Quotes About Tragedy

In fact, however, Nietzsche's very first book, The Birth, constitutes a declaration of independence from Schopenhauer: while Nietzsche admires him for honestly facing up to the terrors of existence, Nietzsche himself celebrates Greek tragedy as a superior alternative to Schopenhauer's "Buddhistic negation of the will." From tragedy Nietzsche learns that one can affirm life as sublime, beautiful, and joyous in spite of all suffering and cruelty.

The tragic artist is not a pessimist — it is precisely he who affirms all that is questionable and terrible in existence, he is Dionysian.

If you could imagine dissonance assuming human form - and what else is man? - this dissonance would need, to be able to live, a magnificent illusion which would spread a veil of beauty over its own nature." Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, ed. R. Geuss & R. Speirs, Cambridge, 2007, 163. (p.154)

There are heights of the soul from which even tragedy ceases to look tragic; and rolling together all the woe of the world -- who could dare to decide whether its sight would necessarily seduce us and compel us to feel pity and thus double this woe?

Virtue is knowledge; man sins only from ignorance; he who is virtuous is happy." In these three basic forms of optimism lies the death of tragedy.

Meanwhile, however, it is quite otherwise, meanwhile the comedy of existence has not yet become conscious of itself, meanwhile it is still the period of tragedy, the period of morals and religions.

Around the hero everything turns into a tragedy; around the demi-god, into a satyr play; and around God--what? perhaps into world?

Is not wounded vanity the mother of all tragedies?

Postojanje i svet izgledaju opravdani jedino kao estetski fenomen: u kom smislu nas upravo tragi?ki mit treba da ubedi kako su ?ak i rugoba i nesklad umetni?ka igra koju volja, u ve?itom preobilju svoje naslade, igra sa samom sobom.

Et le spectacle tragique de la salle se terminait en une espèce de parodie, les vieillards s'agitant comme des enfants, les uns prêts à rire, les autres à pleurer, parce qu'ils retrouvaient si vivement en eux la trace de ce qui était perdu. Alors je me dis que c'était trop cruel à la fin et que jamais plus je n'emmènerais Nil chanter pour rappeler l'espoir.

My tongue goes to the Secretary of the Dead to tell the corpses, I'm sorry, fellows, the killing was just one of those things difficult to pre-visualize - like a cow, say, getting hit by lightning.

Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons.

Everyone kept saying, 'The terrorists didn't win. You won! We won! You survived!' That's just weird to me. Nobody wins in these situations. I don't see winners and losers in tragic events.

The Swedish winters and summers hold the most enduring memories for me. Now, when I am back in Stockholm in November, it is difficult to imagine being able to ski to school. I think that is a tragedy.

Later we learned that it was one of our own men hanging on the wire. Nobody could do anything for him; two men had already tried to save him, only to be shot themselves.

It's a terrible thing wishing that it can be someone else's tragedy.

Witches were burned and killed in Scotland and England for centuries before what happened in Salem.

A popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce, or a tragedy, or perhaps both.

Effort without talent is a depressing situation... but talent without effort is a tragedy.

Few tragedies can be more extensive than the stunting of life, few injustices deeper than the denial of an opportunity to strive or even to hope, by a limit imposed from without, but falsely identified as lying within.

That freedom can never be attained by a nation without suffering and sacrifice has been amply borne out by the recent tragic happenings in this subcontinent.

You don't have to be a scared person. I've had so many tragedies. I've managed to withstand things that you may think you cannot tolerate. But I have the strength.

One of the privileges of the great is to witness catastrophes from a terrace.

Sometimes, in the midst of a tragedy like the Newton massacre, we witness incredible acts of valor, tenderness, grace, and decency. We saw it from Sandy Hook Elementary School's teachers, students, and parents, as well as from their community and country. The outpouring of sympathy and help has been touching and, at times, inspiring.