Popular quotes about Despair! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 21
You're not eating anything," said Marilla sharply, eying her as if it were a serious shortcoming. Anne sighed. I can't. I'm in the depths of despair. Can you eat when you are in the depths of despair?" I've never been in the depths of despair, so I can't say," responded Marilla. Weren't you? Well, did you ever try to IMAGINE you were in the depths of despair?" No, I didn't." Then I don't think you can understand what it's like. It's very uncomfortable a feeling indeed.
Lucy Maud MontgomeryCourage is not the absence of despair; it is, rather, the capacity to move ahead in spite of despair.
Rollo MayI treated despair in terms of hierarchy: if there was a more important pain in the world, it meant my own was negated. I thought I simply had to accept the fact that I was ugly, and that to feel despair about it was simply wrong.
Lucy GrealyTo him whom contemplates a trait of natural beauty, no harm nor despair can come. The doctrines of despair, spiritual or political servitude, were never taught by those who shared the serenity of Nature. For each phase of Nature, though not invisible, is yet not too distinct or obtrusive. It is there to be found when we look for it, but not too demanding of our attention.
Henry David ThoreauDon't despair: despair suggests you are in total control and know what is coming. You don't - surrender to events with hope.
Alain de BottonIt is said that scattered through Despair's domain are a multitude of tiny windows, hanging in the void. Each window looks out onto a different scene, being, in our world, a mirror. Sometimes you will look into a mirror and feel the eyes of Despair upon you, feel her hook catch and snag on your heart.
Neil GaimanDoes 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 SartonIt requires courage not to surrender oneself to the ingenious or compassionate counsels of despair that would induce a man to eliminate himself from the ranks of the living; but it does not follow from this that every huckster who is fattened and nourished in self-confidence has more courage than the man who yielded to despair.
Soren KierkegaardNo one can travel so far that he does not make some progess each day. So let us never give up. Then we shall move forward daily in the Lord's way. And let us never despair because of our limited success. Even though it is so much less than we would like, our labour is not wasted when today is better than yesterday!
John CalvinWhy are there beings at all instead of nothing? That is the question. Presumably it is not arbitrary question, "Why are there beings at all instead of nothing"- this is obviously the first of all questions. Of course it is not the first question in the chronological sense [...] And yet, we are each touched once, maybe even every now and then, by the concealed power of this question, without properly grasping what is happening to us. In great despair, for example, when all weight tends to dwindle away from things and the sense of things grows dark, the question looms.
Martin HeideggerQuestion of "Where We Begin" turns to be not only a formal question but also a question central to the attempt to make sense of things about which it is very difficult to make any sense - illness, death, despair, suicides, cruelty, the various troubles love can provoke, our inability to really know one another when we our inner selves are walled off by our bodies.
Kyle MinorIn my heart I know you didn't come here just for me, you came here because you believe in what this country can be. In the face of war, you believe there can be peace. In the face of despair, you believe there can be hope. In the face of a politics that's shut you out, that's told you to settle, that's divided us for too long, you believe we can be one people, reaching for what's possible, building that more perfect union.
Barack ObamaInstead 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.
Susan SontagHumans cannot reject temptation. When they are plunged into the depths of despair, likened to hell, they will hold on to anything that may help them escape from the situation they are in, even if it's merely a spider's thread, no matter what sort of humans they are.
Yana TobosoThe artist's talent sits uneasy as an object of public acclaim, having been so long an object of private despair.
Robert BreaultI have been reading the morning paper. I do it every morning-knowing well that I shall find in it the usual depravities and basenesses and hypocrisies and cruelties that make up civilization, and cause me to put in the rest of the day pleading for the damnation of the human race. I cannot seem to get my prayers answered, yet I do not despair.
Mark TwainWhen he awoke it was dawn. Or something like dawn. The light was watery, dim and incomparably sad. Vast, grey, gloomy hills rose up all around them and in between the hills there was a wide expanse of black bog. Stephen had never seen a landscape so calculated to reduce the onlooker to utter despair in an instant. "This is one of your kingdoms, I suppose, sir?" he said. "My kingdoms?" exclaimed the gentleman in surprize. "Oh, no! This is Scotland!
Susanna ClarkeWhy do we protect children from life? It's no wonder that we become afraid to live. We're not told what life really is. We're not told that life is joy and wonder and magic and even rapture, if you can get involved enough. We're not told that life is also pain, misery, despair, unhappiness, and tears. I don't know about you, but I don't want to miss any of it. I want to embrace life, and I want to find out what it's all about. I wouldn't want to go through life without knowing what it is to cry.
