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Despair Quotes

Browse 3424 quotes about Despair.

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Despair Quotes

“I have been so great a lover: filled my days So proudly with the splendour of Love's praise, The pain, the calm, and the astonishment, Desire illimitable, and silent content, And all dear names men use, to cheat despair, For the perplexed and viewless streams that bear Our hearts at random down the dark of life.”

MenLifeHeartHas BeensUsePainDesireNamesDarkBearsLoversDespairPraiseFilledSilentCalmDearStreamsCheatAstonishmentSplendourPerplexed
Book:Delphi Complete Works of Rupert Brooke (Illustrated)
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“Hope, and fear. Twin forces that tugged at us first in one direction and then in another, and which was the stronger no one could say. Of the latter we never spoke, but it was always with us. Fear, constant companion of the peasant. Hunger, ever at hand to jog his elbow should he relax. Despair, ready to engulf him should he falter. Fear; fear of the dark future; fear of the sharpness of hunger; fear of the blackness of death.”

ShouldFirstsHandsForceDarkPovertyReadyDespairStrongerConstantHungerRelaxLatterSpokesCompanionTwinsPeasantsBlacknessElbowsOne DirectionHopes And FearsSharpness
Book:Nectar in a sieve and related readings
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“We are the most illusioned society on the planet. We have to become adults. And it's hard; it's painful. I struggle with despair all the time. But I'm not going to let it win. It is incumbent upon all of us that at the same time we recognize how dark the future is, we also recognize the absolute imperative of resistance in every form possible.”

HardFormWinningDarkStrugglePlanetsDespairAdultsAbsolutesPainfulResistanceImperativesIncumbents
Author:Chris Hedges
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“I think to dwell continually on the dark side creates gloom and despair and anger and hatred, and that just adds to the darkness. So rather than that, we need to think of the beauty in the world, and also send out love and compassion to all beings in this world. Not just the people we like, but people who we find difficult. Because they are very deeply in need of compassion.”

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Author:Tenzin Palmo
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“I am fundamentally an optimist. Whether that comes from nature or nurture, I cannot say. Part of being optimistic is keeping one's head pointed toward the sun, one's feet moving forward. There were many dark moments when my faith in humanity was sorely tested, but I would not and could not give myself up to despair. That way lays defeat and death.”

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Author:Nelson Mandela
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“The music enchanted the air. It was like the south wind, like a warm night, like swelling sails beneath the stars, completely and utterly unreal... It made everything spacious and colourful, the dark stream of life seemed pulsing in it; there were no burdens any more, no limits; there existed only glory and melody and love, so that one simply could not realize that, at the same time as this music was, outside there ruled poverty and torment and despair.”

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Book:Three Comrades
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“Why are there beings at all instead of nothing? That is the question. Presumably it is not arbitrary question, "Why are there beings at all instead of nothing"- this is obviously the first of all questions. Of course it is not the first question in the chronological sense [...] And yet, we are each touched once, maybe even every now and then, by the concealed power of this question, without properly grasping what is happening to us. In great despair, for example, when all weight tends to dwindle away from things and the sense of things grows dark, the question looms.”

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Author:Martin Heidegger
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“In my own worst seasons I've come back from the colorless world of despair by forcing myself to look hard, for a long time, at a single glorious thing: a flame of red geranium outside my bedroom window. And then another: my daughter in a yellow dress. And another: the perfect outline of a full, dark sphere behind the crescent moon. Until I learned to be in love with my life again. Like a stroke victim retraining new parts of the brain to grasp lost skills, I have taught myself joy, over and over again(15).”

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Author:Barbara Kingsolver
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“What's madness but nobility of soul At odds with circumstance? The day's on fire! I know the purity of pure despair, My shadow pinned against a sweating wall, That place among the rocks--is it a cave, Or winding path? The edge is what I have........ ....... Dark,dark my light, and darker my desire. My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly, Keeps buzzing at the sill. ~From "The Waking" by Theodore Roethke”

KnowsSoulLightDesireDarkPathFireRocksWallCircumstancesPureDespairSummerShadowMadnessEdgesMy SoulHeatPurityWakingOddsCavesNobilitySweatingTheodore
Author:Theodore Roethke
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“I am writing this book because we're all going to die - In the loneliness of my own life, my father dead, my brother dead, my mother faraway, my sister and my wife far away, nothing here but my own tragic hands that once were guarded by a world, a sweet attention, that now are left to guide and disappear their own way into the common dark of all our deaths, sleeping in me raw bed, alone and stupid: with just this one pride and consolation: my broke heart in the general despair and opened up inwards to the Lord, I made a supplication in this dream”

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Book:Visions of Cody
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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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“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!”

