Disasters Quotes

Other animals are exceptionally good at identifying and reacting to predators, rivals and friends. They never act as if they believe that rivers or trees are inhabited by spirits who are watching. In all these ways, other animals continually demonstrate their working knowledge that they live in a world brimming with other minds as well as their knowledge of those minds' boundaries. their understanding seems more acute, pragmatic, and frankly, better than ours at distinguishing real from fake. So, I wonder, do humans really have a better developed Theory of Mind than other animals? ...Children talk to dolls for years, half believing or firmly believing that the doll hears and feels and is a worthy confidante. Many adults pray to statues, fervently believing that they're listening. ...All of this indicates a common human inability to distinguish conscious minds from inanimate objects, and evidence from nonsense. Children often talk to a fully imaginary friends whom they believe listens and has thoughts. Monotheism might be the adult version. ...In the world's most technologically advanced, most informed societies, a majority people take it for granted that disembodied spirits are watching, judging, and acting on them. Most leaders of modern nations trust that a Sky-God can be asked to protect their nation during disasters and conflicts with other nations. All of this is theory of mind gone wild, like an unguided fire hose spraying the whole universe with presumed consciousness. ~ Carl Safina

Taxes are what we pay for civilized society, for modernity, and for prosperity. The wealthy pay more because they have benefitted more. Taxes, well laid and well spent, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, and promote the general welfare. Taxes protect property and the environment; taxes make business possible. Taxes pay for roads and schools and bridges and police and teachers. Taxes pay for doctors and nursing homes and medicine. During an emergency, like an earthquake or a hurricane, taxes pay for rescue workers, shelters, and services. For people whose lives are devastated by other kinds of disaster, like the disaster of poverty, taxes pay, even, for food. ~ Jill Lepore

Disasters are usually a good time to re-examine what we've done so far, what mistakes we've made, and what improvements should come next. ~ Dan Ariely

Can you tell me what happened, Libbs? Can you tell me what has you so panicked?"

"All of it." That was my answer, even though I knew my dad was expecting something more specific. "Everything. It was you. Me. Aneurysms. Death. Cancer. Murder. Crime. Mean people. Rotten people. Two-faced people. Bullies. Natural disasters. The world has me panicked. The world did this. Especially the way it gives you people to love and then takes them away." But the answer was actually simple. I had decided to be afraid. ~ Jennifer Niven

Unless we announce disasters no one will listen. ~ John T. Houghton

I believe that every person, male and female, needs to be in a protective mode at all times of alertness to potential danger. The world is full of potential attacks, potential disasters. ~ Camille Paglia

It is vital that the entire international system is ready to meet the challenges of future disasters. ~ Andrew Mitchell

There also is the plight that comes from natural disasters; these natural disasters could be alleviated or dealt with; we only need some time to do it. ~ Bhumibol Adulyadej

As London is suddenly promoted as a super-wealth brand, the England outside London shivers beneath cutbacks, tight circumstances and economic disasters. ~ Morrissey

There are survivors of disasters whose accounts never begin with the tornado warning or the captain announcing engine failure, but always much earlier in the timeline: an insistence that they noticed a strange quality to the sunlight that morning or excessive static in their sheets. A meaningless fight with a boyfriend. As if the presentiment of catastrophe wove itself into everything that came before. ~ Emma Cline

Some natural disasters were preferable to the sorts that people could wreak upon each other. ~ Mark Lawrence

The future was only disasters of the past, waiting to happen anew. ~ Erika Johansen

Now he turned the radio on to the news. As we did our separate chores, we listened and commented idly to each other on what we heard - the politics, the plane crashes and crimes, the large disasters of the day, which we all use to keep the smaller, more long-term sorrows at bay. ~ Sue Miller

It seems jolly on the page. But imagine poverty, violence, natural disasters, or political fear driving you away from everything you know. Imagine how bad things get to make you leave behind your family, your friends, your lovers; your home, as humble as it might be; your church, say. Let's take it further - you've said good-bye to the graveyard, the dog, the goat, the mountains where you hunted, your grade school, your state, your favorite spot on the river where you fished and took time to think. ~ Luis Alberto Urrea

