Tragedy Quotes

“A lot of you cared, just not enough.”
― Jay Asher, Thirteen Reasons Why

“There is a saying in Tibetan, 'Tragedy should be utilized as a source of strength.'
No matter what sort of difficulties, how painful experience is, if we lose our hope, that's our real disaster.”
― Dalai Lama XIV

“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

“The world is a tragedy to those who feel, but a comedy to those who think.”
― Horace Walpole

“For never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo.”
― William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

“Life is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel.”
― Jean Racine

“Weeping is not the same thing as crying. It takes your whole body to weep, and when it's over, you feel like you don't have any bones left to hold you up.”
― Sarah Ockler, Twenty Boy Summer

“There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt.”
― Erma Bombeck

“But that is how a tragedy like ours or King Lear breaks your heart—by making you believe that the ending might still be happy, until the very last minute.”
― M.L. Rio, If We Were Villains

“A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.”
― Joseph Stalin

“A tragedy is a tragedy, and at the bottom, all tragedies are stupid. Give me a choice and I'll take A Midsummer Night's Dream over Hamlet every time. Any fool with steady hands and a working set of lungs can build up a house of cards and then blow it down, but it takes a genius to make people laugh.”
― Stephen King

“I can't go on, I'll go on.”
― Samuel Beckett, I Can't Go On, I'll Go On: A Samuel Beckett Reader

“Come back. Even as a shadow, even as a dream.”
― Euripides

“Everyone has a thousand wishes before a tragedy, but just one afterward.”
― Fredrik Backman, Beartown

“What is more important, that Caesar is assassinated or that he is assassinated by his intimate friends? … That,’ Frederick said, 'is where the tragedy is.”
― M.L. Rio, If We Were Villains

“Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy.”
― William Butler Yeats

“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.”
― John Fowles, The Magus

“We pass through this world but once. 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.”
― Stephen Jay Gould, The Mismeasure of Man

“Life is the tragedy,' she said bitterly. 'You know how they categorize Shakespeare's plays, right? If it ends with a wedding, it's a comedy. And if it ends with a funeral, it's a tragedy. So we're all living tragedies, because we all end the same way, and it isn't with a goddamn wedding.”
― Robyn Schneider, The Beginning of Everything

“Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die.”
― Mel Brooks

“Life is a drama full of tragedy and comedy. You should learn to enjoy the comic episodes a little more.”
― Jeannette Walls, The Glass Castle

“He who climbs upon the highest mountains laughs at all tragedies, real or imaginary.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

“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.”
― K.L. Toth

“The tragedy of this world is that no one is happy, whether stuck in a time of pain or of joy. The tragedy of this world is that everyone is alone. For a life in the past cannot be shared with the present. Each person who gets stuck in time gets stuck alone.”
― Alan Lightman, Einstein’s Dreams

“The whole world can become the enemy when you lose what you love.”
― Kristina McMorris, Bridge of Scarlet Leaves

“…. ‘George said he needed a break. And there was something about Jonathan taking over …’   ‘That’s exactly what I mean,’ said Maxwell, ‘It seems like there’s all kinds of goings on there now.’ ‘What did the agents say then?’ ‘Your brother … he must still have a key. I told them to check, I told them. I expect they overlooked it. Hugo’s been going in and there are some women there apparently, I mean at the Manor House, Jonathan’s up to his usual tricks taking in every Tom, Dick and Harry and giving all kinds of undesirables a home, and there’s something about them chasing Hugo and taunting him, yesterday the buyers were viewing again and measuring up for curtains and things, I said they could, and they saw something going on outside, some shouting and laughing …’   ‘Women! What women? Jonathan’s not like that …’   ‘Not like that huh! He’s flesh and blood like the rest of us.’  ‘That’s not what I meant. Please don’t be angry Max, it’s not my fault.’ ‘Jonathan this and Jonathan that. Why do people think he’s so bloody marvellous eh! What the hell does he think he’s doing. People spilling over into my garden and wrecking the peace and quiet. George was completely mad to do this …”
― Elizabeth Tebby Germaine, A MAN WHO SEEMED REAL: A story of love, lies, fear and kindness

“If we climb high enough, we will reach a height from which tragedy ceases to look tragic.”
― Irvin D. Yalom, When Nietzsche Wept

“Hate is a bottomless cup; I will pour and pour”
― Euripides, Medea

“It often happens that the real tragedies of life occur in such
an inartistic manner that they hurt us by their crude violence, their
absolute incoherence, their absurd want of meaning, their entire lack
of style. They affect us just as vulgarity affects us. They give us
an impression of sheer brute force, and we revolt against that.
Sometimes, however, a tragedy that possesses artistic elements of
beauty crosses our lives. If these elements of beauty are real, the
whole thing simply appeals to our sense of dramatic effect. Suddenly
we find that we are no longer the actors, but the spectators of the
play. Or rather we are both. We watch ourselves, and the mere wonder
of the spectacle enthralls us.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“They know that tragedy is not glamorous. They know it doesn't play out in life as it does on a stage or between the pages of a book. It is neither a punishment meted out nor a lesson conferred. Its horrors are not attributable to one single person. Tragedy is ugly and tangled, stupid and confusing.”
― E. Lockhart, We Were Liars