Quotes & Sayings About Tragedy And Hope

It has become a common feeling, I believe, as we have watched our heroes falling over the years, that our own small stone of activism, which might not seem to measure up to the rugged boulders of heroism we have so admired, is a paltry offering toward the building of an edifice of hope. Many who believe this choose to withhold their offerings out of shame. This is the tragedy of the world. For we can do nothing substantial toward changing our course on the planet, a destructive one, without rousing ourselves, individual by individual, and bringing our small, imperfect stones to the pile. — Alice Walker

I am now quite sure that Tragedy and Hope was suppressed although I do not know why or by whom — Carroll Quigley

It is a cumulative tragedy, the same tragedy that blights the entire country. With so many dead bodies, how do you begin to rebuild? How do you trust enough to hope? And how do you hold on to life when it no longer seems worth living? — Vanessa Woods

Thank you for this amazing adventure. I never knew that someone could love without limit. Even when you can't hear me say that I love you or when I can't hear you say that you love me, I found a wonderful lover that I hope to be with even in all of my other lives." he lifted his hands off Kai's neck. 'I love you.'

Kai held the sides of Sehun's face and connected their lips for a passionate kiss as they dropped to their knees. Kai forced a smile as he wiped the tears on Sehun's cheeks. 'And you will never know how much I love you. — FishMeAnEXo

I may not always like at times, but life is a beautiful blend of joy, tragedy and dreams. If not for one, I could not have the other. — Paula Heller Garland

I don't think I tell stories of tragedy. I think I tell stories of love. Even though you're full of tears, I hope that you leave the theatre with your heart feeling like it's going to explode out of your chest. And yes, you've been through the tragedy, but it's ultimately hope that I think you're left with. — Gayle Forman

At the beginning of the war ... I had to look in on the War Office, and in a room I found a fellow ... What do you think he was doing ... what the hell do you think he was doing? He was devising the ceremonial for the disbanding of a Kitchener battalion. You can't say we were not prepared in one matter at least ... . Well, the end of the show was to be: the adjutant would stand the battalion at ease; the band would play Land of Hope and Glory, and then the adjutant would say: There will be no more parades ... . Don't you see how symbolical it was - the band playing Land of Hope and Glory, and then the adjutant saying: There will be no more parades? ... For there won't. There won't, there damn well won't. No more Hope, no more Glory, no more parades for you and me any more. Nor for the country ... nor for the world, I dare say ... None ... Gone ... Napoo finny! No ... more ... parades! — Ford Madox Ford

I gave them hope, and so turned away their eyes from death — Aeschylus

No man, proclaimed Donne, is an Island, and he was wrong. If we were not islands, we would be lost, drowned in each other's tragedies. We are insulated (a word that means, literally, remember, made into an island) from the tragedy of others, by our island nature, and by the repetitive shape and form of the stories. The shape does not change: there was a human being who was born, lived, and then, by some means or another, died. There. You may fill in the details from your own experience. As unoriginal as any other tale, as unique as any other life. Lives are snowflakes - forming patterns we have seen before, as like one another as peas in a pod (and have you ever looked at peas in a pod? I mean, really looked at them? There's not a chance you'd mistake one for another, after a minute's close inspection), but still unique. — Neil Gaiman

When disappointment or tragedy or suffering strikes, we have a decision to make: Will we turn away from God, or will we turn toward Him? Which road will we take? One road leads to doubt, anger, bitterness, fear, hopelessness, and despair.
The other leads to hope, comfort, peace, strength, and joy. — Billy Graham

She felt a sudden, unexpected surge of hope. Despite the tragedy they'd all gone through, this was what a happy family looked like; this, she thought, is what a loving family did when they were together. For them, it was nothing but an ordinary day on an ordinary weekend, but for her, there was something revelatory about the notion that wonderful moments like these existed. And that maybe, just maybe, it would be possible for her to experience similar days in the future. — Nicholas Sparks

