Top 100 In Despair Quotes
#1. We learn about life by exploring the texture and depth of space that composes our private inner world. In solitude we revisit our wounded feelings, sins, doubts, and deepest despair, replay poignant memories of loved ones, project what we are becoming, and ascertain the purpose of our being.
Kilroy J. Oldster
#2. The more she was absolutely in need of external friendship, the more disposed was she to reject it, and to declare to herself that she was prepared to stand alone in the world.
Anthony Trollope
#3. OUT OF AN INFINITE LOVE, you, O Lord, have made me an heir of your kingdom and joint heir with Christ. O Good Jesus, to whom else shall I go? You have the words of eternal life. I hope, and I believe in you. Lord keep me from despair. Amen. O
Derek A. Olsen
#5. You don't have to say anything. You don't have to teach anything. You just have to be who you are: a bright flame shining in the darkness of despair, a shining example of a person able to cross bridges by opening your heart and mind.
Tsoknyi Rinpoche
#6. We gave ourselves for lost men, and prepared for death. Yet we did lift up our hearts and voices to God above, who "showeth His wonders in the deep".
Francis Bacon
#7. He talks about despair, how it drives in silence.
Gayle Forman
#8. Bereavement, despair, ache, yearning happen to all. We all bear the pain of grief. We all take them in our own ways. And we are all blessed with the grace to transcend. (Page xii)
Neena Verma
#9. Investigating Koreiko's case might take a long time," said Ostap. "God only knows how long. And since there is no God, nobody knows. We are in a terrible bind.
Ilya Ilf
#10. 92. Eventually I confess to a friend some details about my weeping - its intensity, its frequency. She says (kindly) that she thinks we sometimes weep in front of a mirror not to inflame self-pity, but because we want to feel witnessed in our despair.
Maggie Nelson
#11. We are living in a time of uncertainty, anxiety, fear, and despair. It is essential that you become aware of the light, power, and strength within each of you, and that you learn to use those inner resources in service of your own and others' growth.
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
#12. Obsessing on evil is boring. Rousing fear is a hackneyed shtick. Wallowing is despair is a bad habit. Indulging in cynicism is akin to committing a copycat crime.
Rob Brezsny
#13. To be engulfed: outburst of annihilation which affects the amorous subject in despair or fulfillment. At its best, when it's fulfillment, it's a kind of disappearance at will. An easeful death. Death liberated from dying.
Roland Barthes
#14. And the world suddenly appeared to me as such an awfully large place, with I so totally alone in it that I could have cried from the bottom of my heart.
Joseph Von Eichendorff
#15. Only someone who had experienced such bitter despair would be able to recognize it in another.
Lisa Kleypas
#16. It was not an ogre's soul in that egg," said Toby in a burst of passionate despair. "It was mine.
L.M. Boston
#17. Hard are life's early steps; and but that youth is buoyant, confident, and strong in hope, men would behold its threshold, and despair.
Letitia Elizabeth Landon
#18. As if goaded by a kind of frantic despair, I sketched these dirty, ragged little victims of the war with their bruised, lacerated minds and bodies, their matted hair and runny noses. Here my life as a painter began in earnest.
Walter Keane
#19. Connor has always been light to her. Pure light and hope in the face of sorrow and despair.
Andrea Cremer
#20. There is a perennial nobleness, and even sacredness, in work. Were he never so benighted, forgetful of his high calling, there is always hope in a man that actually and earnestly works: in idleness alone there is perpetual despair.
Thomas Carlyle
#21. His love with Lucy bled from his heart as he slipped into a dark despair - a melancholy that only she could sever with her chaste voice and tender kisses. Now in an unreachable darkness, a blindness took hold. A blood lust that would drive him mad for five years hence.
Solange Nicole
#22. The accidents of life separate us from our dearest friends, but let us not despair. God is like a looking glass in which souls see each other. The more we are united to Him by love, the nearer we are to those who belong to Him.
Elizabeth Ann Seton
#23. This Christmas ...
Say a prayer for those in need. Be a friend to those in despair. Give all ... the gift of peace!
