Quotes About Catastrophe

#1. My life had become a catastrophe. I had no idea how to turn it around. My band had broken up. I had almost lost my family. My whole life had devolved into a disaster. I believe that the police officer who stopped me at three a.m. that morning saved my life.

Trey Anastasio

#2. Empire as located its existence not in the smooth recurrent spinning time of the cycle of the seasons but in the jagged time of rise and fall, of beginning and end, of catastrophe.

J.M. Coetzee

#3. Death is sad, but to those closest to the deceased it is greater than that, it is a catastrophe, an off-the-Richter-scale, ground-shaking earthquake, a gale force fuck hurricane, a three-story-high rolling tsunami that knocks you flat, sweeps you away and strips you bare.

Anonymous

#4. Prophesying catastrophe is incredibly banal. The more original move is to assume that it has already happened.

Jean Baudrillard

#5. When catastrophe strikes, we look for a signal in the noise - anything that might explain the chaos that we see all around us and bring order to the world again.

Nate Silver

#6. You cannot prevent a major catastrophe, but you can build an organization that is battle-ready, where people trust one another. In military training, the first rule is to instill soldiers with trust in their officers - because without trust, they won't fight.

Peter Drucker

#7. Know the difference between a catastrophe and an inconvenience.

Bruce Lee

#8. Someone had tried to warn me of the kind of catastrophe that is likely to occur when you involve yourself too closely in one of those destinies that is ringed around by the transient tinsel of human applause.

Mary Deasy

#9. These days, everything is magnified very quickly by the media - the slightest slip can turn into a catastrophe.

Valerie Trierweiler

#10. A hundred times have I thought New York is a catastrophe, and fifty times : It is a beautiful catastrophe.

Le Corbusier

#11. If you are a good person, you will probably be a good father. Try not to worry too much. If you don't feel apprehensive just before your first child arrives, you are abnormal. Though catastrophe doesn't come as often in childbirth as it did a few generations ago, we naturally fear it.

Clyde Edgerton

#12. If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur

Doug Larson

#13. We have come so far. It's become a real bipartisan cause, which I'm very happy to see. And in the case of America, and it's - certainly, without America, we'd be facing catastrophe.

Elton John

#14. It's like we're a catastrophe waiting to happen.

J. Lynn

#15. In my head, when the gales are riding wild,
I steer towards catastrophe
then write about it.

Robin Robertson

#16. [In-group exclusivism has] killed more human beings and destroyed more cities and villages than all the epidemics, hurricanes, storms, floods, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions taken together. It has brought upon mankind more suffering than any other catastrophe.

Pitirim Sorokin

#17. Some say men continually war against circumstances, but I say they perpetually flee. What are the works of men if not a momentary respite, a hiding place soon to be discovered by catastrophe? Life is endless flight before the hunter we call the world. - EKYANNUS VIII, 111 APHORISMS Spring,

R. Scott Bakker

#18. A calamity, a catastrophe- it changes everything, doesn't it? It makes you aware that you cannot be indifferent toward your life. You cannot simply give away your life.

Anita Shreve

#19. Each day, a new crisis, a new massacre, a new threat of extinction, disease, internecine conflict, meteorological catastrophe... Behold man. Violent, self-serving and ruthless when in power; exploited, miserable and diseased when not.

Meg Rosoff

#20. You're this gorgeous catastrophe. You're unreal.

Sarah Harian

#21. It is by worrying about adversity that people survive; complacency brings catastrophe.

Amitav Ghosh

#22. In our interconnected world, novel technology could empower just one fanatic, or some weirdo with a mindset of those who now design computer viruses, to trigger some kind of disaster. Indeed, catastrophe could arise simply from technical misadventure - error rather than terror.

Martin Rees

#23. Lets make it known that we don't want to give away our beautiful homeland to corporate interests. It is our right as Canadians to be part of these decisions. The only thing standing between this world and environmental catastrophe is us

Grimes

#24. Few people understand the magnitude of the catastrophe that happened late in the 1980s when the Communist Party had failed to modernize the Soviet Union.

Vladimir Putin

#25. We who revel in nature's diversity and feel instructed by every animal tend to brand Homo sapiens as the greatest catastrophe since the Cretaceous extinction.

