Perhaps there is nothing in the world as truly educative as tragedy. When you have known it, you’ve known the worst, and probably also you have had a glimpse of the mystery of things. And if this is so, we may infer that there is nothing which educates or matures a man or a people in the way that the experience of tragedy does. Its lessons, though usually in describable, are poignant and long remembered. —New Individualist Review, Vol. 3, No. 3 (1964) by Richard Weaver
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Indeed, it is a strange paradox that once one is out of a tragedy, one is often grateful to be out of the tragedy as well as grateful for what the experience provided as far as maturing and more fully understanding their own human nature and the inherent nature, whether good or evil, of life around them. Tragedy also nurtures grit as well as great empathy. The great challenge for individuals is man-made tragedy can either engender great love or hatred for fellow man. Perhaps the greatest outcome is if it engenders a great loving kindness and humility, while also creating a caution and awareness for the great evil mankind is capable of, particularly when that evil is fostered by concentrated government power or by individuals who were not stopped or checked by others who had knowledge of the tragedy. I believe it was Burke who said that, “all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”