Disasters teach us humility. ~ Anselm Of Canterbury

This may read like a mad journey through some of the most dangerous places on earth, but it is much more than that as well. Sheets witnessed most of the wars, disasters, and revolutions that followed the end of communism, and his accounts of them
from Chechnya to Chernobyl, and from Abkhazia to Afghanistan
serve as a passionate but considered obituary for the vanished Soviet empire. ~ Oliver Bullough

The Exile In July 587 BCE, Babylonian soldiers broke through Jerusalem's walls, ending a starvation siege that had lasted well over a year. They burned the city and Solomon's temple and took its king and many other leaders to Babylon as captives, leaving others to fend for themselves in the destroyed land. Many surrounding countries disappeared altogether when similar disasters befell them. But Judah did not. Instead, the period scholars most often call the "Babylonian exile" inspired religious leaders to revise parts of Scripture that had been passed down to them. It also sparked the writing of entirely new Scriptures and the revision of ideas about God, creation, and history. Much of what is called the Hebrew Scriptures or Old Testament was written, edited, and compiled during and after this national tragedy. ~ Walter Brueggemann

If we put the emphasis upon the right things, if we live the life that is worth while and then fail, we will survive all disasters, we will out-live all misfortune. We should be so well balanced and symmetrical, that nothing which could ever happen could throw us off our center, so that no matter what misfortune should overtake us, there would still be a whole magnificent man or woman left after being stripped of everything else. ~ Orison Swett Marden

While natural disasters capture headlines and national attention short-term, the work of recovery and rebuilding is long-term. ~ Sylvia Mathews Burwell

So disasters come not singly; But as if they watched and waited, Scanning one another's motions, When the first descends, the others Follow, follow, gathering flock-wiseRound their victim, sick and wounded, First a shadow, then a sorrow, Till the air is dark with anguish. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Small societies are particularly vulnerable to disruption of key lifelines, such as trading relations, or to large perturbations like wars or natural disasters. Larger societies, with more diverse and extensive resources, can rush aid to disaster victims. But the complexity that brings resilience may also impede adaptation and change, producing social inertia that maintains collectively destructive behavior. Consequently, large societies have difficulty adapting to slow change and remain vulnerable to problems that eat away their foundation, such as soil erosion. In contrast, small systems are adaptable to shifting baselines but are acutely vulnerable to large perturbations. But unlike the first farmer-hunter-gatherers who could move around when their soil was used up, a global civilization cannot. ~ David R. Montgomery

When I love, I love hard. You're stuck with me for good. In your news report, you didn't say what happened at the end of the bumpy ride. You didn't say what it takes to break the curse. But I know. True Love. the kind that doesn't go away because of a few disasters along the way. I love you, Melissa. ~ Jennifer Bernard

Natural disasters are terrifying - that loss of control, this feeling that something is just going to randomly end your life for absolutely no reason is terrifying. But, what scares me is the human reaction to it and how people behave when the rules of civility and society are obliterated. ~ Eli Roth

That is who Barack Obama is - a person of admirable character - and that is who he has remained for me over these last four years. I have not agreed with his every decision, but never once have I seen him break his cool, lose his composure, or abandon his insightful perspective - even during the most serious and/or absurd national disasters. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

The South African artist William Kentridge speaks to this type of certainty: 'To say that one needs art, or politics, that incorporate ambiguity and contradiction is not to say that one then stops recognizing and condemning things as evil. However, it might stop one being so utterly convinced of the certainty of one's own solutions. There needs to be a strong understanding of fallibility and how the very act of certainty or authoritativeness can bring disasters.'
The outcome of the current crisis is already determined. ~ Nick Flynn

The thing about family disasters is that you never have to wait long before the next one puts the previous one into perspective. ~ Robert Breault

The dreamers, those who misread the actual state of affairs and act upon their emotions, are often the source of the greatest mistakes in history - the wars that are not thought out, the disasters that are not foreseen ~ Robert Greene

Forgiveness comes later in life, after you've created enough disasters of your own. ~ Mat Johnson

