“Society is not a disease, it is a disaster. What a stupid miracle that one can live in it.”

A Short History of Decay (1949)

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Emil M. Cioran photo
Emil M. Cioran 531
Romanian philosopher and essayist 1911–1995

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“Only a miracle or a disaster could restore it.”

Cities of the Red Night (1981)
Context: There is simply no room left for 'freedom from the tyranny of government' since city dwellers depend on it for food, power, water, transportation, protection, and welfare. Your right to live where you want, with companions of your choosing, under laws to which you agree, died in the eighteenth century with Captain Mission. Only a miracle or a disaster could restore it.

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“[About the Paris Agreement:] By comparison to what it could have been, it’s a miracle. By comparison to what it should have been, it’s a disaster.”

George Monbiot (1963) English writer and political activist

"Grand promises of Paris climate deal undermined by squalid retrenchments" https://www.theguardian.com/environment/georgemonbiot/2015/dec/12/paris-climate-deal-governments-fossil-fuels, The Guardian, 12 December 2015.

Naruhito photo

“As we pass on the memories of disasters and pandemics to our posterity, we can improve our preparedness for forthcoming catastrophes. In this way, we can help to build a society in which everyone, with no one left behind, will be able to enjoy daily lives filled with health and happiness.”

Naruhito (1960) Emperor of Japan since 2019

Source: "Emperor Naruhito delivers address at U.N. meeting on water and disasters" in The Japan Times https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2021/06/26/national/emperor-naruhito-delivers-address-at-u-n-meeting-on-water-and-disasters/ (26 June 2021)

Carl Sagan photo

“We live in a society absolutely dependent on science and technology and yet have cleverly arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. That's a clear prescription for disaster.”

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

Bringing Science Down to Earth (1994), co-authored with Anne Kalosh, in Hemispheres (October 1994), p. 99 http://books.google.com/books?id=gJ1rDj2nR3EC&lpg=PA99&pg=PA99; this is similar to statements either mentioned in earlier interviews or published later in the book The Demon-Haunted World : Science as a Candle in the Dark (1995)
Variants:
We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.
"Why We Need To Understand Science" in The Skeptical Inquirer Vol. 14, Issue 3 (Spring 1990) http://www.csicop.org/si/show/why_we_need_to_understand_science
Not explaining science seems to me perverse. When you're in love, you want to tell the world.
"With Science on Our Side" https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/entertainment/books/1994/01/09/with-science-on-our-side/9e5d2141-9d53-4b4b-aa0f-7a6a0faff845/, Washington Post (9 January 1994)
We’ve arranged a society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science and technology. And this combustible mixture of ignorance and power, sooner or later, is going to blow up in our faces. Who is running the science and technology in a democracy if the people don’t know anything about it?
Charlie Rose: An Interview with Carl Sagan http://www.charlierose.com/guest/view/4553, May 27, 1996.
I know that science and technology are not just cornucopias pouring good deeds out into the world. Scientists not only conceived nuclear weapons; they also took political leaders by the lapels, arguing that their nation — whichever it happened to be — had to have one first. … There’s a reason people are nervous about science and technology.
And so the image of the mad scientist haunts our world—from Dr. Faust to Dr. Frankenstein to Dr. Strangelove to the white-coated loonies of Saturday morning children’s television. (All this doesn’t inspire budding scientists.) But there’s no way back. We can’t just conclude that science puts too much power into the hands of morally feeble technologists or corrupt, power-crazed politicians and decide to get rid of it. Advances in medicine and agriculture have saved more lives than have been lost in all the wars in history. Advances in transportation, communication, and entertainment have transformed the world. The sword of science is double-edged. Rather, its awesome power forces on all of us, including politicians, a new responsibility — more attention to the long-term consequences of technology, a global and transgenerational perspective, an incentive to avoid easy appeals to nationalism and chauvinism. Mistakes are becoming too expensive.
"Why We Need To Understand Science" in The Skeptical Inquirer Vol. 14, Issue 3 (Spring 1990)
Science is much more than a body of knowledge. It is a way of thinking. This is central to its success. Science invites us to let the facts in, even when they don’t conform to our preconceptions. It counsels us to carry alternative hypotheses in our heads and see which ones best match the facts. It urges on us a fine balance between no-holds-barred openness to new ideas, however heretical, and the most rigorous skeptical scrutiny of everything — new ideas and established wisdom. We need wide appreciation of this kind of thinking. It works. It’s an essential tool for a democracy in an age of change. Our task is not just to train more scientists but also to deepen public understanding of science.
"Why We Need To Understand Science" in The Skeptical Inquirer Vol. 14, Issue 3 (Spring 1990)
Science is [...] a way of skeptically interrogating the universe with a fine understanding of human fallibility. If we are not able to ask skeptical questions, to interrogate those who tell us that something is true, to be skeptical of those in authority, then we’re up for grabs for the next charlatan, political or religious, who comes ambling along.
Charlie Rose: An Interview with Carl Sagan http://www.charlierose.com/guest/view/4553 (27 May 1996)

Boris Yeltsin photo

“One could see that what you are writing was that today's meeting with President Bill Clinton was going to be a disaster. Now, for the first time, I can tell you that you are a disaster.”

Boris Yeltsin (1931–2007) 1st President of Russia and Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR

Speaking to the press following a "postively productive" meeting http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=50688 with Bill Clinton (24 October 1995)
Alternative translation: those anticipating a failure of the meeting "have failed" ("вы провалились").
1990s

Abraham Joshua Heschel photo

“To be or not to be is not the question. The vital question is: how to be and how not to be?
The tendency to forget this vital question is the tragic disease of contemporary man, a disease that may prove fatal, that may end in disaster.”

Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–1972) Polish-American Conservative Judaism Rabbi

"No Religion is an Island", p. 264
Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays (1997)
Context: Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy. And yet being alive is no answer to the problems of living. To be or not to be is not the question. The vital question is: how to be and how not to be?
The tendency to forget this vital question is the tragic disease of contemporary man, a disease that may prove fatal, that may end in disaster. To pray is to recollect passionately the perpetual urgency of this vital question.

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“We live in a society where there is no law in making money in the promulgation of ignorance or, in some cases, stupidity. There are a lot of things you can say never happened. You can go as relatively quasi-harmless as saying no one went to the moon. But you also can say that the Holocaust never happened.”

Tom Hanks (1956) American actor

At the November 2002 Cape Canaveral premiere of the IMAX version of Apollo 13.
Associated Press: Hoaxers vs. Rocket Scientists: Even NASA unsure how to counter claims of faked moon landings, December 21, 2002.
2002

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