Darker and darker, he said; farther and farther yet. Death takes the good, the beautiful, and the young - and spares me. The Pestilence that wastes, the Arrow that strikes, the Sea that drowns, the Grave the closes over Love and Hope, are steps of my journey, and take me nearer and nearer to the End. — Wilkie Collins

I want to thank everyone and everything,
every sunrise and every sunset,
every abundance and every beauty,
every tragedy and every triumph,
every sadness and every happiness,
every moment and every experience
that we call life deserves my deepest gratitude. — Debasish Mridha

Even in tragedy, God through His Word offers hope for those who seek and believe. It starts with the promise of a better tomorrow, of life everlasting, of eternal peace. It's called faith, and it offers hope where none existed. — Zig Ziglar

They are tragic,' said Vetinari, 'and we laugh at their tragedy as we laugh at our own. The painted grin leers out at us from the darkness, mocking our insane belief in order, logic, status, the reality of reality. The mask knows that we are born on the banana skin that leads only to the open manhole cover of doom, and all we can hope for are the cheers of the crowd. — Terry Pratchett

To deprive the derelicts of hope is right, and to sustain them in their illusory "pipe dreams" is right also. — Harold Bloom

It is a modern tragedy that despair has so many spokesmen, and hope so few. — Oscar Hammerstein II

Pretty girls don't need a lot of education to marry into a rich and powerful family, but girls with an average or ugly appearance will find it difficult. These kinds of girls hope to further their education in order to increase their competitiveness. The tragedy is, they don't realize that as women age, they are worth less and less, so by the time they get their M.A. or Ph.D., they are already old, like yellowed pearls."

- Xinhua News Agency, 2011. Reposted on All-China Women's Federation website days after International Women's Day. — Leta Hong Fincher

We dedicate this book to the 239 people who lost their lives on MH370 on March 8, 2014, on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. One of our purposes in writing the book was, in some small way to convey the human stories from the tragedy. We hope we have done this without adding upset to the terrible toll relatives and friends are already facing. Our other, more important task was to pursue the truth about what exactly happened. That is one small contribution we feel we can make to this whole terrible affair. — Ewan Wilson

I find myself enjoying being alone a lot of the time, people come and people go and you have to find a way to be ok with both. — Nikki Rowe

The more they talked and argued, the less they understood each other. In the end they fell silent, full of mutual contempt and hatred. And in this silence of the dumb and these speeches of the blind, in this medley of people bound together by the same grief, terror and hope, in this hatred and lack of understanding between men who spoke the same tongue, you could see much of the tragedy of the twentieth century. — Vasily Grossman

Our world is falling apart quietly. Human civilization has reduced the plant, a four-million-year-old life form, into three things: food, medicine, and wood. In our relentless and ever-intensifying obsession with obtaining a higher volume, potency, and variety of these three things, we have devastated plant ecology to an extent that millions of years of natural disaster could not. Roads have grow like a manic fungus and the endless miles of ditches that bracket these roads serve as hasty graves for perhaps millions of plant species extinguished in the name of progress. Planet Earth is nearly a Dr. Seuss book made real: every year since 1990 we have created more than eight billion new stumps. If we continue to fell healthy trees at this rate, less then six hundred years from now, every tree on the planet will have been reduced to a stump. My job is about making sure there will be some evidence that someone cared about the great tragedy that unfolded during our age. — Hope Jahren

My life's misery and tragedy is my wealth and splendor. — Debasish Mridha

In a world plagued with commonplace tragedies, only one thing exists that truly has the power to save lives, and that is love. — Richelle E. Goodrich

The tragedy in his life already existed. To love an atmospheric spirit. That was the real sorrow. Hopelessness itself. Nowhere on the printed page, nowhere in the annals of man, would her name appear: no local habitation, no name. There are girls like that, he thought, and those you love most, the ones where there is no hope because it has eluded you at the very moment you close your hands around it. — Philip K. Dick

