Best 1597 quotes in «despair quotes» category

Now the standard cure for one who is sunk is to consider those in actual destitution or physical suffering

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.

Often we can change things, and a realistic attitude - including envisioning worse case scenarios - actually helps to accomplish that change. But if you truly cannot do anything about something, then why on earth would you want to make things even worse for you by falling into despair? It seems like adding a self-inflicting injury to the already existing one.

O God, O God, how weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world!

Oh rage! Oh despair! Oh age, my enemy!

Oh, we are but soft and squishy bags of mortality rolling in a bin of sharp circumstance, leaking life until we collapse, flaccid, into our own despair.

Old age is your own creation: it can be a misery, it can be a celebration; it can be simply a despair, and it can also be a dance. It all depends how deeply ready you are to accept existence, whatsoever it brings.

...one cannot but wonder how an environment can make people despair and sit idle and then, by changing the conditions, one can transform the same people into matchless performers.

One has the impression that something is stirring inside [photographs] - it is as if one can hear little cries of despair, gémissements de désespoir... as if the photographs themselves had a memory and were remembering us and how we, the surviving, and those who preceded us, once were.

One of the best safeguards of our hopes, I have suggested, is to be able to mark off the areas of hopelessness and to acknowledge them, to face them directly, not with despair but with the creative intent of keeping them from polluting all the areas of possibility.

One of the things that is most striking about the young generation is that they never talk about their own futures, there are no futures for this generation, not any of them and so naturally they never think of them. It is very striking, they do not live in the present they just live, as well as they can, and they do not plan. It is extraordinary that whole populations have no projects for a future, none at all.

One shouldn’t despair over the fact that some of the developments one has hoped for were never produced but only became a beginning. Perhaps they will be revived some day in the future if necessary or reasonable, when the time is ripe

Only someone who had experienced such bitter despair would be able to recognize it in another.

One should never spurn a penitent criminal: in his despair he may become twice as much a criminal as before.

One writes because one has been touched by the yearning for and the despair of ever touching the Other.

Only a soul full of despair can ever attain serenity and, to be in despair, you must have loved a good deal and still love the world.

Only just now awakening after years of materialism, our soul is still infected with the despair born of unbelief, of lack of purpose and aim.

[On Malaysia:] Mr. Darwin says so truly that a visit to the tropics (and such tropics) is like a visit to a new planet. This new wonder-world, so enchanting, tantalising, intoxicating, makes me despair, for I cannot make you see what I am seeing!

On one level my sense of despair had been dispelled by therapy, yet on another it had not been replaced by either the desire for a future or the concept of one. I felt more aware of who I was, but that in itself-dominated as it was by sensations of fragmentation and isolation-filled me with no great hope, and in many ways only fuelled an appetite for destruction.

Only a man who has felt ultimate despair is capable of feeling ultimate bliss.

Only where there is disillusionment and depression and sorrow does happiness arise; without the despair of loss, there is no hope.

Optimism is America's birthright.... There is no social problem Americans dare not attack. No problem, that is, except one: about marriage, and marriage alone, we despair.

On top of the world, or in the depths of despair.

Optimism....is neither weak nor naive. It can be tough and pure and earned just as clearly as any brooding existential despair.

Optimism is the last resort of those in deep despair. There can't be any optimists in heaven.

Optimism is a matter optics, of seeing what you want to see and not seeing what you don't want to see. Hope, on the other hand, is a Christian virtue. It is the unblinking acknowledgment of all that militates against hope, and the unrelenting refusal to despair. We have not the right to despair, and, finally, we have not the reason to despair

Optimism is an alienated form of faith, pessimism an alienated form of despair.

Our rages, daughters of despair, creep and squirm like worms. Prayer is the only form of revolt which remains upright.

Our reliance on the physician is a kind of despair of ourselves.

Out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope.

Our Western society is showing its technological muscles in ever more threatening ways, but the experience of fear, anxiety and even despair has increased in equal proportion. Indeed, the paradox is that the powerful giants feel as powerless as a new-born babe.

Persuade thyself that imperfection and inconvenience are the natural lot of mortals, and there will be no room for discontent, neither for despair.

Paint here no draped despairs, no saddening clouds, Where the soul rests, proclaims eternity. But let the wrong cry out as raw as wounds, This Time forgets and never heals, far less transcends.

Panicky despair is an underrated element of writing.

Patience is the strongest of strong drinks; for it kills the giant despair.

People aren’t interested in the truth, Dafar. They’re interested in what keeps them safe. They’re interested in being looked after. They’re interested in a tale being spun... Mighty men have moments of great despair that common people do not want to know about.

People become artists out of despair.

Poverty breeds despair. We know this. Despair breeds violence. We know this. In turbulent times, isn't it cheaper, and smarter, to make friends out of potential enemies than to defend yourself against them later?

Poverty palls the most generous spirits; it cows industry, and casts resolution itself into despair.

Poetry is the thread that leads us out of the labyrinth of despair and into the light.

Probably no adult misery can be compared with a child's despair.

Precious attribute of woe-worn humanity! that can snatch ecstatic emotion, even from under the very share and harrow, that ruthlessly ploughs up and lays waste every hope.

Religion converts despair, which destroys, into resignation, which submits.

Punishment is not prevention. History offers cold comfort to those who think grievance and despair can be subdued by force.

Refuse the council of despair! Don't live by the statistics, live according to the prophetic word!

Rejoicing and repentance must go together. Repentance without rejoicing will lead to despair. Rejoicing without repentance is shallow and will only provide passing inspiration instead of deep change.

Religion is man-made to assist in controlling the weak minded individuals because during times of atrocity and despair they feel strength in numbers.

Question of "Where We Begin" turns to be not only a formal question but also a question central to the attempt to make sense of things about which it is very difficult to make any sense - illness, death, despair, suicides, cruelty, the various troubles love can provoke, our inability to really know one another when we our inner selves are walled off by our bodies.

Remember, thou canst be brought into no condition, be it ever so severe, where Love has not been before thee and where its tender lesson is not awaiting thee. Therefore despair not nor murmur, for that which seeketh to save, to heal, and to deliver, will guide thee, if thou seekest this guidance.

Revenge is barren of itself: it is the dreadful food it feeds on; its delight is murder, and its end is despair.