It may help to understand human affairs to be clear that most of the great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused, not by people being fundamentally good or fundamentally bad, but by people being fundamentally people.
Our pasts shape us,Sam.None of us the person he or she used to be,it's true, but what we are still contains a great proportion of what we once were.Nothing,not even suffering the worst kind of tragedy,alters us completely.At core,we are set in stone.
... although the sufferings of children are the worst, being inextinguishable--children themselves seldom have a proper sense of their own tragedy, discounting and keeping hidden the true horrors of their short lives, humbly imagining real calamity t...
We are rational creatures, Professor Jove explained; hope is irrational. We thus set ourselves up for one dispiriting fall after the next. Anger and depression are not diseases or dysfunctions or anomalies; they are perfectly rational responses to th...
We live for today and have faith in tomorrow. We've learned from experience to enjoy what we have while it's ours, because the only thing we know for sure is that nothing is for sure or forever (scholars are right fond of calling this the 'southern s...
Shakespeare’s enduring tragedy did its part to further the goals of the Mercenaries—glamorizing death, making dying for love seem the most noble act of all, though nothing could be further from the truth. Taking an innocent life—in a misguided ...
So does nobody care about Ireland?" "Nobody. Neither King Louis, nor King Billie, nor King James." He nodded thoughtfully. "The fate of Ireland will be decided by men not a single one of whom gives a damn about her. That is her tragedy.
I was watching a collection of vintage '80s cereal commercials when I paused to wonder why cereal manufacturers no longer included toy prizes inside every box. It was a tragedy, in my opinion. Another sign that civilization was going straight down th...
The human race is unimportant. It is the self that must not be betrayed." "I suppose one could say that Hitler didn't betray his self." "You are right. He did not. But millions of Germans did betray their selves. That was the tragedy. Not that one ma...
We pass through this world but once. Few tragedies can be more extensive than the stunting of life, few injustices deeper than the denial of an opportunity to strive or even to hope, by a limit imposed from without, but falsely identified as lying wi...
We don’t necessarily need to know each other’s name, age, profession, drug of choice, childhood trauma or recent tragedy to understand what pain feels like and offer comfort. We are strangers drawn together by a shared desire for lasting peace.
The romantics would call this a love story, the cynics would call it a tragedy. In my mind it’s a little bit of both, and no matter how you choose to view it in the end, it does not change the fact that it involves a great deal of my life and the p...
Time ticks by; we grow older. Before we know it, too much time has passed and we've missed the chance to have had other people hurt us. To a younger me this sounded like luck; to an older me this sounds like a quiet tragedy.
The last remnants of Deanna the child--the idealist, the sheltered elite--had been torn loose by tonight's tragedies, slain with the same bullet that had felled her would-be killer. She had no idea who the new person inhabiting this shell of her old ...
Romance is about putting things aright after some tragedy has put them asunder. It is about restoration of the right relations among things and going home is where that restoration occurs because that is where it matters most.
Our vision is so limited we can hardly imagine a love that does not show itself in protection from suffering. The love of God is of a different nature altogether. It does not hate tragedy. It never denies reality. It stands in the very teeth of suffe...
No popularity exists when tragedy strikes. All that's left are human hearts and love and ache. We all love each other, deep down, and when we see another soul in pain we can't help but hurt too.
This is the tragedy and woe of the hour--that we neglect the most important One who could possibly be in our midst--the Holy Spirit of God. Then, in order to make up for His absence, we have to do something to keep up our own spirits.
Bad things happen to everyone. No one by their behavior can store up any immunity from disaster or tragedy. All any of us can control is how we respond when tough times come. This does not diminish God or his sovereignty in my mind.
A dream conceived from the inside-out eventually becomes reality. But a dream desired from the outside-in is subject to spoil and tragedy.
Once in a while a new government initiates a program to put power to better use, but its success or failure never really proves anything. In science, experiments are designed, checked, altered, repeated-- but not in politics... We have no real cumula...
