Quotes About Despair

#1. Say "yes" to life! "Yes" to wonder, to joy, to despair. "Yes" to pain, "yes" to what you don't understand. Try "yes." Try "always." Try "possible." Try "hopeful." Try "I will." And try "I can."

Leo Buscaglia

#2. My generation must have despair. - Leonard Bernstein Ch 40/Dog Water Free, A Memoir

Michael Jay

#3. You must not pay too much attention to opinions. The written word is unalterable, and opinions are often only an expression of despair.

Franz Kafka

#4. When we can't see ourselves in our history, we begin to think that we are disconnected and suffering alone. Historical ignorance always precedes cultural imbalances and individual despair.

Aurin Squire

#5. I would not despair unless I knew the irrevocable decree was passed; saw my misfortune recorded in the book of fate, and signed and sealed by neces-sity.

Jeremy Collier

#6. Why, I wondered, did people seek out portrayals of the very experiences that, in real life, would send them mad with despair? Shouldn't art be an escape, a laugh, a comfort, a thrill?

David Nicholls

#7. Art has to offer something other than stylized despair.

Ben Lerner

#8. a sincere promise, coupled with a helping hand, can bring hope where before there had been only despair.

Richard D. Sagor

#9. I have had to experience so much stupidity, so many vices, so much error, so much nausea, disillusionment and sorrow, just in order to become a child again and begin anew. I had to experience despair, I had to sink to the greatest mental depths, to thoughts of suicide, in order to experience grace.

Hermann Hesse

#10. If sub specie aeternitatis there is no reason to believe that anything matters, then that does not matter either, and we can approach our absurd lives with irony instead of heroism or despair.

Thomas Nagel

#11. A son could bear with great complacency, the death of his father, while the loss of his inheritance might drive him to despair.
[Lat., Gli huomini dimenticano piu teste la morte del padre, che la perdita del patrimonie.]

Niccolo Machiavelli

#12. Only more keenly aware of how her soul starved within her, its wings wasting with the despair of disuse.

Alison Croggon

#13. Mental illness doesn't listen to reason. It doesn't even have a language of love. It only knows despair. You cannot blame yourself. You can't allow temporary problems from your past to become lifelong regrets.

Kathryn Perez

#14. Worry, doubt, fear and despair are the enemies which slowly bring us down to the ground and turn us to dust before we die.

Douglas MacArthur

#15. The way to despair is to refuse to have any kind of experience.

Flannery O'Connor

#16. Enough of dreams! No longer mock
The burdened hearts of men!
Not on the cloud, but on the rock
Build thou thy faith again; O range no more the realms of air,
Stoop to the glen-bound streams;
Thy hope was all too like despair:
Enough, enough of dreams.

Alfred Noyes

#17. If we are industrious, we shall never starve; for, at the workingman's house hunger looks in, but dares not enter. Nor will the bailiff or the constable enter, for industry pays debts, while despair increaseth them.

Benjamin Franklin

#18. Suffering is a big informer, a big catalyst for creation. You take your sadness, your despair, your sense of injustice, and you put it in your work.

Madonna Ciccone

#19. Oh,you. The usual. With you gone and Easton Heights in reruns, my life is a black hole of boredom and despair."
"So basically you've been doing homework."
"Like I said,black hole.

Kiersten White

#20. Desperation, despair, fear, powerlessness - these reactions are functions of our perceptions. You must realize: Nothing makes us feel this way; we choose to give in to such feelings.

Ryan Holiday

#21. May my weakness not drive me to my knees in despair, but raise me up to You, Lord.

Norma Gail

#22. For perfect hope is achieved on the brink of despair, when instead of falling over the edge, we find ourselves walking on air.

Thomas Merton

#23. Failure is not fatal. Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. It should challenge us to new heights of accomplishments, not pull us to new depths of despair. From honest failure can come valuable experience.

William Arthur Ward

#24. Being exhausted, yet keeping up the pursuit.' (Judges 8:4) Even after what I had said of wanting out, even after that humiliation, the physical exhaustion, the deep despair I felt, those words were my new marching orders. The next morning, I swung my rucksack over my shoulders and was off again.

Diet Eman

#25. From the depths of your despair your unspoken prayer was heard.

Charlotte Symonds

#26. I've always had a passion for tearing the bandages from other people's eyes. I've always insisted that those round me should see things as they are. I suppose it is that I need companionship in despair. I can't understand not despairing.

Francois Mauriac

#27. I sometimes truly despair at ever being meaningfully altered and affected by the things I claim are so important to me.

Olympia Dukakis

#28. The wicked will gnaw their tongues for anguish and pain; they will curse God and look upwards. There the dogs of hell, pride, malice, revenge, rage, horror, despair, continually devout them.

John Wesley

#29. When you look at her what do you feel? ... Joy, fear, frustration, longing, friendship, anger, need, despair, love, lust?"
"Yes."
"Yes, what?"
"All of it.

Katja Millay

#30. I was sitting at my desk one day, my head in my hands, and I had that middle ache that is just the pain that comes with being alive sometimes, that kind of personal despair.

Elizabeth Berg

#31. You have many choices. You can choose forgiveness over revenge, joy over despair. You can choose action over apathy..- Stephanie Marston
Letting your kids see u helping others and not expect anything in return can be contagious

Kevin Heath

#32. 'I, Malvolio' is a very, very funny show, a clown show, but there is Beckettian darkness in the character. Some real darkness, some right close to the edge of despair moments.

Tim Crouch

#33. As an author my number 1 goal is to help others overcome despair ... which is something that has plague me in my lifetime. If my writing could have help at least one person overcome it in their lifetime, then when I look back at my life ... I can believe, I did a job well done.

Timothy Pina

#34. There is always sufficient reason for despair, but there is never sufficient purpose.

Robert Breault

#35. So, using his pride like a shield against despair, dejection, and-most important
self-pity, Raoden raised his head to stare damnation in the eyes.

Brandon Sanderson

#36. If September 11th has taught us anything, it's certainly that the world has never been so interdependent. It is impossible now to be an island of prosperity in a sea of despair.

Bono

#37. The soul does not give up to despair until it has exhausted all illusions.

Victor Hugo

#38. Despair was a heavy blackness that let no light in or out. It was a hell beyond expression.

Yann Martel

#39. With every increase in the degree of consciousness, and in proportion to that increase, the intensity of despair increases: the more consciousness the more intense the despair

Soren Kierkegaard

#40. I've had to experience despair, I've had to sink down to the most foolish one of all thoughts, to the thought of suicide, in order to be able to experience divine grace, to hear Om again,

Hermann Hesse

#41. When young lips have drunk deep of the bitter waters of hate, suspicion and despair, all the love in the world will not wholly take away that knowledge. Though it may turn darkened eyes for a while to the light, and teach faith where no faith was.

Rudyard Kipling

#42. Life for most people is a bad dream. They live in pain, grabbing at what they can for pleasure. As they grow old, they despair. Things don't work out the way you planned.

Frederick Lenz

#43. It's easy to lose sight of God when life is sweet and easy, but there is something awesome about despair, and it is the closeness of God when we are at our weakest.

Kristin Armstrong

#44. My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Percy Bysshe Shelley

#45. If you're an advocate of gentleness, you're simplistic and naive. If you're an advocate of despair and hate, you're sophisticated.

Leo Buscaglia

#46. The things that are essential to salvation are so exceedingly simple that no child need sit down in despair of understanding the things which make for his peace. Christ crucified is not a riddle for sages, but a plain truth for plain people. True it is meat for men, but it is also milk for babes.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon

#47. However desperate the situation and circumstances, don't despair. When there is everything to fear, be unafraid. When surrounded by dangers, fear none of them. When without resources, depend on resourcefulness. When surprised, take the enemy by surprise.

Sun Tzu

#48. ... What of this "despair?" I know it all too well... because up until now... I've climbed up, kicked it in it's teeth, and surpassed it... over and over again just to make it to this very moment!

Tite Kubo

#49. To overcome your troubles ... you must look past all your clouds of despair by focusing on the sunshine of hope shinning behind them.

Timothy Pina

#50. Try to make others happy, and don't despair over all the evil in the world. Instead of cursing the dark, let us each light one small lamp.

