Monday February 3, 2002 - updated by request to include Space Shuttle Columbia tragedy quotes.
Quotes on the occasion of the loss of the space shuttle Columbia - STS-107.
We lost data and that's when we clearly began to know that we had a bad day.
-Ron Dittemore, NASA space shuttle program manager
The Columbia is lost. There are no survivors.
-George W. Bush
We have suffered the loss of seven family members.
-Ron Dittemore, NASA space shuttle program manager
Because of their courage and daring and idealism we will miss them all the more.
-George W. Bush
The loss of this valiant crew is something we will never get over.
--Sean O'Keefe, NASA Administrator
Our journey into space will go on.
-George W. Bush
The same creator who names the stars also knows the names of the seven souls we mourn today. The crew of the shuttle Columbia did not return safely to Earth but we can pray they are safely home.
-George W. Bush
The president views this as a tragedy that has touched the lives of the American people, and as a reminder of the risks of space flight. The president does not see it as connected to other events around the world.
-Ari Fleischer, Presidential spokesman
Because the exploration of space knows no national boundaries, the loss of the Columbia is a loss to all humankind.
-Kofi Annan, UN Secretary-General
These seven astronauts paid the price for man's conquest of space ... and the world salutes these heroes.
-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
Only a great mind that is overthrown yields
tragedy.
- Jacques Barzun
We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the
dark. The real tragedy of life is when men are
afraid of the light
- Plato
Noble souls, through dust and heat, rise from disaster and defeat the stronger.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
It is always too late, or too little, or both. And that is the road to disaster.
David Lloyd George (1863-1945)
A wise man once said that tragedy is not what we
suffer, but what we miss
- Anonymous
It must be born in mind that the tragedy of life
doesn't lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy
lies in having no goal to reach. It isn't a
calamity to die with dreams unfulfilled, but it is
a calamity not to dream. It is not a disaster to
be unable to capture your ideal, but it is a
disaster to have no ideal to capture.It is not a
disgrace not to reach the stars, but it is a
disgrace to have no stars to reach for.
- Benjamin Mays (1895-1984)
Educator, Preacher, Political Leader, President of Morehouse College (1940-1967)
The great tragedy of science -- the slaying of a
beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.
- Thomas Huxley
Comedy is tragedy plus time
- Carol Burnett
A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a
statistic
- Joseph Stalin
The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon,
but that we wait so long to begin it
- Unknown
Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a
comedy in long-shot
- Charlie Chaplin
Life is a tragedy for those who feel, but a comedy
to those who think
- Horace Walpole
The tragedy of life is what dies inside a man
while he lives.
- Albert Schweitzer
(01/14/1875-1965)
While we have the gift of life, it seems to me the
only tragedy is to allow part of us to die whether
it is our spirit, our creativity or our glorious
uniqueness.
- Gilda Radner
The courage of life is often a less dramatic
spectacle than the courage of the final moment;
but it is no less a magnificent mixture of triumph
and tragedy A man does what he must-in spite of
personal consequences; in spite of obstacles and
dangers and pressures-and that is the basis of all
morality.
- John Fitzgerald Kennedy
The good, the bad, hardship, joy, tragedy, love,
and happiness are all interwoven into one
indescribable whole that one calls life. You
cannot separate the good from the bad, and perhaps
there is no need to do so.
- Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis
