Natural Disaster Quotes & Sayings

How impossible it is for us to imagine ourselves victims of disaster. We suffer for the poor people who were thrown into the sea from their cruise ship off the coast of Tuscany, some losing their lives. Imagine a world of accelerating natural disasters, one after the other so that nobody can help anyone else. — Vivienne Westwood

Red Ash mine was also the location of a disaster in 1900, which killed forty-six miners. This earlier catastrophe outraged Mother Jones, who spoke of it often on her organizing campaign that year, and it had triggered public pressure to improve the state's mine safety laws. The legislature rejected all proposals for reform, however. The lawmakers apparently agreed with West Virginia's Republican governor, G. W. Atkinson, who said in 1901: "It is but the natural course of mining events that men should be injured and killed by accidents. — James R. Green

Suppression of our natural responses to disaster is part of the disease of our time. — Robin Wall Kimmerer

All students of disaster movies know that nothing survives these natural onslaughts except cats and the highest paid film stars. — Simon Jenkins

If the international response to natural disasters was rational, we would expect a greater amount of funding to be provided to larger disasters and to disasters that occur in poorer countries, which are less able to cope. But that's not what happens. Funding seems to be allocated in proportion with how evocative and widely publicized the disaster is, rather than on the basis of its scale and severity. — William MacAskill

As a country with experience of coping with earthquakes, tsunamis and other natural disasters, Japan believes in emphasizing the mainstreaming of disaster risk reduction. We therefore prioritize investment in disaster prevention and post-disaster improvements under a policy of Build Back Better (BBB). — Shinzo Abe

I think small animals can escape from many kinds of natural disaster more easily. There are just more places for them to hide, and more ways for them to find safe habitats. So this means that rats are set up to rule the Earth, but most of us already knew that. Now you know why. — Annalee Newitz

I find it vulgar that people are so fascinated by natural disasters, and we allow footage of young people that are looting because they have no choice because of natural disaster. — Sasha Grey

A natural disaster in one American city is a natural disaster in every American city, including Fresno and, for that matter, every city and small town in the San Joaquin Valley, — Alan Autry

It is imperative that when thousands of selfless volunteers respond to those who have incurred the wrath of a natural disaster that legal liability need not be hanging over their heads. — Jon Porter

It doesn't take a miracle or a natural disaster to live in the world that you're after, the change is gonna happen to you — Michael Tolcher

Restoring nature to its natural state is a cause beyond party and beyond factions. It has become a common cause of all the people of this country. It is a cause of particular concern to young Americans, because they more than we will reap the grim consequences of our failure to act on programs which are needed now if we are to prevent disaster later. — Richard M. Nixon

,Bloodlust is like a natural disaster; it has to run its course. I have seen their faces; they are faces out of nightmares - most ordinary - so ordinary that you can't believe the brains behind them capable of genocide. — John A. Williams

A deep and enduring economic crisis like the Great Depression of the 1930s, or a natural disaster that kills tens of thousands of people, might change America's fundamental calculus about economic justice. Until then, the American public will probably continue to refrain from broadly challenging both male and female corporate leaders who compensate themselves far in excess of their value to society. That — Sebastian Junger

Natural gas is highly explosive, invisible, poisonous, and odorless. Yet we accept natural gas, even though it kills not two but 400 Americans a year, because it was introduced before we got crazy about risk. We accept coal, even though mining it is nasty and filthy and kills dozens of people every year. By contrast, we're terrified of nuclear energy. Chernobyl, the worst nuclear power disaster ever, killed only 30 people. Some say the radiation may eventually kill others, but even if that's true, natural gas kills more people every year. — John Stossel

We're living in a teetering tower of babble. A shaky reality of words. A DNA soup for disaster. The natural world destroyed, we're left with this cluttered world of language. — Chuck Palahniuk

A good author, Mr. Minke, should be able to provide his readers with some joy, not a false joy, but some faith that life is beautiful. While suffering is man-made, and not some natural disaster, then it can surely be resisted by men. Give hope to your readers, to your fellow countrymen. — Pramoedya Ananta Toer

We're facing a natural disaster in the middle of an economic disaster. The federal government has to balance its budget the way our families do. — Nan Hayworth

Born often under another sky, placed in the middle of an always moving scene, himself driven by the irresistible torrent which draws all about him, the American has no time to tie himself to anything, he grows accustomed only to change, and ends by regarding it as the natural state of man. He feels the need of it, more he loves it; for the instability; instead of meaning disaster to him, seems to give birth only to miracles all about him. — Alexis De Tocqueville

