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Hopelessness Quotes

Browse 527 quotes about Hopelessness.

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Hopelessness Quotes

“A lot of the time, I write a lot of angry stuff, but then I don't want to be a finger-pointer - I'd rather be a cheerleader than a judge. I don't want to preach as if I'm in some position of righteousness, but I do want to speak my mind and scream at the clouds and shout out of the pit of hopelessness that I sometimes think the human race is in.”

IfsThinkingWantWritingMindHumansSometimesSpeakStuffRacePositionJudgingAngryFingersCloudsHuman RaceRighteousnessScreamHopelessnessPitsCheerleaderPointersShout Out
Author:Dave Matthews
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“The sound of distant breakers made her heart ache with melancholy. She was in the mood when the sea has a saddening effect upon the nerves. It is only when we are very happy that we can bear to gaze merrily upon the vast and limitless expanse of water, rolling on and on with such persistent, irritating monotony to the accompaniment of our thoughts, whether grave or gay. When they are gay, the waves echo their gaiety; but when they are sad, then every breaker, as it rolls, seems to bring additional sadness and to speak to us of hopelessness and of the pettiness of all our joys.”

HeartMadeSeemsJoySpeakSoundWaterSeaSadnessEffectsBearsGayWaveMoodGravesMelancholyNervesEchoesRollingOur ThoughtsVery HappyHopelessnessAchePersistentLimitlessIrritatingMonotonyExpansePettinessGaietyHeart AcheSaddening
Author:Baroness Orczy
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“I often hear people say that they read to escape reality, but I believe that what they’re really doing is reading to find reason for hope, to find strength. While a bad book leaves readers with a sense of hopelessness and despair, a good novel, through stories of values realized, of wrongs righted, can bring to readers a connection to the wonder of life. A good novel shows how life can and ought to be lived. It not only entertains but energizes and uplifts readers.”

PeopleBelieveBookReasonStoriesShowsRealityValuesReadingI BelieveWonderNovelOughtReaderDespairConnectionsUpliftingHopelessnessFinding StrengthWonder Of LifeEscape Reality
Author:Terry Goodkind
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“The pleasure of despair. But then, it is in despair that we find the most acute pleasure, especially when we are aware of the hopelessness of the situation... ...everything is a mess in which it is impossible to tell what's what, but that despite this impossibility and deception it still hurts you, and the less you can understand, the more it hurts.”

StillsHurtPleasureSituationImpossibleDespairDespiteMessDeceptionIt HurtsHopelessnessImpossibilityIt Still Hurts
Author:Fyodor Dostoevsky
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“By using money as the scapegoat and work as our all-consuming routine, we are able to conveniently disallow ourselves to do otherwise: 'John, I'd love to talk about the gaping void I feel in my life, the hopelessness that hits me like a punch in the eye every time I start my computer in the morning, but I have so much work to do! I've got at least three hours of unimportant email to reply to before calling prospects who said 'no' yesterday. Gotta run!”

FeelsSaidEyeRunningAbleThreeHoursMorningCallingComputerYesterdayRoutineVoidHopelessnessEmailConsumingUnimportantProspectsScapegoat
Author:Tim Ferriss
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“I believed in belief, for its own shining sake. To believe in the face of utter hopelessness, every article of evidence to the contrary, to ignore apparent catastrophe - what other choice was there? We do it every day, I realized. We are so much stronger than we imagine, and belief is one of the most valiant and long-lived human characteristics. To believe, when all along we humans know that nothing can cure the briefness of this life, that there is no remedy for our basic mortality, that is a form of bravery. To continue believing in yourself, believing in the doctors, believing in thetreatent, believing in whatever I chose to believe in, that was the most important thing.”

KnowsBelieveHumansLongImportantFacesFormChoicesBeliefImagineEvidenceBraveryStrongerImportant ThingsShiningSakeContraryCuresThis LifeCharacteristicsBelieve In YourselfMortalityArticlesRemedyCatastropheHopelessnessValiant
Author:Lance Armstrong
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“One fast move or I'm gone,' I realize, gone the way of the last three years of drunken hopelessness which is a physical and spiritual and metaphysical hopelessness you can't learn in school no matter how many books on existentialism or pessimisn you read, or how many jugs of vision-producing Ayahuasca drink, or Mescaline take, or Peyote goop up with -”

WayYearsBookMatterSchoolLastsSpiritualMovingThreeRealizingVisionGoneDrinkExistentialismThree YearsMetaphysicalHopelessnessAyahuascaJugsPeyote
Author:Jack Kerouac
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“... suffering does not ennoble. It destroys. To resist destruction, self-hatred, or lifelong hopelessness, we have to throw off the conditioning of being despised, the fear of becoming the they that is talked about so dismissively, to refuse lying myths and easy moralities, to see ourselves as human, flawed, and extraordinary. All of us extraordinary”

