Quotessence
Home / Topics / Melancholy Quotes

Melancholy Quotes

Browse 943 quotes about Melancholy.

Related topics

MenThinkingIfsPeopleWorldSadnessFeelingsKnowsMindFeelsSoulMayHumansGivingKindLittlesPleasureSweetJoySeemsSorrowWayWellsMomentsSpiritWritingPainYearsDespairEmotionEyeFormPersonsShouldWantCausesEndsFactsHeartLooksNightSaidSometimesSongSufferingDarkFacesFirstsLongLostMadeMiseryPastAgeBeautifulBlackCharacterCheerfulDoeFollyGriefI CanIdeasLife IsMeanMirthReflectionSelfStatesTearsTodayWantedWindAutumnBloodBodyCertainEvilFeltNeedsObjectsSadShadowSidesSpeakTakenTogetherVoiceYouthAirArtBirdBookBurdenChildrenDiesFitGayGreenHandsmore

Melancholy Quotes

“He sank back into his black-and-white world, his immobile world of inanimate drawings that had been granted the secret of motion, his death-world with its hidden gift of life. But that life was a deeply ambiguous life, a conjurer's trick, a crafty illusion based on an accidental property of the retina, which retained an image for a fraction of a second after the image was no longer present. On this frail fact was erected the entire structure of the cinema, that colossal confidence game. The animated cartoon was a far more honest expression of the cinematic illusion than the so-called realistic film, because the cartoon reveled in its own illusory nature, exulted in the impossible--indeed it claimed the impossible as its own, exalted it as its own highest end, found in impossibility, in the negation of the actual, its profoundest reason for being. The animated cartoon was nothing but the poetry of the impossible--therein lay its exhilaration and its secret melancholy. For this willful violation of the actual, while it was an intoxicating release from the constriction of things, was at the same time nothing but a delusion, an attempt to outwit mortality. As such it was doomed to failure. And yet it was desperately important to smash through the constriction of the actual, to unhinge the universe and let the impossible stream in, because otherwise--well, otherwise the world was nothing but an editorial cartoon.”

WorldLifeImportantReasonDeathPoetryUniverseBlackNatureWhiteSecretImpossibleHonestHonestyExpressionFailureConfidenceIllusionImportanceStructurePropertyGiftReleaseCinemaDelusionMelancholyMortalityRealisticBlack And WhitePresentRealismDoomedCartoonDesperationBeingDoomViolationAnimatedGameAmbiguousFrailFrailtyImageIllusoryHiddenMotionTrickDrawSinkWillfulIntoxicatingAccidentalDrawingsOutwitInanimateFractionImmobileConstrictionDesperatelyDeath World
Book:Little Kingdoms
Create image

“Sorrow, terror, anguish, despair itself are often the chosen expressions of an approximation to the highest good. Our sympathy in tragic fiction depends on this principle; tragedy delights by affording a shadow of the pleasure which exists in pain. This is the source also of the melancholy which is inseparable from the sweetest melody. The pleasure that is in sorrow is sweeter than the pleasure of pleasure itself.”

PleasureMelancholy
Book:A Defence of Poetry and Other Essays
Create image

“It is the heaviest stone that melancholy can throw at a man, to tell him he is at the end of his nature; or that there is no further state to come, unto which this seems progressional, and otherwise made in vain. Without this accomplishment, the natural expectation and desire of such a state, were but a fallacy in nature; unsatisfied considerators would quarrel the justice of their constitutions, and rest content that Adam had fallen lower; whereby, by knowing no other original, and deeper ignorance of themselves, they might have enjoyed the happiness of inferior creatures, who in tranquillity possess their constitutions, as having not the apprehension to deplore their own natures, and, being framed below the circumference of these hopes, or cognition of better being, the wisdom of God hath necessitated their contentment: but the superior ingredient and obscured part of ourselves, whereto all present felicities afford no resting contentment, will be able at last to tell us, we are more than our present selves, and evacuate such hopes in the fruition of their own accomplishments.”

DeathReligionDyingMelancholyAfterlife
Book:Urne Burial
Create image

“A Reclusive Invitation by Stewart Stafford In a mansion crouched at the forest's edge, Gargoyles perched on a Jericho hedge, Lived Samuel Keane, with millions at least, Welcomed the locals to his Christmas feast. Self-imposed exile of wealth's solitary scene, On that evening, time for connection pristine, An alabaster white suit in a chessboard hall; Legions of armour and battle scars to recall. "Come, gather round, let camaraderie ignite! On Christmas Eve, a dream-come-true night!" Perkins, the grey butler, in reluctant festive red, Gestured them toward Keane's banquet spread. Their gracious host took his place at the end, A throne chair helped into place with a bend, Beaming, he clapped and food was brought in, To gasps and applause at the goblets of gin. A succulent feast at a baronial ball; Roasted goose, boar, a tall glass highball, Stories grew taller, just like each drink, Songs and jests sent them over the brink. Enjoyment and melody's atmosphere bright, Fleeting warmth shared in lush candlelight. Dawn looms, Les Misérables adore company: "Why does hangover guilt crave chablis?" A Father Christmas event once a year, Guests departed, a loud triple cheer, A fading smile of a host so grand, Adrift, nothing elaborate planned. The fireworks faded, the last ember died, Keane shut his mansion with secrets inside. A portcullis closed slowly on a seasonal high, A gothic arch door shut 'neath morning star sky. © 2024, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.”