Of one thing I am sure. Complaining is self-perpetuating and counterproductive. Whenever I express my complaints in the hope of evoking pity and receiving the satisfaction I so much desire, the result is always the opposite of what I tried to get. A complainer is hard to live with, and very few people know how to respond to the complaints made by a self-rejecting person. The tragedy is that, often, the complaint, once expressed, leads to that which is most feared: further rejection. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

Blind hope. Blind hope is all we have. There's a Greek tragedy called Prometheus Bound; Prometheus is the [titan] that gave humans fire. He's chained to a rock and bemoaning his fate and saying, "I gave you everything. By giving you fire, I gave you blind hope. By giving you a little light that kept you warm at night, I let you believe that this was all going to be okay." For me, that's what art has been. Music and books, it's an act of hope to make them, and it's an act of hope to listen to them. That hope will be dashed, you will say goodbye. — Torquil Campbell

You're going to go living. Because living is the challenge, Josie. Dying is so easy. Sometimes it only takes ten seconds to die. But living? That can take eighty years and you do something in that time, whether it's giving birth to a baby or being a housewife or a barrister or a soldier. You've accomplished something. To throw that away at such a young age, to have no hope, is the biggest tragedy. — Melina Marchetta

hope and fear are just different aspects of the same submission to history. Sitting and istening to the same story, one can hope for a happy ending while another fears a tragedy. Neither is free. — Anonymous

When we meet real tragedy in life, we can react in two ways
either by losing hope and falling into self-destructive habits, or by using the challenge to find our inner strength. — Dalai Lama XIV

History is moving, and it will tend toward hope, or tend toward tragedy. — George W. Bush

The spring is wound up tight. It will uncoil of itself. That is what is so convenient in tragedy. The least little turn of the wrist will do the job . . . The rest is automatic. You don't need to lift a finger. The machine is in perfect order; it has been oiled ever since time began, and it runs without friction . . . Tragedy is clean, it is restful, it is flawless . . . In a tragedy, nothing is in doubt and everyone's destiny is known. That makes for tranquility . . . Tragedy is restful; and the reason is that hope, that foul, deceitful thing, has no part in it. There isn't any hope. You're trapped. — Jean Anouilh

By this edition of HAMLET I hope to help the student of Shakspere to understand the play - and first of all Hamlet himself, whose spiritual and moral nature are the real material of the tragedy, to — George MacDonald

Six billion of us walking the planet, six billion smaller worlds on the bigger one. Shoe salesmen and short-order cooks who look boring from the outside - some have weirder lives than you. Six billion stories, every one an epic, full of tragedy and triumph, good and evil, despair and hope. You and me - we aren't so special, bro. — Dean Koontz

I didn't want to get well, because if I got well, nobody would come and save me anymore. And I didn't want to get well, because while I could not control my happiness, I could control my misery, and I would rather have had control than live in the tension of what if. A chance of hope is no pacifier against a sure tragedy. — Donald Miller

She's Verglas's greatest tragedy and last hope: the Princess Rakel. — K.M. Shea

Most high and happy princess, we must tell you a tale of the Man in the Moon, which if it seem ridiculous for the method, or superfluous for the matter, or for the means incredible, for three faults we can make but one excuse: it is a tale of the Man in the Moon.
It was forbidden in old time to dispute of chimaera, because it was a fiction. We hope in our times none will apply pastimes, because they are fancies; for there liveth none under the sun that knows what to make of the Man in the Moon. We present neither comedy, nor tragedy, nor story, nor anything, but ... that whosoever heareth may say this:
'Why, here is a tale of the Man in the Moon'. — John Lyly