Terror attacks are now 'man-caused disasters.' And the 'global war on terror' is no more. It is an 'overseas contingency operation.'
Nidal Hassan proudly tells a military court that he, a soldier of Allah, killed 13 American soldiers in the name of jihad. but the massacre remains officially classified as an act not of terrorism but of 'workplace violence. ~ Charles Krauthammer

The biggest stories in 2005 were the national disasters. ~ Geraldo Rivera

For generations people have called natural disasters "acts of God." This has been a misnomer. Eons ago, God the Father conceded control of Earth's weather to Satan himself, the prince and power of the air. God allowed destruction and death by natural phenomena, yes, because of the fall of man. And no doubt God at times intervened against such actions by the evil one because of the fervent prayers of his people. ~ Tim LaHaye

You don't need to conduct autopsies on your disasters. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

This book has been a catalogue of mistakes by politicians, moral and practical disasters which led to wars, enslavement and wretchedness on a scale which no previous age could have dreaded or dreamed of. ~ A. N. Wilson

The stabbing horror of life is not contained in calamities and disasters, because these things wake one up and one gets very familiar and intimate with them and finally they become tame again. No, it is more like being in a hotel room in Hoboken let us say, and just enough money in one's pocket for another meal. ~ Henry Miller

Did you know that the word 'tsunami,' which is now being used worldwide, is a Japanese word? This is indicative of the extent to which Japan has been subject to frequent tsunami disasters in the past. ~ Junichiro Koizumi

Whatever I decide will not work. It's what people want that will work. So no one decided whether you become a vegetarian or anything else. What determines that is the availability of food. If we run out of vegetation due to floods or natural disasters, people will consume meat and if we run out of meat they will consume vegetables. I have no control over that. That would be up to people. ~ Jacque Fresco

While many people like the idea of exercising unconditional love, most eventually find it too draining and impossible to sustain, often because the attempt to practice it is misunderstood, discouraged, brought under attack, or made a target of willful abuse. As sad as it may be to admit, in our modern world people are far more accustomed to hearing news of war, genocide, murder, disasters, famine, and disease than they are to hearing anything about acts of love or grace. ~ Aberjhani

U.N. officials said today they desperately need $7 billion to help people cope with disasters, but they're having a hard time getting people to send rescue money. Here's what the UN should do: Invest in bad mortgages, run a bank into the ground, give yourself a bonus, get some spa treatments and, in no time, the government will send you $750 billion. ~ Jay Leno

Fifth, I think that you [Daniel Dennett] and Richard are absolute disasters in the fight against intelligent design - we are losing this battle, not the least of which is the two new supreme court justices who are certainly going to vote to let it into classrooms - what we need is not knee-jerk atheism but serious grappling with the issues - neither of you are willing to study Christianity seriously and to engage with the ideas - it is just plain silly and grotesquely immoral to claim that Christianity is simply a force for evil, as Richard claims - more than this, we are in a fight, and we need to make allies in the fight, not simply alienate everyone of good will."

"William Dembski. "Remarkable exchange between Michael Ruse and Daniel Dennett" "
2006 ~ Michael Ruse

Studies show that women are more likely than men to die in natural disasters. Women's voices must be heard. ~ Frances Beinecke

The critical question for our generation - and for every generation
is this: If you could have heaven, with no sickness, and with all the
friends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and
all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties
you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and no
human conflict or any natural disasters, could you be satisfied with
heaven, if Christ were not there? ~ John Piper

Together the five orbiters Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavour have flown a total of 133 successful missions, an unequaled accomplishment of engineering, management, and political savvy. But it's the two disasters that people remember, that most shape the shuttle's story. The lovely dream of spaceflight I grew up with is marred by the images of Challenger and Columbia breaking apart in the sky, the lost astronauts smiling on hopefully in their portraits, oblivious. Some people took the disasters to mean the entire space program had been a lie, that the dream itself was tainted with our fallibility. But even as a child, I knew it was more complex than that. If we want to see people take risks, we have to be prepared to sometimes see them fail. The story of American spaceflight is a story with many endings, a story of how we have weighed our achievements against our failures. ~ Margaret Lazarus Dean

