100 Quotes About Despair

When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it--always. Mahatma Gandhi

Whatever happens in your life, no matter how troubling things might seem, do not enter the neighbourhood of despair. Even when all doors remain closed, God wil open up a new path only for you. Be thankful! It is easy to be thankful when all is well. A Sufi is thankful not only for what he has been given but also for all that has been denied. Elif Shafak

Knowing the Techniques of Survival........Our fears and anxieties will often drive us to build impenetrable walls that act like blinders deflecting others and preventing us from seeing who surrounds us. Getting focused to the things that matter are the Key to what has to be to COMPLETE our MISSION. "I Had Every Excuse to Fail but I Chose None" Speak Life! ! ! (sky) Sebastian K. Young

It is a curious thing, but as one travels the world getting older and older, it appears that happiness is easier to get used to than despair. The second time you have a root beer float, for instance, your happiness at sipping the delicious concoction may not be quite as enormous as when you first had a root beer float, and the twelfth time your happiness may be still less enormous, until root beer floats begin to offer you very little happiness at all, because you have become used to the taste of vanilla ice cream and root beer mixed together. However, the second time you find a thumbtack in your root beer float, your despair is much greater than the first time, when you dismissed the thumbtack as a freak accident rather than part of the scheme of a soda jerk, a phrase which here means "ice cream shop employee who is trying to injure your tongue, " and by the twelfth time you find a thumbtack, your despair is even greater still, until you can hardly utter the phrase "root beer float" without bursting into tears. It is almost as if happiness is an acquired taste, like coconut cordial or ceviche, to which you can eventually become accustomed, but despair is something surprising each time you encounter it. . Lemony Snicket

I could hear the knock and whistle of the water pipes, the purr of the calico cat. And at that moment a happiness filled me that was pure and perfect and yet it was bled with despair - as if I had been handed a cup of ambrosial nectar to drink from and knew that once I finished drinking, the cup would be withdrawn forever, and nothing to come would ever taste as good. David Leavitt

People settle for a level of despair they can tolerate and call it happiness. Unknown

Those who make us believe that anything’s possible and fire our imagination over the long haul, are often the ones who have survived the bleakest of circumstances. The men and women who have every reason to despair, but don’t, may have the most to teach us, not only about how to hold true to our beliefs, but about how such a life can bring about seemingly impossible social change. Paul Rogat Loeb

Despair is a free man–hope isa slave. L.m. Montgomery

Despair is for people who know, beyond any doubt, what the future is going to bring. Nobody is in that position. So despair is not only a kind of sin, theologically, but also a simple mistake, because nobody actually knows. In that sense there is always hope. Patrick Curry

NOT, I’ll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee; Not untwist–slack they may be–these last strands of man In me ór, most weary, cry I can no more. I can; Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be. Gerard Manley Hopkins

The Imagination merely enables us to wander into the darkness of the unknown where, by the dim light of the knowledge we carry, we may glimpse something that seems of interest. But when we bring it out and examine it more closely it usually proves to be only trash whose glitter had caught our attention. Imagination is at once the source of all hope and inspiration but also of frustration. To forget this is to court despair. . Unknown

Frodo raised his head, and then stood up. Despair had not left him, but the weakness had passed. He even smiled grimly, feeling now as clearly as a moment before he had felt the opposite, that what he had to do, he had to do, if he could, and that whether Faramir or Aragorn or Elrond or Galadriel or Gandalf or anyone else knew about it was beside the purpose. He took his staff in one hand and the phial in his other. When he saw that the clear light was already welling through his fingers, he thrust it into his bosom and held it against his heart. Then turning from the city of Morgul, now no more than a grey glimmer across a dark gulf, he prepared to take the upward road. J.r.r. Tolkien

Now I want you to remember something because I don't think we shall meet again very soon. It is this; however fashionable despair about the world and about people may be at present, and however powerful despair may become in the future, not everybody, or even most people, think and live fashionably; virtue and honour will not be banished from the world, however many popular moralists and panicky journalists say so. Sacrifice will not cease to be because psychiatrists have popularized the idea that there is often some concealed, self-serving element in it; theologians always knew that. Nor do I think love as a high condition of honour will be lost; it is a pattern in the spirit, and people long to make the pattern a reality in their own lives, whatever means they take to do so. In short, Davey, God is not dead. And I can assure you God is not mocked. Robertson Davies

I think if Eternity held torment, its form would not be fiery rack, nor its nature, despair. I think that on a certain day amongst those days which never dawned, and will not set, an angel entered Hades – stood, shone, smiled, delivered a prophecy of conditional pardon, kindled a doubtful hope of bliss to come, not now, but at a day and hour unlooked for, revealed in his own glory and grandeur the height and compass of his promise: spoke thus – then towering, became a star, and vanished into his own Heaven. His legacy was suspense – a worse boon than despair. Unknown

We all get in a funk sometimes. It doesn't mean you're failing, or ungrateful, or stupid, or lost. It means you're human. The Funk happens. For all of us. We can’t be happy all the time. We don’t need to be. Scott Stabile

