man-made catastrophe that resulted in the death of over 1,500 of our neighbors. Millions of folks were marked by the tragedy.

~ Cedric Richmond

The tragedy of life is in what dies inside a man while he lives - the death of genuine feeling, the death of inspired response, the awareness that makes it possible to feel the pain or the glory of other men in yourself.

~ Norman Cousins

Grace is what matters in anything - especially life, especially growth, tragedy, pain, love, death. That's a quality that I admire very greatly. It keeps you from reaching out for the gun too quickly. It keeps you from destroying things too foolishly. It sort of keeps you alive.

~ Jeff Buckley

There's no tragedy in life like the death of a child. Things never get back to the way they were.

~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

There can be no darker or more devastating tragedy than the death of man's faith in himself and in his power to direct his future.

~ Saul Alinsky

A nation that has no music and no fairytales is a tragedy.

~ Ai Weiwei

Vegas means comedy, tragedy, happiness and sadness all at the same time.

~ Artie Lange

One of the greatest things drama can do, at it's best, is to redefine the words we use every day such as love, home, family, loyalty and envy. Tragedy need not be a downer.

~ Ben Kingsley

Food is about communal togetherness. Our family does sit at the table. I think it's a great tragedy if a family doesn't have a table, as there is such an atmosphere of good will and warmth when we have eight people sitting around it.

~ Jonathan Dimbleby

The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion.

~ Arthur C. Clarke

Comedy is tragedy - plus time.

~ Carol Burnett

When people divorce, it's always such a tragedy. At the same time, if people stay together it can be even worse.

~ Monica Bellucci

In all natural disasters through time, man needs to attach meaning to tragedy, no matter how random and inexplicable the event is.

~ Nathaniel Philbrick

Great tragedy has come to us, and we are meeting it with the best that is in our country, with courage and concern for others because this is America. This is who we are.

~ George W. Bush

The abduction of a child is a tragedy. No one can fully understand or appreciate what a parent goes through at such a time, unless they have faced a similar tragedy. Every parent responds differently. Each parent copes with this nightmare in the best way he or she knows how.

~ John Walsh

The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.

~ Martin Luther King

In tragedy, it's hard to find a good resolution; it's not black and white: it's a big fog of gray.

~ Paul Dano

History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.

~ Martin Luther King

History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.

~ Karl Marx

My heart goes out to victims and survivors of the Hurricane Katrina tragedy and to their families. This disaster will go down in history books as one of the largest natural disasters in U.S. history.

~ Ellen Tauscher

It was a Greek tragedy. Nixon was fulfilling his own nature. Once it started it could not end otherwise.

~ Henry Kissinger

We, therefore, here in Britain stand shoulder to shoulder with our American friends in this hour of tragedy, and we, like them, will not rest until this evil is driven from our world.

~ Tony Blair

Everybody knows about Pearl Harbor. The thing that really fascinated me is that through this tragedy there was this amazing American heroism.

~ Michael Bay

It's ironic that when you go through a tragedy, you appreciate more. You realize how fragile life is and that there are so many things to still be thankful for.

~ Adam Grant

The tragedy of life and of the world is not that men do not know God; the tragedy is that, knowing Him, they still insist on going their own way.

~ William Barclay

The government needs to help those in need, but members of Congress shouldn't take advantage of the situation and use a national tragedy as an opportunity to spend taxpayer dollars on their pet projects.

~ Chris Chocola

Tragedy makes you grow up.

~ Jane Campion

What people fear most about tragedy is its randomness - a taxi cab jumps the curb and hits a pedestrian, a gun misfires and kills a bystander. Better to have some rational cause and effect between incident and injury. And if cause and effect aren't possible, better that there at least be some reward for all the suffering.

~ Jeffrey Kluger

Tragedy is like strong acid - it dissolves away all but the very gold of truth.

~ D. H. Lawrence

Every human being on this earth is born with a tragedy, and it isn't original sin. He's born with the tragedy that he has to grow up... a lot of people don't have the courage to do it.

~ Helen Hayes

Fables should be taught as fables, myths as myths, and miracles as poetic fantasies. To teach superstitions as truths is a most terrible thing. The child mind accepts and believes them, and only through great pain and perhaps tragedy can he be in after years relieved of them.

~ Hypatia

What makes America great is that we can come together during times of national tragedy.

~ Dennis Hastert

Since the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School three years ago, we have lost over 90,000 Americans to gun violence. This is a manmade crisis that needs to be treated as the public health epidemic it has become.

~ Elizabeth Esty

If investments in banks fall, it is a tragedy, and people say, 'What are we going to do?' but if people die of hunger, have nothing to eat or suffer from poor health, that's nothing.

~ Pope Francis

Sometimes, in the midst of a tragedy like the Newton massacre, we witness incredible acts of valor, tenderness, grace, and decency. We saw it from Sandy Hook Elementary School's teachers, students, and parents, as well as from their community and country. The outpouring of sympathy and help has been touching and, at times, inspiring.

~ Campbell Brown

In the eyes of the Catholic Church, abortion is a tragedy. Our principle objective must be to try and win greater sympathy for that perspective and for the value of human life from its beginnings.

~ Vincent Nichols

There's sadness to anyone that dies before their time, and specifically ones that seem to affect people in a positive way. It doesn't matter if it's Whitney Houston or a nameless, faceless person on the street. That's just as big of a tragedy for me.

~ Chris Cornell

My mother's songs are really turning out to be masterpieces. I have inherited this incredible legacy and am so fortunate to bathe in her sensibilities. It is tinged with tragedy. I'd much rather she was here in person, but there is still a positive force to come out of her death and that is having the gift of music that she gave.

~ Rufus Wainwright

The mark of a good marriage is partnership and continuing to feel inspired by your spouse. I had that with Tao. But the end is not necessarily the tragedy. Staying in a relationship that is no longer working is the tragedy. Living unhappily - that's the tragedy.

~ Olivia Wilde