Every generation has a macabre notion that wars, government prohibition, natural disasters or mankind itself could be the downfall of society and the world as a whole. ~ Lauren DeStefano

All in all, the communally reared children of Israel are far from the emotional disasters that psychoanalytic theory predicted. Neither have they been saved from all personality problems, as the founders of the kibbutz movement had hoped when they freed children from their parents. In any reasonable environment, children seem to grow up to be themselves. There is no evidence that communal rearing with stimulating, caring adults is either the ruination or the salvation of children. ~ Sandra Scarr

The three touchstones that woke Buddha up - sickness, old age, and death - are a pretty good place to start when crafting a tragic tale. And if we need to get more specific: heartbreak, destruction, miscomprehension, natural disasters, betrayal, and the waste of human potential. ~ Paul Di Filippo

The fatigue I've gathered year after year and stored inside now heaves a muted cry of helplessness. Nothing but fatigue, rounding my shoulders, heavier than ever on this late autumn day with a useless sun, a world of unforgiving disasters. So many struggles and tragedies, so much sorrow and egotism in this dark, in this rotting century of hate. ~ Emil Dorian

I never intended to be a historian of religion. My aim was to become a professor of English Literature in a university, but I had a series of absolute career disasters and found myself making television programs about the nature of religion and about Christian history and started to discover about other religious traditions, and that was an absolute eye-opener for me. ~ Karen Armstrong

i
can't seem
to recall
agreeing
to be a
casualty
of these
manmade
disasters ~ Amanda Lovelace

The things you think are the disasters in your life are not the disasters really. Almost anything can be turned around: out of every ditch, a path, if you can only see it. ~ Hilary Mantel

The disasters of war can be infinitely eerie and poignant. ~ Michael Leunig

Don't grieve for what doesn't come. Some things that don't happen keep disasters from happening. ~ Rumi

Climate change hype has grave real world consequences. It gets rich countries to adopt silly policies and to impose devastating eco-imperialism on poor countries. The world's rich millions can afford environmental extremism; its poor billions can't. Climate change pseudo-science about human causality has been exposed repeatedly. What's less appreciated is that there aren't more natural disasters in need of an explanation. ~ Leon Louw

There are only a handful of countries that have experienced what Indonesia has endured: financial crisis, political instability, separatism, ethnic conflicts, terrorism and natural disasters. Given the array of challenges that confronted us, what Indonesia has become today is nothing short of remarkable. Indonesia today is a country with a different Islam, democracy and modernity can go hand in hand. ~ Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono

They say that eclipses are portents of disaster, because disasters are so common, and misfortune occurs often enough for these forecasts to be right, whereas if they said that eclipses were portents of good fortune they would often be wrong. ~ Blaise Pascal

Oh." My spirits fell. I remembered Grover as being quite resourceful, but if he was dealing with California's natural disasters, he was unlikely to be back anytime in the next decade. ~ Rick Riordan

Emigration tears people apart. They learn about high points and personal disasters in letters and phone calls. Closer contact is impossible. As if they have landed on another planet, breathing is difficult in the spacesuits they don't dare to take off for fear there won't be enough air in the new atmosphere. Their chests rise and fall with difficulty. Their lungs hurt. The voices of the other settlers croak through the microphones in their helmets. ~ Julya Rabinowich

It's alwasy best to look ahead and not backwards. Possessions are not important. Think of those beautiful porcelain pieces I had. Before they came to me, they had all passed through the hands of many people, surviving wars and natural disasters. I got them only because someone else lost them. While I had them, I enjoyed them; now some other people will enhjoy them. Life itself is transitory. Possesions are not important. ~ Nien Cheng

The U.S. has become the most egregious war-monger and terrorist nation in the world, as well as the long-time leading purveyor of weapons of war throughout the world, and because here at home, we have 50 million of our citizens living in poverty, one in four children surviving on Food Stamps, a collapsing education system, poor health care, and many other disasters, none of which can be addressed as long as the country keeps pouring trillions of dollars into war and militarism. This madness and criminality must end! ~ Dave Lindorff