After slipping on a negligee and making herself comfortable on the lounge, she became conscious that she was miserable and that the tears were rolling down her cheeks. She wondered if they were the tears of self-pity, and tried resolutely not to cry, but this existence without hope, without happiness, oppressed her, and she kept shaking her head from side to side, her mouth drawn down tremulously in the corners, as though she were denying the assertion made by some one, somewhere. She did not know that this gesture of hers was years older than history, that, for a hundred generations of men, intolerable and persistent grief has offered that gesture, of denial, of protest, of bewilderment, to something more profound, more powerful than the God made in the image of man, and before which that God, did he exist, would be equally impotent. It is a truth set at the heart of tragedy that this force never explains, never answers - this force intangible as air, more definite than death. — F Scott Fitzgerald

We are all such accidents. We do not make up history and culture. We simply appear, not by our own choice. We make what we can of our condition with the means available. We must accept the mixture as we find it - the impurity of it, the tragedy of it, the hope of it. — Saul Bellow

Life is a mystical and tragic thing. It is a journey often full of fear, when it ought to be full of hope. It's fascinating to look back on your life and feel as though most of it was a precursor to the rest of it; to what was always supposed to be. — L.K. Hill

[Dionysos'] being torn into pieces, the genuine Dionysiac suffering, is like a transformation into air, water, earth, and fire, so that we are to regard the state of individuation as the source and primal cause of all suffering ... In the view described here we already have all the constituent elements of a profound way of looking at the world and thus, at the same time, the doctrine of the Mysteries taught by tragedy: the fundamental recognition that everything which exists is a unity; the view that individuation is the primal source of all evil; and art as the joyous hope that the spell of individuation can be broken, a premonition of unity restored. — Friedrich Nietzsche

When I started writing Forest Life, I was suicidal and drunk because I had lost someone I love to a tragedy. Afterward, my question was this: why love when death and suffering are inevitable? I won't reveal my solution to this problem, but I do present it in the pages of the book. These are only a few of the issues I grapple with in the story and I hope that you'll read the story and consciously address your own uncertainty and fear." - Shane Crash, Provoketive Magazine Write-Up 2012 — Shane Crash

My wife's the reason anything gets done, she nudges me towards promise by degrees. She is a perfect symphony of one our son is her most beautiful reprise. We chase the melodies that seem to find us until they're finished songs and start to play. When senseless acts of tragedy remind us that nothing here is promised--not one day. This show is proof that history remembers. We live in times when hate and fear seem stronger. We rise and fall and light from dying embers--remembrances that hope and love last longer. And love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love cannot be killed or swept aside. I sing Vanessa's symphony. Eliza tells her story. Now, fill the world with music, love, and pride. — Lin-Manuel Miranda

In tragedy and despair, when an endless night seems to have fallen, hope can be found in the realization taht the companion of night is not another night, that the companion of night is day, that darkness always gives way to light, and that death rules only half of creation, life the other half. — Dean Koontz

The cure for the Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice and Eric Garner tragedies is not education or exposure. It's the Gospel. So, finally, I'M ENCOURAGED because the Gospel gives mankind hope, — Benjamin Watson

We fear changes, so we fear to let it go, not knowing that life is an ever-changing, magnificent flower of triumph, tragedy, love, hope, and joy. — Debasish Mridha

As I faced each tragedy in my life, I learned to reach into the depth of my soul for strength and determination. Through this healing process, I discovered perseverance and resilience. I could not go into the past and use White-Out to erase any events; instead, I had to find a way to use my pain to help me heal and grow. I had to stare darkness in the face and accept that I could not change the past, but I could build a better future. — Erin Merryn

My sister's looking off to the side so half her face is in shadow and her smile is neatly cut in half. It's like one of those Greek tragedy masks in a textbook that's half one idea and half the opposite. Light and dark. Hope and despair. Laughter and sadness. Trust and loneliness. — Haruki Murakami

Man can recover from epic tragedy, he can live through immense hardship and endure the great injustices of life, but take away his hope and man is truly broken. — David Alejandro Fearnhead

I guess it's human nature to question yourself, to question why all the pain has had to happen? sometimes there isn't any answers it just is what it is and how we make ourselves feel and see through that, is what will determine how we move forward. — Nikki Rowe