Timothy Pina
#24. Yeah, you know, I performed occasionally. I was in such despair because I just - if I didn't have my music to connect with, I couldn't figure out what I was supposed to be doing. There was never a 'B' plan here; it was just this. So it took me a long time to find my way.
Melissa Manchester
#25. Those who would learn must suffer. In our own despair, against our will, wisdom comes to us.
Aeschylus
#26. How nice it would be to be dead if only we could know we were dead. That is what I hate, the not being able to turn round in the grave and to say It is over.
Edward Thomas
#27. Say a prayer and be that friend to those in despair. Love and Kindness can help keep someone going over the edge if they're standing close to it!
Timothy Pina
#28. The dowager rose and slipped from her pew. There was the sound of tearing silk as she threw up her arms to embrace her son. Then:
"Oh, Rupert, darling," she exclaimed in tones of theatrical despair, "don't you see? The game's up!
Eva Ibbotson
#29. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing ... not healing, not curing ... that is a friend who cares.
Henri J.M. Nouwen
#30. When you are sad, do not bow your head in despair, lift it up; you can see and fight better when your head is up!
Mehmet Murat Ildan
#31. Well, monsieur, I am suffering at this moment something strange, and that is the satisfaction of despair. There is in certain souls - and I have just discovered that mine is of the number - a real satisfaction in the assurance that all is lost, and the time is come to yield.
Alexandre Dumas
#32. Even though homelessness reaches into the depths of despair, there's also a pride and beauty in it, as well.
Anthony Mackie
#33. A broken heart is a distemper which kills many more than is generally imagined, and would have a fair title to a place in the bills of mortality, did it not differ in one instance from all other diseases, namely, that no physicians can cure it.
Henry Fielding
#34. A joyful heart, keeping a positive mind, helping those in despair ... all leads to the roads building a better you!
Timothy Pina
#35. Naturally I drew register a little exaggerated, in order to create something new in the sense of a sublime literature that sings of despair only in order to oppress the reader, and make him desire the good as the remedy.
Comte De Lautreamont
#37. We do not want to comprehend that people may and do die of emotional pain, or to recognize the terror in ourselves when we cannot seem to help someone in despair
when our words are empty.
Jill Bialosky
#38. A desperate plea to the Trinity
is not something you can just
apologize for in the morning
-Drunk Dialing the Divine
Amber Koneval
#39. And I always feel so stupid sitting in therapy talking about my problems because, Jesus Christ, so what? I can't equate the amount of pain and misery and despair I have suffered and endured as a depressive with the events of my life, which just seem so common.
Elizabeth Wurtzel
#40. For true humility is, in a way, a very real despair: despair of myself, in order that I may hope entirely in You.
Thomas Merton
#41. When facing terrorism, especially in the wake of awful events, there is a tendency to despair, to see in the battle a problem without a solution.
Rich Cohen
#42. If the soul be pure, then shall she obtain favor and rejoice in the latter day; but if she hath been defiled, then shall she wander for a time in pain and despair.
Josephus
#43. It is necessary to fall in love ... if only to provide an alibi for all the random despair you are going to feel anyway.
Albert Camus
#44. Cynicism leads to despair, while fixating on the efforts that seemed to work in the past makes an idol out of spiritual states.
Monks Of New Skete
#45. For today ... Be kind to those in despair.
Your words, thoughts and prayers can be the difference between one's life or demise
Timothy Pina
#46. Whenever our sins press hard against us, whenever Satan would drive us to despair, we must hold up this shield, that God does not want us to be overwhelmed in everlasting destruction, for He has ordained His Son to be the salvation of the world.
John Calvin
#48. We are born in this cemetery, but must not despair.
-Piet Soron, 1847
Jesse Ball
#49. I'm stripped and vital, and I see rules that almost fit. And if I voice my opinion, will you stay and sit? And as I stand here screaming in despair, I say yes this is my life and yes you should care.
Tegan Quin
#50. The greatest hazard of all, losing one's self, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all. No other loss can occur so quietly; any other loss - an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife, etc. - is sure to be noticed.