I suggested that the system put all the potential offending [sexually abusive] alters in an internal prison. Jennifer said that would take too long. An alter popped out and said, "Just a minute," and then, after a brief silence, announced that they had "killed" all the offender alters; they were lying in the inside world dead, covered in blood! I was not very happy with such drastic measures, but accepted it for the interim, knowing I could rely on Jennifer to tell me if the risk recurred. I made a list of the "dead" alters.
The next morning Jennifer called; she had dreamed about sexually abusing a child. I asked her to look for more related memories before we met in the evening. She had to "reincarnate" all the dead alters to find the memories. (We already had a method for doing this, as some alters had previously experienced internal "death" in "disasters" in the inner world; when they were made new internal bodies, they became alive again.) ~ Alison Miller

I lay there unable to move, reading about disasters in the far corners of the world. What could I do? Write letters, send checks. But there will never be a time when terrible trouble is not stalking the earth, and I began to see how important it is to appreciate what you have.

For too long I'd been waiting for the wonderful. But there is so much joy in everyday occurrences: a butterfly in the sun the first crisp bite of an apple, the rich aroma of roasting meat. Maybe I had to break my foot to open my eyes, but I finally understood why cooking means so much to me. In a world filled with no, it is my yes. ~ Ruth Reichl

Insofar as climate denial hinders technical progress, it might hasten real disasters, which in their turn can make catastrophic thinking still more credible. ~ Timothy Snyder

When will we collectively see together that the history of the world played no role in preventing negative events similar to those of the past from ever happening again in this lifetime? Everything just keeps senselessly repeating itself. That is because, as humans, we forget too quickly. Our forgetfulness is our species' greatest fault. Our negligence to tap into accessible existing knowledge to prevent new disasters from recurring is unforgiving. We are too arrogant, too proud and too lazy to adapt old ideas that may have worked, let alone invent some new ones. Yet most importantly, the greatest obstacle to our evolution is that WE ARE TOO DIVIDED. ~ Suzy Kassem

Nobody would say the cowshed was heaven and nobody would say the inhuman torture of so many victims be called a revolution of the proletariat ... A museum should be established to remind China of the follies and disasters that had fallen from 1966 to 1976. We cannot forget what had happened and history should not repeat itself. ~ Ba Jin

Disasters are funny to me. As a comedian you learn from failure, so I'm always trying to put myself in a situation that does not seem ideal for my comedy and see how it works. ~ Anthony Jeselnik

His [Francisco Goya's] debt to the Christianity of the eighteenth century is contained in the idea that politics was just adopting from the Gospels: the conviction that man has a right to justice. Such a statement would seem utterly conceited to a Roman, who would doubtless have looked upon the Disasters as we look upon photographs of the amphitheatre ... But if Goya thought that man has not come onto the earth to be cut to pieces he thought that he must have come here for something. Is it to live in joy and honour? Not only that; it is to come to terms with the world. And the message he never ceased to preach, a message underlined by war, is that man only comes to terms with the world by blinding himself with childishness. ~ Andre Malraux

Turing attended Wittgenstein's lectures on the philosophy of mathematics in Cambridge in 1939 and disagreed strongly with a line of argument that Wittgenstein was pursuing which wanted to allow contradictions to exist in mathematical systems. Wittgenstein argues that he can see why people don't like contradictions outside of mathematics but cannot see what harm they do inside mathematics. Turing is exasperated and points out that such contradictions inside mathematics will lead to disasters outside mathematics: bridges will fall down. Only if there are no applications will the consequences of contradictions be innocuous. Turing eventually gave up attending these lectures. His despair is understandable. The inclusion of just one contradiction (like 0 = 1) in an axiomatic system allows any statement about the objects in the system to be proved true (and also proved false). When Bertrand Russel pointed this out in a lecture he was once challenged by a heckler demanding that he show how the questioner could be proved to be the Pope if 2 + 2 = 5. Russel replied immediately that 'if twice 2 is 5, then 4 is 5, subtract 3; then 1 = 2. But you and the Pope are 2; therefore you and the Pope are 1'! A contradictory statement is the ultimate Trojan horse. ~ John D. Barrow

