Quotes about disaster

A collection of quotes on the topic of happiness, success, failure, bad luck.

Best quotes about disaster

“Breathe. It’s only a bad day, not a bad life.”

Johnny Depp (1963) American actor, film producer, and musician

“Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.”

William Shakespeare All's Well That Ends Well

Variant: Love all, trust a few.
Source: All's Well That Ends Well

“You can’t make a good deal with a bad person.”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikaandersen/2013/12/02/23-quotes-from-warren-buffett-on-life-and-generosity/ "23 Quotes from Warren Buffett on Life and Generosity" forbes.com (02 December 2013)
Quotes from the press

“It is better to be alone than in bad company.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

Letter to his niece, Harriet Washington (30 October 1791)
1790s
Variant: It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one.

“Those who look for the bad in people will surely find it.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

“A clear conscience is the sure sign of a bad memory.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”

Seneca the Younger (-4–65 BC) Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and dramatist

Has been attributed to Seneca since the 1990s (eg. Gregory K. Ericksen, (1999), Women entrepreneurs only: 12 women entrepreneurs tell the stories of their success, page ix.). Other books ascribe the saying to either Darrell K. Royal (former American football player, born 1924) or Elmer G. Letterman (Insurance salesman and writer, 1897-1982). However, it is unlikely either man originated the saying. A version that reads "He is lucky who realizes that luck is the point where preparation meets opportunity" can be found (unattributed) in the 1912 The Youth's Companion: Volume 86. The quote might be a distortion of the following passage by Seneca (who makes no mention of "luck" and is in fact quoting his friend Demetrius the Cynic):<blockquote>"The best wrestler," he would say, "is not he who has learned thoroughly all the tricks and twists of the art, which are seldom met with in actual wrestling, but he who has well and carefully trained himself in one or two of them, and watches keenly for an opportunity of practising them." — Seneca, On Benefits, vii. 1 http://thriceholy.net/Texts/Benefits4.html</blockquote> Disputed

“Life doesn't imitate art, it imitates bad television.”

Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician

“Shallow men believe in luck.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson Worship

Worship
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper.”

Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, and author

No. 36
Apophthegms (1624)
Variant: Money is a great servant but a bad master.

Johnny Depp quote: “Breathe. It’s only a bad day, not a bad life.”

Warren Buffett quote: “You can’t make a good deal with a bad person.”

Quotes about disaster

“There are alway going to be bad things. But you can write it down and make a song out of it.”

Billie Eilish (2001) American singer-songwriter

Making love

“If I'm in a bad mood, or if I'm uncomfortable, it's probably what I'm wearing that's making me feel that way.”

Billie Eilish (2001) American singer-songwriter

Making love, Way, Feeling, Mood

“So you're a tough guy
Like-it-really-rough guy
Just-can't-get-enough guy
Chest-always-so-puffed guy
I'm that bad type
Make-your-mama-sad type
Make-your-girlfriend-mad type
Might-seduce-your-dad type
I'm the bad guy, duh
I'm the bad guy”

Billie Eilish (2001) American singer-songwriter

"Bad Guy"
When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? (2019)

Sadness, Making love, Guy, Madness

“Growing up in a home of abuse, you struggle with the notion that you can love a person you hate, or hate a person you love. It’s a strange feeling. You want to live in a world where someone is good or bad, where you either hate them or love them, but that’s not how people are.”

Trevor Noah book Born a Crime

page 267
Born a Crime

Love, Hate, People, World

“When I do good I feel good, when I do bad I feel bad, and that's my religion.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Quoted in 3:439 Herndon's Lincoln (1890), p. 439 http://books.google.com/books?id=rywOAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA439&dq=%22when+i+do+good+i+feel+good%22: Inasmuch as he was so often a candidate for public office Mr. Lincoln said as little about his religious code as possible, especially if he failed to coincide with the orthodox world. In illustration of his religious code I once heard him say that it was like that of an old man named Glenn, in Indiana, whom he heard speak at a church meeting, and who said: "When I do good I feel good, when I do bad I feel bad, and that's my religion." Posthumous attributions

Religion, Feeling

“It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Love, Friendship, Marriage, Friendship

“What’s good for individual could be bad for society but what’s good for society that will be good for individual and there is always need to choose what right for society because if it is right for society then it is right for individual.”

Zaman Ali (1993) Pakistani philosopher

"Humanity", Ch.VII, "Humanity: A Way Forward" Part VI

“You know something? There's been a lot of rumors lately about a certain band called Queen. The rumors are that... The rumors are that we're gonna split up. What do you think? [audience replies "No!"] [Pointing to his posterior] They're talking from here! [audience replies "Yes"!] My apologies, but I say what I want. You know what I mean? So forget those rumors. We’re gonna stay together until we fucking well die, I’m sure of it. I keep — I must tell you — I keep wanting to leave, but they won’t let me. Also, I suppose we’re not... We're not bad for four aging queens, are we? Really, what do you think?”

Freddie Mercury (1946–1991) British singer, songwriter and record producer

"Queen: Live at Wembley" (1986), shortly before performing "Who Wants To Live Forever." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GNJ1SQpxFI

Age, Thinking, Forgetting

“It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.”