Leo BuscagliaThe one who confidently looks forward to an eternal reward for his efforts in mortality is constantly sustained through his deepest trials. When he is disappointed in love, he does not commit suicide. When loved ones die, he doesnโt despair; when he loses a coveted contest, he doesnโt falter; when war and destruction dissipate his future, he doesnโt sink into a depression. He lives above his world and never loses sight of the goal of his salvation.
Harold B. LeeThose who say they believe in God and yet neither love nor fear Him, do not in fact believe in Him but in those who have taught them that God exists. Those who believe that they believe in God, but without any passion in their heart, any anguish of mind, without uncertainty, without doubt, without an element of despair even in their consolation, believe only in the God-idea, not in God.
Miguel de UnamunoThe lily I condemned for thy hand, And buds of marjoram had stol'n thy hair: The roses fearfully on thorns did stand, One blushing shame, another white despair; A third, nor red nor white, had stol'n of both And to his robbery had annex'd thy breath; But, for his theft, in pride of all his growth A vengeful canker eat him up to death. More flowers I noted, yet I none could see But sweet or colour it had stol'n from thee.
William ShakespeareWhen they are assailed by despair, young people should let universal concerns into their lives.
Abbe PierreThere is no answer to Auschwitz...To try to answer is to commit a supreme blasphemy. Israel enables us to bear the agony of Auschwitz without radical despair, to sense a ray of God's radiance in the jungles of history.
Abraham Joshua HeschelI have noticed if I pull from fear or despair about the state of the world, I get tired, ineffective, afraid and sometimes mean-spirited.
Elizabeth LesserHis fair landlady was in despair. She would most willingly have made M. d'Artagnan her husband--such a handsome man, and such a fierce mustache!
Alexandre DumasNo matter what, we always have the power to choose hope over despair, engagement over apathy, kindness over indifference, enthusiasm over lethargy, love over hate. This is our true freedom. Whatever life may throw at us, we have the freedom and ability to choose our attitude. And I believe it is in those moments of choice that we manifest our destiny.
Cory BookerI have nothing against people having work done, it is when I hear tale of girls of 16 queuing up to get bigger breasts, that is when I despair.
Amanda BurtonDifficulty need not foreshadow despair or defeat. Rather achievement can be all the more satisfying because of obstacles surmounted.
William H. HastieWe need not despair even in our worst, for our failures are forgiven. The only fatal thing is to sit down content with anything less than perfection.
C. S. LewisTo a certain extent all philosophers have been involved in a systematic questioning that undermines confidence and certainty. Philosophy as a whole unleashed skeptical forces which, outside of the tightly controlled environment of a rigorous philosophical debate, led a lot of people to throw their hands up in despair and think 'what's the point?'. A lot of the public perception of philosophy is that it leaves you with no answers, and more confused than you were at the beginning.
Julian BagginiThough you have sinned much, that is no reason why you should despair, but only why you should love much, having so much forgiven.
George WhitefieldHope is essential to any political struggle for radical change when the overall social climate promotes disillusionment and despair.
Bell HooksLove. Healing. Help. Hope. The power of Christ to counter all troubles in all timesโincluding the end of times. That is the safe harbor God wants for us in personal or public days of despair. That is the message with which the Book of Mormon begins, and that is the message with which it ends, calling all to 'come unto Christ, and be perfected in him' (Moroni 10:32).
Jeffrey R. HollandIt behooves us to accomplish what God requires of us, even when we are in the greatest despair respecting the results.
John CalvinThere is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.
Toni MorrisonDon't despair too much if you see beautiful things destroyed, if you see them perish. Because the best things are always growing in secret.
Ben OkriShe had wandered, without rule or guidance, into a moral wilderness... Her intellect and heart had their home, as it were, in desert places, where she roamed as freely as the wild Indian in his woods... The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachersโstern and wild onesโand they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
Nathaniel HawthorneThe next decade will perhaps raise us a step above despair to a cleaner, clearer wisdom and biology cannot fail to help in this. As we become increasingly aware of the ethical problems raised by science and technology, the frontiers between the biological and social sciences are clearly of critical importance-in population density and problems of hunger, psychological stress, pollution of the air and water and exhaustion of irreplaceable resources.
H. Bentley Glass