One could only trudge away from the place to which one had hurried in such hope at the start. One could only begin again, a year older, and resolve to carry oneself in such a way that the pressure wave of the tragedy was contained within one's own body, and could not spread one inch further. — Chris Cleave

Crime, violence, infamy are not tragedy. Tragedy occurs when a human soul awakes and seeks, in suffering and pain, to free itself from crime, violence, infamy, even at the cost of life. The struggle is the tragedy - not defeat or death. That is why the spectacle of tragedy has always filled men, not with despair, but with a sense of hope and exaltation. — Whittaker Chambers

Her first reaction was one of hope, because his eyes were open and shining with a radiant light she had never seen there before. She prayed to God to give him at least a moment so that he would not go without knowing how much she had love him despite all their doubts, and she felt an irresistible longing to begin life with him over again so that they could say what they had left unsaid and do everything right that they had done badly in the past. But she had to give in to the intransigence of death. (Love in the Time of Cholera) — Gabriel Garcia Marquez

In foreign policy, a modest acceptance of fate will often lead to discipline rather than indifference. The realization that we cannot always have our way is the basis of a mature outlook that rests on an ancient sensibility, for tragedy is not the triumph of evil over good so much as triumph of one good over another that causes suffering. Awareness of that fact leads to a sturdy morality grounded in fear as well as in hope. The moral benefits of fear bring us to two English philosophers who, like Machiavelli, have for centuries disturbed people of goodwill: Hobbes and Malthus. — Robert D. Kaplan

It is a great tragedy when those who are afflicted with adversity or a source of hopelessness turn their backs on prayer. To their peril, they ignore that spiritual lifeline just at the time when their attention to it most needs to be intensified. By so doing they cut themselves of from revelation and inspiration and deprive themselves of hearing the Lord's voice. They give up the prospect of gaining the very hope and comfort for which their hearts yearn. — David S. Baxter

Tragedy is restful: and the reason is that hope, that foul, deceitful thing, has no part in it. — Jean Anouilh

It seemed a tragedy to want nothing - and yet he wanted something, something. He knew in flashes what it was - some path of hope to lead him toward what he thought was an imminent and ominous old age. — F Scott Fitzgerald

We may be helpless to stop bad things from happening, but perhaps God leaves us signs and road maps to help us recover and reconnect, provided we know where to look. — Jennifer Gardner Trulson

In a fit of anger he had said to her, "You'll always be miserable," to which she thoughtfully replied, "Is that so? It's impossible to be miserable when you've known tragedy and hardship. Both strengthen and refine a person to the point where they may have moments of grief and sadness, but misery is known only to those who have a sense of entitlement ... you know, people like you. — Donna Lynn Hope

If we could only get rid of consciousness. What makes mankind tragic is not that they are the victims of nature, it is that they are conscious of it. To be part of the animal kingdom under the conditions of this earth is very well
but as soon as you know of your slavery, the pain, the anger, the strife
the tragedy begins. We can't return to nature, since we can't change our place in it. Our refuge is in stupidity [ ... ] There is no morality, no knowledge, and no hope; there is only the consciousness of ourselves which drives us about a world that [ ... ] is always but a vain and floating appearance. — Joseph Conrad

How tragic lives there are in this world! But there is a greater tragedy: People who have very hard lives often believe that they will have a better life after death! Losing hope in life and running after an absolute illusion is even a bigger tragedy! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

What greater tragedy can there be than to lose hope forever and drift in the cold darkness of hopelessness? — Mehmet Murat Ildan

My book 'Trust Your Heart', which is the story of my life, will be followed by 'Singing Lessons', a memoir of love, loss, hope, and healing, which talks about the death of my son and the hope that has been the aftermath of the healing from that tragedy. — Judy Collins

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 the myriad avoidable disappointments that begin in a thoroughly irrational hope. — Shalom Auslander

