Desolation Quotes - Page 6

• All the earth, though it were full of kind hearts, is but a desolation and desert place to a mother when her only child is absent.

  Elizabeth Gaskell

  Mother, Children, Heart

  Elizabeth Gaskell (2010). “The Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell (20+ Books)”, p.1272, BookCaps Study Guides

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• I think that if I get into the habit of writing a bit about what happens, or rather doesn't happen, I may lose a little of the sense of isolation and desolation which abides with me. My circumstances allowing of nothing but the ejaculation of one-syllabled reflections, a written monologue by that most interesting being, myself, may have its yet to be discovered consolations.

  Alice James

  Writing, Thinking, Reflection

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• The perpetual mourner -- the grief that can never be healed -- is innocently enough felt to be wearisome by the rest of the world. And my sense of desolation increases. Each day seems a new beginning -- a new acquaintance with grief.

  George Eliot

  Grief, New Beginnings, Each Day

  George Eliot, John Walter Cross (2010). “George Eliot's Life, as Related in Her Letters and Journals”, p.348, Cambridge University Press

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• The laws of war, that restrain the exercise of national rapine and murder, are founded on two principles of substantial interest: the knowledge of the permanent benefits which may be obtained by a moderate use of conquest, and a just apprehension lest the desolation which we inflict on the enemy's country may be retaliated on our own. But these considerations of hope and fear are almost unknown in the pastoral state of nations.

  Edward Gibbon

  Country, War, Exercise

  Edward Gibbon (1840). “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, p.161

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• There was a frosty rime upon the trees, which, in the faint light of the clouded moon, hung upon the smaller branches like dead garlands. Withered leaves crackled and snapped beneath his feet, as he crept softly on towards the house. The desolation of a winter night sat brooding on the earth, and in the sky. But, the red light came cheerily towards him from the windows; figures passed and repassed there; and the hum and murmur of voices greeted his ear sweetly.

  Charles Dickens

  Nature, Winter, Night

  Charles Dickens (1867). “Charles Dickens's works. Charles Dickens ed. [18 vols. of a 21 vol. set. Wanting A child's history of England; Christmas stories; The mystery of Edwin Drood].”, p.184

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• To those human beings who are of any concern to me, I wish suffering, desolation, sickness, ill treatment, indignities, profound self-contempt, the torture of self-mistrust, and the wretchedness of the vanquished.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Self, Ill Treatment, Profound

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• Stand in despair anywhere old-growth forest has been clear-felled. All life has been replaced by blackened, poisoned desolation. Animals and birds have either fled or been killed, and baits are laid waiting for those that should return. And in these tortured places, the devastation is brutal and total. And this is what greed looks like.

  Peter Cundall

  Animal, Greed, Bird

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• I hope we shall prove how much happier for man the Quaker policy is, and that the life of the feeder is better than that of the fighter; and it is some consolation that the desolation by these maniacs of one part of the earth is the means of improving it in other parts. Let the latter be our office, and let us milk the cow, while the Russian holds her by the horns, and the Turk by the tail.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Mean, Men, Office

  Thomas Jefferson, Henry Augustine Washington (1854). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence, cont”, p.245

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• When I think of this life I have led; the desolation of solitude it has been; the masoned, walled-town of a Captain's exclusiveness, which admits but small entrance to any sympathy from the green country without - oh, weariness! heaviness! Guinea-coast slavery of solitary command!

  Herman Melville

  Life, Country, Thinking

  1851 Captain Ahab. Moby Dick, ch.132.

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• North was only a direction indicated by a compass--if a man had one, that is, for otherwise there was no north or south or east or west; there was only the brooding desolation.

  Shelby Foote

  Men, East, West

  Shelby Foote (2011). “The Civil War: A Narrative: Volume 2: Fredericksburg to Meridian”, p.128, Vintage

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• 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?

  George Eliot

  Morning, Balance, Despair

  George Eliot (2016). “Adam Bede”, p.316, George Eliot

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• Civilizations come and go; they conquer the earth and crumble into dust; but faith survives every desolation.

  Will Durant

  Dust, Civilization, Earth

  Will Durant (2011). “The Life of Greece: The Story of Civilization”, p.75, Simon and Schuster

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• I confess, without shame, that I am sick and tired of fighting — its glory is all moonshine; even success the most brilliant is over dead and mangled bodies, with the anguish and lamentations of distant families, appealing to me for sons, husbands, and fathers ... it is only those who have never heard a shot, never heard the shriek and groans of the wounded and lacerated ... that cry aloud for more blood, more vengeance, more desolation.

  William Tecumseh Sherman

  Husband, Father, Tired

  Letter to James E. Yeatman on May 21, 1865. "Sherman: Merchant of Terror, Advocate of Peace". Book by Charles Edmund Vetter, p. 289, 1992.

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• The wolf is the arch type of ravin, the beast of waste and desolation.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Arches, Waste, Beast

  Theodore Roosevelt (2016). “Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches”, p.113, Sheba Blake Publishing

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• Who shall contend with time,--unvanquished time, the conqueror of conquerors and lord of desolation?

  Henry Kirke White

  Time, Lord, Conqueror

  Henry Kirke White (1842). “The Works of Henry Kirke White: Containing His Life, Poems, and Melancholy Hours”, p.204

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• Grace comes often clad in the dusky robe of desolation.

  Francis Beaumont

  Grace, Robes

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• But neither Europe nor Africa can show any such desolation as America. The proudest, stubbornest, bitterest peasant of deserted Spain, the most primitive and superstitious Arab of the remotest oases, are a little more than kin and never less than kind at their worst; whereas in the United States one is almost always conscious of an instinctive lack of sympathy and understanding with even the most charming and cultured people.

  Aleister Crowley

  America, Oasis, Europe

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• There are women to whom nature has granted the gift of silent emotion. They have mobile faces, changeful eyes, soft lips, which express joy or desolation naturally, and with the charm of perfect simplicity and truth.

  Sarah Doudney

  Eye, Perfect, Simplicity

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• In times of desolation, God conceals Himself from us so that we can discover for ourselves what we are without Him.

  Margaret of Cortona

  Saint

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• While we are actually subjected to them, the 'moods' and 'spirits' of nature point no morals. Overwhelming gaiety, insupportable grandeur, sombre desolation are flung at you. Make what you can of them, if you must make at all. The only imperative that nature utters is, 'Look. Listen. Attend.

  C. S. Lewis

  Nature, Looks, Spirit

  C. S. Lewis (1971). “The Four Loves”, p.31, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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