WealthChristmasIsolationMelancholyThe Great GatsbyCitizen KaneGothic LiteratureReclusiveHoward HughesFleeting Happiness
Author:Stewart Stafford
Create image

“I am metaphysical being, mystical and emotional, skeptical and cynical, happy and boisterous, loud and bawdy, quiet and melancholy, tender and cruel, full of mirth and despair. Inherent inconsistences mark me as part of nature, which is neither cruel nor fair, or reliable or predictable.”

Human NatureEmotionalSadQuietDespairSelf AwarenessHappyLoudMelancholyCynicalSkepticismSelf KnowledgeSkepticalPredictableSkepticInconsistentMirthCynicInconsistencySelf IdentityPsycheCruelPredictabilityTenderReliableBoisterousHuman Nature QuotesConflicting EmotionsBawdyHu Nature Quote
Book:Dead Toad Scrolls
Create image

“My dear Victor, do not speak thus. 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.”

LossDespairMelancholyFrankenstein
Book:Frankenstein
Create image

“Seeing the mud around a lotus is pessimism, seeing a lotus in the mud is optimism.”

InspirationalWritingPhilosophyWisdomMotivationalQuotesHopeKnowledgeDoubtFlowerConfidenceSpeechDespairDepressionOptimismRoseWittyWitOptimisticPositive AttitudeMovieStoryMelancholyPessimismCheerCynicismNegativityRhetoricMudDistrustSayingsCreative WritingSlogansAmit KalantriAmit Kalantri QuotesAngstPublic SpeakingProverbsGloomCheerfulnessPessimisticSocial NetworkingBloggingCharactersAmit Kalantri WriterAdageNovel WritingBook WritingEssayScriptAdvertisementBlogMovie DialogueScript WritingCatchphrasesAlliterationsNegative ThinkingTag LinesScriptwritingCatch LinesSpeechwritingHopefulnessPunchlineFatalismGood CheerDespondencyBuoyancyLotus FlowerLotusDoom And GloomPositivenessDejectionDefeatismExpecting The WorstGloominess HopelessnessLack Of HopeSanguineness
Book:Wealth of Words
Create image

“It's my letter," she began. "I cannot make it right." "Come in, come in," the Prince said gently. "Maybe we can help you." She sat down in the same chair as before. "All right, I'll close my eyes and listen; read to me." " 'Westley, my passion, my sweet, my only, my own. Come back, come back. I shall kill myself otherwise. Yours in torment, Buttercup.' " She looked at Humperdinck. "Well? Do you think I'm throwing myself at him?" "It does seem a bit forward," the Prince admitted. "It doesn't leave him a great deal of room to maneuver.”

LoveHumorDespairLettersMelancholy
Book:The Princess Bride
Create image

“Oh, Mercédès, I have spoken your name with sighs of melancholy, with groans of pain and with the croak of despair. I have spoken it frozen with cold, huddled on the straw of my dungeon. I have spoken it raging with heat and rolling around on the stone floor of my prison. Mercédès, I must have my revenge, because for fourteen years I suffered, fourteen years I wept and cursed. Now, I say to you, Mercédès, I must have my revenge!”

PainSadnessDespairInjusticeRevengeSeparationMelancholyMissLonging For Love
Author:Alexandre Dumas
Create image

“I lay there turning over the pages of my life, thinking of what I had done and left undone, and of the dreams from which I had awakened. How far off seem the bright visions of early boyhood, and how poor and bare the reality looks. I thought of all my expectations, and the small results of my labors; of my wife, who certainly cannot be called either good-natured or good-looking, of my sons who hardly seem to belong to me, with whom I have nothing in common:—of the faithlessness and folly of those around us, of our poor France torn by civil wars and religious persecutions; of my works of art scattered, life itself a handful of ashes, soon to be blown away by the breath of the Destroyer.—I put my face close up against the oak tree, and lay there weeping quietly all among the big roots which cradled me like a father’s arms; and I felt that he listened.”

LifeDeathSadnessOld AgeMelancholy
Book:Colas Breugnon
Create image

“The industrial ghost towns, the late spring rain, the wide, low skies. The old sadness rising. An excess of black bile, they used to say, made the melancholic personality. Freud said that mourning and melancholia are akin in that they are both responses to loss. Mourning is a conscious and healthy response to the loss of a love object. Melancholia is more complicated. It operates on a subconscious level. All the feelings of loss are present, but for what? The melancholic cannot say. This, Freud says, is a pathology.”

LoveLossGriefSadnessMourningMelancholyFamily LifeFreud
Book:In Ordinary Time: Fragments of a Family History
Create image

“My heart was bleeding from its death's wound; I could live no otherwise – Often amid apparent calm I was visited by despair and melancholy; gloom that nought could dissipate or overcome; a hatred of life; a carelessness of beauty; all these would by fits hold me nearly annihilated by their powers. Never for one moment when most placid did I cease to pray for death. I could be found in no state of mind which I would not willingly have exchanged for nothingess. And morning and evening my tearful eyes raised to heaven, my hands clasped tight in the energy of prayer, I have repeated with the poet – Before I see another day / Oh, let this body die away!”

DeathPoetryPrayerSadnessMelancholy
Author:Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Create image