Despair quotes
934 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Browse quotes that often appear alongside despair — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"There is a perennial nobleness, and even sacredness, in work. Were he never so benighted, forgetful of his high calling, there is always hope in a man that actually and earnestly works: in idleness alone there is perpetual despair."
"I have learned that one cannot truly know hope unless he has found out how like despair hope is."
"Sin is in itself separation from the good, but despair over sin is separation a second time."
"You can approach the act of writing with nervousness, excitement, hopefulness, or despair ... Come to it any way but lightly."
"There is hope after despair and many suns after darkness."
"Suffering is a big informer, a big catalyst for creation. You take your sadness, your despair, your sense of injustice, and you put it in your work."
"The world surely has not another place like Oxford; it is a despair to see such a place and ever to leave it, for it would take a lifetime and more than one to comprehend and enjoy it satisfactorily."
"Some noble spirits mistake despair for content."
"To be Despair. It is a portrait. Only close your eyes and feel."
"Believe not much them that seem to despise riches, for they despise them that despair of them."
"The first question to be answered by any individual or by any social group, The real handle facing a hazardous sit - to a difficult uation, is whether the stuaton crisis is to be met as a challenge to strength or as an occasion for despair."
"Only where there is disillusionment and depression and sorrow does happiness arise; without the despair of loss, there is no hope."
"There is no hour that has not its births of gladness and despair, no morning brightness that does not bring new sickness to desolation as well as new forces to genius and love. There are so many of us, and our lots are so different, what wonder that Nature's mood is often in harsh contrast with the great crisis of our lives?"
"To the old, sorrow is sorrow; to the young, it is despair."
"Can it be that I have overlooked something, that there is something which I have failed to understand? Is it not possible that this state of despair is common to everyone?"
"Our Western society is showing its technological muscles in ever more threatening ways, but the experience of fear, anxiety and even despair has increased in equal proportion. Indeed, the paradox is that the powerful giants feel as powerless as a new-born babe."
"Despair and postponement are cowardice and defeat. Men were born to succeed, not to fail."
"Alienation is a form of living death. It is the acid of despair that dissolves society."
"There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair."
"We cannot do without it, and yet we disgrace and vilify the same. It may be compared to a cage, the birds without despair to get in, and those within despair to get out."
