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Disaster Quotes

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Disaster Quotes

“Frightening media messages...pervade the news business, which really ought to be called "the bad news business" for its preoccupation with disaster and destruction. In broadcast journalism, killing is almost always covered, while kindness is almost always ignored. The more alarming a news item is, the more attention it receives.”

AttentionKindnessMediaTelevisionOughtMessagesNewsDestructionKillingDisasterJournalismCoveredFrighteningIgnoredItemsBad NewsPreoccupationBroadcast Journalism
Author:Michael Medved
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“The relentless note of incipient hysteria, the invitation to panic, the ungrounded scenarios - the overwhelming and underlying desire for something truly terrible to happen so that you could have something really hot to talk about - was still startling. We call disasters unimaginable, but all we do is imagine such things. [...] That, you could conclude mordantly, is the real soundtrack of our time: the amplification of the self-evident toward the creation of paralyzing, preëmptive paranoia.”

StillsRealSelfHappensDesireFearImagineCreationTerribleHotNotesDisasterOur TimeOverwhelmingPanicEvidentInvitationsScenariosRelentlessParanoiaHysteriaUnimaginableSoundtracksAmplification
Author:Adam Gopnik
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“Lenelle Moïse's poems render the abstract - policy, disaster, history, diaspora - specific. Her words make the political not just personal, but corporeal: the beautiful system of the human body as canvas and subject, perfect in all its attendant complications and complexity, and still ruled, undeniably, by a warm, beating heart.”

HumansHeartStillsBodyBeautifulPoliticalPerfectSubjectsPolicyWarmDisasterAbstractComplexityCanvasHuman BodyComplicationDiaspora
Author:Erin McKeown
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“It's been fascinating over the last few years, watching the high and mighty in business and politics fall precipitously-not because their plans didn't work, but because their character flaws undercut those plans. Whether the microphone caught them making racist comments or their greed overcame their common sense, who they were as people made all the difference-more than their résumés, their degrees, or even their past successes. If you fail at the art of being human and staying human, you recklessly court disaster.”

PeopleIfsYearsHumansArtMadeCharacterLastsPastFallDifferencesCommonPlansFailingDegreesCourtGreedCaughtDisasterCommon SenseFascinatingStayingRacistFlawsCommentBeing HumanMicrophonesCharacter FlawsUndercutPast Success
Author:Marianne Williamson
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“Unconditional war can no longer lead to unconditional victory. It can no longer serve to settle disputes. It can no longer concern the Great Powers alone. For a nuclear disaster, spread by wind and water and fear, could well engulf the great and the small, the rich and the poor, the committed and the uncommitted alike. Mankind must put an end to war--or war will put an end to mankind.”

WellsWarEndsWaterPoorRichMankindWindVictoryConcernCommittedSpreadNuclearDisasterSettlingDisputesUnconditionalGreat PowerUncommitted
Author:John F. Kennedy
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“The opposition is indispensable. A good statesman, like any other sensible human being, always learns more from his opponents than from his fervent supporters. For his supporters will push him to disaster unless his opponents show him where the dangers are. So if he is wise he will often pray to be delivered from his friends, because they will ruin him. But though it hurts, he ought also to pray never to be left without opponents; for they keep him on the path of reason and good sense.”

IfsHumansReasonShowsLeftHurtHuman BeingsPathWiseDangerOughtPrayingDisasterRuinsOpponentsOppositionSensibleIt HurtsSupporterIndispensableDissentStatesmenGood SenseFervent
Author:Walter Lippmann
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“What quarrel, what harshness, what unbelief in each other can subsist in the presence of a great calamity, when all the artificial vesture of our life is gone, and we are all one with each other in primitive mortal needs?”

NeedsLife IsGoneOur LivesTragedyDisasterMortalsArtificialPrimitiveQuarrelsCalamityUnbeliefHarshness
Book:Wise, Witty, and Tender Sayings in Prose and Verse: Selected from the Works of George Eliot
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“The popularity of disaster movies expresses a collective perception of a world threatened by irresistible and unforeseen forces which nevertheless are thwarted at the last moment. Their thinly veiled symbolic meaning might be translated thus: We are innocent of wrongdoing. We are attacked by unforeseeable forces come to harm us. We are, thus, innocent even of negligence. Though those forces are insuperable, chance will come to our aid and we shall emerge victorious.”

WorldMomentsMightLastsForceChancePerceptionTragedyHarmAidsDisasterInnocentCollectivesPopularityNeverthelessThreatenedSymbolicIrresistibleWrongdoingNegligenceUnforeseenSymbolic MeaningDisaster Movie
Author:David Mamet
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“America is the world's living myth. There's no sense of wrong when you kill an American or blame America for some local disaster. This is our function, to be character types, to embody recurring themes that people can use to comfort themselves, justify themselves and so on. We're here to accommodate. Whatever people need, we provide. A myth is a useful thing.”

PeopleWorldNeedsCharacterUseAmericaTypeComfortFunctionBlameMythDisasterLocalsThemeJustifyAccommodateRecurringUseful ThingsRecurring Themes
Book:The Names
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“When a friend needs consoling, do not give in to the temptation of telling stories similar to theirs of disaster or bereavement. It is something people often do to show empathy but nothing is more tiresome than other people's problems when you want to focus on your own. Listening is by far the best form of consolation.”

PeopleWantNeedsGivingStoriesShowsProblemFormGriefFocusListeningEmpathyDisasterTemptationConsolationBereavementTelling StoriesTiresomeConsolingOther People's Problems
Author:Giles Andreae
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