All the devastation, the butchery, the plundering, the conflagrations, and all the anguish which accompanied the recent disaster at Rome were in accordance with the general practice of warfare.

-St Augustine originally Aurelius Augustinus
AD 427  City of God, vol.1, ch.1, section 8.

The art of losing isn't hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

-Bishop, Elizabeth
  'One  Art'.

Why, this is the worst disaster since my election.

-Brown, Pat (Edmund Gerald, Sr)
  Of the Watts riots. Recalled in the NewYork Times, 21  Aug 1994.

If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don't deal in lies, Or being hated, don't give way to hating, And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise; If you can dreamöand not make dreams your master; If you can thinköand not make thoughts your aim, If you can meet withTriumph and Disaster And treat those two imposters just the same.

-Kipling, (Joseph) Rudyard
  Rewards and Fairies,'Ifö'.

   It is the old troubleötoo late in dealing with Czechoslovakia, too late with Poland, and certainly too latewith Finland.It isalwaystoo late, or too little, orboth. That is the road to disaster.

-Lloyd George (of Dwyfor), David, 1st Earl
  House of Commons,13 Mar.

   It is on occasions such as these that I thank God for my sanguine temperament, which refuses to allow me to believe in disaster until it is finally manifest.

-Murphy, Dervla
  Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle.

When you have had a glimpse of such a disaster as this†the result is not necessarily disillusionment and cynicism.Curiously enough, the whole experience has left me with not less but more belief in the decency of human beings.

-Orwell, George pseudonym of  Eric Arthur Blair
  Homage to Catalonia, ch.14.

I grew up in what was not so much a familyas a genetic disaster.

-Welsh, Irvine
  Marabou Stork Nightmares, ch.2.

The play was a great success, but the audience was a disaster.

-Wilde, Oscar Fingal O'FlahertieWills
  Attributed comment after the poor reception of Lady Windermere's Fan.

To live single isnot such a fearful disaster. I believe it may be a sign of a step forward in culture, education and the quality of life.

-Zhang,Jie
  'Love Must Not Be Forgotten', in Seven Contemporary WomenWriters (1982).