Oscar Wilde Lady Windermere's Fan

Lord Darlington, Act I
Source: Lady Windermere's Fan (1892)

People

“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”

William Shakespeare Hamlet

Source: Hamlet, Act II, scene ii.

Thinking, Attitude, For Men

“Never discredit your gut instinct. You are not paranoid. Your body can pick up on bad vibrations. If something deep inside of you says something is not right about a person or situation, trust it.”

Ralph Smart

Personality

“Be reverent before the dawning day. Do not think of what will be in a year, or in ten years. Think of to-day. Leave your theories. All theories, you see, even those of virtue, are bad, foolish, mischievous. Do not abuse life. Live in to-day. Be reverent towards each day. Love it, respect it, do not sully it, do not hinder it from coming to flower. Love it even when it is gray and sad like to-day. Do not be anxious. See. It is winter now. Everything is asleep. The good earth will awake again. You have only to be good and patient like the earth. Be reverent. Wait. If you are good, all will go well. If you are not, if you are weak, if you do not succeed, well, you must be happy in that. No doubt it is the best you can do. So, then, why will? Why be angry because of what you cannot do? We all have to do what we can.... Als ich kann.”

Romain Rolland (1866–1944) French author

Gottfried to Jean-Christophe. Part 3: Ada
Jean-Christophe (1904 - 1912), Youth (1904)

Love, Life, Happiness, Sadness

“Indeed, when a ruler once becomes unpopular, all his acts, be they good or bad, tell against him.”

Tacitus book Histories

Book I, 7
Histories (100-110)

“To the well-fed it seems cowardly to complain of tight boots, because the well-fed live in a different world-a world where, if your boots are tight, you can change them; their minds are not warped by petty discomfort. But below a certain income the petty crowds the large out of existence; one's preoccupation is not with art or religion, but with bad food, hard beds, drudgery and the sack. Serenity is impossible to a poor man in a cold country and even his active thoughts will go in more or less sterile complaint.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

Source: Review of Hunger and Love by Lionel Britton, in The Adelphi (April 1931)

World, Religion, Food, Art

“There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book.
Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Variant: There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.
Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Books

“It's awful bad luck to bring a woman aboard the ship."
"It's awful worse luck not to.”

Johnny Depp (1963) American actor, film producer, and musician

“Life is not always a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes, playing a poor hand well.”

Jack London (1876–1916) American author, journalist, and social activist

As quoted in Sacred Journey of the Peaceful Warrior (1991) by Dan Millman, p. 78
Life’s not a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes playing a poor hand well.
As quoted in "They Came to Write in Hawai‘i" by Joseph Theroux, in Spirit of Aloha (March/April 2007)

Life, Wise, Life

“Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is by far the best ending for one.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Variant: Laughter is not a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is the best ending for one.
Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Friendship, Laughter, Friendship, For Friend

“The advantage of a bad memory is that one can enjoy the same good things for the first time several times.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Human, All Too Human

I.580
Human, All Too Human (1878)

Memory, Time

“In any moment of decision the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

As quoted by John M. Kost http://www.mackinac.org/bio.aspx?ID=104 (25 July 1995) in S. 946, the Information Technology Management Reform Act of 1995: hearing before the Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management and the District of Columbia of the Committee on Governmental Affairs (1996). This appears to derive from a 1910 advertisement by writer Alfred Henry Lewis for a forthcoming series of biographical articles about Roosevelt: "All activity, Mr. Roosevelt has often shown that it is better to do the wrong thing than do nothing at all. In politics this last is peculiarly true. The best thing is to do the right thing; the next best is to do the wrong thing; the worst thing of all things is to stand perfectly still". (e.g. in La Follette's Magazine https://books.google.com/books?id=RV4CAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA183&dq=%22best+thing%22+%22right+thing%22+%22worst+thing%22+nothing&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjNksu-nZrMAhVDy2MKHSl1Df8Q6AEIIzAB#v=onepage&q=%22the%20best%20thing%20is%20to%20do%20the%20right%20thing%22&f=false (28 May 1910) Disputed

Decision

“The centuries rarely produce a genius. It is our bad luck that the great genius of our era was granted to the Turkish nation. We could not beat Mustafa Kemal.”

David Lloyd George (1863–1945) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Lloyd George is portrayed as saying this, as George Nathaniel Curzon was making a complaint against Raymond Poincaré in the Turkish TV series, Kurtuluş (1994), but no prior citation of such a statement has yet been found.
Misattributed

“You know, when I have a bad game, it continues to humble me and know that, you know, you still have work to do and you still have a lot of people to impress.”

LeBron James (1984) American basketball player

People, Game

“When I get honest, I admit I am a bundle of paradoxes. I believe and I doubt, I hope and get discouraged, I love and I hate, I feel bad about feeling good, I feel guilty about not feeling guilty. I am trusting and suspicious. I am honest and I still play games. Aristotle said I am a rational animal; I say I am an angel with an incredible capacity for beer.”

Brennan Manning book The Ragamuffin Gospel

p. 11 https://books.google.com/books?id=sUTZCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA11 1990s, The Ragamuffin Gospel (1990)

Love, Hate, Making love, Hope

“Cause sometimes you feel tired, feel weak, and when you feel weak, you feel like you wanna just give up. But you gotta search within you, you gotta find that inner strength and just pull that shit out of you and get that motivation to not give up and not be a quitter, no matter how bad you wanna just fall flat on your face and collapse.”

