“The instinct that drives compulsion is universal. It is an attempt to solve the problem of disconnection, alienation, tepid despair... the problem is ultimately 'being human' in an environment that is curiously ill-equipped to deal with the challenges that entails.”
Source: Recovery: Freedom from Our Addictions
“He was a creature of hope. For dreams are hopes, and echoes of hopes. And I am a creature of despair.”
Source: The Sandman #72: Chapter Three: In Which We Wake
“Life's big questions are big in the sense that they are momentuous. However, contrary to appearances, they are not big in the sense of being unanswerable. It is only that the answers are generally unpalatable. There is no great mystery, but there is plenty of horror.”
Source: The Human Predicament: A Candid Guide to Life's Biggest Questions
“The most common form of despair is not being who you are. -Soren Kierkegaard”
Source: The Book of Hygge: The Danish Art of Living Well
“I barely managed to do the small talk—the what-do-you-do, the where-are-you-from, the what-neighborhood, the what-college, the despair of trying to explain oneself.”
Source: The Answers
“Throughout the whole absurd life I'd lived, a dark wind had been rising toward me from somewhere deep in my future, across years that were still to come...”
Source: The Stranger
“when you face disappointments and trials in life, your response dictates the character that will be created in you as a result.”
Source: The Irrational Mind: How To Fight Back Against The Hidden Forces That Affect Our Decision Making
“It may happen, however, that he falls into despair just for the fact that he has opened his heart to another; it may be that he thinks
it would have been infinitely preferable to maintain silence rather than have anyone privy to his secret. There are examples of introverts who are brought to despair precisely because they have acquired a confidant.”
Source: The Sickness Unto Death: A Christian Psychological Exposition for Upbuilding and Awakening
“I had come to understand that despair does not necessarily result in annihilation, that one can go on as usual despite of it...”
Source: Kitchen
“She was tranquil, but it was with the quietness of exhausted grief, not of resignation; and she looked back upon the past, and awaited the future, with a kind of out-breathed despair.”
Source: The Italian, or the confessional of the black penitents. A romance. By Ann Radcliffe, ... In three volumes. ... The second edition. Volume 1 of 3