Stephen Jay Gould

#26. Thus, in moments of catastrophe, when hard decisions needed to be made quickly, all AIs included in their calculations a human death toll governed by a factor called 'pigheadedness'.

Neal Asher

#27. WORLD IN CATASTROPHE: KILLZONE EXPERIMENT DEPARTMENT

James Dashner

#28. It is a catastrophe, all of this virtual being together. I think there are people who get hooked on the internet. If they need to look at explicitly sexual material to be aroused there is a problem.

Ruth Westheimer

#29. The concept of progress must be grounded in the idea of catastrophe. That things are 'status quo' is the catastrophe

Walter Benjamin

#30. Preventing global warming from becoming a planetary catastrophe may take something even more drastic than renewable energy, superefficient urban design, and global carbon taxes.

Jamais Cascio

#31. In China, it was always said that a double-digit rate of growth would be dangerous. Now, the country has a growth rate of 6.9 percent and suddenly that is supposed to be a catastrophe for the global economy.

Wolfgang Schauble

#32. There is something so awe-inspiring in great afflictions that even in the worst times the first emotion of a crowd has generally been to sympathise with the sufferer in a great catastrophe.

Alexandre Dumas

#33. You could argue that Barack Obama faced in '08 a situation as bad as any president since the Great Depression. What Obama inherited from the Bush administration, we all remember, was just an absolute global catastrophe.

Tony Kushner

#34. Cheryl Strayed reminds us, in her lyrical and courageous memoir Wild, of what it means to be fully alive, even in the face of catastrophe, physical and psychic hardship, and loss.

Mira Bartok

#35. She wants him like she wanted to fly from the rooftop when she was ten, wants to throw her whole body into that catastrophe until she is utterly exhausted and dried up.

Amber Sparks

#36. So many times after a catastrophe like 9/11, Estonia in Sweden, the Holocaust or whatever, we are so fond of lifting up the hero examples, but actually 99 percent of survivors have done something that they feel very guilty about.

Ruben Ostlund

#37. We're running the most dangerous experiment in history right now, which is to see how much carbon dioxide the atmosphere ... can handle before there is an environmental catastrophe.

Elon Musk

#38. Well, if you were the American public, you saw a catastrophe. In general, you would say, "The biggest institutions of America - Washington, broadly, and Wall Street, broadly - they're to blame." And, broadly, they're right.

Jamie Dimon

#39. They [Democrats] are the troubadours and the crooners of catastrophe.

Clare Boothe Luce

#40. The notion that one will not survive a particular catastrophe is, in general terms, a comfort since it is equivalent to abolishing the catastrophe.

Iris Murdoch

#41. Take one catastrophe at a time, that's all you can do.

A.E. Hellstorm

#42. Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.

H.G.Wells

#43. In the end, a man turns into what he thinks he is, however large or small. It is the reason why certain people are prone to colds and catastrophe. And why others can dance on water.

Marisha Pessl

#44. There are only two things that can destroy a healthy [hu]man: love trouble, ambition, and financial catastrophe. And that's already three things, and there are a lot more.

Peter Altenberg

#45. Christianity, unlike any other religion in the world, begins with catastrophe and defeat. Sunshine religions and psychological inspirations collapse in calamity and wither in adversity. But the Life of the Founder of Christianity, having begun with the Cross, ends with the empty tomb and victory.

Fulton J. Sheen

#46. Why, if it was an illusion, not praise the catastrophe, whatever it was, that destroyed illusion and put truth in it's place?

Virginia Woolf

#47. Catastrophe and creation are twins.

Barbara Marx Hubbard

#48. I believe that Chess possesses a magic that is also a help in advanced age. A rheumatic knee is forgotten during a game of chess and other events can seem quite unimportant in comparison with a catastrophe on the chessboard.

Vlastimil Hort

#49. Lawsuits are rare and catastrophic experiences for the vast majority of men, and even when the catastrophe ensues, the controversy relates most often not to the law, but to the facts. In countless litigations, the law Is so clear that judges have no discretion.

Benjamin N. Cardozo

#50. This awful catastrophe is not the end but the beginning. History does not end so. It is the way its chapters open.