Soren Kierkegaard
#51. He looked at her as a man might look at a faded flower he had plucked, in which it was difficult for him to trace the beauty that had made him pick and so destroy it
Leo Tolstoy
#52. We are ready to despair too soon, we are ready to say, 'What's the good of doing anything?' Hope is the virtue we should cultivate most in this present day and age.
Agatha Christie
#53. I knew that I lived in a place where hope and a sense of possibility were as ephemeral as morning fog, but I did not see the despair at the heart of our drug use.
Jesmyn Ward
#54. In a time lacking in truth and certainty and filled with anguish and despair, no woman should be shamefaced in attempting to give back to the world, through her work, a portion of its lost heart.
Louise Bogan
#55. John Hay points to our our history of getting lost in suffering when, "so close together were pain and antidote.
John Taliaferro
#56. Transformation is a process, and as life happens there are tons of ups and downs. It's a journey of discovery - there are moments on mountaintops and moments in deep valleys of despair.
Rick Warren
#57. Doubt is thought's despair; despair is personality's doubt ... Doubt and despair ... belong to completely different spheres; different sides of the soul are set in motion ... Despair is an expression of the total personality, doubt only of thought.
Soren Kierkegaard
#58. You need to fully believe in yourself and your capabilities for others to believe in you. Destiny favours those who believe that things will work out rather than those who give up in despair!
Anuranjita Kumar
#59. We in this House are role models. People all over the world watch us and study us. When we fall short, they lose hope. When we fail, they despair.
Newt Gingrich
#60. It was the very discomfort, the blows, the cold, the thirst that kept us aloft in the void of bottomless despair, both during the journey and after. It was not the will to live, nor a conscious resignation; for few are the men capable of such resolution, and we were but a common sample of humanity.
Primo Levi
#61. Real courage is not to give up hope, even in the most terrible darkness, and to carry on. That if courage and love is deep as despair, deeper, then light may come again
David Clement-Davies
#62. To add to our misery and despair, a bloated aristocracy has sent to China - the greatest and oldest despotism in the world - for a cheap working slave.
Denis Kearney
#63. To a man the greatest blessing is individual liberty; to a dog it is the last word in despair.
William Lyon Phelps
#64. Sadly like cancer, we may never fully find a way to STOP bullying. But we can continue to work diligently to help empower children to rise above its despair and lead them to live healthy productive lives in their future.
Bullying Ben
Timothy Pina
#65. There was no justice in the world and evil men prospered. Kachiun struggled not to despair as he wrapped his deel around him, but there were times when he hated as ferociously as Temujin did. There should be justice. There should be revenge.
Conn Iggulden
#66. A general never shows despair. He instills confidence in his troops. He leads them forward, even into the mouth of death.
Rick Riordan
#67. One leaf left on a branch and not a sound of sadness or despair. One leaf left on a branch and no unhappiness. One leaf left all by itself in the air and it does not speak of loneliness or death. One leaf and it spends itself in swaying mildly in the breeze.
David Ignatow
#68. Is the sea drying up? It is going up into mist and coming down on us in this water spout, the rain. It raineth every day, and the weather represents our tearful despair on a large scale.
Mary Boykin Chesnut
#69. Never despair, but if you do, work on in despair.
Edmund Burke
#70. In him, she saw the definition of strength. It didn't mean never showing a crack, it didn't mean not feeling fear or despair. It meant going on anyway.
Maisey Yates
#71. While injustice is the worst of sins, despair is the most dangerous; because when you are in despair you care neither about yourself nor about others.
Thomas Aquinas
#72. Whatever comes out of despair cannot bear the title of valor, which should be lifted up to such a height that holding all things under itself, it should be able to maintain its greatness, even in the midst of miseries.
Philip Sidney
#73. Be not in despair, the way is very difficult, like walking on the edge of a razor; yet despair not, arise, awake, and find the ideal, the goal.
Swami Vivekananda
#74. A lot of my work comes from a place of despair or fear. I often write in order to gain some sort of control over aspects of my life or the world that seem too dark to look at directly.
Lauren Groff
#75. Now, I believe in life, and I believe in the joy of human existence, but these things cannot be experienced except as we also face the despair, also face the anxiety that every human being has to face if he lives with any creativity at all.