This visit is meant to express my closeness to our brothers and sisters who endured the suffering, loss and devastation caused by Typhoon Yolanda. Together with many people throughout the world, I have admired the heroic strength, faith and resilience demonstrated by so many Filipinos in the face of this natural disaster, and so many others. — Pope Francis

when god did something it become Natural Disaster.
when man did the same thing it become TERRORISM!
Where is consistency Bitch! — Vishal Singh

We cannot stop natural disasters but we can arm ourselves with knowledge: so many lives wouldn't have to be lost if there was enough disaster preparedness. — Petra Nemcova

The way to experience ultimate happiness is to let go of all worries and regrets, and to know that being happy is the most satisfying of life's feelings. Reflect back on all the progress in your life and allow the positive, creative and joyous thoughts to outshine and overwhelm any sorrow or grief that may linger in the recesses of your mind. Knowing that disease and disaster are natural parts of life is the key to overcoming adversity with a calm and happy spirit. Happiness is waiting there in front of you. Only you can decide whether or not you choose to experience it. Take this to heart. — Toshitsugu Takamatsu

A tornado of thought is unleashed after each new insight. This in turn results in an earthquake of assumptions. These are natural disasters that re-shape the spirit. — Vera Nazarian

If there's horrible flooding in Pakistan or a horrible heat wave in Texas, we're no longer able to call it an act of God, or a natural disaster, or something like that, the way we could have through all of human history until 35 or 40 years ago. — Bill McKibben

This is part of the involuntary bargain we make with the world just by being alive. We get to experiences the splendor of nature, the beauty of art, the balm of love and the sheer joy of existence, always with the knowledge that illness, injury, natural disaster, or pure evil can end it in an instant for ourselves or someone we love. — Jeff Greenfield

Honey, this is what happens when you fall in love. You're looking at a natural disaster. — Janet Fitch

You are here to step into the shoes of UN ambassadors - to draft resolutions, to plot strategy, to negotiate with your allies as well as your adversaries. Your goal may be to resolve a conflict, to cope with a natural disaster or to bring nations together on an issue like climate change. You may be playing a role, but you are also preparing for life. You are acting as global citizens. — Ban Ki-moon

It's pretty easy to decide to roll with the punches, to look at the enormity of natural disaster and choose to hunker down and do less. It's more important than ever, I think, to persist and make a dent in the universe instead.
We've all been offered access to so many tools, so many valuable connections, so many committed people. What an opportunity. — Seth Godin

Ivy! It's a natural disaster! You have to be there! — Annie Barrows

If the Poe Lock were ever rendered unusable due to a terrorist attack or natural disaster, it would halt commerce on the Great Lakes and these industries would be helpless. — Bart Stupak

Insanity just is, a kind of natural disaster that strikes out of the blue, the kind of thing that can happen. — Jo Nesbo

I welcome a discussion on a long-term, pro-active approach to disaster relief for Americans. Until Congress arrives at a conclusion, however, we must continue to honor America's honorable tradition of helping Americans recover for natural catastrophes. — Cedric Richmond

There is an outpouring of international sympathy and aid when any area of the world is struck by an earthquake, a flood, or a devastating fire. [...] When we look with justifiable pride at our generous responses to those suffering a natural disaster, we might also pause to reflect on how it happens that our sympathy can be so easily changed to hatred. How is it that we will predictably reach out to help a given people at one time and, when our country labels the same people enemies, we will reluctantly or enthusiastically kill millions of them? — Nel Noddings

The one thing that I have been struck with, after coming here to Congress is, how many people in Washington, D.C. talk about job loss like they are talking about the weather, or a natural disaster like an earthquake. — Stephen F. Lynch

Having said that, I believe we must not compound the natural disaster of Katrina by creating a fiscal disaster in Congress - it is our duty to ensure that we reign in other government spending in any event, and especially in this time of national emergency. — Chris Chocola

If a natural disaster strikes your community, reach out to your friends, neighbors, and complete strangers. Lend a helping hand. — Marsha Blackburn

No matter what is happening in life or in the world - war, natural disaster, poor health, pain, the death of loved ones - if existence is filled with art, music and literature, life will be fulfilling, a joy. — Karen DeCrow

The neon signs which hang over our cities and outshine the natural light of the night with their own are comets presaging the natural disaster of society, its frozen death. — Theodor W. Adorno

We do not think that tragedy is our natural fate and we do not live in chronic dread of disaster. We do not expect disaster until we have specific reason to expect it - and — Ayn Rand

