Devastation In Life Quotes & Sayings

But the life of Spirit is not the life that shrinks from death and keeps itself untouched by devastation, but rather the life that endures it and maintains itself in it. It wins its truth only when, in utter dismemberment, it finds itself ... Spirit is this power only by looking the negative in the face, and tarrying with it. This tarrying with the negative is the magical power that converts it into being. This power is identical with what we earlier called the Subject. — Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

The ever-new passions which consumed her gave to her life the appearance of those clouds which float in the heavens, reflecting sometimes azure, sometimes fire, sometimes the opaque blackness of the tempest, and which leave no traces upon the earth behind them but devastation and death. — Alexandre Dumas

Nothing in my life could prepare me for the utter devastation that three-letter word held at this moment. He had given his heart to another. Another broken promise, the one that carried the most hurt. — Ashlan Thomas

We are living in perilous times when the hearts and souls of men are sorely tried. Never before has the future been so utterly unpredictable; we are not so much in a period of transition with belief in progress to push us on, rather we seem to be entering the realm of the unknown, joylessly, disillusioned, and without hope. The whole world seems to be in a state of spiritual widowhood, possessed of the harrowing devastation of one who set out on life's course joyously in intimate comradeship with another, and then is bereft of that companion forever. — Fulton J. Sheen

Men are accustomed to making objective assessments of devastating situations, as long as they are not immersed in them. Rare is he who maintains objectivity in the midst of personal affliction. — Michael D. O'Brien

We find ourselves ethically destitute just when, for the first time, we are faced with ultimacy, the irreversible closing down of the earth's functioning in its major life systems. Our ethical traditions know how to deal with suicide, homicide and even genocide, but these traditions collapse entirely when confronted with biocide, the killing of the life systems of the earth, and geocide, the devastation of the earth itself. — Thomas Berry

This generation may either be the last to exist in any semblance of a civilised world or that it will be the first to have the vision, the bearing and the greatness to say, 'I will have nothing to do with this destruction of life, I will play no part in this devastation of the land, I am determined to live and work for peaceful construction for I am morally responsible for the world of today and the generations of tomorrow.' — Richard St. Barbe Baker

This is the great truth life has to teach us ... that gratification of our individual desires and expression of our personal preferences without consideration for their effect upon others brings in the end nothing but ruin and devastation. — Hortense Odlum

I doubt that I will ever forget those last two years of high school or the devastation that rained upon every person involved. One could say that, in a way, Dickie continued to bully me for many years even after his death. Dickie lost his life, and I lost my ability to control mine. — C. Michael Smith

Shouldn't I stay? Soldier through it? Maybe if I'd had some practice, maybe if I'd had more devastation in my life, I would be more prepared to go on. It's not that my life has been perfect. I've had disappointments and I've been lonely and frustrated and angry and all the crappy stuff everyone feels. — Gayle Forman

I am back in my beloved city. The scene of desolation fills my eyes with tears. At every step my distress and agitation increases. I cannot recognize houses or landmarks I once knew well. Of the former inhabitants, there is no trace. Everywhere there is a terrible emptiness. All at once I find myself in the quarter where I once resided. I recall the life I used to live: meeting friends in the evening, reciting poetry, making love, spending sleepless nights pining for beautiful women and writing verses on their long tresses which held me captive. That was life! What is there left of it? Nothing. — Khushwant Singh

Up above, we will defend the life of the trees and the mountains from further devastation. Down below [in the towns], we will spread death and mercy. — Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

There is an hour, a minute - you will remember it forever - when you know instinctively on the basis of the most inconsequential evidence, that something is wrong. You don't know - can't know - that it is the first of a series of "wrongful" events that will culminate in the utter devastation of your life as you have known it. — Joyce Carol Oates

The world is broken, and all our attempts to fix it will inevitably fail, and some day all life will be extinguished from the planet and there will be no one to remember that any of us ever did anything. But this fact, strangely, does not delegitimize hope, because every now and again we find evidence that hope is helpful. This evidence, in my opinion, should be celebrated-even as we lament and fight the devastation. — John Green