Rollo May
#76. You should therefore say: alone in one's boat, alone with one's care, alone with one's despair, which one is craven enough to want rather to keep than submit to the pain of being healed.
Soren Kierkegaard
#78. Boast is always a cry of despair, except in the young it is a cry of hope.
Bernard Berenson
#79. It is only when you despair of all ordinary means, it is only when you convince it that it must help you or you perish, that the seed of life in you bestirs itself to provide a new resource.
Robert Collier
#80. Shall I, wasting in despair,Die because a woman's fair?Or make pale my cheeks with care,'Cause another's rosy are?Be she fairer than the day,Or the flowery meads in May,If she be not so to me,What care I how fair she be?
George Wither
#81. Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, Tears from the depths of some devine despair Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, In looking on the happy autumn fields, And thinking of the days that are no more.
Alfred Lord Tennyson
#82. Let us not cease to do the utmost, that we may incessantly go forward in the way of the Lord; and let us not despair of the smallness of our accomplishments.
John Calvin
#83. I think the parable is a peculiar way of saying that redemption is immanent whether or not it's imminent, that the world to come is in a sense always already here, if still unavailable. I find this idea powerful for several reasons. For one thing, it's an antidote to despair.
Ben Lerner
#84. Although it's not useful to drown in despair, it's also not useful to keep a 'positive attitude' when this means concealing or denying real emotions.
Harriet Lerner
#85. It was easy enough to kill yourself in a fit of despair. It was easy enough to play the martyr. It was harder to do nothing. To endure your life. To wait.
Erica Jong
#86. An old body when it is loved becomes a sacred treasure; and sex itself must always, it seems to me, come to us as a sacrament and be so used or it is meaningless. The flesh is suffused by the spirit, and it is forgetting this in the act of love-making that creates cynicism and despair.
May Sarton
#87. Orozco's despair was not just in finding himself poor, but in discovering that effort, honest intentions, and gentlemanly status had nothing to do with sucess in a commercial economy.
Timothy Brook
#88. His fair landlady was in despair. She would most willingly have made M. d'Artagnan her husband
such a handsome man, and such a fierce mustache!
Alexandre Dumas
#89. The despair is there; now it's up to us to go in and rub raw the sores of discontent, galvanize them for radical social change.
Saul Alinsky
#90. I know a man
He came from my home town
He wore his passion for his woman
Like a thorny crown
He said Dolores
I live in fear
My love for you's so overpowering
I'm afraid that I will disappear
Paul Simon
#91. We must have one love, one great love in our life, since it gives us an alibi for all the moments when we are filled with despair.
Albert Camus
#92. I am now a man of despair, rejected, abandoned, shut up in this iron cage from which there is no escape.
John Bunyan
#93. In our world, that's the way you live your grown-up life: you must constantly rebuild your identity as an adult, the way it's been put together it is wobbly, ephemeral, and fragile, it cloaks despair and, when you're alone in front of the mirror, it tells you the lies you need to believe.
Muriel Barbery
#94. A religious man is a person who holds God and man in one thought at one time, at all times, who suffers harm done to others, whose greatest passion is compassion, whose greatest strength is love and defiance of despair.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
#95. Your success in investing will depend in part on your character and guts, and in part on your ability to realize at the height of ebullience and the depth of despair alike that this too shall pass.
John C. Bogle
#96. It is well known that panic, despair, depression, hate, rage, exasperation, frustration all produce negative biochemical changes in the body.
Norman Cousins
#97. At times I was desperate and could find no solace anywhere. Nothing seemed to work, and the weight of being trapped in my own body made it difficult to lift even a hand off the sheets.
Lucy Grealy
#99. Meditation is not meant to help us avoid problems or run away from difficulties. It is meant to allow positive healing to take place. To meditate is to learn how to stop - to stop being carried away by our regrets about the past, our anger or despair in the present, or our worries about the future.
Nhat Hanh
#100. It is not in the storm or in the strife
We feel benumbed and wish to be nor more,
But in the after-silence on the shore
When all is lost except a little life.
George Gordon Byron
