Steven Weinberg - John Masters - Horace Walpole - Angela Carter - Mel Brooks - Oscar Wilde - D H Lawrence - Woody Allen - George Orwell - Aristotle - Tom Stoppard TV - George Bernard Shaw - Joseph Stalin - W B Yeats - John Fowles - K L Toth - John Milton - Jennifer Weiner - Louis Wolfson -
23. The position of human beings is essentially a tragic one. (Humanity & Tragedy) Professor Steven Weinberg, interview Professor Richard Dawkins
96,229. Do you know what tragedy is? The inevitable – nothing else. John Masters, Nightrunners of Bengal p309
1,073. The world is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those that feel. (Life’s Like That & Comedy & Think & Tragedy & Feeling & World) Horace Walpole 1776
43,122. Comedy is tragedy that happens to other people. (Comedy & Tragedy) Angela Carter, Wise Children
43,127. Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die. (Comedy & Tragedy & Finger) Mel Brooks
43,133. The soul is born old but grows young. That is the comedy of life. And the body is born young and grows old – that is life’s tragedy. (Comedy & Tragedy) Oscar Wilde
91,567. Tragedy ought really to be a great kick at misery. D H Lawrence, letter 6th October 1912
43,138. I think that the tendency for most people is to fall back on a comic interpretation of things – because things are so sad, so terrible. If you didn't laugh you’d kill yourself. But the truth of the matter is that existence in general is very very tragic, very very sad, very brutal and very unhappy. (Comedy & Tragedy & Life’s Like That) Woody Allen
58,839. A tragic situation exists precisely when virtue does not triumph but when it is still felt that man is nobler than the forces which destroy him. (Virtue & Tragedy) George Orwell
91,568. Tragedy is thus a representation of an action that is worth serious attention, complete in itself and of some amplitude ... By means of pity and fear bringing about a purgation of such emotions. Aristotle C.384-322 B.C. Poetics ch 6
91,569. The bad end unhappily, the good unluckily. That is what tragedy means. Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead 1967
91,570. There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart’s desire. The other is to gain it. George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman
89,732. A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic. (Statistics & Tragedy) Joseph Stalin
31,722. Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy. (Ireland & Tragedy) W B Yeats
91,571. ‘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 man had the courage to be evil. But that millions had not the courage to be good.’ (Tragedy & Nazi & Betrayal) John Fowles, The Magus
91,572. One of the greatest tragedies in life is to lose your own sense of self and accept the version of you that is expected by everyone else. (Tragedy & Self) K L Toth
91,784. Sometime let gorgeous Tragedy
In sceptred pall come sweeping by,
Presenting Thebes, or Pelops’ line,
Or the tale of Troy divine. (Troy & Tragedy) John Milton
70,429. Divorce isn’t such a tragedy. A tragedy’s staying in an unhappy marriage, teaching your children the wrong things about love. Nobody ever died of divorce. (Divorce & Tragedy) Jennifer Weiner, Fly Away Home
4,269. The tragedy, the true catastrophe, is that humanity continues. (Humanity & Tragedy) Louis Wolfson