Despair Quotes - page 4

Despair gives courage to a coward. (Thomas Fuller)
My God, whose son, as on this night, took on Him the form of man, and for man vouchsafed to suffer and bleed, controls thy hand, and without His behest, thou canst not strike a stroke. My God is sinless, eternal, all-wise, and in Him is my trust, and though stripped and crushed by thee, -though naked, desolate, void of resource- I do not despair:where the lance of Guthrum now wet with my blood, I should not despair. I watch, I toil, I hope, I pray: Jehovah, in His own time, will aid. View quote
Charlotte Brontë
Hope was an instinct only the reasoning human mind could kill. An animal never knew despair. View quote
Graham Greene
The moon is no door. It is a face in its own right, White as a knuckle and terribly upset. It drags the sea after it like a dark crime; it is quiet With the O-gape of complete despair. I live here. View quote
Sylvia Plath
There's no such thing as perfect writing, just like there's no such thing as perfect despair. View quote
Haruki Murakami
O star-eyed Science! hast thou wandered there, To waft us home the message of despair? View quote
Thomas Campbell
Enough of dreams! No longer mock The burdened hearts of men! Not on the cloud, but on the rock Build thou thy faith again;O range no more the realms of air, Stoop to the glen-bound streams; Thy hope was all too like despair: Enough, enough of dreams. View quote
Alfred Noyes
Despair is typical of those who do not understand the causes of evil, see no way out, and are incapable of struggle. View quote
Vladimir Lenin
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. View quote
Niccolò Machiavelli
All whom war, dearth, age, agues, tyrannies, Despair, law, chance, hath slain. View quote
John Donne
A man's concern, even his despair, over the worthwhileness of life is an existential distress but by no means a mental disease. (Viktor Frankl)
Plant diseases, drought, desolation, despair were recurrent catastrophes during the ages - and the ancient remedies: supplications to supernatural spirits or gods. View quote
Norman Borlaug
Of course I constantly despair at my own incapacity, at the impossibility of ever accomplishing anything, of painting a valid, true picture or even knowing what such a thing ought to look like. But then I always have the hope that, if I persevere, it might one day happen. And this hope is nurtured every time something appears, a scattered, partial, initial hint of something which reminds me of what I long for, or which conveys a hint of it – although often enough I have been fooled by a momentary glimpse that then vanishes, leaving behind only the usual thing. View quote
Gerhard Richter
Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, Tears from the depths of some devine despair Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, In looking on the happy autumn fields, And thinking of the days that are no more. View quote
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
The search is what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the everydayness of his own life. To become aware of the possibility of the search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair. View quote
Walker Percy
Defenceless under the night Our world in stupor lies; Yet, dotted everywhere, Ironic points of light Flash out wherever the Just Exchange their messages: May I, composed like them Of Eros and of dust, Beleaguered by the same Negation and despair, Show an affirming flame. View quote
W. H. Auden
Despair exists only when there is hope. View quote
Jiddu Krishnamurti
I despair of persuading people to drop the familiar and comforting tactic of dichotomy. Perhaps, instead, we might expand the framework of debates by seeking other dichotomies more appropriate than, or simply different from, the conventional divisions. All dichotomies are simplifications, but the rendition of a conflict along differing axes of several orthogonal dichotomies might provide an amplitude of proper intellectual space without forcing us to forgo our most comforting tool of thought. View quote
Stephen Jay Gould
If a man dies of cancer in fear and despair, then cry for his pain and celebrate his life. The other man, who fought like hell and laughed in the end, but also died, may have had an easier time in his final months, but took his leave with no more humanity. View quote
Stephen Jay Gould
What you love, you will love. What you undertake you will complete. You are a fulfiller of hope; you are to be relied on. But seventeen years give little armor against despair... Consider, Arren. To refuse death is to refuse life. View quote
Ursula K. Le Guin
Despair speaks evenly, in a quiet voice. (Ursula K. Le Guin)
I am afraid of falling into hopeless despair, over my wasted life, and I am still not sure how it happened. View quote
Margaret Atwood
I need to be alone. I need to ponder my shame and my despair in seclusion; I need the sunshine and the paving stones of the streets without companions, without conversation, face to face with myself, with only the music of my heart for company. View quote
Henry Miller
I am a free man―and I need my freedom. I need to be alone. I need to ponder my shame and my despair in seclusion; I need the sunshine and the paving stones of the streets without companions, without conversation, face to face with myself, with only the music of my heart for company. What do you want of me? When I have something to say, I put it in print. When I have something to give, I give it. Your prying curiosity turns my stomach! Your compliments humiliate me! Your tea poisons me! I owe nothing to any one. I would be responsible to God alone―if He existed! View quote
Henry Miller
There will be more calamities, more death, more despair. Not the slightest indication of a change anywhere. The cancer of our time is eating us away. Our heroes have killed themselves, or are killing themselves. View quote
Henry Miller