Rising sea levels, severe draughts, the melting of the polar caps, the more frequent and devastating natural disasters all raise demand for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. — Leon Panetta

Danny's trading life was man versus man, but this felt more like man versus nature: The synthetic CDO had become a synthetic natural disaster. — Michael Lewis

Some folks are natural born kickers. They can always find a way to turn disaster into butter, — Katherine Paterson

And it's like some tiny nothing that sets off a natural disaster halfway across the world, only this was the opposite of disaster, how by accident she saved me with that thoughtless act of grace, and she never knew, and how that, too, is the part of the history of love. — Nicole Krauss

If you were very, very small, smaller than a leprechaun, smaller than a gnome or a fairy, and you lived in a vagina, every time a penis came in there would be a natural disaster. Your dishes would fall out of the cupboards and break and the furniture slide all the way to the other side of the room. It would take a long time to clean up afterwards. — Mary Ruefle

FEMA has lost its focus, and Floridians know first-hand of the agency's shortcomings, .. Natural disaster preparedness and response programs have become trapped in a homeland security bureaucracy. — Alcee Hastings

A foreigner is an individual who is considered either comic or sinister. When the victim of a disaster - preferably natural but sometimes political -the foreigner may also be pitied from a distance for a short period of time. — John Ralston Saul

The fact is, Japan's whaling is illegal, so just because there is a natural disaster in Japan is no reason for us to stop opposing their illegal activities in the Southern Ocean. — Paul Watson

My heart goes out to victims and survivors of the Hurricane Katrina tragedy and to their families. This disaster will go down in history books as one of the largest natural disasters in U.S. history. — Ellen Tauscher

Not all introductions worked well. Rabbits were an unmitigated environmental disaster. Unchecked by any natural predator, they bred at a staggering rate and chewed their way across vast areas of pastureland as well as any garden that came their way. Attempts to control them by introducing ferrets, weasels and stoats did much more harm than good. Although these predators probably killed a reasonable number of rabbits, they also devastated populations of kiwi and raided the nests of flighted birds. — Bee Dawson

I work closely with a number of charities from food pantries to drug rehabilitation to natural disaster relief to preventing sexual exploitation of young girls. It is one of the most rewarding things I do. — Beyonce Knowles

As the country continues to dissect the recent natural disaster, we might want to start considering what about the disaster wasn't actually 'natural' at all ... Human activity, the burning of fossil fuels, is causing global warming. Global warming is causing the oceans to warm. Warm oceans are steroids for storms. — Michael Moore

His big claim to fame was that the Golden Fleece - that magical sheepskin rug I'm related to - ended up in his kingdom, which made the place immune to disease, invasion, stock-market crashes, visits from Justin Bieber and pretty much any other natural disaster. — Rick Riordan

One of the essential elements of government responsibility is to communicate effectively to the American people, especially in time of a potential terrorist attack or a natural disaster. — Vito Fossella

There is no such thing as a natural disaster. In earthquakes the architecture fails. If you're out in a grassy meadow, it doesn't matter how big the earthquake is: it might knock you down, but if nothing falls on top of you and nothing catches fire from broken gas mains or power lines, then you're probably okay. Architecture is the first casualty of earthquakes, and human beings under the architecture are the casualties of the architecture. Even with a wholly natural disaster, whatever that might be - a tsunami, maybe - who gets help, who has resources to rebuild, who is treated as a threat or a malingerer - those are not natural but social phenomena. — Rebecca Solnit

The greatest tragedy in your life will not be the death of a loved one or a natural disaster; those things hurt like hell and devastate to the core. But loss like that is part of life. What's not necessary and is therefore most tragic is the demise of your truest identity, your dying before you're dead, the moments when you let the words and judgments of others define who you are instead of rising above that pain to be the person you were meant to be. No matter what has happened in your past, you are still capable of becoming a better version of who you are at this moment. Think right. Believe the voice inside of you that speaks the truth. You are a divine marvel. Act like it. Live like it. — Toni Sorenson

Occupying the bottom end of the inequality ladder, and becoming a 'collateral victim' of a human action or a natural disaster, interact the way the opposite poles of magnets do: they tend to gravitate towards each other. — Zygmunt Bauman

In the absence of a natural disaster we are left again to our own uneasy devices. — Joan Didion

When the natural resources of any nation become exhausted," he warned, "disaster and decay in every department of national life follow as a matter of course."2 — Michael Wolraich