Eminem (1972) American rapper and actor

"Till I Collapse"
2000s, The Eminem Show (2002)

Feeling, Search, Motivation

“The Jewish people has always been plagued by Bad Jews, who undermine it from within. In America, those Bad Jews largely vote Democrat.”

Ben Shapiro (1984) American journalist and attorney

Twitter https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status/133918830073352192, , quoted in * 2019-08-22 What Republicans Really Mean When They Call Jews Disloyal Jordan Weissman Slate https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/08/what-republicans-really-mean-when-they-call-jews-disloyal.html 2011

People

“What if the only way not to feel bad is to stop feeling anything at all, forever?”

Hannah Baker Peerage person ID=568402

Source: Hannah Baker je fiktivní postavou ze seriálu 13 Reasons Why, na základě knihy "Thirteen reasons why")napsané Jayem Asherem roku 2007.

Way, Feeling

“Trust wisdom, the harder you work the better luck you have.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

1989

Wisdom

“The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink. In our age there is no such thing as ‘keeping out of politics.’ All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer. I should expect to find — this is a guess which I have not sufficient knowledge to verify — that the German, Russian and Italian languages have all deteriorated in the last ten or fifteen years, as a result of dictatorship.
But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation even among people who should and do know better.”

George Orwell book Politics and the English Language

Politics and the English Language (1946)

People, Age, Knowledge, Suffering

“I had an accident."

"That seemes to happen a lot."

"It wasn't my fault."

"It never is."

"I just have bad luck."

"Or you're just trouble."

"You got a problem with that?"

"No problem at all."

"Oh my God! Are you going to help or not?”

Richelle Mead book The Fiery Heart

Source: The Fiery Heart

God, Problem, Help

“Every day is a new day. It is better to be lucky. But I would rather be exact. Then when luck comes you are ready.”

Ernest Hemingway book The Old Man and the Sea

Source: The Old Man and the Sea (1952)

“Alone. Yes, that's the key word, the most awful word in the English tongue. Murder doesn't hold a candle to it and hell is only a poor synonym.”

Stephen King book 'Salem's Lot

Variant: Alone. Yes, that’s the key word, the most awful word in the English tongue. Murder doesn’t hold a candle to it and hell is only a poor synonym…
Source: 'Salem's Lot

Hell

“I don’t say we all ought to misbehave. But we ought to look as if we could”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

“He was still too young to know that the heart's memory eliminates the bad and magnifies the good, and that thanks to this artifice we manage to endure the burden of the past.”

Gabriel García Márquez book Love in the Time of Cholera

Variant: .. the heart's memory eliminates the bad and magnifies the good, and [that] thanks to this artifice we manage to endure the burden of the past
Source: Love in the Time of Cholera

Memory, Past, Heart

“To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune … to lose both seems like carelessness.”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

Lady Bracknell, Act I
The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)

Parent

“The pendulum of the mind oscillates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology

Sense

“That which is done out of love is always beyond good and evil.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Love, Evil

“I'm not a walking extra in a Chekhov play; I'm no Slavic gloom or Irish gloom. I mark only the happy hours, like the sundial, because otherwise I would have gone nuts. To quote from my script for The Dreamers, never expect justice in the world. That is not part of God's plan. Everybody thinks that if they don't get it, they're some kind of odd man out. And it's not true. Nobody gets justice — people get good luck or bad luck.”

Orson Welles (1915–1985) American actor, director, writer and producer

Quoted by Barbara Leaming, "Orson Welles: The Unfulfilled Promise". The New York Times, July 14, 1985.

God, Happiness, People, World

“And now, ladies and gentlemen, that we've enjoyed some good times this evening, and enjoyed some laughter together, I feel it is my obligation to remind you of some of the negative, depressing, dangerous, life-threatening things that life is really all about; things you have not been thinking about tonight, but which will be waiting for you as soon as you leave the theater or as soon as you turn off your television sets. Anal rape, quicksand, body lice, evil spirits, gridlock, acid rain, continental drift, labor violence, flash floods, rabies, torture, bad luck, calcium deficiency, falling rocks, cattle stampedes, bank failure, evil neighbors, killer bees, organ rejection, lynching, toxic waste, unstable dynamite, religious fanatics, prickly heat, price fixing, moral decay, hotel fires, loss of face, stink bombs, bubonic plague, neo-Nazis, friction, cereal weevils, failure of will, chain reaction, soil erosion, mail fraud, dry rot, voodoo curse, broken glass, snake bite, parasites, white slavery, public ridicule, faithless friends, random violence, breach of contract, family scandals, charlatans, transverse myelitis, structural defects, race riots, sunspots, rogue elephants, wax buildup, killer frost, jealous coworkers, root canals, metal fatigue, corporal punishment, sneak attacks, peer pressure, vigilantes, birth defects, false advertising, ungrateful children, financial ruin, mildew, loss of privileges, bad drugs, ill-fitting shoes, widespread chaos, Lou Gehrig's disease, stray bullets, runaway trains, chemical spills, locusts, airline food, shipwrecks, prowlers, bathtub accidents, faulty merchandise, terrorism, discrimination, wrongful cremation, carbon deposits, beef tapeworm, taxation without representation, escaped maniacs, sunburn, abandonment, threatening letters, entropy, nine-mile fever, poor workmanship, absentee landlords, solitary confinement, depletion of the ozone layer, unworthiness, intestinal bleeding, defrocked priests, loss of equilibrium, disgruntled employees, global warming, card sharks, poisoned meat, nuclear accidents, broken promises, contamination of the water supply, obscene phone calls, nuclear winter, wayward girls, mutual assured destruction, rampaging moose, the greenhouse effect, cluster headaches, social isolation, Dutch elm disease, the contraction of the universe, paper cuts, eternal damnation, the wrath of God, and PARANOIAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