Yet something else trickles in between the cracks of this despairing thought. The hope of something to fill that emptiness. The hope that, perhaps, I have found it already. And suddenly hope is a thing alive, soaring in me. Its wings beat against my ribs, wild with the promise of joy. Ashlee Willis

So I tried my best to stifle hope. Because hope's twin was despair, and despair was infinitely worse. If hope hurt, then despair was the absence of hurt. It was the absence of feeling. It was the absence of caring. I wanted very much to care. S. JaeJones

Despair is not solid. Neither is joy. They alternate, and contain each other. There is no joy that is not also touched by sorrow, no grief that is not rendered sharper by the memory of bliss. If things move forward in one direction and not another, they do so by rolling there, passing through the same tight orbit, touching here an ecstasy, there another shattering loss. Ben Ehrenreich

Youth, elastic and bright, disdains to be compelled. When conquered, from its very chains it forges implements for freedom; it alights from one baffled flight, only again to soar on untired wing towards some other aim. Previous defeat is made the bridge to pass the tide to another shore; and, if that break down, its fragments become stepping stones. It will feed upon despair, and call it a medicine which is to renovate its dying hopes. . Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

I am–yet what I am none cares or knows; My friends forsake me like a memory lost: I am the self-consumer of my woes– They rise and vanish in oblivious host, Like shadows in love’s frenzied stifled throes And yet I am, and live–like vapours tossed Into the nothingness of scorn and noise, Into the living sea of waking dreams, Where there is neither sense of life or joys, But the vast shipwreck of my life’s esteems; Even the dearest that I loved the best Are strange–nay, rather, stranger than the rest. John Clare

Into the nothingness of scorn and noise, Into the living sea of waking dreams, Where there is neither sense of life or joys, But the vast shipwreck of my life’s esteems; Even the dearest that I loved the best Are strange–nay, rather, stranger than the rest. John Clare

For many, the search for Jesus is initiated from experiencing an event in life so powerful, it awakens the dragons of faith; from pain so deep, it calls on the hidden fears of the soul in an effort to survive. For others it means a serious personal life survey that ultimately forces the confrontation with the futility, anesthetics, and despair in their lives. W. Scott Lineberry

My first feeling was that there was no way to continue. Writing isn't like math;in math, two plus two always equals four no matter what your mood is like. With writing, the way you feel changes everything. Stephenie Meyer

The death of a dream can in fact serve as the vehicle that endows it with new form, with reinvigorated substance, a fresh flow of ideas, and splendidly revitalized color. In short, the power of a certain kind of dream is such that death need not indicate finality at all but rather signify a metaphysical and metaphorical leap forward. Aberjhani

Much protest is naïve; it expects quick, visible improvement and despairs and gives up when such improvement does not come. Protesters who hold out longer have perhaps understood that success is not the proper goal. If protest depended on success, there would be little protest of any durability or significance. History simply affords too little evidence that anyone’s individual protest is of any use. Protest that endures, I think, is moved by a hope far more modest than that of public success: namely, the hope of preserving qualities in one’s own heart and spirit that would be destroyed by acquiescence. Wendell Berry

Why?' says the boy.' Why? Because staying alive is more important than anything else.'' Why is staying alive more important than anything?' He is about to answer, about to produce the correct, patient, educative words, when something wells up inside him. Anger? No. Irritation? No: more than that. Despair? Perhaps: despair in one of its minor forms. Why? Because he would like to believe he is guiding the child through the maze of the moral life when, correctly, patiently, he answers his unceasing 'Why' questions. But where is there any evidence that the child absorbs his guidance or even hears what he says? He stops where he is on the busy sidewalk. Inés and the boy stop too, and stare at him in puzzlement. 'Think of it in this way, ' he says. 'We are tramping through the desert, you and Inés and I. You tell me you are thirsty and I offer you a glass of water. Instead of drinking the water you pour it out in the sand. You say you thirst for answers: 'Why this? Why that?' I, because I am patient, because I love you, offer you an answer each time, which you pour away in the sand. Today, at last, I am tired of offering you water. 'Why is staying alive important?' If life does not seem important to you, so be it.' Inés raises a hand to her mouth in dismay. As for the boy, his face sets in a frown. 'You say you love me but you don't love me, ' he says. 'You just pretend. J.M. Coetzee

What is particularly striking about his reconstruction and criticisms of the traditional account of friendship is that he finds it deficient not only by the light of his own Christian viewpoint; he also finds friendship deficient when judged from the perspective of its own self-proclaimed ethical foundations. Thus, Kierkegaard concludes that the reciprocity involved in friendship actually betrays its essential selfishness. Graham Smith

She had an emptiness in her eyes like a ghost tired of haunting. Stuart Jaffe

Does anything in nature despair except man? An animal with a foot caught in a trap does not seem to despair. It is too busy trying to survive. It is all closed in, to a kind of still, intense waiting. Is this a key? Keep busy with survival. Imitate the trees. Learn to lose in order to recover, and remember that nothing stays the same for long, not even pain, psychic pain. Sit it out. Let it all pass. Let it go. May Sarton