Saint Augustine

#51. Insofar as Zionism sought to solve the Jewish question, it must be reckoned not just a failure but a catastrophe: Israel is the main cause of anti-Semitism in the world today.

Norman Finkelstein

#52. Everyone who owns a home recognizes the need for fire insurance. We hope and pray that there will never be a fire. Nevertheless, we pay for insurance to cover such a catastrophe, should it occur. We ought to do the same with reference to family welfare.

Gordon B. Hinckley

#53. Now financial liberalization is just a catastrophe waiting to happen, and there are very well understood reasons for that.

Noam Chomsky

#54. If we once and for so long lived in balance with nature and each other, we should be able to do so again. The catastrophe that's overtaking us has deep roots, but our previous state of natural anarchy reaches much further into our shared history .

John Zerzan

#55. If we abide by the principles taught in the Bible, our country will go on prospering and to prosper; but if we and our posterity neglect its instructions and authority, no man can tell how sudden a catastrophe may overwhelm us and bury all our glory in profound obscurity.

Daniel Webster

#56. When a man meets catastrophe on the road, he looks in his purse, but a woman looks in her mirror.

Margaret Turnbull

#57. We who believe in Divine Providence, in life after death, in salvation and resurrection; we, of all people, when faced with catastrophe, must go on with courage, faith, and hope.

Benedict Groeschel

#58. This is not her story. But it is the story of that terrible, stupid catastrophe and some of its consequences.

Douglas Adams

#59. We are in a race between knowledge and catastrophe. If we keep track of what is important, never lower our standards or forget why we are here, we have the ability to determine the fate of the world.

Dean Kamen

#60. An all-out attack on evolutionist thinking is possibly the only real hope our nations have of rescuing themselves from an inevitable social and moral catastrophe.

Ken Ham

#61. The days had become a confusion of catastrophes; what seemed impossible in the afternoon was blunt fact by the evening.

David Benioff

#62. what once cause catastrophe in my life has now become the catalyst for my direction.

Nikki Rowe

#63. For some time now, our whole European culture has been moving with a tortured tension that is growing from decade to decade, as toward a catastrophe: restlessly, violently, headlong, like a river that wants to reach the end, that no longer reflects, that is afraid to reflect.

Friedrich Nietzsche

#64. To subdue and crush the masses of a nation by military force, when all are unanimous in the determination to be free, is to attempt the imprisonment of a whole people; all such projects must be temporary and transient, and terminate in a catastrophe...

William Dalrymple

#65. The terrible part of this looming catastrophe is that people have been working on solutions for years and have developed concrete steps to massively reduce our energy use, while stimulating whole new industries and technologies that are more efficient and affordable.

David Suzuki

#66. Catastrophe can be turned into an advantage, just as an advantage with incorrect application can be turned into a catastrophe.

Steven Redhead

#67. As long as she had books and money, nothing could be a catastrophe.

Katarina Bivald

#68. In all the books love is one of the great facts that mould human life. But it is a catastrophe: it happens suddenly and overwhelmingly, and there is little to be said about it.

Virginia Woolf

#69. The unavoidable kiss, where the minty fresh death breath is sure to outlast his catastrophe.

Jason Mraz

#70. Our Strategic Petroleum Reserve is there for a natural disaster or some other catastrophe.

Jason Chaffetz

#71. Until the fear of catastrophe amends, or catastrophe itself destroys ...

Reinhold Niebuhr

#72. George Bush is a catastrophe for the world. And a dream for Bin Laden.

Richard Dawkins

#73. Take a look at anyone's life. Take a look at your own. In the long fold catastrophe that makes up your three-score years and ten you will encounter many cusp catastrophes along the way.

William Boyd

#74. Some days punch us in the gut so hard it seems we can feel the whole universe gasp with despair.

Curtis Tyrone Jones

#75. Night sometimes lends such tragic assistance to catastrophe.

Victor Hugo

#76. Other than sports, only war and catastrophe can create this sort of national unity.

Simon Kuper

#77. It is not women's fault if we are so tender. It is in the nature of the lives we live. And further, it would be a terrible catastrophe if men had to live men's lives and women's also. Which is precisely what has happened today
to women.

