We are more disturbed by a calamity which threatens us than by one which has befallen us.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
The crises of our time, it becomes increasingly clear, are the necessary impetus for the revolution now under way. And once we understand nature's transformative powers, we see that it is our powerful ally, not a force to feared our subdued.
Devastation could arise insidiously, rather than suddenly, through unsustainable pressure on energy supplies, food, water and other natural resources. Indeed, these pressures are the prime 'threats without enemies' that confront us.
When the calamity we feared is already arrived, or when the expectation of it is so certain as to shut out hope, there seems to be a principle within us by which we look with misanthropic composure on the state to which we are reduced, and the heart sullenly contracts and accommodates itself to what it most abhorred.
The first light of day today revealed what we had feared. The devastation is greater than our worst fears. It's just totally overwhelming.
Tragedy takes us to the very state of consciousness which, were we to hold to it, would go far toward preventing further tragedies.
American culture is torn between our long romance with violence and our terror of the devastation wrought by war and crime and environmental havoc.
We have been crafted by disaster to push out to the utmost horizon to find out what's on the other side of it. That's in our nature. What's also in our nature is a profound love and connection to our children and our communities. Those two things are very much at conflict with one another at certain moments.
A lot of tragedy can befall us, but there's always something else; there's always hope.
Two dangers constantly threaten the world: order and disorder.
In a world we find terrifying, we ratify that which doesn't threaten us.
No opposing quotes found.