For all the loss and tragedy I have known, my life has taught me that the human spirit like the lifted hands of the blind, will rise above chaos and destruction, as wings in flight — Vaddey Ratner

If the whole world is evil, then the tragedy that befell you is justified," she went on. "That would make it easier for you to accept the deaths of your wife and daughters. But if good people do exist, then, however much you deny it, your life will be unbearable; because fate set a trap for you, and you know you didn't deserve it. It isn't the light you want to recover, it's the certainty that there is only darkness. — Paulo Coelho

Will you let me go for Christ's sake? Will you take that phony dream and burn it before something happens? — Arthur Miller

In spite of all the tragedy and cruelty, all humans have a kind heart, great spirit, and an insatiable love for the humanity. — Debasish Mridha

Religion is the resolute following of the star of hope through triumphs and tragedies of time. — Eustace Haydon

The Battle of Waterloo is a work of art with tension and drama with its unceasing change from hope to fear and back again, changewhich suddenly dissolves into a moment of extreme catastrophe, a model tragedy because the fate of Europe was determined within this individual fate. — Stefan Zweig

Hope? Hope is not the absence of tragedy, my friend. It is the conviction that tragedy can be endured. Hope is the spark in you that is not subdued in the face of the vast and callous indifference of the universe. Hope is that which is not shattered by hardship. Hope is the urge to fight what is wrong even when you know it will destroy you. Hope is the decision to love and need someone knowing that they will one day die. For me to promise that there are no obstacles would be the cruelest lie I could possibly tell. That lie is not hope. Hope is the will which needs no lies. — Travis Beacham

Her mom showed her that when life hands you tragedy, you can do two things with it. You can let it kick you down and make you weak and turn you into a victim. Or you can have hope that you'll get through it and there's still something amazing to live for.
Dylan tells me victims don't make it very far in life. — Katie Kacvinsky

Certainly after the tragedy in Neil's life, we were holding out hope for his recovery. It wasn't too promising at the time and obviously you get to the point of thinking that that is it. — Alex Lifeson

There are women named Faith, Hope, Joy, and Prudence. Why not Despair, Guilt, Rage, and Grief? It seems only right. 'Tom, I'd like you to meet the girl of my dreams, Tragedy.' These days, Trajedi. — George Carlin

There is a gift in experiencing so much tragedy of life from a young age, you gain the wisdom earlier to make better choices for later. — Nikki Rowe

No god will spare you forgiveness for loving me. — Liam Levi

The thing is, there is no certainty in this life - in one second your entire world could shift. I'm not saying it will, but I am living proof that It can. We never prepare for tragedy and that's a good thing but my god what's it's taught me is how little we appreciate what we have or some cases once had. — Nikki Rowe

Sometimes life's lessons may not be easily labeled; and we may not understand simply because we are too close to the situation (emotionally). Bad things and tragedy strike all around us with no obvious reasons but somewhere in this "the phoenix will rise from the ashes". — Nehali Lalwani

A life without trouble and tragedy is boring and not a plot for comedy. — Debasish Mridha

I just think it's fortunate that Sir Isaac Newton didn't share the sense of humor of a member of the public, because had he done so, he would of been so amused by the simple effects of gravity, that he would of never gotten round making a comprehensive study of it's causes.
That's the punchline! 'a comprehensive study of it's courses'! I worked for that! Will you be telling this joke at work? I don't think so!
And yes, I am aware that I say this to you while hanging precariously of this art-deco balcony. And I do so deliberately in the hope that I will fall to my death, and that you will learn about the thin line between slap-stick and tragedy. — Stewart Lee

Kylar, in the crucible of tragedy, explanations fail. When you stand before a tragedy and tell yourself that there is no sense to it, doesn't your heart break? I think that must be as hard for you as it is for me when I scream at God and demand to know why - and he says nothing. We will both survive this, Kylar. The difference is, on the other side I will have hope. — Brent Weeks

Why couldn't he see the tragedy of what was unfolding? Was it because it was too painful, or was it because holding onto hope and dying was better than living if it meant you were forced to see the world for what it was? — Chris Dietzel