HumansDoeSelfLyingSufferingEasyBecomingMoralityDestructionHatredExtraordinaryRefuseMythHopelessnessFlawedLifelongConditioningDespisedSelf Hatred
Book:Skin: Talking About Sex, Class, and Literature
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“The greatest disease in the West today is not TB or leprosy; it is being unwanted, unloved, and uncared for. We can cure physical diseases with medicine, but the only cure for loneliness, despair, and hopelessness is love. There are many in the world who are dying for a piece of bread but there are many more dying for a little love. The poverty in the West is a different kind of poverty -- it is not only a poverty of loneliness but also of spirituality. There's a hunger for love, as there is a hunger for God.”

WorldLoveKindLittlesDifferentTodaySpiritualityPeacePovertyPiecesDyingLonelinessDespairDiseaseMedicineWestHungerBreadCuresDifferent KindsHopelessnessUbuntuUnwantedUnlovedLittle LoveLeprosyHunger And PovertyHunger PovertyHunger For LoveBeing UnlovedHunger For GodSpiritual Hunger
Book:A Simple Path-Open Market
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“But Gregor understood easily that it was not only consideration for him which prevented their moving, for he could easily have been transported in a suitable crate with a few air holes; what mainly prevented the family from moving was their complete hopelessness and the thought that they had been struck by a misfortune as none of their relatives and acquaintances had ever been hit.”

Has BeensMovingAirUnderstoodHolesConsiderationMisfortunesHopelessnessAcquaintanceSuitable
Book:The Metamorphosis
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“I know why people die of hopelessness. It comes on like a thick blanket, covering your thoughts, your confidence, creeping into your mind and filling the corners. I lie in the dark, suffocating under horrible dispare, wishing I were dead. I sleep, then wake, then sleep. The sleep is filled with monstrous dreams that attack, cry out, and vanish, leaving me once more awake and staring into the darkness. Help me! My mind is screaming, but there is no one to hear.”

PeopleKnowsMindHelpingDreamLyingDiesWishDarkSleepDarknessCryFilledLeavingCornersHorribleStaringAwakeHelp MeThickHopelessnessFillingLeaving MeBlanketCoveringMonstrousSuffocating
Author:Joan Lowery Nixon
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“But it's precisely in this cold, loathsome half-despair, half-belief, in this deliberate burying of yourself underground for forty years out of sheer pain, in this assiduously constructed, and yet somewhat dubious hopelessness, in all this poision of unfulfilled desires turned inward, this fever of vacillations, of resolutions adopted for eternity, and of repentances a moment later that you find the very essence of that strange, sharp pleasure.”

YearsMomentsPainDesireBeliefPleasureHalfStrangeColdDespairEssenceEternityFortyResolutionRepentanceInwardSheerHopelessnessAdoptedDeliberateFeverDubiousBuryingUnfulfilled DesiresVacillation
Author:Fyodor Dostoevsky
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“My encounter with another world and another culture and the beginnings of an attachment to them had set up an irritation, barely perceptible but incurable-rather like unrequited love, like a symptom of the hopelessness of trying to grasp what is boundless, or unite what cannot be joined; a reminder of how finite, how curtailed, our experience on earth must be”

WorldTryingEarthCultureEncountersAttachmentUnrequited LoveSymptomsHopelessnessFiniteRemindersBoundlessAnother WorldUnrequitedIrritation
Author:Andrei Tarkovsky
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“No one can say if you are that person who, given good paint, good brushes, and a fine canvas, can produce something better than the factory man. That is, and has always been, beyond the realm of science. You do have the attitude of the dreamer about you. For that reason, I haven't the heart to argue anymore about this - it is a hopeless talk. And for a simple factory man like me, an effort must be abandoned once its hopelessness is exposed. Only the artist perseveres in such circumstances. (193)”

IfsMenHeartPersonsReasonArtistGivenSimpleEffortAttitudeHavensProduceFineCircumstancesPaintArguingLike MeRealmsHopelessExposedDreamerAbandonedFactoriesCanvasBrushesHopelessnessPersevereSomething Better
Author:David Wroblewski
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“When people are suicidal, their thinking is paralyzed, their options appear spare or nonexistent, their mood is despairing, and hopelessness permeates their entire mental domain. The future cannot be separated from the present, and the present is painful beyond solace. ‘This is my last experiment,’ wrote a young chemist in his suicide note. ‘If there is any eternal torment worse than mine I’ll have to be shown.”

