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Despair Quotes

Browse 3424 quotes about Despair.

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Despair Quotes

“When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t understand data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a pulse.”

PeopleIfsWorldLooksEarthOrderJusticeAnswersPoorGraceHavensThis WorldWillingDespairHappeningsOrdinaryOptimisticDataOddsOrdinary PeoplePulsePessimisticSemblance
Author:Paul Hawken
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“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.”

ChildrenOrderGraceSorrowDespairDepressionSuicideErrorsDepthVicesStupidityDisillusionmentNausea
Book:Siddhartha: An Indian Tale
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“She suffers as a miser. She must be miserly with her pleasures, as well. I wonder if sometimes she doesn't wish she were free of this monotonous sorrow, of these mutterings which start as soon as she stops singing, if she doesn't wish to suffer once and for all, to drown herself in despair. In any case, it would be impossible for her: she is bound.”

IfsWellsSometimesWould BeSufferingWishPleasureWonderCasesImpossibleSorrowDespairSingingBoundsMonotonousMisersMuttering
Book:Nausea
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“I yearn for the darkness. I pray for death. Real death. If I thought that in death I would meet the people I've known in life I don't know what I'd do. That would be the ultimate horror. The ultimate despair. If I had to meet my mother again and start all of that all over, only this time without the prospect of death to look forward to? Well. That would be the final nightmare. Kafka on wheels.”

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Author:Cormac McCarthy
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“Three weeks ago, he’d seen hail fall from the sky, only to be followed minutes later by a spectacular rainbow that seemed to frame the azalea bushes. The colors, so vivid they seemed almost alive, made him think that nature sometimes sends us signs, that it’s important to remember that joy can always follow despair. But a moment later, the rainbow had vanished and the hail returned, and he realized that joy was sometimes only an illusion.”

ThinkingMadeImportantSometimesMomentsRememberJoyFallThreeAliveWeekSkyMinutesColorDespairIllusionRainbowVividSpectacularHailAzaleas
Author:Nicholas Sparks
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“It’s the leftover humans. The survivors. They’re the ones I can’t stand to look at, although on many occasions I still fail. I deliberately seek out the colors to keep my mind off them, but now and then, I witness the ones who are left behind, crumbling among the jigsaw puzzle of realization, despair, and surprises. They have punctured hearts. They have beaten lungs. Which in turn brings me to the subject I am telling you about tonight, or today, or whatever the hour and color. It’s the story of one of those perpetual survivors –an expert at being left behind.”

MindHumansLooksHeartStillsI CanStoriesTodayTurnsLeftHoursBehindsFailingSubjectsColorDespairSurpriseRealizationWitnessOccasionsExpertsTonightSurvivorNow And ThenPerpetualBeatenPuzzlesLungsLeft BehindCrumblingJigsawJigsaw Puzzles
Author:Markus Zusak
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“There is neither happiness nor unhappiness in this world; there is only the comparison of one state with another. Only a man who has felt ultimate despair is capable of feeling ultimate bliss. It is necessary to have wished for death in order to know how good it is to live.....the sum of all human wisdom will be contained in these two words: Wait and Hope.”

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Author:Alexandre Dumas
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“If fate is a shape-shifter, then loves is too. It can be, anyway, in its most dangerous form. It´s your best day and then your worst. It´s your most hope and then you most despair. Lightness, darkness, it can swing between extremes at lightning speed- a boat upon the water on the most dangerous day, and then the clouds crawl in and the sky turns black and the sea rages and the boat is lost.”

IfsFormTurnsLostBlackWaterLove IsDarknessFateSeaSkyWorstDangerousShapesDespairCloudsExtremesSpeedRageBoatSwingsLightningLightness
Author:Deb Caletti
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“I cannot believe this is the end. Nor can I believe that death is more than the blindness of those living. And if this is only the consolation of a heart in its necessity, or that easy faith born of despair, it does not matter, since it gives us courage somehow to face the mornings. Which is as much as the heart can ask at times.”

IfsGivingBelieveHeartDoeEndsMatterFacesAsksI BelieveEasyBornMorningDespairBlindnessConsolation
Author:Josephine Winslow Johnson
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“A smile flickered across Coral’s face. “Have you ever noticed that once you have had a taste of certain sweets—raspberry trifle is my own despair—it is quite impossible not to think, not to want, not to crave until you have taken another bite?” “Lord Swartingham is not a raspberry trifle.” “No, more of a dark chocolate mousse, I should think,” Coral murmured. “And,” Anna continued as if she hadn’t heard the interruption, “I don’t need another bite, uh,night of him.”

IfsThinkingWantNeedsShouldFacesNightCertainDarkMy OwnLordTakenImpossibleHeardSweetTasteDespairChocolateBitesCraveTriflesAnnaInterruptionsDark ChocolateRaspberriesChocolate Mousse
Author:Elizabeth Hoyt
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“He ran as he'd never run before, with neither hope nor despair. He ran because the world was divided into opposites and his side had already been chosen for him, his only choice being whether or not to play his part with heart and courage. He ran because fate had placed him in a position of responsibility and he had accepted the burden. He ran because his self-respect required it. He ran because he loved his friends and this was the only thing he could do to end the madness that was killing and maiming them.”