Nothing in Chomsky's account acknowledges the difference between intending to kill a child, because of the effect you hope to produce on its parents (we call this "terrorism"), and inadvertently killing a child in an attempt to capture or kill an avowed child murderer (we call this "collateral damage"). In both cases a child has died, and in both cases it is a tragedy. But the ethical status of the perpetrators, be they individuals or states, could not be more distinct ... For Chomsky, intentions do not seem to matter. Body count is all. — Sam Harris

You have the freedom and the ability to decide what to do with your life, and that includes learning how to welcome happiness again. It's a conscious choice we each have to make, to emerge from the embers of profound loss and hopelessness, to become the fire that warms us, lights our path, all of it. We can embody that warmth and light. — Becca Vry

Since the tragedy of Marina's death, her parents have heard from strangers around the globe surprised to find themselves writing to share the impact of "meeting" Marina through her words: Jewish teenagers visiting a series of concentration camps while on "The March of the Living" and finding specific comfort and renewed purpose in her writings; college peers living more mindfully; musicians writing songs inspired by her; older readers making midlife recalibrations and career changes, whether they are returning to school or shifting to a nonprofit or finishing that manuscript; people simply rediscovering a sense of hope. These new life paths all build from Marina's own sense that it's never too late to change, that we must take action, that we are indeed "in this together. — Marina Keegan

Making this movie as a period piece about a period that was very recent in people's minds. I was in Taiwan [during the 1970s], so I hope I did all right. Otherwise, it could be the biggest embarrassment of my life. Also, the story is not linear, it's patchy, like a cubist painting, and there is always the possibility it will not hold together, it will fall apart. The tone is part satire, part serious drama, part tragedy, all mixed together, and it has to hit an emotional core. That's also very scary. — Ang Lee

Death is not the ultimate tragedy of life. The ultimate tragedy is depersonalization
dying in an alien and sterile area, separated from the spiritual nourishment that comes from being able to reach out to a loving hand, separated from the desire to experience the things that make life worth living, separated from hope. — Norman Cousins

I'd tried so hard to make a perfect, untouchable life for myself. But trouble finds you. Tragedy finds you. And we keep trying anyway. We hope for the best. We believe we can make something for ourselves- something good that will last- even though, at the exact same time, we know we can't. — Katherine Center

We need strong Christians who can persevere against hardship, who can sustain hope through tragedy, who can lift others by their example and their compassion, and who can consistently overcome temptations. We need strong Christians who can make important things happen by their faith and who can defend the truth of Jesus Christ against moral relativism and militant atheism. What is the source of such moral and spiritual power, and how do we obtain it? The source is God. Our access to that power is through our covenants with Him. — D. Todd Christofferson

Those who are believers in God find strength from their faith in the face of suffering. They are compelled to give sacrificially to help those in need. And they have the hope that comes from knowing that, with God by their side, the tragedy they are facing is never the final word. — Adam Hamilton

I have to ask myself how I can possibly expect to know Jesus as he would want to be known if my life remains unscathed by trouble and grief. How can I hope to grasp anything of God's heart for this broken planet if I never weep because its brokenness touches me and breaks my heart? How can I reflect his image if I never share in his sufferings? And how will any of us ever learn to treasure his hesed and grace if we never experience phases where these blessings seem absent? — Carolyn Custis James

For I'm afraid of loneliness; shiveringly, terribly afraid. I don't mean the ordinary physical loneliness, for here I am, deliberately travelled away from London to get to it, to its spaciousness and healing. I mean that awful loneliness of spirit that is the ultimate tragedy of life. When you've got to that, really reached it, without hope, without escape, you die. You just can't bear it, and you die. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

It is restful, tragedy, because one knows that there is no more lousy hope left. You know you're caught, caught at last like a rat with all the world on its back. And the only thing left to do is shout. — Jean Anouilh