Quotes about tragedy
page 8

“You'll say I'm self-destructive —
I constructed all this tragedy.
Go tell them all it's all my fault
You'll tell them I was crazy.
And anyway it's over now
Nothing left to say.”

Alicia Witt (1975) American actress

"Anyway"
Lyrics, Alicia Witt (2009)

Self-confidence

“... Freud in fact defines hysteria as the conflict of two incompatible wishes, as Hegel defined tragedy as the conflict of two incompatible necessities.”

Stanley Edgar Hyman (1918–1970) American literary critic

[The Tangled Bank: Darwin, Marx, Frazer and Freud as Imaginative Writers, New York, Atheneum, 1962, ; 492 p.] [2nd edition, 1974, https://books.google.com/books?id=Fm8fAAAAMAAJ&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=conflict] (p. 312)

“We should keep in mind that in this country there is a general discrimination against minorities and the poorest workers. It is a widespread mentality which can also affect this tragedy. The fact that the rich are better off than the poor, having saved their own land, is a serious matter which the government must address.”

Max Rodrigues French fencer

Pakistan: some Christians denied aid unless they convert to Islam https://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=7460 (September 6, 2010)

Country

“The moral value of quantification is that it treats all lives as equally valuable, so actions that bring down the highest numbers of homicides prevent the greatest amount of human tragedy.”

Steven Pinker book Enlightenment Now

Source: Enlightenment Now (2018), p. 173

“Although there may be tragedy in your life, there's always a possibility to triumph. It doesn't matter who you are, where you come from. The ability to triumph begins with you. Always.”

Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist

Life

“I heard someone on the news say, well, "tragedy has visited this church.””

Jon Stewart (1962) American political satirist, writer, television host, actor, media critic and stand-up comedian

This wasn’t a tornado. This was a racist. This was a guy with a Rhodesia badge on his sweater. You know, I hate to even use this pun, but this one is black and white. There’s no nuance here. And we’re gonna keep pretending like “I don’t get it, what happened, there’s one guy who lost his mind”, but we are steeped in that culture in this country and we refuse to recognize it. <br class="br"> Charleston Church Shooting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjzrvRKv6Ks, June 19, 2015 <br class="br">The Daily Show (1999-2015)

“That morning, when my wife eloped
With James, our chauffeur, how I moped!
What tragedies in life there are!
I'm dashed if I can start the car.”

Harry Graham (1874–1936) British writer

Tragedy
Ruthless Rhymes for Heartless Homes (1899)

Life, Cars

“The tragedy about Romeo and Juliet is not that they died so young but that the boy-meets-girl reflex should be so overpowering as to defeat all common sense.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Podkayne of Mars

Source: Podkayne of Mars (1963), Chapter 10 (p. 125)

Girl, Boy, Sense

“Any suffering registered in your mind makes the emotion deeper. Maybe as a writer, I am constantly looking for tragedy.”

Geling Yan (1958) Chinese writer and screenwriter

Source: "Turning Loss into Beauty: The Tragedies of Geling Yan" in The Wall Street Journal https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB930264290705115630 (25 June 1999)

Suffering

“Anything interesting in the paper? Some tragedy, some comedy, nothing that’ll matter in a hundred years.”

Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) American fiction writer

Source: The Margarets (2007), Chapter 28, “I Am Margaret/On Tercis” (p. 238)

“I hope that from crisis and tragedy comes engagement. Don’t just complain about [an issue], do something about it! Don’t just lament about the current state of affairs, vote!”

Michael McFaul (1963) American academic and diplomat

"An Interview with former U.S. Ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul" in LA Times High School Insider https://highschool.latimes.com/carnegie-mellon-university/an-interview-with-former-u-s-ambassador-to-russia-michael-mcfaul/ (30 August 2019)

Hope

“Everything may exist for a short while—even justice. But the true state of the universe is anarchy. It is the mortal’s tragedy that he can never accept this.”

Michael Moorcock book The Knight of the Swords

Source: Book 3, Chapter 6 “The God Feasters” (p. 139), Corum, The Knight of the Swords (1971)

Justice, Universe

“There are no words to convey my shock and sadness regarding the tragic accident that took the life of Halyna Hutchins, a wife, mother and deeply admired colleague of ours. I'm fully cooperating with the police investigation to address how this tragedy occurred”

Halyna Hutchins (1979–2021) Ukrainian-American cinematographer and investigative journalist

Source: 22 October 2021 https://twitter.com/AlecBaldwin/status/1451572461787439106 by Alec Baldwin the day after Alec killed her with a firearm

Life, Sadness

“Could I interest you in everything?
All of the time?
A little bit of everything
All of the time
Apathy's a tragedy
And boredom is a crime
Anything and everything
All of the time”

Bo Burnham (1990) American comedian, musician, and actor

Source: "Welcome to the Internet" Inside (2021)

Time

“The introduction of martial law was the most dramatic decision I had ever taken. And life had treated me harshly. I experienced my country's tragedy in 1939.”