God's only excuse is that He doesn't exist, remarked Voltaire after a natural disaster that killed many people. Nietzsche loved this quote and wished he'd coined it! — Voltaire

You have no control [over natural disaster]. That's what's scary about it. You're helpless. That feeling of helplessness is really scary. — R.L. Stine

I shook my head, feeling like a natural disaster on mute. — Penny Reid

Please, accept the most sincere words of sympathy over the natural disaster that affected the United States . I know that hurricane Katrina that hit the US south-western coast led to casualties, left homeless dozens of thousands of US citizens and inflicted a strong damage to the economy of this region. I ask you to convey my condolences to the next of kin of those killed,. — Vladimir Putin

All across the world, ... increasingly dangerous weather patterns and devastating storms are abruptly putting an end to the long-running debate over whether or not climate change is real. Not only is it real, it's here, and its effects are giving rise to a frighteningly new global phenomenon: the man-made natural disaster. — Barack Obama

It cannot be described, this awesome chain of events that depopulated the whole Earth; the range is too tremendous for any to picture of encompass. Of the people of Earth's unfortunate ages, billions of years before, only a few prophets and madman could have conceived that which was to come - could have grasped visions of the still, dead lands, and long-empty sea-beds. The rest would have doubted ... doubted alike the shadow of change upon the planet and the shadow of doom upon the race. For man has always thought himself the immortal master of natural things ... — H.P. Lovecraft

We, the American people, clearly see the daunting forces we will undoubtedly face: terrorists, crime, drug gangs, the possibility of Euro-style debt riots, civil unrest or natural disaster. — Wayne LaPierre

there's a universe swirling inside you. you have to learn to be your own earth, wind, fire and water. you are a natural phenomenon - not a natural disaster. — K.Y. Robinson

Climate is always evolving, and natural disaster have always existed. — Marco Rubio

But somehow, every time there's a natural disaster, news crews manage to track down one of these outdoorsy yahoos to interview about how the "twister came a-screamin' down the holler" and destroyed the snake farm his family had been running for generations. — Molly Harper

Ironically, the law of diminishing returns suggests that, if you feel a strong emotional reaction to a story and want to help, you should probably resist this inclination because there are probably many others like you who are also donating. By all means, you should harness the emotion you feel when a natural disaster strikes, but remind yourself that a similar disaster is happening all the time - and then consider donating to wherever your money will help the most rather than what is getting the most attention. — William MacAskill

Hurricane Charley is the worst natural disaster to befall our state in a dozen years, and it is unthinkable that anyone would try to take advantage of neighbors at a time like this,. — Charlie Crist

Do we pour $40 billion into grandiose Louisiana engineering projects or do we instead put up no trespassing- signs in the areas below sea level? All are hard choices with various merits and pains. The important thing, however, is for America to decide whether the current policy of inaction is really the way we want to deal with the worst natural disaster in our history. — Douglas Brinkley

Our Strategic Petroleum Reserve is there for a natural disaster or some other catastrophe. — Jason Chaffetz

The smell the tornado left in its wake combined pine, sulfur, and natural gas with the sickly sweet smell of death. It was a nauseating, desperate smell that clung to his nostrils and turned his stomach in every disaster zone he would ever visit. After one tornado, a man looked at him with ancient eyes and described the smell in words he would never forget: It comes from the pit of hell. — Kim Cross

Americans rightly asked, if this is the way our government responds to a natural disaster it knew about days in advance, how would it respond to a surprise terrorist attack? How would it respond to an earthquake? — Russ Carnahan

I think you are a little afraid because you suspect what I suspect - that there was no natural disaster. They did it themselves, to themselves."
"If this is their own sad handiwork, ... what are our chances of finding friends among people so much to be feared? — Frank Herbert

He shook his head. "You didn't do anything. It'd be like blaming a tornado for ripping through a trailer park. The tornado's just minding its own business. It can't help what it is."
A tornado. Something that destroyed everything in its path. A natural disaster. Me. — Kathleen Peacock

It is not understood that before life an individual decides to
live. A self is not simply the accidental personification of the
body's biological mechanism. Each person born desires to be born.
He dies when that desire no longer operates. No epidemic or illness
or natural disaster - or stray bullet from a murderer's gun - will
kill a person who does not want to die. — Seth

It's just natural, it's not a great disaster. People keep talking about it like it's The End of The Earth. It's only a rock group that split up, it's nothing important. You know, you have all the old records there if you want to reminisce. — John Lennon

If you have a major disaster involving hundreds of thousands, or in this case millions of people, whether it be a natural disaster or an act of terrorism, the first 72 hours are going to be totally chaotic no matter what you plan to do. — Warren Rudman

