http://www.ted.com/talks/donald_sadoway_the_missing_link_to_renewable_energy.html

"After me, the flood" -Lovely Phrase?

The phrase “Après moi, le déluge” (“After me, the deluge") is attributed to the King of FranceLouis XV (1710-1774):

According to another interpretation, the phrase may have been coined not by the king himself, but by his most famous lover, Madame de Pompadour (1721-1764)

(Also phrase used in hebrew, "אחרי המבול", which translates similarly to "After me, the storm/flood"

The verb could be understood as a subjunctive concession: After me, let the deluge come (it can come, but it makes no difference to me). In this case, the speaker asserts that nothing that happens after his disappearance matters to him. 

It seems that there existed in Greece an expression or proverbial saying which is preserved in verse in a fragment of a tragedy whose author has not been identified (Tragicorum Fragmenta Adespota, 513 Nauck):

ἐμοῦ θανόντος γαῖα μιχθήτω πυρί·
οὐδὲν μέλει μοι· τἀμὰ γὰρ καλῶς ἔχει.

When I die, let earth and fire mix:

It matters not to me, for my affairs will be unaffected. 

Karl Marx also relates the phrase to Capitalism:

"If you read Karl Marx, the Capital (Vol. 1, Part III, Chapter Ten, Section 5)

Capital that has such good reasons for denying the sufferings of the legions of workers that surround it, is in practice moved as much and as little by the sight of the coming degradation and final depopulation of the human race, as by the probable fall of the earth into the sun. In every stockjobbing swindle every one knows that some time or other the crash must come, but every one hopes that it may fall on the head of his neighbour, after he himself has caught the shower of gold and placed it in safety. Après moi le déluge! [After me, the flood] is the watchword of every capitalist and of every capitalist nation. Hence Capital is reckless of the health or length of life of the labourer, unless under compulsion from society. [81] To the out-cry as to the physical and mental degradation, the premature death, the torture of over-work, it answers: Ought these to trouble us since they increase our profits?"

Elizabeth Gilbert...


“Because—in the end it’s like this—centuries ago, people used to gather for these moonlight dances of sacred dance and music that would go on for hours and hours, until dawn. And they were always magnificent, because the dancers were professionals and they were terrific, right?


But every once in a while, very rarely, something would happen, and one of these performers would actually become transcendent. And I know you know what I’m talking about, because I know you’ve all seen, at some point in your life, a performance like this. It was like time would stop, and the dancer would sort of step through some kind of portal and he wasn’t doing anything different than he had ever done, 1,000 nights before, but everything would align. And all of a sudden, he would no longer appear to be merely human. He would be lit from within, and lit from below and all lit up on fire with divinity. 

“And when this happened, back then, people knew it for what it was, you know, they called it by its name. They would put their hands together and they would start to chant, ‘Allah, Allah, Allah, God, God, God.’ That’s God, you know...

http://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability.html

http://www.ted.com/talks/andrew_stanton_the_clues_to_a_great_story.html

http://www.ted.com/talks/susan_cain_the_power_of_introverts.html