The hedge fund known as "Long Term Capital Management" collapsed last fall through overconfidence in its highly leveraged methods, despite I.Q.'s of its principals that must have averaged 160. Smart people aren't exempt from professional disasters from overconfidence. Often, they just run aground in the more difficult voyages they choose, relying on their self-appraisals that they have superior talents and methods. ~ Charlie Munger

It's strange how necessary it is to have problems to be able to prepare for avoiding future disasters. ~ Pawan Mishra

Treat all disasters as if they were trivialities but never treat a triviality as if it were a disaster. ~ Quentin Crisp

We visit the Launch Control building, where on one wall of the seventies-style lobby are hung the mission patches of every human spaceflight that has ever been launched from here, 149 to date. Beneath each mission patch is a small plaque showing the launch and landing dates. Two of them - Challenger's STS-51L and Columbia's STS-107 - are missing landing dates, because both of these missions ended in disasters that destroyed the orbiters and killed their crews. The blank spaces on the wall where those landing dates should have been are discolored from the touch of people's hands. This would be unremarkable if this place were a tourist attraction, or regularly open to the public. But with the rare exception of Family Days, this building is open only to people who work here. In other words, it's launch controllers, managers, and engineers who have been touching these empty spaces with their hands, on their way to and from doing their jobs. After ~ Margaret Lazarus Dean

During disasters young children usually take their cues from their parents. As long as their caregivers remain calm and responsive to their needs, they often survive terrible incidents without serious psychological scars. ~ Bessel A. Van Der Kolk

Wealth and power are also often disasters, with casualties and wreckage. Maybe what often gets called wealth in booms should mostly be imagined as impoverishment of the majority who don't become wealthy and often become displaced or priced out locally, served up with the collateral damage from the concentration of power, resources, and the control of place. ~ Rebecca Solnit

It is unfortunately true that our generation and that of your parents have left you with a big mess that will now be yours to clean up: wars, budget challenges, pollution, global warming, battles of health care, natural disasters. They're all there for you. We're willing those to you. Are you ready? ~ John Morgridge

The things that are meant to be are the things we can't control, the things we don't cause, the things that happen regardless of who or what we are. Like sunsets and snow-fall and natural disasters. I've never believed hardship or suffering was meant to be. ~ Amy Harmon

In the conflict between Israelis and Arabs you have wounded civilizations - the Arabs have been wounded in their dealings with the West, and an insecure Jewish people have gone through terrible disasters and traumas. There is no end to the Jewish quest for security, and there is no end for the Arab quest for redress and dignity. It is very difficult to reconcile the two. ~ Itamar Rabinovich

That natural disasters are required to provide Americans with a glimpse of reality in their own country is an indication of the deep rot infecting the official political culture. ~ Tariq Ali

Fertility says, "Can you relax and just let things happen?"
I ask, does she mean, like disasters, like pain, like misery? Can I just let all that happen?
"And Joy," she says, "and Serenity, and Happiness, and Contentment." She says all the wings of the Columbia Memorial Mausoleum. "You don't have to control everything," she says. "You can't control everything."
But you can be ready for disaster.
A sign goes by saying, Buckle Up.
"If you worry about disaster all of the time, that's what you are going to get," Fertility says. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

The formula for success includes failure.

The biggest lie about success is that its opposite is failure. This tricks you into thinking that you're far away from your achievement or goal if things don't work out exactly as you wanted them to. However, there is no success without risk, experimentation, and some failure.

Disappointments, delays, and disasters are not contrary to success; they are a part of the process. If you experience failure, it doesn't mean you are on the other end of success. It means you're right on track as long as you don't give up. The opposite of success is resignation, not failure. You can't succeed if you give up, but you can succeed after you fail. ~ Emily Maroutian

Stupas protect beings from 5 major disasters: war, epidemic diseases, famine, pollution, n poverty. ~ Akong Rinpoche

There are disasters that are entirely manmade, but none that are entirely natural. ~ Rebecca Solnit

Sadly, the book of Job was but a speed bump on the Deuteronomic superhighway. The delusion of divine punishments still prevails inside and outside religion over the clear evidence of human consequences, random accidents, and natural disasters. This does not simply distort theology; it defames the very character of God. ~ John Dominic Crossan

