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Despair Quotes

Browse 3424 quotes about Despair.

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Despair Quotes

“To disguise nothing, to conceal nothing, to write about those things that are closest to our pain, our happiness; to write about our sexual clumsiness, the agonies of Tantalus, the depth of our discouragement-what we glimpse in our dreams-our despair. To write about the foolish agonies of anxiety, the refreshment of our strength when these are ended; to write about our painful search for self, jeopardized by a stranger in the post office, a half-seen face in a train window, to write about the continents and populations of our dreams, about love and death, good and evil, the end of the world.”

WorldWritingEndsSelfDreamPainFacesEvilHalfDespairOfficeAnxietyWindowTrainDepthPopulationPainfulStrangerFoolishPostsGood And EvilContinentsClosestAgonyDisguiseGlimpseOur DreamsEnd Of The WorldDiscouragementLove And DeathPost OfficeRefreshmentsClumsiness
Author:John Cheever
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“From 1945 to 2003, the United States attempted to overthrow more than 40 foreign governments, and to crush more than 30 populist-nationalist movements fighting against intolerable regimes. In the process, the US bombed some 25 countries, caused the end of life for several million people, and condemned many millions more to a life of agony and despair.”

PeopleEndsCountryStatesGovernmentAmericaFightingProcessUnitedMillionsUnited StatesMovementDespairCrushRegimesAgonyEnd Of LifePopulist
Author:William Blum
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“It is precisely the sort of thing I am always trying to do in my writing -- to present my unhappy reader with a wide-ranged chaos -- of actions and reactions, thoughts, memories and feelings -- in the vain hope that at the end he will see that the whole thing represents only one moment, one feeling, one person. A raging, trumpeting jungle of associations, and then I announce at the end of it, with a gesture of despair, "This is I!”

WritingTryingPersonsEndsWholeMomentsFeelingsActionMemoriesReaderDespairChaosWideRageUnhappyReactionsVainAssociationGesturesJungleAlways TryingAction And Reaction
Book:Blue Voyage: A Novel
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“Civilization is perhaps approaching one of those long winters that overtake it from time to time. Romantic Christendom - picturesque, passionate, unhappy episode - may be coming to an end. Such a catastrophe would be no reason for despair.”

MayLongEndsReasonWould BeAtheismCivilizationDespairWinterPassionatePositive AtheismUnhappyNo ReasonEpisodesCatastropheChristendomPicturesqueComing To An End
Book:The Works of George Santayana: Character and opinion in the United States. The genteel tradition at bay. Dewey's naturalistic metaphysics. Philosophical heresy
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“For sex to be wholly satisfying, we must have at least as much concern for a partner as for self - a requirement that doesn't live comfortably alongside the exhortation to 'do your own thing.' In the end, we are left with an extraordinarily heightened set of expectations about the possibilities in human relationships that lives side by side with disillusion that, for many, borders on despair.”

HumansEndsSelfLeftSexSidesPossibilityDespairExpectationsConcernPartnersBordersSatisfyingRequirementsHuman RelationsHuman RelationshipsDisillusion
Book:Erotic Wars: What Happened to the Sexual Revolution?
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“It is also in despair of being able to understand or make any productive contribution to the highly organised chaos of our politico-economic system that large numbers of people simply abandon political and social committments. They just let society be taken over by a pattern of organisation which is as self-proliferative as a weed, and whose ends and values are neither human nor instinctive but mechanical.”

PeopleHumansEndsSelfAblePoliticalValuesSocialNumbersTakenEconomicDespairChaosPatternsContributionProductiveAbandonWeedOrganisationLarge NumbersEconomic SystemsOrganised
Author:Alan Watts
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“While I am usually in despair when a movie abandons its plot for a third act given over entirely to action, I have no problem with the way Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets ends, because it has been pointing toward this ending, hinting about it, preparing us for it, all the way through. What a glorious movie.”

