Despair quotes
934 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside despair — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"However desperate the situation and circumstances, don't despair. When there is everything to fear, be unafraid. When surrounded by dangers, fear none of them. When without resources, depend on resourcefulness. When surprised, take the enemy by surprise."
"When there's no sign of hope in the desert, so much hope still lives inside despair. Heart, don't kill that hope."
"When suddenly you seem to lose all you thought you had gained, do not despair. You must expect setbacks and regressions. Don't say to yourself "All is lost. I have to start all over again." This is not true. What you have gained you have gained....When you return to the the road, you return to the place where you left it, not to where you started."
"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."
"Do not despair of your life. You have force enough to overcome your obstacles."
"The deepest form of despair is to choose to be another than himself."
"Because no battle is ever won he said. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools."
"For that was the terrible power of the dementors: to force their victims to relive the worst memories of their lives, and drown, powerless, in theirown despair. . . ."
"It is necessary to fall in love... if only to provide an alibi for all the random despair you are going to feel anyway."
"Whenever our sins press hard against us, whenever Satan would drive us to despair, we must hold up this shield, that God does not want us to be overwhelmed in everlasting destruction, for He has ordained His Son to be the salvation of the world."
"Symmetry is tedious, and tedium is the very basis of mourning. Despair yawns."
"Nihilism is not only despair and negation, but above all the desire to despair and to negate."
"No matter how ephemeral it is, a novel is something, while despair is nothing."
"The labor movement was the principal force that transformed misery and despair into hope and progress."
"Can you understand? Someone, somewhere, can you understand me a little, love me a little? For all my despair, for all my ideals, for all that - I love life. But it is hard, and I have so much - so very much to learn."
"All my life I believed I knew something. But then one strange day came when I realized that I knew nothing, yes, I knew nothing. And so words became void of meaning. I have arrived too late at ultimate uncertainty."
"The entire world shall be populous with that action which saves one soul from despair."
"Faith in Christ is the only thing to save you from despair."
"I see people allowing their lives to diminish, to become shallow, so they can't enjoy the deep wells of experience. Maybe it's always been this way, when the heart tends to shut down. If only the heart shut down and there were no repercussions, it would be O.K., but when the heart shuts down, the whole system goes into a kind of despair that is intolerable."
"...the habit of despair is worse than despair itself."