Here dwells a snake, one thousand miles long Coiled, one thousand miles deep Eyes like candy, it has eyes like candy Hard and blue, but soft as kittens feet Out of sight or in the element of light It could be a devil, it could be an angel With spiders inside a vision from hell Its spine is a vertical scream Slow as concrete, blurred as a dream Fueled by inertia, depth, radius, and velocity, Its soul--a twisted wreckage of despair and pain And the spiders inside are just praying for rain Killing time killing time And praying for rain One thousand miles deep . James OBarr

You’re trying to look for rock bottom, to that part of yourself that could no longer feel pain. But there is no such thing as rock bottom. As long as there is left to destroy in you, you’d do it. We always feel the need to sink ourselves because we keep being intolerable, because if we’re suffering then maybe people would give us a break for all the shameful things we do. You think you could impose your own penance, but it never goes away, does it? That kind of deadening that’s worse than actual dying. V.J. Campilan

She imagined herself drowning along the tides of Sumendu Lake, down own into the depths of solemn solitude, splashing into the serenity of forever silence. Ashmita Acharya

At times I was desperate and could find no solace anywhere. Nothing seemed to work, and the weight of being trapped in my own body made it difficult to lift even a hand off the sheets. Lucy Grealy

But if a person hasn't ever experienced true despair, she grows old never knowing how to evaluate where she is in life; never understanding what joy really is. I'm grateful for it. Banana Yoshimoto

Without hardships, how could we know hope? Lailah Gifty Akita

When a man is in despair, it means that he still believes in something. Dmitri Shostakovich

The strength of your mind determines the depth of your desperation! The weaker the mind, the deeper the desperation! Mehmet Murat Ildan

Sandra had studied psychiatry in order to understand the nature of despair, but all she had really learned was the pharmacology of it. The human mind was easier to medicate than to comprehend. Robert Charles Wilson

There's only one great evil in the world today. Despair. Evelyn Waugh

The Scriptures are words of great encouragement. Lailah Gifty Akita

Rest, refreshed and revived your soul. Lailah Gifty Akita

Accept things that will make you happy. This is the joy of sacred existence. Lailah Gifty Akita

You can’t truly heal from a loss until you allow yourself to really FEEL the loss. Mandy Hale

Me? You are laughing at me. Put your hand here. This has no theology.' I mocked myself while I made love. I flung myself into pleasure like a suicide on to a pavement. Graham Greene

If a person hasn't ever experienced true despair, she grows old never knowing how to evaluate where she is in life; never understanding what joy really is. Banana Yoshimoto

Erica's despair has nothing to do with lack of motherly love. She loved Maja fiercely and sincerely. At the same time she felt as if she'd been invaded by an alien parasite that sucked all joy out of her and forced her into a shadow existence that had nothing in common with the life she'd lived before. Unknown

For the normal man, life is an undisputed reality; only the sick man is delighted by life and praises it so that he won't collapse. Emil M. Cioran

Now, I believe in life, and I believe in the joy of human existence, but these things cannot be experienced except as we also face the despair, also face the anxiety that every human being has to face if he lives with any creativity at all. Rollo May

Sometimes the world is so much sicker than the inmates of its institutions. Joanne Greenberg

Despair was a private weakness she could not afford to indulge. Robin McKinley

The survived souls give strength to the suffering souls. Lailah Gifty Akita

Overworking leads to exhaustion. Lailah Gifty Akita

The Saviour is a life-giving light. Lailah Gifty Akita

A weird time in which we are alive. We can travel anywhere we want, even to other planets. And for what? To sit day after day, declining in morale and hope. Philip K. Dick

No reflection was to be allowed now, not one glance was to be cast back; not even one forward. Not one thought was to be given either to the past or the future. The first was a page so heavenly sweet, so deadly sad, that to read one line of it would dissolve my courage and break down my energy. The last was an awful blank, something like then world when the deluge was gone by. Unknown

Have You Prayed” When the windturns and asks, in my father’s voice, Have you prayed? I know three things. One:I’m never finished answering to the dead. Two: A man is four winds and three fires. And the four winds are his father’s voice, his mother’s voice . .Or maybe he’s seven winds and ten fires. And the fires are seeing, hearing, touching, dreaming, thinking .Or is he the breath of God?When the wind turns travelerand asks, in my father’s voice, Have you prayed? I remember three things. One: A father’s loveis milk and sugar, two-thirds worry, two-thirds grief, and what’s left overis trimmed and leavened to make the breadthe dead and the living share. And patience? That’s to endurethe terrible leavening and kneading. And wisdom? That’s my father’s face in sleep. When the windasks, Have you prayed? I know it’s only mereminding myselfa flower is one station betweenearth’s wish and earth’s rapture, and bloodwas fire, salt, and breath long beforeit quickened any wand or branch, any limbthat woke speaking. It’s just mein the gowns of the wind, or my father through me, asking, Have you found your refuge yet?asking, Are you happy? Strange. A troubled father. A happy son. The wind with a voice. And me talking to no one. . LiYoung Lee