WayHas BeensEndsProblemActionGivenSecretDespairThirdsGloriousPlotAbandonHarry PotterPreparingNo ProblemPointingChamberPotters
Book:Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbook 2005
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“Sin is not only manifested in certain acts that are forbidden by divine command. Sin also appears in attitudes and dispositions and feelings. Lust and hate are sins as well as adultery and murder. And, in the traditional Christian view, despair and chronic boredom - unaccompanied by any vicious act - are serious sins. They are expressions of man's separation from God, as the ultimate good, meaning, and end of human existence.”

MenHumansWellsEndsFeelingsChristianCertainHateSinViewsExistenceAttitudeDivineSeriousExpressionDespairUltimateMurderSeparationLustCommandTraditionalBoredomDispositionForbiddenViciousAdulteryHuman Existence
Author:Mortimer Adler
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“The man who knows God but does not know his own misery, becomes proud. The man who knows his own misery but does not know God, ends in despair...the knowledge of Jesus Christ constitutes the middle course because in him we find both God and our own misery. Jesus Christ is therefore a God whom we approach without pride, and before whom we humble ourselves without despair.”

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Author:Blaise Pascal
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“Chance, my master and my friend, will, I feel sure, deign once again to send me the spirits of his unruly kingdom. All my trust is now in him- and in myself. But above all in him, for when I go under he always fishes me out, seizing and shaking me like a life-saving dog whose teeth tear my skin a little every time. So now, whenever I despair, I no longer expect my end, but some bit of luck, some commonplace little miracle which, like a glittering link, will mend again the necklace of my days.”

FeelsLittlesEndsSpiritBitsChanceDogTearsMastersDespairMy FriendsSkinsMiracleLuckFishesKingdomsTeethSavingLinksShakingCommonplaceNecklacesSeizingUnrulyLife Saving
Author:Sidonie Gabrielle Colette
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“A shade of sorrow passed over Taliesin's face. 'There are those,' he said gently, 'who must first learn loss, despair, and grief. Of all paths to wisdom, this is the cruelest and longest. Are you one who must follow such a way? This even I cannot know. If you are, take heart nonetheless. Those who reach the end do more than gain wisdom. As rough wool becomes cloth, and crude clay a vessel, so do they change and fashion wisdom for others, and what they give back is greater than what they won.”

IfsKnowsWayGivingFirstsHeartSaidEndsFacesLossGriefPathGreaterFashionSorrowDespairGainsRoughShadeClayGiving BackVesselCrudeWool
Book:The High King: The Chronicles of Prydain
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“And when the hourglass has run out, the hourglass of temporality, when the noise of secular life has grown silent and its restless or ineffectual activism has come to an end, when everything around you is still, as it is in eternity, then eternity asks you and every individual in these millions and millions about only one thing: whether you have lived in despair or not.”

StillsEndsRunningAsksIndividualMillionsOne ThingDespairEternitySilentActivismNoiseSecularRestlessHourglassTemporality
Author:Soren Kierkegaard
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“But the truth, he knows, is otherwise. His pleasure in living has been snuffed out. Like a leaf on a stream, like a puffball on a breeze, he has begun to float towards his end. He sees it quite clearly, and it fills him with (the word will not go away) despair. The blood of life is leaving his body and despair is taking its place, despair that is like a gas, odourless, tasteless, without nourishment. You breathe it in, your limbs relax, you cease to care, even at the moment when the steel touches your throat.”

KnowsHas BeensEndsMomentsBodyCareLife IsPleasureBloodDespairLeavingBreatheCeaseStreamsRelaxGasGoing AwayThroatSteelLeafsBreezeLimbsFloatsNourishment
Author:J. M. Coetzee
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“In that one slight motion, I see the end of hope, beginning of destruction of everything I hold dear in the world. I can't guess what form my punishment will take, how wide the net will be cast, but when it is finished there most likely be nothing left. So you would think that at this moment, I would be in utter despair.”