PeopleIfsThinkingLastsYoungMinesEternalSuicideNotesPainfulMoodExperimentsSparesTormentHopelessnessSuicidalDomainSolaceParalyzedChemistSuicide Note
Book:Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide
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“Though all three men faced the same hardship, their differing perceptions of it appeared to be shaping their fates. Louie and Phil's hope displaced their fear and inspired them to work toward their survival, and each success renewed their physical and emotional vigor. Mac's resignation seemed to paralyze him and the less he participated in their efforts to survive, the more he slipped. Though he did the least, as the days passed, it was he who faded the most. Louie and Phil's optimism, and Mac's hopelessness, were becoming self-fulfilling.”

MenSelfThreeEffortFateEmotionalBecomingPerceptionSurvivalOptimismInspiredHardshipFulfillingHopelessnessResignationFadedVigorMacsUnbroken
Book:Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption
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“Lamentations comfort only by lacerating the heart still more. Such grief does not desire consolation. It feeds on the sense of its hopelessness. Lamentations spring only from the constant craving to re-open the wound.”

HeartDoeStillsDesireGriefComfortSpringConstantWoundsHopelessnessConsolationCravingBrothers KaramazovLamentation
Book:The Brothers Karamazov (English Russian Edition illustrated): Братья Карамазовы (англо-русская редакция иллюстрированная)
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“It’s all about control. Control is illusory. No matter what university you go to, no matter what degree you hold, if your goal is to become master of your own destiny, you have more to learn. Parkinson’s is a perfect metaphor for lack of control. Every unwanted movement in my hand or arm, every twitch that I cannot anticipate or arrest, is a reminder that even in the domain of my own being, I am not calling the shots. I tried to exert control by drinking myself to a place of indifference, which just exacerbated the sense of miserable hopelessness.”

IfsMatterHandsGoalMy OwnPerfectDestinyMovementMastersArmsCallingDegreesShotsNo Matter WhatDrinkingUniversityMetaphorMiserableIndifferenceHopelessnessDomainRemindersAnticipateUnwantedIllusoryParkinsonParkinson'sLack Of ControlCalling The Shots
Author:Michael J. Fox
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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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“In all probability the Human Genome Project will, someday, find that I carry some recessive gene for optimism, because despite all my best efforts I still can't scrape together even a couple days of hopelessness. Future scientists will call it the Pollyanna Syndrome, and if forced to guess, I'd say that mine has been a way-long case history of chasing rainbows.”

IfsWayHumansLongHas BeensStillsTogetherEffortCasesMinesCoupleProjectsOptimismScientistDespiteSomedayGenesRainbowProbabilityHopelessnessChasingSyndromesBest EffortGenomePollyannaChasing RainbowsGenome ProjectHuman Genome Project
Author:Chuck Palahniuk
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“If you know someone who’s depressed, please resolve never to ask them why. Depression isn’t a straightforward response to a bad situation; depression just is, like the weather. Try to understand the blackness, lethargy, hopelessness, and loneliness they’re going through. Be there for them when they come through the other side. It’s hard to be a friend to someone who’s depressed, but it is one of the kindest, noblest, and best things you will ever do.”

IfsKnowsInspirationalTryingHardAsksUnderstandingSidesFriendshipSituationSupportAdviceLonelinessWise WordsPleaseDepressionEmpathyResponseWeatherComedianBest ThingsResolveSympathyHopelessnessStraightforwardBeing ThereBlacknessLoneliness And SolitudeLethargyBad SituationsOvercoming DepressionBeing DepressedPeople With DepressionHelp With Depression
Author:Stephen Fry
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“I understand perfectly. Darquesse isn't a separate entity. She isn't another person. She's you. If you make the wrong choices, if you stop loving the people who love you, if you allow the world to twist and turn and change you, then yes, the future we've seen will come to pass. But if you fight, and if you kick, and struggle, and refuse to give in to the apathy, or the anger, or the hopelessness, then you'll change the future, and you'll walk your own path. And I'll be right there beside you, Valkyrie. I'll always be beside you.”

PeopleIfsWorldGivingPersonsTurnsChoicesFightingWalksStrugglePathLove YouRefuseKicksApathyEntityHopelessnessTwistsWrong ChoicesBeside YouSkulduggery PleasantTwists And Turns
Author:Derek Landy
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“I do not view suicide as wicked, just terribly sad. There is only one death, but it is like a stone cast into a pond - the ripples stretch far. Such an act must leave a burden of sorrow, guilt, shame and confusion on an entire family. A natural death, such as my father suffered, is hard enough to deal with. A decision to end one's life must be still more devastating for those left behind. I cannot imagine the degree of hopelessness someone must feel to contemplate such an act.”

FeelsStillsEndsHardEnoughFatherLeftNaturalDecisionViewsDealsBehindsImagineSorrowDegreesStonesShameSuicideGuiltCastsBurdenConfusionWickedContemplatingHopelessnessLeft BehindPondsRippleNatural Death
Author:Juliet Marillier
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