Believe me, the real romantic person is him who ain't done anything but imagine. If you have actually participated in disasters, like me, you get conservative. ~ Thomas Berger

Animals are unpredictable things, and so our life is unpredictable. It's a long tale of little triumphs and disasters and you've got to really like it to stick it. ~ James Herriot

We can trace almost all the disasters of English history to the influence of Wales. ~ Evelyn Waugh

The nature will continue, it's our existence that is finite and you are given this gift of life and you make your way with it, but fate and natural disasters will continue on. ~ Larry Fessenden

But first, before anyone else, regular people were on the scene, saving one another. They did incredible things, these regular people. They lifted rubble off sur­vivors with car jacks. They used garden hoses to force air into voids where people were trapped. In fact, as in most disasters, the vast majority of rescues were done by ordinary folks. ~ Amanda Ripley

Nothing wrong with eggs for dinner at ten o'clock at night when you're about to commit a crime. ~ M.K. England

Too many Americans who are uninsured or under-insured do not receive regular checkups because they can't afford coverage or their insurance doesn't cover enough of the costs. The lack of preventive care results in countless emergency room visits and health care disasters for families. ~ Jeff Merkley

Ninety percent of all problems are caused by people being assholes."
"What causes the other ten percent?" asked Kizzy.
"Natural disasters," said Nib. ~ Becky Chambers

In the midst of economic recovery and global upheaval, disasters like this remind us of the common humanity that we share. ~ Barack Obama

The Earth is God's pinball machine and each quake, tidal wave, flash flood and volcanic eruption is the result of a TILT that occurs when God, cheating, tries to win free games. ~ Tom Robbins

Disasters around the world are twice as big as they ever were, and ice is melting where it's not supposed to melt, and everything's changing - the world is changing - and it's all because of global warming, I think. ~ Jerry Weintraub

We were told that we had to win. Against whom? The atom? Physics? The universe? Victory is not an event for us, but a process. ~ Svetlana Alexievich

The idea that God is a worthy recipient of our gratitude for the blessings of life but should not be held accountable for the disasters is a transparently disingenuous innovation of the theologians. ~ Daniel Dennett

Plantation justice was mean and constant but the world was indiscriminate. Out in the world, the wicked escaped comeuppance and the decent stood in their stead at the whipping tree. Tennessee's disasters were the fruit of indifferent nature, without connection to the crimes of the homesteaders. To how the Cherokee had lived their lives. ~ Colson Whitehead

In politics, throwing the taxpayers' money at disasters is supposed to show your compassion. But robbing Peter to pay Paul is not compassion. It is politics. ~ Thomas Sowell

Over centuries, organised perpetrator groups have observed and studied the way in which extreme childhood traumas, such as accidents, bereavement, war, natural disasters, repeated hospitalisations and surgeries, and (most commonly) child abuse (sexual, physical, and emotional) cause a child's mind to be split into compartments. Occult groups originally utilised this phenomenon to create alternative identities and what they believed to be "possession" by various spirits. In the twentieth century, probably beginning with the Nazis, other organised groups developed ways to harm children and deliberately structure their victims' minds in such a way that they would not remember what happened, or that if they began to remember they would disbelieve their own memories. Consequently, the memories of what has happened to a survivor are hidden within his or her inside parts. ~ Alison Miller

Read one newspaper daily (the morning edition
is the best
for by evening you now that you at least
have lived through another day)
and let the disasters, the unbelievable
yet approved decisions
soak in.

I don't need to name the countries,
ours among them.

What keeps us from falling down, our faces
to the ground; ashamed, ashamed? ~ Mary Oliver

Millions of people across the world live in a state of acute environmental crises caused by the lack of access to safe and usable water resources, because of natural disasters, socio-economic conditions, wars and conflicts. At Green the Gene, we are developing extremely simple yet highly technology and data intensive solutions tailored to address extremely specific problems faced by communities. ~ Madhav Datt

Increasingly gang violence and organized crime, together with climate change-driven natural disasters, are displacing more people as wars are fewer on the continent and political violence has decreased considerably, the NRC has decided to treat this as a humanitarian crisis. ~ Jan Egeland