Wojciech Jaruzelski (1923–2014) Polish military officer and politician

Source: Speech at Kansas State University (11 March 1996)

Life, Law, Decision, Country

“The tragedy of life is linked inescapably with its splendor; you could tear civilization down and rebuild it from scratch, and the same dualities would rise again. Yet to fully inhabit these dualities—the dark as well as the light—is, paradoxically, the only way to transcend them.”

Susan Cain (1968) self-help writer

Bittersweet Introduction at p. xxiii

Life, Way, Tear, Light

“We have significant losses of troops and it is a huge tragedy for us.”

Dmitry Peskov (1967) Russian politician

"'Huge tragedy for us': Kremlin admits 'significant' Russian troop losses in Ukraine" https://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2022/04/07/dmitry-peskov-kremlin-admits-significant-losses-ukraine-tsr-sot-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/russia-ukraine-military-conflict/, 8. april 2022 <br class="br">CNN Interview (March 2022)

Loss

“In this tragedy I would like to underline a beautiful thing, in my opinion, and that is the Uganda's capacity to welcome.”

Giuseppe Franzelli (1942) Italian priest

The Vatican News interview with the Bishop of Lira, Msgr. Franzelli. https://www.africamission.org/en/news/l'intervista-di-vatican-news-al-vescovo-di-lira-mons-franzelli.html (26 June 2018)

Beauty

“Our sacred duty is to overcome the shadows of the past, make new tragedies possible. Any encroachments on the peaceful future of Ukraine will meet with instant and resolute response...”

Viktor Yanukovych (1950) Ukrainian politician who was the President of Ukraine

Source: [2011-06-22, Янукович обмовився, пообіцявши "уможливити нові трагедії", https://tsn.ua/video/video-novini/yanukovich-obmovivsya-poobicyavshi-umozhliviti-novi-tragediyi.html, 2022-06-12, ТСН.ua, uk]

Peace, Past, Future

“We make our sons. This is the tragedy of the tribal Muslim man, and especially the firstborn son: the overblown expectations, the ruinous vanity, the unstable sense of self that relies on the oppression of one group of people—women—to maintain the other group’s self-image.”

Ayaan Hirsi Ali (1969) Dutch feminist, author

Source: 2010s, Nomad: A Personal Journey Through the Clash of Civilizations (2010), Chapter 4, “My Brother’s Story” (p. 58)

Women, People, Sense

“This drift toward quantity instead of quality is largely distortion. Conformity is always too convenient? Quality means individuality, is therefore difficult. But unless we go deeper now, quantity at expense to quality will be our national tragedy—the rise of mediocrity into high places.”

Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) American architect (1867-1959)

A Testament (1957)

“Life is a blessing for those who are able to appreciate it, and a misfortune for those who fail to make sense of it.

Some know what they are looking for and fighting for. Others just live without any pretensions.

But life forces everyone to struggle in their own way. Some succeeded, some failed.

Some end in bitter and sad tragedies. Others make life a funny and entertaining comedy.

Everything cannot be separated from the choices they make. It all depends on how they view and interpret their own lives.”

Titon Rahmawan

Life, Sadness, Way, Sense

“We always see death as a tragedy, it's difficult for us to feel otherwise. Perhaps it's because we never know what will happen afterwards. It's hard to imagine that everything will end well. That should make us realize that salvation is not possible because of our own efforts.”

Titon Rahmawan

Death, Feeling, Imagination, Effort

This quote waiting for review.

“The tragedy is that education is losing its meaning.”

José Baroja (1983) Chilean author and editor

Source: Cuando la escuela dejó de pensar. By José Baroja. (2026b, mayo 25). Le Monde Diplomatique. https://www.lemondediplomatique.cl/cuando-la-escuela-dejo-de-pensar-por-jose-baroja.html

Education

This quote waiting for review.

“Collective tragedies are not always consolidated through silence or denial. Sometimes they take hold in a far subtler way: when we learn to live with them without allowing them to significantly alter our priorities, our forms of attention, or our sensitivity to the suffering of others.”

José Baroja (1983) Chilean author and editor

Source: Cuando una ciudad aprende a convivir con sus desaparecidos Mundial, memoria y desaparición en la Guadalajara de 2026. (2026, 10 junio). Zona Docs. https://www.zonadocs.mx/2026/06/10/cuando-una-ciudad-aprende-a-convivir-con-sus-desaparecidos-mundial-memoria-y-desaparicion-en-la-guadalajara-de-2026/

Way, Silence, Suffering, Learning

Quotes about tragedy page 8

Quotes about tragedy
page 8