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Despair Quotes

Browse 3424 quotes about Despair.

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Despair Quotes

“We live a pleasant life shopping at the Food Shoppe . . . taking the kids to the Weinery-Beanery, . . . and eating bran flakes . .. and then, with no warning, we wake up one morning stricken with middle age, full of loneliness, dumb, in pain. Our work is useless, our vocation is lost, and nobody cares about us at all. This is not bearable. In despair, we go do something spectacularly dumb, like run away with Amber the cocktail waitress, and suddenly all the women in our life look at us with unmitigated disgust.”

LooksCareRunningKidsAgePainLostMorningOur LivesMiddleLonelinessDespairEatingWake UpDumbUselessPleasantWarningShoppingRunning AwayDisgustingVocationMiddle AgesCocktailsAmberWaitressBearableNobody CaresFlakes
Author:Garrison Keillor
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“A vice sanctioned by the general opinion is merely a vice. The evil terminates in itself. A vice condemned by the general opinion produces a pernicious effect on the whole character. The former is a local malady; the latter, constitutional taint. When the reputation of the offender is lost, he too often flings the remainder of his virtue after it in despair.”

WholeCharacterEvilLostOpinionVirtueEffectsProduceDespairVicesLocalsReputationFormerLatterFlingPerniciousOffendersMalady
Author:Thomas B. Macaulay
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“Once a person has taken their life, in the inner realms, the suicide will repeat automatically the feelings of despair and fear which preceded his self murder, and go through the act and the death struggle time after time with ghastly persistence... They remain conscious - often entangled in the final scene of the earth life for a very long time, unaware that they have lost the physical body.”

PersonsLongSelfFeelingsBodyEarthLostStruggleTakenSceneDespairLong TimeConsciousMurderSuicideFinalsPersistenceRealmsRepeatsPhysical BodyGhastlyEarth Life
Author:Annie Besant
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“[Lost of the absolute] is in this sense that ''I no longer know what to do with my life" must be understood. Critics have been mistaken about the meaning of this phrase, seeing in it a cry of despair as in Simone de Beauvoir's "I have been cheated." When she uses this word it is to indicate that she claims from life an absolute which she cannot find there.”

KnowsHas BeensUseLostSeeingCryDespairUnderstoodClaimsAbsolutesCriticsPhrasesMistakenCheated
Author:Jean-Paul Sartre
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“You are in the depths of despair because you locked in on something or someone that didn't belong to you. I've met many people who have lost everything, especially in these times. People who survive devastating loss have the ability to let go of what they were doing, how much they were earning, and what they feel they are entitled to right now. They may well return to their former status, but their immediate task is to assess their skills and show resilience moving forward.”

PeopleFeelsWellsMayShowsMovingLostLossAbilityReturnMetsRight NowSkillsLetting GoDespairTasksDepthResilienceMoving ForwardFormerLockedEntitledEarningLost EverythingDevastating Loss
Author:Caroline Myss
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“The langour of Youth - how unique and quintessential it is! How quickly, how irrecoverably, lost! The zest, the generous affections, the illusions, the despair, all the traditional attributes of Youth - all save this come and go with us through life...These things are a part of life itself; but languor - the relaxation of yet unwearied sinews, the mind sequestered and self-regarding, the sun standing still in the heavens and the earth throbbing to our own pulse - that belongs to Youth alone and dies with it.”

MindStillsSelfEarthDiesLostHeavenSunYouthDespairUniqueIllusionStandingAffectionTraditionalGenerousAttributesRelaxationPulseComes And GoesParts Of LifeZestStanding StillQuintessentialBrideshead Revisited
Author:Evelyn Waugh
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“Days and nights passed over this despair of flesh, but one morning he awoke, looked (with calm now) at the blurred things that lay about him, and felt, inexplicably, the way one might feel upon recognizing a melody or a voice, that all this had happened to him before and that he had faced it with fear but also with joy and hopefulness and curiosity. Then he descended into his memory, which seemed to him endless, and managed to draw up from that vertigo the lost remembrance that gleamed like a coin in the rain - perhaps because he had never really looked at it except (perhaps) in a dream.”

WayFeelsDreamMightJoyNightLostFeltVoiceMemoriesMorningHappenedDespairDrawsRainLaysCuriosityCalmFleshEndlessMelodyRemembranceCoinsRecognizingDay And NightHopefulnessVertigo
Book:Aleph and other stories
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“When I see the blind and wretched state of men, when I survey the whole universe in its deadness, and man left to himself with no light, as though lost in this corner of the universe without knowing who put him there, what he has to do, or what will become of him when he dies, incapable of knowing anything, I am moved to terror, like a man transported in his sleep to some terrifying desert island, who wakes up quite lost, with no means of escape. Then I marvel that so wretched a state does not drive people to despair.”

