Despair quotes
934 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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"[Lost of the absolute] is in this sense that ''I no longer know what to do with my life" must be understood. Critics have been mistaken about the meaning of this phrase, seeing in it a cry of despair as in Simone de Beauvoir's "I have been cheated." When she uses this word it is to indicate that she claims from life an absolute which she cannot find there."
"Despair ruins some, presumption many."
"To be truly radical is to make hope possible rather than despair inevitable."
"Only a soul full of despair can ever attain serenity and, to be in despair, you must have loved a good deal and still love the world."
"It becomes no man to nurse despair, but, in the teeth of clenched antagonisms, to follow up the worthiest till he die."
"He who despairs of the human condition is a coward, but he who has hope for it is a fool."
"I learned to love despair."
"One should never despair too soon."
"I know nothing more mocking than a devil that despairs."
"Sun, I come to see you for the last time."
"Despair is a narcotic. It lulls the mind into indifference."
"The denial of our duty to act in this case is a denial of our right to act; and if we have no right to act, then may we well be termed the white slaves of the North, for like our brethren in bonds, we must seal our lips in silence and despair."
"Despair is suffering without meaning."
"What is Hope?Hope is that inner dynamic that compels us to explore and pursue the expectations built into the human condition. Hope was born the day the first human beings discovered the first bridge and decided not to jump off the bridge in despair, but to cross it"
"Laissez-faire, supply and demand-one begins to be weary of all that. Leave all to egotism, to ravenous greed of money, of pleasure, of applause-it is the gospel of despair."
"I can't read or sleep. Without hope or youth or money I sit constantly wishing I were dead."
"Disease, a simple famine, plagues of locusts everywhere, or a cataclysmic earthquake, I'd accept with some despair, but no, you sent us Congress! Good God, Sir, was that fair?"
"A life that is without problems may literally be more hopeless, than one that always verges on despair."
"You accept that this civilisation could be abolished and life will begin later on after a few thousand years because that is something that has happened in the history of this planet. When you have peace in yourself and accept, then you are calm enough to do something, but if you are carried by despair there is no hope."
"Never do what a specialist can do better. Discover your own specialty. Do not despair if your specialty appears to be more delicate, a lesser thing. Make up in finesse what you lose in force."