Selma James

#78. To be naive and easily deceived is impermissible, today more than ever, when the prevailing untruths may lead to a catastrophe because they blind people to real dangers and real possibilities.

Erich Fromm

#79. And in the racial climate of this country today, it is anybody's guess which of the 'extremes' in approach to the black man's problems might personally meet a fatal catastrophe first - 'non-violent' Dr. King, or so-called 'violent' me.

Malcolm X

#80. Natural disasters are revelatory. The manner in which a society interprets a catastrophe and responds to the chaos exposes many of the accepted truths, prejudices, hopes, and fears of a culture. - Nicholas Shrady, The Last Day

Steve Olson

#81. You will find that free advice about your money is always available. It's usually those who lean back and give you the most 'positive' advice whose finances are bordering on catastrophe. They are often wrong, but never in doubt.

Venita VanCaspel

#82. Sometimes a catastrophe is simply a course correction.

James A. Owen

#83. Stupid people can cause problems, but it usually takes brilliant people to create a real catastrophe.

Thomas Sowell

#84. Marcuse wrote: "Perhaps an accident may alter the situation, but unless the recognition of what is being done and what is being prevented subverts the consciousness and the behavior of man, not even a catastrophe will bring about the change." ...

Daniel Pinchbeck

#85. God can never be found guilty of a natural catastrophe as long as survivors keep testifying that he was with them the whole time.

Daniel Ramalho

#86. Catastrophe and desire are linked in our lives as the moon is linked to that reflected light from the sun which enables the eye to see it.

Herbert Gold

#87. Before I left the 'Star' last year to write books full-time, I welcomed catastrophe. It was material. Missed planes, broken pipes, dead lawns, digestive disorders, you name it, if it was something that had gone horribly wrong, it was worth banging out 600 words about.

Linwood Barclay

#88. Aimlessness is a vice, and such drifting must not continue for him who would steer clear of catastrophe and destruction.

James Allen

#89. I think 99% of climate scientists would agree that we need to reduce emissions as quickly as possible, and then begin removing greenhouse gasses and carbon from the air. And if we don't do that we are looking at some range of catastrophe.

Margaret D. Klein

#90. Now I am quietly waiting for the catastrophe of my personality to seem beautiful again, and interesting, and modern.

Frank O'Hara

#91. Child!' Eleanor exclaimed. 'You didn't say there'd been a child!'
'I said a catastrophe,' her mother replied. 'And believe me, in cases such as these, the words are one and the same.

Eloisa James

#92. Frightened people want to protect themselves, sometimes without thinking about others. Often, they get angry and want to find someone to blame for catastrophe. Inevitably, they spread information without checking if it's true.

David Ignatius

#93. Passed Grogan's the Tobacconist against which newsboards leaned and told of a dreadful catastrophe in New York. In America those things were continually happening. Unfortunate people to die like that, unprepared. Still, an act of perfect contrition.

James Joyce

#94. The Creation Museum uses fossils to present evidence that there was a global catastrophe, Noah's Flood, that killed and preserved the remains of creatures all over the earth.

Ken Ham

#95. Living things have been doing just that for a long, long time. Through every kind of disaster and setback and catastrophe. We are survivors.

Robert Fulghum

#96. Don't think about Laika in orbit. Don't think about cringe and catastrophe.

Ada Limon

#97. 100,000,000 Guinea Pigs sparked a rising wave of consumer indignation. But ... it takes a major catastrophe to carry legal and enforcement action over the hump of lethargy and inaction ... Today, nearly forty years later, the situation is worse, not better.

John Fuller

#98. I love the idea of cooking, but I don't like using recipe books, so I'll put a mish-mash together, and it might be amazing by total accident, or it will be a catastrophe.

Trinny Woodall

#99. We are upsetting the atmosphere upon which all life depends. In the late 80s when I began to take climate change seriously, we referred to global warming as a "slowmotion catastrophe" one we expected to kick in perhaps generations later. Instead, the signs of change have accelerated alarmingly.

David Suzuki

#100. Syria may appear to be a small country, but it is just the type of entangled conflict that can lead to a world catastrophe. It does not take much imagination to see Syria as the Sarajevo of the 21st century, leading to world war.

Ahmed Zewail