Mata Amritanandamayi

#51. Life is about being optimistic and living life in despair is not the last resort of every problem

Saleemdurrani

#52. In a world characterized by loneliness and despair, we can reach out in love to those around us. Or, as St. Francis once said, we can "preach the gospel all the time; if necessary, use words."

Phil Callaway

#53. When you're an addict, you can go without feeling anything except drunk or stoned or hungry. Still, when you compare this to other feelings, to sadness, anger, fear, worry, despair, and depression, well, an addiction no longer looks so bad. It looks like a very viable option.

Chuck Palahniuk

#54. Act as though this one patient is the only person in the world - because to do otherwise is to lose that one, too. One at a time, that's all you can do. And you learn not to despair over all the ones you can't help, but only to do what you can.

Diana Gabaldon

#55. If you can't lick'em, join'em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight , to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else.

Ursula K. Le Guin

#56. There always was blood in the deep, dark depths of despair and tragedy, wasn't there?

Meghan Ciana Doidge

#57. People seem to believe that despair is the same as anguish, but it is not. It's true that despair is surrounded by anguish, but at its core, despair is a silent, blank page.

Elizabeth Kostova

#58. America was born out of despair & we'll all go through it in our lifetime. It's what we do with it that will help determine our greatness!

Timothy Pina

#59. Me too thy nobleness has taught
To master my despair;
The fountains of my hidden life
Are through thy friendship fair.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

#60. But then, I do not know what love is. I know lust and anger. Despair and satisfaction. But love? No. That is not for me.

Jessica Clare

#61. God made both tears and laughter, and both for kind purposes; for as laughter enables mirth and surprise to breathe freely, so tears enable sorrow to vent itself patiently. Tears hinder sorrow from becoming despair and madness.

Leigh Hunt

#62. It is a fact that even warming moments overwhelm me with despair, and this is why I am I.

Morrissey

#63. I might look successful and happy being in front of you today, but I once suffered from severe depression and was in total despair.

Ji-Hae Park

#64. Because thou must not dream, thou need not despair.

Matthew Arnold

#65. My views and feelings (are) in favor of the abolition of war-and I hope it is practicable, by improving the mind and morals of society, to lessen the disposition to war; but of its abolition I despair.

Thomas Jefferson

#66. Do not despair. In every defeat are found the seeds of victory.

Walter F. Mondale

#67. I want no part of making any contribution whatsoever to the despair which eventually follows downbeat thinking.

Loretta Young

#68. The only difference was one of them was trying to make a perfect cake and one of them was trying to write a great book. But if we remove that from the equation, it's the same impulse and they are equally entitled to their ecstasies and their despair.

Michael Cunningham

#69. As for hobbies, people with stimulating hobbies suffer from the most noxious of despairs since they are tranquilized in their despair.

Walker Percy

#70. The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together: our virtues would be proud,if our faults whipped them not; and our crimes would despair, if they were not cherished by our virtues.

William Shakespeare

#71. Perhaps," observes James McPherson, "McClellan's career had been too successful. He had never known . . . the despair of defeat or the humiliation of failure. He had never learned the lessons of adversity and humility." Lincoln had clearly learned those lessons.

Joshua Wolf Shenk

#72. I would say that our patients never really despair because of any suffering in itself! Instead, their despair stems in each instance from a doubt as to whether suffering is meaningful. Man is ready and willing to shoulder any suffering as soon and as long as he can see a meaning in it.

Viktor E. Frankl

#73. Beirut's "hopelessness relies upon its resilience. There are those who praise the courage of its people, their valour amid despair, but it is this very capacity for survival, for eternal renewal, that is Beirut's tragedy.

Steven Salaita

#74. I would never write stories with only despair and defeat and the dark side of life.

Morris Gleitzman

#75. Lack of outlets, excess capacity, complete deadlock, in the end regular recurrence of national bankruptcies and other disasters-perhaps world wars from sheer capitalist despair-may confidently be anticipated. History is as simple a that.

Joseph A. Schumpeter

#76. However you might feel, you are walking your own path through the darkness. Do not despair when all the light leaves you, and remember your past - it will see you through the trials ahead.

