Despair quotes

Despair

934 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.

934 quotes

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Despair quotes (page 12 of 47)

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Soren Kierkegaard Philosopher, Theologian
Despair

"The most common despair is...not choosing, or willing, to be oneself...[but] the deepest form of despair is to choose to be another than oneself."

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Robert Wright Author
Despair

"Whereas modern cynicism brought despair about the ability of the human species to realize laudable ideals, postmodern cynicism doesn't — not because it's optimistic, but because it can't take ideals seriously in the first place. The prevailing attitude is Absurdism. A postmodern magazine may be irreverent, but not bitterly irreverent, for it's not purposefully irreverent; its aim is indiscriminate, because everyone is equally ridiculous. And anyway, there's no moral basis for passing judgment. Just sit back and enjoy the show."

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Susan Sontag Essayist, Critic, Activist
Despair

"Instead of expecting all and being lowered into despair each time I get less, I expect nothing now and, occasionally, I get a little, and am more than a little happy."

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H. G. Wells Writer
Despair

"By this time I was no longer very much terrified or very miserable. I had, as it were, passed the limit of terror and despair. I felt now that my life was practically lost, and that persuasion made me capable of daring anything"

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Lee Child Author
Despair

"That should be your town motto. It's all I ever hear. Like: New Hampshire, Live Free or Die. It should be: Despair, You Need To Leave Now."

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Friedrich Nietzsche Philosopher, Writer
Despair

"Subordination to morality can be slavish or vain or self- interested or resigned or gloomily enthusiastic or thoughtless or an act of despair, just as subordination to a prince can be: in itself it is nothing moral."

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Joseph Conrad Novelist, Short Story Writer
Despair

"I can't tell if a straw ever saved a drowning man, but I know that a mere glance is enough to make dspair pause. For in truth, we who are creatures of impulse, are creatures of despair."

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Peter Drucker Management Consultant, Author
Despair

"[The masses] ... must turn their hopes toward a miracle. In the depths of their despair reason cannot be believed, truth must be false, and lies must be truth. "Higher bread prices," "lower bread prices," "unchanged bread prices" have all failed. The only hope lies in a kind of bread price which is none of these, which nobody has ever seen before, and which belies the evidence of one's reason."

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Elie Wiesel Writer, Holocaust Survivor
Despair

"He wants to see whether we are capable of overcoming out base instincts, of killing the Satan within ourselves. We have no right to despair. And if he punishes us mercilessly, it is a sign that He loves us that much more."

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Elie Wiesel Writer, Holocaust Survivor
Despair

"Look, if I were alone in the world, I would have the right to choose despair, solitude and self-fulfillment. But I am not alone."

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Elizabeth Gilbert Author, Memoirist
Despair

"Before you realize this truth, say the Yogis, you will always be in despair, a notion nicely expressed in this exasperated line from the Greek stoic philosopher Epictetus: 'You bear God within you, poor wretch, and know it not."

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Ellen Willis Writer, Activist
Despair

"The will to power is the will to ecstasy is the will to surrender is the will to submit and, in extremis, to die. Or to put it another way, the rage to attain a freedom and happiness one's psyche cannot accept creates enormous anxiety and ends in self-punishing despair."

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