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Author:J. R. R. Tolkien
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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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“Not merely hope, but any burdensome yearning: ambition, hatred, love (especially love) - how rarely do our emotions meet the object they seem to deserve? How hopelessly we signal; how dark the sky; how big the waves. We are all lost at see, washed between hope and despair, hailing something that may never come to rescue us. Catastrophe has become art; but this is no reducing process. It is freeing, enlarging, explaining. Catastrophe has become art: that is, after all, what it is for.”

MayArtBigsSeemsLostProcessDarkEmotionSkyObjectsDespairAmbitionDeserveHatredWaveYearningRescueCatastropheSignalsExplainingReducingHope And DespairHatred For Love
Book:A History Of The World In 10 1/2 Chapters
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“It's dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you're feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them. So throw away your baggage and go forward. There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet, trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair. That's why you must walk so lightly. Lightly my darling.”

FeelsTryingChildrenSelfHardFeelingsHappensDarkWalksFeetDespairThings HappenPityDarlingSelf PityBaggageQuicksandTrying Too Hard
Author:Aldous Huxley
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“I hear that in many places something has happened to Christmas; that it is changing from a time of merriment and carefree gaiety to a holiday which is filled with tedium; that many people dread the day and the obligation to give Christmas presents is a nightmare to weary, bored souls; that the children of enlightened parents no longer believe in Santa Claus; that all in all, the effort to be happy and have pleasure makes many honest hearts grow dark with despair instead of beaming with good will and cheerfulness.”

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Author:Julia Peterkin
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“At times, life is hard, as hard as crucible steel. It has its bleak and painful moments. Like the ever flowing water of a river, life has its moments of drought and its moments of flood. Like the ever-changin cycle of the seasons, life has the soothing warmth of the summers and the piercing chill of its winters. But through it all, God walks with us. Never forget that God is able to lift you from the fatigue of despair to the buoyancy of hope, and transform dark and desolate valleys into sunlit paths of inner peace.”

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Author:Martin Luther King, Jr.
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“When our days become dreary with low hovering clouds of despair, and when our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe, working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.”

WayLongAbleRememberNightUniverseEvilForceRealizingJusticeDarkMoralPowerCreativeTomorrowThousandMountainDespairLowsCloudsYesterdayMidnightArcsDrearyHovering
Author:Martin Luther King, Jr.
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“Somewhere along the journey of remembering who we really are, we may find ourselves in a very uncomfortable space, a void in which we realize that we haven't totally let go of our old beliefs, and on the other hand we have yet to fully plug into the new truths we have discovered. This awkward "place of mind" can bring on an internal crisis of uncertainty, instability, confusion, frustration, and a most unspeakable despair as the "dark night" sets in and makes its presence felt.”

MindMayHandsRememberNightBeliefFeltRealizingDarkSpaceJourneyHavensLetting GoDespairCrisisAwakeningConfusionUncertaintyUncomfortableFrustrationInternalsVoidAwkwardUnspeakablePlugsInstabilityDark Night
Author:Nicholas Schmidt
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“To show mercy is not naïve. To hold out against the end of hope is not stupidity or madness. It is fundamentally human. Of course... We are all doomed; we are all poisoned from our birth by the rot of stars. That does not mean we should succumb...to the seductive fallacy of despair, the dark tide that would drown us. You may think I'm stupid, you may call me a madman and a fool, but at least I stand upright in a fallen world.”

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Book:The Isle of Blood
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“A Dark Night is a mental and emotional state of despair that arises when something is so painful that it blots out all other considerations and makes carrying on as usual out of the question.”

SoulStatesNightDarkEmotionalDespairPainfulAriseConsiderationUsualDark NightCarrying On
Book:The Wisdom of a Broken Heart: How to Turn the Pain of a Breakup Into Healing, Insight, and New Love
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