Robert J. Crane

#77. What is the noble truth of suffering? Birth is suffering, ageing is suffering and sorrow and lamentation, pain, grief and despair are suffering.

Gautama Buddha

#78. Liquor and love rescue the cloudy sense banish its despair give it a home.

William Carlos Williams

#79. I can not stop despair but I can stand up & speak truthfully against it to make it uncomfortable every time it knocks on my door!
Bullying Ben

Timothy Pina

#80. So do the dark in soul expire, Or live like scorpion girt by fire; So writhes the mind remorse hath riven, Unfit for earth, undoom'd for heaven, Darkness above, despair beneath, Around it flame, within it death.

Lord Byron

#81. To create souls in men, to create fine happiness and fine despair she must remain deeply proud - proud to be inviolate, proud also to be melting, to be passionate and possessed.

F Scott Fitzgerald

#82. Angels should never be exposed to the dire darkness of despair in the tunnel of cosmic nothingness, and although I never believed such maddening thoughts; I couldn't help but feel spiritual in her presence.

Bruce Crown

#83. Positive images of the future are a powerful and magnetic force ... They draw us on and energize us, give us courage and will to take on important initiatives. Negative images of the future also have a magnetism. They pull the spirit downward in the path of despair..

William James

#84. We live forever by the grace of human love, which rocked strange children in their cradles and did not despair and did not turn away.

Cassandra Clare

#85. We think that mercy is a sweeter and easier thing than justice, but it is not so; for justice takes us as we are, but mercy assaults us and batters at the gates of our heart, demanding that we be made new ... Sometimes sorrow is easier than joy, and despair more comforting that hope.

Anthony Esolen

#86. It is the capacity to feel consuming grief and pain and despair that also allows me to embrace love and joy and beauty with my whole heart. I must let it all in.

Anna White

#87. Like the wild beasts, she lives without a future. She inhabits only the present tense, a fugue of the continuous, a world of sensual immediacy as without hope as it is without despair.

Angela Carter

#88. Betrayal was the greatest of all crimes, for it took all that was human within a person and made it a thing of pain. In the face of that, murder itself was surcease: it was quick, and it ended the anguish and despair of a life without hope.

Steven Erikson

#89. We are torn between the craving to know and the despair of having known.

Francoise Sagan

#90. I wanted to tell her not to entertain despair like this. Despaire wasn't a guest, you didn't play its favorite music, find it a comfortable chair. Despair was the enemy.
-white oleander

Janet Fitch

#91. Should Disappointment, parent of Despair,
Strive for her son to seize my careless heart;
When, like a cloud, he sits upon the air,
Preparing on his spell-bound prey to dart:
Chase him away, sweet Hope, with visage bright,
And fright him as the morning frightens night!

John Keats

#92. Despair is the constant companion of the clown.

Angela Carter

#93. The workings of the human heart are the profoundest mystery of the universe. One moment they make us despair of our kind, and the next we see in them the reflection of the divine image.

Charles W. Chesnutt

#94. Despair is anger with no place to go.

Mignon McLaughlin

#95. No one seems to realize how much we are driven by FEAR, the essential component of human personality. Everything else - from ambition to love to despair - derives in some way from this single powerful emotion.

Trenton Lee Stewart

#96. So, in God's relationship to us, we might wonder, "Am I really saved?" "Am I of the elect?" "Is God angry with me?" "Why does God allow suffering in the world?" In each case, if we leave out the Cross, questions like these can drive us to despair or insanity.

Gene Edward Veith Jr.

#97. Henry would turn into a mud puddle of despair if you died. And then who would beat me in chess? No one at all.

Emma Clifton

#98. Always the same. Now a spark of hope flashes up, then a sea of despair rages, and always pain; always pain, always despair, and always the same. When alone he had a dreadful and distressing desire to call someone, but he knew beforehand that with others present it would be still worse.

Leo Tolstoy

#99. I need not to be afraid of the void. The void is part of my person. I need to enter consciously into it. To try to escape from it is to try to live a lie. It is also to cease to be. My acceptance of despair and emptiness constitutes my being; to have the courage to accept despair is to be.

Michael Novak

#100. Simply by our proximity to Jesus, we can bring hope and life to people and places trapped in discouragement and despair.

Louie Giglio