WorldLoveHeartEndsSelfPlayRunningAgeChoicesSidesResponsibilityFatePositionDespairOppositesMadnessKillingBurdenAcceptedChosenRanSelf RespectDivided
Author:Karl Marlantes
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“Now he realized the truth: that sacrifice was no purchase of freedom. It was like a great elective office, it was like an inheritance of power - to certain people at certain times an essential luxury, carrying with it not a guarantee but a responsibility, not a security but an infinite risk. Its very momentum might drag him down to ruin - the passing of the emotional wave that made it possible might leave the one who made it high and dry forever on an island of despair...Sacrifice by its very nature was arrogant and impersonal; sacrifice should be eternally supercilious.”

PeopleShouldMadeMightCertainResponsibilityForeverRiskSacrificeSecurityEmotionalEssentialsDespairOfficeInfiniteWavePassingPassingsRuinsLuxuryMade ItIslandsDryGuaranteesArrogantDragInheritanceMomentumSupercilious
Book:The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald: Novels, Short Stories, Poetry, Articles, Letters, Plays & Screenplays: From the author of The Great Gatsby, The Side of Paradise, Tender Is the Night, The Beautiful and Damned, The Love of the Last Tycoon, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and many other notable works
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“In spite of death, he felt the need of life and love. He felt that love saved him from despair, and that this love, under the menace of despair, had become still stronger and purer. The one mystery of death, still unsolved, had scarcely passed before his eyes, when another mystery had arisen, as insoluble, urging him to love and to life.”

NeedsStillsEyeFeltMysteryDespairAnd LoveStrongerSavedHis EyesSpiteLife And LoveMenaceMystery Of Death
Book:Anna Karenina (World Classics, Unabridged)
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“I know it's late, but could you find a book for me? It's called The Slavs: Study of Pagan Tradition by Osvintsev." Barabas sighed dramatically. "Kate, you make me despair. Let's try that again from the top, except this time pretend you are an alpha." "I don't need a lecture. I just need the book." "Much better. Little more growl in the voice?" "Barabas!" "And we're there. Congratulations!”

KnowsNeedsTryingLittlesBookVoiceStudyDespairLateTraditionCongratulationsLecturesPaganKateAlphas
Author:Ilona Andrews
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“And now at last it comes. You will give me the Ring freely! In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair!”

GivingEarthLastsBeautifulNightDarkLordMorningSunSeaTerribleMountainDespairFairsGive MeStrongerFoundationStormRingsSnowQueensLightningGaladriel
Author:J. R. R. Tolkien
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“To those who care about punctuation, a sentence such as "Thank God its Friday" (without the apostrophe) rouses feelings not only of despair but of violence. The confusion of the possessive "its" (no apostrophe) with the contractive "it's" (with apostrophe) is an unequivocal signal of illiteracy and sets off a Pavlovian "kill" response in the average stickler.”

WritingFeelingsCareViolenceDespairResponseAverageSentencesConfusionThank GodSignalsWho CaresFridayPunctuationIlliteracyPossessiveUnequivocal
Author:Lynne Truss
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“Disappointments in love, even betrayals and losses, serve the soul at the very moment they seem in life to be tragedies. The soul is partly in time and partly in eternity. We might remember the part that resides in eternity when we feel despair over the part that is in life.”

FeelsSoulMomentsSeemsMightRememberLossDespairEternityTragedyDisappointmentBetrayalDisappointment Love
Book:Care of the soul: a guide for cultivating depth and sacredness in everyday life
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“...we should all fortify ourselves against the dark hours of depression by cultivating a deep distrust of the certainties of despair. Despair is relentless in the certainties of its pessimism. But we have seen again and again, from our own experience and others', that absolute statements of hopelessness that we make in the dark are notoriously unreliable. Our dark certainties are not sureties.”

ShouldHoursDarkDespairAbsolutesStatementsCertaintyPessimismAgain And AgainHopelessnessDistrustRelentlessCultivatingUnreliableDark Hours
Author:John Piper
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“Sometimes with the most intense pain a paralysis of sensibility occurs. The soul disintegrates--hence the deadly frost--the free power of the mind--the shattering, ceaseless wit of this kind of despair. There is no inclination for anything any more--the person is alone, like a baleful power--as he has no connection with the rest of the world he consumes himself gradually--and in accordance with his own principle he is--misanthropic and misotheos.”

WorldMindKindPersonsSoulSometimesPainPrinciplesDespairConnectionsWitIntenseSensibilityInclinationFrostParalysisPower Of The MindShatteringMisanthropicIntense Pain
Book:Novalis: Philosophical Writings
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