This may sound trite, but bad things happen to good people, and when you're facing terrorism, natural disaster, you can have every wonderful plan in place, but I am a realist. — Warren Rudman

We live in an idiotic capitalist self-indulgent society where the sex life of a pop star is more important than impending starvation, land mines and child soldiers in Africa, or more interesting than the world's biggest man-made natural disaster in oil fields of the Middle East. — Peter Menzel

I named my camel Katrina. She was a natural disaster. She slobbered everywhere and seemed to think the purple streak in my hair was some kind of exotic fruit. She was obsessed with trying to eat my head. I named Walt's camel Hindenburg. He was almost as large as a zeppelin and definitely as full of gas. — Rick Riordan

Disaster is a natural part of my evolution toward tragedy and dissolution. — Chuck Palahniuk

I do a lot of work with the Red Cross, too. As a reporter, before I went to entertainment news, I tended to follow natural disasters. I went to Charleston, South Carolina, after Hurricane Hugo. I went to Miami the year after they were recovering from Hurricane Andrew. I came to California when they were recovering from a big earthquake. I've seen the Red Cross and how they stay there years after a natural disaster. They're not just there when a disaster is happening. — Nancy O'Dell

Never in our country's history have we witnessed a natural disaster that has impacted so many people in such a wide area. In fact, as of the writing of this column, millions of people along the Gulf Coast have been displaced from their homes in a period of only five days. — Jo Bonner

We tend to think of heroes only in terms of violent combat, whether it's against enemies or a natural disaster. But human beings also perform radical acts of compassion; we just don't talk about them, or we don't talk about them as much. — Diane Ackerman

In the distance Richard could see the skyscrapers of Los Angeles rising out of the ocean; barnacle crusted concrete and steel emerging from crashing waves. Once a symbol of economic might, they were now a macabre monument to the mortality of man. — Alexander Ferrick

But just as natural disaster brought out the best in some people, it brought out the worst in others. — Heather Graham

Yes, life in Chechnya so far looks more like a life after a natural disaster. — Vladimir Putin

I do not think that tragedy is our natural fate and I do not live in chronic dread of disaster. It is no happiness, but suffering that I consider unnatural. It is not success, but calamity that I regard as the abnormal exception in Human Life. — Ayn Rand

Even with all our technology and the inventions that make modern life so much easier than it once was, it takes just one big natural disaster to wipe all that away and remind us that, here on Earth, we're still at the mercy of nature. — Neil DeGrasse Tyson

It also strikes me that male-to-male bonding can create a gender role conflict, as it challenges the myth of full independence. Heroism is an exception. In fact, heroism has a long tradition as part of manhood. Bonds formed through natural disaster or war are exceptions to the typical "self-reliance" rules. These are op-portunities for men to experience a type of connection with each other that is ordinarily prohibited by the "rules" of manhood. — Mary Crocker Cook

The recent upsurge of public concern over environmental questions reflects a belated recognition that man has been too cavalier in his relations with nature. Unless we arrest the depredations that have been inflicted so carelessly on our natural systems-which exist in an intricate set of balances-we face the prospect of ecological disaster. — Richard M. Nixon

Like, you know that feeling," I try to explain, "where it's Sunday night and you have school or work the next morning but then it's a snow day and you don't have to go in? You feel like that."

"I feel like a natural disaster?" he teases, but his gaze is intent.

"No," I say, forcing myself to say what I mean. "A relief. You feel like a huge relief."

Rex's eyes go very soft. "You feel like a relief too, Daniel," he says. — Roan Parrish

Well, if you're a mess then I'm a natural disaster."
"The cutest natural disaster I've ever seen. — Kasie West

If your child dies, or you witness a terrible natural disaster, yes, you certainly want a scientific explanation as to what's happened. But science can't help you to find meaning, help you deal with that turbulence of your grief, rage, and dismay. — Karen Armstrong

The president's very right about one thing: When you have a disaster of that scale, whether it be natural or a terrorist attack, there's only one part of our entire government, state or local, that is equipped to handle it, and that's the U.S. military. — Warren Rudman

Nobody can stop natural disaster, we are the cause and we are the remedy. — Santosh Kalwar

Haile Selassie was not an evil man, but his priorities were misplaced. He was so concerned with establishing a strong central government and modernizing the country that he failed to meet the challenge of natural disaster ... It was his false pride, this lack of courage to admit mistakes, that brought about his downfall. — Haile Selassie