Playing With Your Head (1986)

Life, God, Children, Disease

“A pessimist is one who, when he has the choice of two evils, chooses both”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Similar quotes are found, unattributed, from as early as 1899 https://books.google.com/books?id=lC81AAAAIAAJ&pg=RA4-PA32&dq=%22two+evils%22+both+pessimist&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAGoVChMIuveP5uz0yAIVBVqICh0GRQQJ#v=onepage&q=%22two%20evils%22%20both%20pessimist&f=false. First clear attribution to Wilde was not until 1977 https://books.google.com/books?id=eOcWAQAAMAAJ&q=oscar+wilde+%22two+evils%22&dq=oscar+wilde+%22two+evils%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CE4Q6AEwCWoVChMIjMLEuO30yAIVBpSICh0c4Qi9 Disputed

Evil

“If we men married the women we deserved, we should have a very bad time of it.”

Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband

Lord Goring, Act IV
An Ideal Husband (1895)

Women, Men, Time

“If it does not grow, even though you are working hard, it is not because of unfavorable circumstances, bad timing, or bad luck. … of the past has shown, it is during the bad times that the skilled manager lays firm foundations for future growth.”

Matsushita Konosuke (1894–1989) Japanese businessman

Source: Quest for prosperity: the life of a Japanese industrialist. 1988, p. 58

Time, Past, Future

“A physicist looks for causes; that does not necessarily imply that there are causes everywhere. A man may look for gold without assuming that there is gold everywhere; if he finds gold, well and good, if he doesn't he's had bad luck. The same is true when the physicists look for causes.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

BBC Radio Debate on the Existence of God, Russell vs. Copleston (1948)
1940s

“Therefore the good man, although he is a slave, is free; but the bad man, even if he reigns, is a slave, and that not of one man, but, what is far more grievous, of as many masters as he has vices”

Aurelius Augustinus book The City of God

IV, 3
Variant translation: The good man, though a slave, is free; the wicked, though he reigns, is a slave, and not the slave of a single man, but — what is worse — the slave of as many masters as he has vices.
The City of God (early 400s)
Context: The dominion of bad men is hurtful chiefly to themselves who rule, for they destroy their own souls by greater license in wickedness; while those who are put under them in service are not hurt except by their own iniquity. For to the just all the evils imposed on them by unjust rulers are not the punishment of crime, but the test of virtue. Therefore the good man, although he is a slave, is free; but the bad man, even if he reigns, is a slave, and that not of one man, but, what is far more grievous, of as many masters as he has vices; of which vices when the divine Scripture treats, it says, “For of whom any man is overcome, to the same he is also the bond-slave.”

“Find what’s hot, find what’s just opened and then look for the worst review of the week. There is so much to learn from watching a restaurant getting absolutely panned and having a bad experience. Go and see it for yourself.”

Gordon Ramsay (1966) British chef, writer and TV presenter

Learning

“Walk away from anything that gives you bad vibes. There is no need to explain or make sense of it. It’s your life. Do what makes you happy.”

Ralph Smart

Life, Happiness, Making love, Sense

“If you want it bad enough, you'll work hard enough to get it.”

Ralph Smart

“You only talk about moving forward with the same bad ideas that got us into this mess. Even when the only sensible thing to do is pull the emergency brake. You are not mature enough to tell it like it is. Even that burden you leave to your children.”

Greta Thunberg (2003) Swedish climate change activist

2018, "You are stealing our future" (December 2018)

Children, Idea

“It's just a bad day not a bad life”

Andrew Fowler

Life

“It should not be Democratic or Republican, it should not be a partisan issue to say that we do not pressure the attorney general or the FBI to use the criminal justice system as a cudgel to punish our political opponents. Or to explicitly call on the attorney general to protect members of our own party from prosecution because an election happens to be coming up. I’m not making that up. That’s not hypothetical. It shouldn’t be Democratic or Republican to say that we don’t threaten the freedom of the press because they say things or publish stories we don’t like. I complained plenty about Fox News but you never heard me threaten to shut them down, or call them enemies of the people. It shouldn’t be Democratic or Republican to say we don’t target certain groups of people based on what they look like or how they pray. We are Americans. We’re supposed to stand up to bullies. Not follow them. We’re supposed to stand up to discrimination. And we’re sure as heck supposed to stand up, clearly and unequivocally, to Nazi sympathizers. How hard can that be? Saying that Nazis are bad. I’ll be honest, sometimes I get into arguments with progressive friends about what the current political movement requires. There are well-meaning folks passionate about social justice, who think things have gotten so bad, the lines have been so starkly drawn, that we have to fight fire with fire, we have to do the same things to the Republicans that they do to us, adopt their tactics, say whatever works, make up stuff about the other side. I don’t agree with that.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2018, Speech at the University of Illinoise Speech (2018)

People, Making love, Justice, Thinking

“I am absolutely prepared to talk about the spiritual life of an electronic computer: to state that it is reflecting or is in a bad mood… The question whether the machine really feels or ponders, or whether it merely looks as though it did, is of course absolutely meaningingless.”