I know that in life there will be sickness, devastation, disappointments, heartache - it's a given. What's not a given is the way you choose to get through it all. If you look hard enough, you can always find the bright side. — Rashida Jones

The most important thing in defining child sexual abuse is the experience of the child. It takes very little for a child's world to be devastated. A single experience can have a profound impact on a child's life. A man sticks his hand in his daughter's underpants, or strokes his son's penis once, and for that child, the world is never the same again. — Laura Hough

Listen intently with your entire being until you hear the Bridegroom's voice in the life of another person. And never give any thought to what devastation, difficulties, or sickness it will bring. Just rejoice with godly excitement that His voice has been heard. You may often have to watch Jesus Christ wreck a life before He saves it (see Matthew 10:34). — Oswald Chambers

Why is it that no one is excited? I hear people talking in the laundromat about the end of the world, and they're no more excited than if they were comparing detergents. People talk about the destruction of the ozone layer and the death of all life. They talk about the devastation of the rainforests, about deadly pollution that will be with us for thousands and millions of years, about the disappearance of dozens of species of life every day, about the end of speciation itself. And they seem perfectly calm. — Daniel Quinn

Lacking strength beauty hates the understanding for asking of her what it cannot do but the life of spirit is not the life that shrinks from death and keeps itself untouched by devastation, but rather the life that endures it and maintains itself in it. It wins its truth only when, in utter dismemberment, it finds itself. It is this power, not as something positive, which closes its eyes to the negative as when we say of something that it is nothing or is false, and then having done with it, turn away and pass on to something else; on the contrary, spirit is this power only by looking the negative in the face, and tarrying with it. This tarrying with the negative is the magical power that converts it into being. — Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

How can it be described? How can any of it be described? The trip and the story of the trip are two different things. The narrator is the one who has stayed home, but then, afterward, presses her mouth upon the traveler's mouth, in order to make the mouth work, to make the mouth say, say, say. One cannot go to a place and speak of it; one cannot both see and say, not really. One can go, and upon returning make a lot of hand motions and indications with the arms. The mouth itself, working at the speed of light, at the eye's instructions, is necessarily struck still; so fast, so much to report, it hangs open and dumb as a gutted bell. All that unsayable life! That's where the narrator comes in. The narrator comes with her kisses and mimicry and tidying up. The narrator comes and makes a slow, fake song of the mouth's eager devastation. — Lorrie Moore

The way I see it, the blue is the stuff you can't control, life's major heartbreak and struggles, that feeling of devastation so massive and brutal it inflicts permanent damage on the heart and spirit that can never be undone and will always be there, spewing somewhere in a corner of your mind like deep scars you'll have with you you're whole life.
The green you also can't control. But that's the part that reminds you life is worth living. It's not the here-and-there type of good stuff that happens every day either. The green is the stuff that comes in huge doses that slap you in the face when you least expect it and brings a light to all that you are through growth, bravery, and goodness, and love. It's the stuff that picks you up when you're at the bottom and makes you keep on going even when you're sure you can't. That's the green. — Love Maia

His father raised him to be the way he is. The man showed him no love, no kindness, only death and destruction. But that is not all Jax is; it is simply all that he knows. He wants to learn about the things in life that bring more fulfillment than murder and devastation. He wants to learn about love and happiness. — Kathryn Le Veque

From the perspective of archetypal psychology, the survivor-perpetrator gains a unique vantage point on life. The devastation of the patient's early life is juxtaposed with possession of a rare possibility of transforming his or her relationship to self, spirituality, and the human community in a way that non-traumatized individuals may never attain. — Harvey L. Schwartz

She leaves the coffee shop and walks down to the seafront, standing staring for a long time at the burnt-out remains of West Pier, derelict, rusting, but somehow still beautiful, looking like there may be life left in its broken remains yet, that it could magically be reborn from its own devastation, bigger and better than ever. — Nigel Jay Cooper

