“Can one be fully human without experiencing tragedy? The only tragedy there is in the world is ignorance; all evil comes from that.”
"The Death of Me", p. 150
Awareness (1992)
Context: Can one be fully human without experiencing tragedy? The only tragedy there is in the world is ignorance; all evil comes from that. The only tragedy there is in the world is unwakefulness and unawareness. From them comes fear, and from fear comes comes everything else, but death is not a tragedy at all. Dying is wonderful; it's only horrible to people who have never understood life. It's only when you're afraid of life that you fear death. It's only dead people who fear death.
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Anthony de Mello135
Indian writer 1931–1987Related quotes
Clive Staples Lewis book The Four Loves
The Four Loves (1960)
Context: To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless — it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.
Reuven Rivlin (1939) Israeli politician, 10th President of Israel
Jerusalem Post http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Rivlin-deputies-reject-Tibi-bill-to-commemorate-Nakba, 4 July 2011
Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor
"The Problem of Increasing Human Energy", The Century (Jun 1900), 211. Collected in The Century (1900), Vol. 60, 211
Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology
Other
Oscar Wilde Lady Windermere's Fan
Mr. Dumby, Act III
Variant: There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.
Source: Lady Windermere's Fan (1892)
J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)
Source: Better-World Philosophy: A Sociological Synthesis (1899), Individual Culture, p. 256
Clive James (1939–2019) Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist
'Over the tarp'
Essays and reviews, The Crystal Bucket (1982)