Niels Bohr (1885–1962) Danish physicist

As quoted in a letter written from J. Kalckar to John A. Wheeler dated June 10, 1977, which appears in Wheeler's "Law Without Law," pg 207.

Life, Feeling, Mood, Question

“Every minute of our life must be lived to the full – whether enjoyed or suffered. We must study, see the good around us, and fight the bad, and not waste time writing to a 90-year-old woman to tell her you wish she’d die. Besides, nature will take care of that.”

Liliana Segre (1930) Italian Holocaust survivor and senator for life

During a seminar at Milan’s IULM University, speaking of the haters; as quoted in "Escort for Liliana Segre following insults and threats" https://www.corriere.it/english/19_novembre_07/escort-for-liliana-segre-following-insults-and-threats-2c3dea64-015f-11ea-bfaf-9602a8f3f6c1.shtml, Corriere.it (7 November 2019).

Life, Nature, Study, Suffering

“For nearly five hundred years, these rules and theories of an Arab Shaikh and the interpretations of generations of lazy and good-for-nothing priests have decided the civil and criminal law of Turkey. They have decided the form of the Constitution, the details of the lives of each Turk, his food, his hours of rising and sleeping the shape of his clothes, the routine of the midwife who produced his children, what he learned in his schools, his customs, his thoughts-even his most intimate habits. Islam – this theology of an immoral Arab – is a dead thing. Possibly it might have suited tribes in the desert. It is no good for modern, progressive state. God’s revelation! There is no God! These are only the chains by which the priests and bad rulers bound the people down. A ruler who needs religion is a weakling. No weaklings should rule.”

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881–1938) Turkish army officer, revolutionary, and the first President of Turkey

As quoted in Grey Wolf: Mustafa Kemal – An intimate study of a dictator (1932) by Harold Courtenay Armstrong, pp. 199-200
Disputed

God, Children, People, School

“I’m hardly going to take morals lectures from the extreme left, who frankly are just as bad in this circumstance as people like Fraser Anning, they should equally be condemned.”

Peter Dutton (1970) Australian politician

People

“Violence was common in both places, but the violence of the capitalist order seemed inherent in it; whilst the violence of Russia, bad though it was, aimed at a new order based on peace and cooperation and real freedom for the masses. With all her blunders, Soviet Russia had triumphed over enormous difficulties and taken great strides towards this new order. While the rest of the world was in the grip of the depression and going backward in some ways, in the Soviet country a great new world was being built up before our eyes. Russia, following the great Lenin, looked into the future and thought only of what was to be, while other countries lay numbed under the dead hand of the past and spent their energy in preserving the useless relics of a bygone age. In particular, I was impressed by the reports of the great progress made by the backward regions of Central Asia under the Soviet regime. In the balance, therefore, I was all in favour of Russia, and the presence and example of the Soviets was a bright and heartening phenomenon in a dark and dismal world.”

Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) Indian lawyer, statesman, and writer, first Prime Minister of India

Autobiography (1936; 1949; 1958)

Age, World, Peace, Way

“Japan had come to terms with Russia because of her difficulties, but this did not mean approval of communism. Communism meant the end of emperor-worship, and feudalism and the exploitation of the masses by the ruling class, and indeed almost everything that the existing order stood for… But communism is the outcome of widespread misery due to social conditions, and unless these conditions are improved, mere repression can be no remedy. There is a terrible misery in Japan at present. The peasantry, as in China and India, are crushed under a tremendous burden of debt. Taxation, especially because of heavy military expenditure and war needs, is very heavy. Reports come of starving peasants trying to live on grass and roots, and of selling even their children. The middle classes are also in a bad way owing to unemployment and suicides have increased.”

Jawaharlal Nehru book Glimpses of World History

Glimpses of World History (1949)

War, Children, Way, Communication

“This last summer, when I was on my way back to Vienna from the Appetite-Cure in the mountains, I fell over a cliff in the twilight, and broke some arms and legs and one thing or another, and by good luck was found by some peasants who had lost an ass, and they carried me to the nearest habitation, which was one of those large, low, thatch-roofed farm-houses, with apartments in the garret for the family, and a cunning little porch under the deep gable decorated with boxes of bright colored flowers and cats; on the ground floor a large and light sitting-room, separated from the milch-cattle apartment by a partition; and in the front yard rose stately and fine the wealth and pride of the house, the manure-pile. That sentence is Germanic, and shows that I am acquiring that sort of mastery of the art and spirit of the language which enables a man to travel all day in one sentence without changing cars.”