Something deep in the human soul awakens as things fall apart. Something in the soul knows that everything in this world can become lost. And something in the soul knows how to survive periods of devastation, disorientation and loss. Descent and falling is the way of the soul from its beginning. We each fell from the womb of life when the waters of the inner sea broke and it came time for us to breathe on our own. — Michael Meade

People don't understand the devastation the murder of a child does to someone. Eighty percent of parents of murdered children wind up in divorce. The only thing you have in common is that horrible sadness. You can't see the joy of your previous life. — John Walsh

And even when our lives are good, how do we live in joy when so many others are suffering: when crushing poverty robs people of their future, when violence and terror fill our streets, and when ecological devastation endangers the very possibility of life on our planet? — Dalai Lama XIV

Stand in despair anywhere old-growth forest has been clear-felled. All life has been replaced by blackened, poisoned desolation. Animals and birds have either fled or been killed, and baits are laid waiting for those that should return. And in these tortured places, the devastation is brutal and total. And this is what greed looks like. — Peter Cundall

In a feast of fame and talks,
Scandal flashing, raising tongue and brows.
In a blast of bombing and power play,
Fear and death dig more revenge.

In a forgotten continent,
Famine and drought devour lives.
In an unfortunate eye of a rebelling weather,
Crashing homes, leaving many in devastation and desperation.

In a country shaking with violence,
Innocent victims cry for justice and peace.
In a home shaking with turmoil,
Humble patient, hiding voice wants to be heard.

In a tick of a second,
A new breathe of life beats!
To belong in this world.
Constantly changing, decaying or improving?

In a snap of innovation:
Life goes big leap!
Regression somewhere unseen,
But felt in a slow, long run. — Angelica Hopes

...Alas, Babylon was to be among the first to give a public voice to the fears and anxieties associated with a nuclear attack and with threats of atomic radiation. And unlike others in the genre, he offered unmitigated hope. Randy Bragg and company not only survive the devastation that leaves vast Contaminated Zones throughout the United States, but they also apply the best in themselves to begin the re-establishment of life within a civil society. All of the atomic fears of the 1950s (and later) are there, but Frank's 'message' seems to be that we can survive even the worst catastrophe with everyday, secularized applications of faith, hope, and charity. — Hal Hager

Indeed, in the midst of the devastation, most Londoners demonstrated a dogged determination to live as normal a life as possible: it was their way of thumbing their nose at Hitler. Each morning, millions of people left their shelters or basements and, despite the constant disruption of the train and Underground systems, went to work as usual, many hitchhiking or walking ten or more miles a day. Their commutes, which frequently involved long detours around collapsed buildings, impassable streets, and unexploded bombs, could take hours. Of the staff at Claridge's, Ben Robertson noted after a particularly violent raid: "Everyone was red-eyed and tired, but they were all there." The head waiter's house had been demolished during the night, but he had shown up, as had the woman who cleaned Robertson's room. "She was buried three hours in the basement of her house," another maid told Robertson. "Three hours! And she got to work this morning as usual." FOR — Lynne Olson

To write out the precepts again, we contend with them, and keep them; we build our humanity, and keep our humanity alive ... Thay has named the precepts 'wonderful' ... Wonderful because they can protect us, and show us how to live a joyous life, an interesting, adventurous, deep, large life, and how to be with one another, and with animals, plants, and all the Earth and universe. Wonderful because when we practice the precepts, we existentially become humane, we embody loving kindness ... Standing in the midst of burning ruins, I was glad that I knew the precepts. Though I kept their tenets imperfectly, even in aspiration I created some invisible good that could not be destroyed ... The Five Wonderful Precepts give clear and simple directions to finding that life. In devastation, I have blueprints for making home anew (90-92).
For a Future to Be Possible: Commentaries on the Five Wonderful Precepts — Maxine Hong Kingston

Think of a lifeless forest in which a small plant pushes its head upward, out of the ruin. In our grief process, we are moving into life from death, without denying the devastation that came before. — Elisabeth Kubler-Ross