ThinkingWorldI CanEndsMomentsWould BeFormLeftDespairDestructionDearCastsWideFinishedPunishmentUtter Despair
Book:The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
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“He had never thought of himself as much of a praying man, but as he sat in the car in the growing darkness and the minutes passed, he knew what it was to pray. It was to will goodness out of evil, hope out of despair, life out of death. It was to will dreams into existence and spectres into reality. It was to will an end to anguish and a beginning to joy.”

MenEndsDreamRealityJoyEvilExistenceDarknessGrowingMinutesCarPrayingDespairGoodnessSatAnguishSpectre
Book:A Great Deliverance
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“Love. Healing. Help. Hope. The power of Christ to counter all troubles in all times—including the end of times. That is the safe harbor God wants for us in personal or public days of despair. That is the message with which the Book of Mormon begins, and that is the message with which it ends, calling all to 'come unto Christ, and be perfected in him' (Moroni 10:32).”

WantBookEndsHelpingChristHealingTroubleCallingSafeDespairMessagesIncludingAll TimeEnd TimesHarborsSafe HarborHealing Love
Author:Jeffrey R. Holland
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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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“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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“Being a homicide detective ca be the loneliest job in the world. The friends of the victim are upset and in despair, but sooner or later - after weeks or months - they go back to their everyday lives. For the closest family it takes longer, but for the most part, to some degree, they too get over the grieving and despair. Life has to go on; it does go on. But the unsolved murders keep gnawing away and in the end there's only one person left who thinks night and day about the victim: it's the office who is left with the investigation.”

ThinkingWorldPersonsDoeEndsJobsNightLeftWeekMonthsGoes OnDespairOfficeDegreesMurderVictimEverydayUpsetGrievingInvestigationClosestSooner Or LaterEveryday LifeGet OverDetectivesHomicide
Author:Steig Larsson
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“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall... think of it, always.”

ThinkingWayInspirationalHas BeensEndsSeemsMotivationalTruthRememberFallEvilPoliticsPeaceCommunityHistorySadnessSocietyTruth IsSadDespairAnd LoveHistoricalTyrantsNonviolenceLive In The MomentMurdererInvincibleNon ViolenceBeing At PeaceWhat Is LoveReally SadTruth And LoveMy TruthSad LifeTruth And JusticeSadness Of LifeGood EvilWay Of LoveSadness And LoveJustice TruthTriumph Over EvilEvil Love
Author:Mahatma Gandhi
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“I assert once again as a truth to which history as a whole bears witness that men may second their fortune, but cannot oppose it; that they may weave its warp, but cannot break it. Yet they should never give up, because there is always hope, though they know not the end and more towards it along roads which cross one another and as yet are unexplored; and since there is hope, they should not despair, no matter what fortune brings or in what travail they find themselves.”

KnowsMenGivingShouldMayArtWarEndsMatterWholeBreakBearsDespairGiving UpCrossesNo Matter WhatFortuneWitnessNever Giving UpArt Of WarThere Is HopeWarpUnexploredLong Road
Author:Niccolo Machiavelli
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“Whatever happens to you, don't fall in despair. Even if all the doors are closed, a secret path will be there for you that no one knows. You can't see it yet but so many paradises are at the end of this path...Be grateful! It is easy to thank after obtaining what you want, thank before having what you want.”

IfsKnowsWantEndsHappensMotivationalSuccessFallEasySecretPathDoorsDespairGratefulWhat You WantParadiseBe GratefulThankfulBeing ThankfulWhatever HappensObtainingClosed Doors
Author:Rumi
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“If this understanding of the good news of Jesus prevailed among Christians, the belief that Jesus’s message is about how to get somewhere else, you could possibly end up with a world in which millions of people were starving, thirsty, and poor; the earth was being exploited and polluted; disease and despair were everywhere; and Christians weren’t known for doing much about it. If it got bad enough, you might even have people rejecting Jesus because of how his followers lived. That would be tragic.”

PeopleIfsWorldEndsEnoughMightWould BeEarthChristianJesusBeliefUnderstandingPoorKnownMillionsDespairDiseaseMessagesNewsTragicFollowersGood NewsStarvingSomewhere ElseThirstyRejecting
Book:Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived
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