Mark Twain Christian Science

Book I, Ch. 1 http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3187/3187-h/3187-h.htm#link2H_4_0002 Christian Science (1907)

Family, Art, Cars, Color

“America is all about speed. Hot, nasty, bad-ass speed.”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

Deliberately misattributed for comic effect in the opening of the film Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006)
Misattributed

Speed

“Everything is evil. I mean, everything that is, is wicked; every existing thing is an evil; everything exists for a wicked end. Existence is a wickedness and is ordained for wickedness. Evil is the end, the final purpose, of the universe…The only good is nonbeing; the only really good thing is the thing that is not, things that are not things; all things are bad.”

Giacomo Leopardi book Zibaldone

19th April 1826.
Zibaldone (1898)

Universe, Evil

“I am a pure-blooded Polish nobleman, without a single drop of bad blood, certainly not German blood. When I look for my diametric opposite, an immeasurably shabby instinct, I always think of my mother and sister, — it would blaspheme my divinity to think I am related to this sort of canaille.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Ecce homo

The way my mother and sister treat me to this very day is a source of unspeakable horror; a real time bomb is at work here, which can tell with unerring certainty the exact moment I can be hurt — in my highest moments, … because at that point I do not have the strength to resist poison worms …
"Why I Am So Wise", 3, as translated in The Anti-Christ, Ecce Homo, Twilight of the Idols, and Other Writings (2005) edited by Aaron Ridley and Judith Norman, p. 77
Ecce Homo (1888)

Thinking, Sister, Relation ships

“In his heart every man knows quite well that, being unique, he will be in the world only once and that no imaginable chance will for a second time gather together into a unity so strangely variegated an assortment as he is: he knows it but he hides it like a bad conscience—why? From fear of his neighbor, who demands conventionality and cloaks himself with it. But what is it that constrains the individual to fear his neighbor, to think and act like a member of a herd, and to have no joy in himself? Modesty, perhaps, in a few rare cases. With the great majority it is indolence, inertia. … Men are even lazier than they are timid, and fear most of all the inconveniences with which unconditional honesty and nakedness would burden them. Artists alone hate this sluggish promenading in borrowed fashions and appropriated opinions and they reveal everyone’s secret bad conscience, the law that every man is a unique miracle.”

Friedrich Nietzsche Untimely Meditations

“Schopenhauer as educator” ("Schopenhauer als Erzieher"), § 3.1, R. Hollingdale, trans. (1983), p. 127
Untimely Meditations (1876)

Men, Hate, Secret, World

“Ben if only it were possible to look into each other’s hearts and minds, you would find no trace of prejudice or bigotry in mine. I know that’s hard for you to believe and that’s too bad because together we could do more for the people you represent than either of us can do alone.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

As quoted in "Ronald Reagan and Race" https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/08/ronald-reagan-and-race-richard-nixon-tape/ (August 2019), by Jay Nordlinger, National Review 1980s, First term of office (1981–1985)

People, Heart

“Tiffani-Amber Thiessen thought we were all on blow…. Tori Spelling hung out with us backstage and gave us the lowdown. Brian Austin Green, kept telling us about his music. Ian Ziering was kind of a dick. Maybe he was having a bad day.”

Adam Levine (1979) singer, songwriter, actor, and record producer from the United States

On being on Beverly Hills, 90210 when he was 17 in his band Kara's Flowers
Voss, Brandon (2007-05-22), "Adam Levine". Advocate. (986):25.

Music

“I can honestly say, all the bad things that ever happened to me were directly, directly attributed to drugs and alcohol. I mean, I would never piss on a piece of stone at the fucking Alamo at nine o'clock in the morning dressed in a woman's evening dress sober. I mean I know I'm a fucking crazy-ass but still.”

Ozzy Osbourne (1948) English heavy metal vocalist and songwriter

MTV News Online, 1992.

Alcohol

“This new patriarch Fox said one day to a justice of peace, before a large assembly of people. "Friend, take care what thou dost; God will soon punish thee for persecuting his saints." This magistrate, being one who besotted himself every day with bad beer and brandy, died of apoplexy two days after; just as he had signed a mittimus for imprisoning some Quakers. The sudden death of this justice was not ascribed to his intemperance; but was universally looked upon as the effect of the holy man's predictions; so that this accident made more Quakers than a thousand sermons and as many shaking fits would have done. Cromwell, finding them increase daily, was willing to bring them over to his party, and for that purpose tried bribery; however, he found them incorruptible, which made him one day declare that this was the only religion he had ever met with that could resist the charms of gold.
The Quakers suffered several persecutions under Charles II; not upon a religious account, but for refusing to pay the tithes, for "theeing" and "thouing" the magistrates, and for refusing to take the oaths enacted by the laws.
At length Robert Barclay, a native of Scotland, presented to the king, in 1675, his "Apology for the Quakers"; a work as well drawn up as the subject could possibly admit. The dedication to Charles II, instead of being filled with mean, flattering encomiums, abounds with bold truths and the wisest counsels. "Thou hast tasted," says he to the king, at the close of his "Epistle Dedicatory," "of prosperity and adversity: thou hast been driven out of the country over which thou now reignest, and from the throne on which thou sittest: thou hast groaned beneath the yoke of oppression; therefore hast thou reason to know how hateful the oppressor is both to God and man. If, after all these warnings and advertisements, thou dost not turn unto the Lord, with all thy heart; but forget Him who remembered thee in thy distress, and give thyself up to follow lust and vanity, surely great will be thy guilt, and bitter thy condemnation. Instead of listening to the flatterers about thee, hearken only to the voice that is within thee, which never flatters. I am thy faithful friend and servant, Robert Barclay."”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

The most surprising circumstance is that this letter, though written by an obscure person, was so happy in its effect as to put a stop to the persecution.
The History of the Quakers (1762)

Death, God, Hate, People

“The prison is overcrowded, the calendars full, the judges busy, the lawyers ambitious, and the cops zealous. What does it matter if someone gets trapped here for a year or two, gets ruined here, goes mad here, commits murder or suicide here? It's too bad, but that's the way the cookie crumbles sometimes. I do not claim that everyone in prison here is innocent, but I do claim that the law, as it operates, is guilty, and that the prisoners, therefore, are all unjustly imprisoned. Is it conceivable, after all, that any middle-class white boy — or, indeed, almost any white boy — would have been arrested on so grave a charge as murder, with such flimsy substantiation, and forced to spend, as of this writing, three years in prison? What force, precisely, is operating when a prisoner is advised, requested, ordered, intimidated, or forced, to confess to a crime he has not committed, and promised a lighter sentence for so perjuring and debasing himself? Does the law exist for the purpose of furthering the ambitions of those who have sworn to uphold the law, or is it seriously to be considered as a moral, unifying force, the health and strength of a nation?”

James Baldwin book No Name in the Street

No Name in the Street (1972)

Health, Law, Way, Boy

“You now have learned enough to see
That Cats are much like you and me
And other people whom we find
Possessed of various types of mind.
For some are sane and some are mad
And some are good and some are bad
And some are better, some are worse —
But all may be described in verse.”

T.S. Eliot book Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats

The Ad-dressing of Cats
Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats (1939)

People, Cats, Learning, Madness

“I advise you to fear Allah alone, with no partner of associate. I advise you to treat the first Muhâjireen well and acknowledge their seniority. I advise you to treat the Ansār well, and show approval of those among them who do well, and forgive those among them who make mistakes. I advise you to treat the people of the outlying regions well, for they are a shield against the enemy and conduits of fay; do not take anything from them except that which is surplus to their needs. I advise you to treat the people of the desert well, for they are the original Arabs and the protectors of Islam. Take from the surplus of their wealth and give it to their poor. I advise you to treat ahl adh-dhīmmah well, to defend them against their enemies and not burden them with more than they can bear if they fulfill their duties towards the believers or pay the Jizyāh with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued. I advise you to fear Allah and fear His wrath, lest you do anything wrong. I advise you to fear Allah with regard to the people, but do not fear the people with regard to Allah. I advise you to treat the people justly, and to devote yourself to looking after them and protecting them against their enemies. Do not show any favour to the rich over the poor. That will be better for your spiritual well being and will help to reduce your burden of sin, and it will be better for your Hereafter, until you meet the One Who knows what is in your heart. I instruct you to be strict with regard to the commands of Allah, His sacred limits and disobedience with all people, both relatives and others. Do not show any mercy to anyone until you have settled the score with him according to his offence. Treat all people as equal, and do not worry about who is as fault or fear the blame of the blamers. Beware of showing favouritism among the believers with regard to the fay that Allah has put you in charge of, lest that lead to injustice. Keep away from that. You are in a position between this world and the Hereafter. If you conduct your affairs justly in this world and refrain from indulgence, that will earn you faith and divine pleasure. I advise you not to let yourself or anyone else do wrong to ahl al-dhimmah. I advise you sincerely to seek thereby the Countenance of Allah and the Hereafter. I have chosen advice for you that I would offer to myself or my son. If you do as I have advised you and follow my instructions, you will have gained a great deal. If you don not accept it or pay attention to it, and do not handle your affairs in the way that pleases Allah, that will be a shortcoming on your part and you will have failed to be sincere, because whims and desires are the same and the cause of sin is Iblīs, who calls man to everything that will lead to his doom. He misguided the generations who came before you and led them to Hell, what a terrible abode. What a bad deal it is for a man to take the enemy of Allah as his friend, who calls him to disobey Allah. Adhere to the truth, strive hard to reach it and admonish yourself. I urge you by Allah to show mercy to the Muslims, honour their elderly, show compassion to their young ones and respect the knowledgeable ones among them. Do not harm them or humiliate them, and do not keep the fay for yourself lest you anger them. Do not deprive them of their stipends when they become due, thus making them poor. Do not keep them away on campaigns for so long that they end up having no children. Do not allow wealth to circulate only among the rich. Do not close your door to the people or allow the strong to oppress the weak. This is my advice to you, as Allah is my witness, and I greet you with peace.”

Umar (585–644) Second Caliph of Rashidun Caliphate and a companion of Muhammad

Umar ibn al-Khattab, Vol. 2, p. 389-390, also quoted in At-Tabqaat ul-Kabir, Vol. 3, p. 339
Last Advise

Children, People, Pleasure, Truth

“Pain's not bad. It's good. It teaches you things. Like when you put your hand in fire: Ow! You know not to do that again.”

Charles Manson (1934–2017) American criminal and musician

Charles Manson's first prison interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbW0agGFv88 by 60 Minutes Australia (1981)

Pain

“The last administration left us nothing. We started off with bad, broken tests, and obsolete tests”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Trump explains the lack of tests for the novel coronavirus, as quoted by * 2020-04-30

Trump is blaming Obama for leaving him with “broken tests” for a virus that didn’t exist. Yes, really.

Aaron Rupar

VOX
2020s, 2020, April
Source: https://www.vox.com/2020/4/30/21243117/trump-blames-obama-coronavirus-broken-tests-jim-acosta

“We're emerging from the new dark age. The dark age of emotions and feelings. We're awakening to the idea that it is possible to be a very good parent on a physical level while being a very bad parent on an emotional level.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

Age, Feeling, Idea, Parent

“I'm known as a survivor now, I hope so, for the jail thing, bullets and everything, controversies and everything, I hope so. And I want to be in the future known as somebody. You know I want people to be talking about me like you know: "remember when he was real bad, remember when Tupac was real bad". You know what I mean, they do that about a lot of actors now, like John Travolta I read stories like "remember you were wild."”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

And all these other people, and now they're like sweet hearts. We all should get that chance, I just want my chance.
1990s, MTV interview with Tabitha Soren (1995)

People, Hope, Reading, Future

“If you're with me in my bad time, definitely, my good time will be yours.”

Lucky Gupta (1998) Internet celebrity

2020

Time

“Friendship is really the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love.”

Jane Austen book Northanger Abbey

Variant: Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love.
Source: Northanger Abbey

Love, Friendship, Disappointment

“Never have your wallet with you onstage. It's bad luck. You shouldn't play the piano with money in your pocket. Play like you need the money.
Tom Waits (to me, about 1986 or so)”

Tom Waits (1949) American singer-songwriter and actor

Money, Waiting

“My bad luck got tangled up with my bad decisions, and I'm paying for it.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Wise Man's Fear

Source: The Wise Man's Fear

Decision

“I thought it was her wicked stepmother who poisoned her…'
'… Turned out the wicked stepmother had an alibi.'
'… Seems she was off poisoning someone else at the time. Chance in a million, really. It was just bad luck.”

John Connolly The Book of Lost Things

Source: The Book of Lost Things

Chance, Time

“That's bad luck: three on a midget.”

Groucho Marx (1890–1977) American comedian

“It would be unthinkably bad luck to be betrayed by a rumbling stomach.”

John Flanagan (1873–1938) Irish-American hammer thrower

Source: The Burning Bridge

“Mundies die awfully easily, don't they?"
"Isabelle, you know it's bad luck to talk about death in a sickroom.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

Death

“Life is not easy. We all have problems-even tragedies-to deal with, and luck has nothing to do with it. Bad luck is only the superstitious excuse for those who don't have the wit to deal with the problems of life.”

Joan Lowery Nixon (1927–2003) American children's writer and journalist

Source: In The Face of Danger

Life, Problem

“I was always lucky in my bad luck.”

Bohumil Hrabal (1914–1997) Czech bookwriter and writer

“Good luck is just bad luck with its hair combed.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Page 457.
Everything's Eventual (2002), "Luckey Quarter"

“Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it.”

Leo Tolstoy book A Confession

Source: A Confession

“You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from.”

Cormac McCarthy book No Country for Old Men

Source: No Country for Old Men (2005)

“I left parts of myself everywhere,
The way absent-minded people leave
Gloves and umbrellas
Whose colors are sad from dispensing so much bad luck”

Charles Simic (1938) American poet

People, Sadness, Color, Way

“Love is needing someone. Love is putting up with someone's bad qualities because they somehow complete you.”

Sarah Dessen book This Lullaby

Source: This Lullaby

Love

“Good music always defeats bad luck.”

Jack Vance (1916–2013) American mystery and speculative fiction writer

Music

“It seems to me after a fellow has been mutinied against three or four times, there is something to it besides bad luck.”

Naomi Novik book Tongues of Serpents

Source: Tongues of Serpents

Time

“All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

Leo Tolstoy book Anna Karenina

Все счастливые семьи похожи друг на друга, каждая несчастливая семья несчастлива по-своему.
Pt. I, ch. 1
Variant translations: Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
All happy families resemble one another; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
Variant: Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
Source: Anna Karenina (1875–1877; 1878)

Happiness, Family, Way

“She shrugged. "You can be happy for someone else's good fortune, but that doesn't mean you forget your own bad luck.”

Jodi Picoult Plain Truth

Source: Plain Truth

Happiness, Forgetting

“Destiny is a good thing to accept when it's going your way. When it isn't, don't call it destiny; call it injustice, treachery or simple bad luck.”

Joseph Heller book God Knows

Source: God Knows (1984)

Way

“A spider brings good luck before midnight and bad luck after.”

Joanne Harris book Chocolat

Source: Chocolat

“Neither of us says the word love, not once. It would be tempting fate; it would be romance, bad luck.”

Margaret Atwood book The Handmaid's Tale

Source: The Handmaid's Tale

Love, Fate

“I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Has been attributed to Stephen Leacock's "Literary Lapses" (1910), but the quote does not appear in the Project Gutenberg edition http://www.gutenberg.org/files/6340/6340.txt of this work. Misattributed Variant: I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have. Variant: I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.

Motivational