“One of the greatest tragedies in life is to watch potential die untapped.”

“My mother wanted us to understand that the tragedies of your life one day have to potential to be the comic stories the next.”

Nora Ephron (1941–2012) Film director, author screenwriter

“Human potential at its best is to transform a tragedy into a personal triumph, to turn one's predicament into a human achievement.”

Viktor E. Frankl (1905–1997) Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist, and Holocaust survivor

“The tragedy of life, Howard, is not that the beautiful die young, but that they grow old and mean. It will not happen to me.”

Raymond Chandler book The Long Goodbye

“The tragedy of life is not death but what we let die inside of us while we live.”

Norman Cousins (1915–1990) American journalist

“The tragedy is not to die, but to be wasted.”

Thomas Harris book Hannibal

“Marla's philosophy of life, she told me, is that she can die at any moment. The tragedy of her life is that she doesn't.”

Chuck Palahniuk Fight Club

“What is your greatest ambition in life?'
'To become immortal… and then die.”

Jean-Luc Godard (1930) French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic

“Not to recognize the effect of the aura is the greatest tragedy.”

Harbhajan Singh Yogi (1929–2004) Indian-American Sikh Yogi

“That there should one Man die ignorant who had capacity for Knowledge, this I call a tragedy.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher