Despair Quotes

Quotes tagged as "despair" Showing 1-30 of 1,544
Mahatma Gandhi
“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it--always.”
Mahatma Gandhi

T.S. Eliot
“This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.”
T.S. Eliot

L.M. Montgomery
“My life is a perfect graveyard of buried hopes.”
L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

Henry Miller
“I need to be alone. I need to ponder my shame and my despair in seclusion; I need the sunshine and the paving stones of the streets without companions, without conversation, face to face with myself, with only the music of my heart for company.”
Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer

Marion Zimmer Bradley
“The road that is built in hope is more pleasant to the traveler than the road built in despair, even though they both lead to the same destination.”
Marion Zimmer Bradley, The Fall of Atlantis

Roy T. Bennett
“Do not let arrogance go to your head and despair to your heart; do not let compliments go to your head and criticisms to your heart; do not let success go to your head and failure to your heart.”
Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart

Charles Bukowski
“my beerdrunk soul is sadder than all the dead christmas trees of the world.”
Charles Bukowski

Søren Kierkegaard
“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.”
Søren Kierkegaard, The Sickness Unto Death: A Christian Psychological Exposition for Upbuilding and Awakening

J.R.R. Tolkien
“Oft hope is born when all is forlorn.”
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

Joseph Conrad
“Let them think what they liked, but I didn't mean to drown myself. I meant to swim till I sank -- but that's not the same thing.”
Joseph Conrad, The Secret Sharer and other stories

J.R.R. Tolkien
“It is not despair, for despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt. We do not.”
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

Hermann Hesse
“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, Siddhartha

Anne Rice
“The prince is never going to come. Everyone knows that; and maybe sleeping beauty's dead.”
Anne Rice, The Vampire Lestat

“The bravest thing I ever did was continuing my life when I wanted to die.”
Juliette Lewis

“I wish I could tell you how lonely I am. How cold and harsh it is here. Everywhere there is conflict and unkindness. I think God has forsaken this place. I believe I have seen hell and it's white, it's snow-white.”
Sandy Welch

Jo Nesbø
“Losing your life is not the worst thing that can happen. The worst thing is to lose your reason for living.”
Jo Nesbo

Irvin D. Yalom
“Despair is the price one pays for self-awareness. Look deeply into life, and you'll always find despair.”
Irvin D. Yalom, When Nietzsche Wept

Lemony Snicket
“It is a curious thing, but as one travels the world getting older and older, it appears that happiness is easier to get used to than despair. The second time you have a root beer float, for instance, your happiness at sipping the delicious concoction may not be quite as enormous as when you first had a root beer float, and the twelfth time your happiness may be still less enormous, until root beer floats begin to offer you very little happiness at all, because you have become used to the taste of vanilla ice cream and root beer mixed together. However, the second time you find a thumbtack in your root beer float, your despair is much greater than the first time, when you dismissed the thumbtack as a freak accident rather than part of the scheme of a soda jerk, a phrase which here means "ice cream shop employee who is trying to injure your tongue," and by the twelfth time you find a thumbtack, your despair is even greater still, until you can hardly utter the phrase "root beer float" without bursting into tears. It is almost as if happiness is an acquired taste, like coconut cordial or ceviche, to which you can eventually become accustomed, but despair is something surprising each time you encounter it.”
Lemony Snicket, The End

J.D. Stroube
“Life is filled with unanswered questions, but it is the courage to seek those answers that continues to give meaning to life. You can spend your life wallowing in despair, wondering why you were the one who was led towards the road strewn with pain, or you can be grateful that you are strong enough to survive it.”
J.D. Stroube, Caged by Damnation

J.D. Salinger
“This fall I think you're riding for—it's a special kind of fall, a horrible kind. The man falling isn't permitted to feel or hear himself hit bottom. He just keeps falling and falling. The whole arrangement's designed for men who, at some time or other in their lives, were looking for something their own environment couldn't supply them with. Or they thought their own environment couldn't supply them with. So they gave up looking. They gave it up before they ever really even got started.”
J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

Elif Shafak
“Whatever happens in your life, no matter how troubling things might seem, do not enter the neighborhood of despair. Even when all doors remain closed, God will open up a new path only for you. Be thankful!”
Elif Shafak, The Forty Rules of Love

James Frey
“The wounds that never heal can only be mourned alone.”
James Frey, A Million Little Pieces

“The artist's job is not to succumb to despair but to find an antidote for the emptiness of existence.”
Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris: The Shooting Script

Haruki Murakami
“There's no such thing as perfect writing, just like there's no such thing as perfect despair.”
Haruki Murakami, Hear the Wind Sing

May Sarton
“Does anything in nature despair except man? An animal with a foot caught in a trap does not seem to despair. It is too busy trying to survive. It is all closed in, to a kind of still, intense waiting. Is this a key? Keep busy with survival. Imitate the trees. Learn to lose in order to recover, and remember that nothing stays the same for long, not even pain, psychic pain. Sit it out. Let it all pass. Let it go.”
May Sarton, Journal of a Solitude

Richelle E. Goodrich
“There are far too many silent sufferers.  Not because they don't yearn to reach out, but because they've tried and found no one who cares.”
Richelle E. Goodrich, Smile Anyway: Quotes, Verse, and Grumblings for Every Day of the Year

Philip K. Dick
“A weird time in which we are alive. We can travel anywhere we want, even to other planets. And for what? To sit day after day, declining in morale and hope.”
Philip K. Dick, The Man in the High Castle

Andrew Solomon
“Depression is the flaw in love. To be creatures who love, we must be creatures who can despair at what we lose, and depression is the mechanism of that despair.”
Andrew Solomon, The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression

Patricia Briggs
“She wondered that hope was so much harder then despair.”
Patricia Briggs, Cry Wolf

Dmitri Shostakovich
“When a man is in despair, it means that he still believes in something.”
Dmitri Shostakovich

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