PeopleMenMeanDoeStatesWholeLightDiesUniverseLostLeftSleepKnowingAtheismDespairWake UpBlindMovedAtheistTerrorCornersDesertIslandsIncapableWretchedSurveys
Author:Blaise Pascal
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“Theirs is the banner in my hand. And I wish I had the power to tell them that the despair of their hearts was not to be final, and their night was not without hope. For the battle they lost can never be lost. For that which they died to save can never perish. Through all the darkness, through all the shame of which men are capable, the spirit of man will remain alive on this earth. It may sleep, but it will awaken. It may wear chains, but it will break through. And man will go on. Man, not men. ~Equality 7-2521 (as Prometheus), pgs 103-104”

MenHeartMayHandsEarthSpiritNightLostWishSleepBreakDarknessAliveGoes OnBattleDespairCapableDiedShameFinalsChainsBreak ThroughBannerWithout HopePrometheus
Book:Anthem
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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).”

WorldLifeLooksLongHardJoyLostDarkMy OwnPerfectBehindsBrainWorstTaughtMoonSkillsDespairLong TimeDaughterRedWindowSeasonsDressesVictimFlamesGloriousMy DaughterYellowSpheresBedroomStrokesRebirthOutlinesColorlessCrescentCrescent Moon
Author:Barbara Kingsolver
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“In a healthy individual, a broken bone that has healed properly is strongest where it was once broken. You have not lost any life, Henry told himself. You will still get your fair share of years. Yet the quality of his life changed. Once you've been struck by violence, you acquire companions that never leave you entirely: Suspicion, Fear, Anxiety, Despair, Joylessness. The natural smile is taken from you and the natural pleasures you once enjoyed lose their appeal.”

YearsStillsIndividualLostLosesNaturalPleasureQualityTakenViolenceShareChangedBrokenHealthyDespairAnxietyFairsBonesEnjoyedAppealsAcquireCompanionStrongestSuspicionHealedFair ShareBroken Bone
Author:Yann Martel
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“We've forgotten much. How to struggle, how to rise to dizzy heights and sink to unparalleled depths. We no longer aspire to anything. Even the finer shades of despair are lost to us. We've ceased to be runners. We plod from structure to conveyance to employment and back again. We live within the boundaries that science has determined for us. The measuring stick is short and sweet. The full gamut of life is a brief, shadowy continuum that runs from gray to more gray. The rainbow is bleached. We hardly know how to doubt anymore. (“The Thing”)”

KnowsRunningLife IsLostKnow HowStruggleDoubtSweetDespairStructureSticksDepthForgottenDeterminedBoundariesEmploymentHeightGrayShadeRainbowAspireRunnersBack AgainMeasuringContinuumDizzyShort And Sweet
Author:Richard Matheson
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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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“Heavy misfortunes have befallen us, but let us only cling closer to what remains, and transfer our love for those whom we have lost to those who yet live. Our circle will be small, but bound close by the ties of affection and mutual misfortune. And when time shall have softened your despair, new and dear objects of care will be born to replace those of whom we have been so cruelly deprived.”

Has BeensCareLostBornObjectsDespairRemainsBoundsDearAffectionHeavyCirclesTiesMutualMisfortunesOur LoveDeprivedTransfers
Book:Frankenstein, Or, the Modern Prometheus [1818 Text]: Easyread Super Large 18pt Edition
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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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“Most humans, in varying degrees, are already dead. In one way or another they have lost their dreams, their ambitions, their desire for a better life. They have surrendered their fight for self-esteem and they have compromised their great potential. They have settled for a life of mediocrity, days of despair and nights of tears. They are no more than living deaths confined to cemeteries of their choice. Yet they need not remain in that state. They can be resurrected from their sorry condition. They can each perform the greatest miracle in the world. They can each come back from the dead.”

WorldWayNeedsHumansSelfStatesDreamDesireNightChoicesFightingLostConditionsSelf EsteemTearsDespairDegreesAmbitionMiracleSorryEsteemOne WayMediocrityBetter LifeConfinedCemetery
Author:Og Mandino
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“Beginning today, I will create a new future by creating a new me. No longer will I dwell in a pit of despair, moaning over squandered time and lost opportunity. I can do nothing about the past. My future is immediate. I will grasp it in both hands and carry it with running feet. When I am faced with the choice of doing nothing or doing something, I will always choose to act! I seize this moment. I choose now.”

I CanMomentsHandsRunningTodayPastChoicesPassionOpportunityLostCan DoFeetDespairCreatingPitsDoing NothingMy FutureMoaningLost OpportunityNew FutureNew Me
Book:The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
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“When I rest I feel utterly lifeless except that my throat burns when I draw breath... I can scarcely go on. No despair, no happiness, no anxiety. I have not lost the mastery of my feelings, there are actually no more feelings. I consist only of will. After each few metres this too fizzles out in unending tiredness. Then I think nothing. I let myself fall, just lie there. For an indefinite time I remain completely irresolute. Then I make a few steps again.”

ThinkingFeelsI CanFeelingsLyingFallLostStepsGoes OnDespairAnxietyDrawsBreathsThroatMasteryUnendingLifelessTiredness
Author:Reinhold Messner
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