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tragedy quotes

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“Comedy aims at representing men as worse, Tragedy as better than in actual life.” Aristotle, Poetics
“The life of every individual, if we survey it as a whole and in general, and only lay stress upon its most significant features, is really always a tragedy, but gone through in detail, it has the character of a comedy.” Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation
“In the creation of comedy, it is paradoxical that tragedy stimulates the spirit of ridicule; because ridicule, I suppose, is an attitude of defiance: we must laugh in the face of our helplessness against the forces of nature – or go insane.” Charlie Chaplin, My Autobiography
“Actions are the first tragedy in life, words are the second. Words are perhaps the worst. Words are merciless...” Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan
“And those who only know the non-platonic love have no need to talk of tragedy. In such love there can be no sort of tragedy.” Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
“We are only human, and the gods have fashioned us for love. That is our great glory, and our great tragedy.” George R. R. Martin, A Game of Thrones
“But in life, a tragedy is not one long scream. It includes everything that led up to it. Hour after trivial hour, day after day, year after year, and then the sudden moment: the knife stab, the shell-burst, the plummet of the car from the bridge.” Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin
“It's a shame that we have to live, but it's a tragedy that we get to live only one life.” Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
“People are drawn deeper into tragedy not by their defects but by their virtues.” Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore
“To lose the only creature in all his world who ever had manifested love and affection for him was the greatest tragedy he had ever known.” Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan of the Apes
“He who climbeth on the highest mountains, laugheth at all tragic plays and tragic realities.” Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
“Tragic phrases comfort the heart.... Without them, sorrow would be too heavy for men to bear.” Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
“Those who are faithful know only the trivial side of love: it is the faithless who know love's tragedies.” Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
“For never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo.” William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
“Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic.” Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
“O, why should nature build so foul a den, unless the gods delight in tragedies?” William Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus
“even the most timid women sometimes acquire a relish for the dreadful when that is amalgamated with a little triumph” Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd

Related topics

love comedy gods life words death women nature action virtue passion sorrow sadness loss moment mercy human nature appreciation ridicule faithfulness

Related authors

Oscar Wilde (3)
William Shakespeare (2)
Friedrich Nietzsche (1)
Aristotle (1)
George R. R. Martin (1)
Leo Tolstoy (1)
Haruki Murakami (1)
Arthur Schopenhauer (1)
Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1)
Margaret Atwood (1)
Charlie Chaplin (1)
Thomas Hardy (1)
Edgar Rice Burroughs (1)
Jonathan Safran Foer (1)

Related sources

The Picture of Dorian Gray (2)
Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1)
Romeo and Juliet (1)
The Brothers Karamazov (1)
Anna Karenina (1)
Kafka on the Shore (1)
A Game of Thrones (1)
The Blind Assassin (1)
The World as Will and Representation (1)
My Autobiography (1)
Far from the Madding Crowd (1)
Poetics (1)
Tarzan of the Apes (1)
Titus Andronicus (1)
Lady Windermere's Fan (1)
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (1)