Despair Quotes - Page 37

• Happiness lies in conquering one's enemies, in driving them in front of oneself, in taking their property, in savoring their despair, in outraging their wives and daughters.

  Genghis Khan

  Daughter, Lying, Wife

  Quoted inWitold Rodzinski, TheWalled Kingdom: A History of China (1979)

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• It's so much easier to count our disadvantages than tot up the mitigating circumstances that generally outweigh the despair.

  Mariella Frostrup

  Tots, Easier, Disadvantages

  "Dear Mariella" by Mariella Frostrup, www.theguardian.com. May 08, 2010.

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• Despair ... is the only cure for illusion. Without despair we cannot transfer our allegiance to reality - it's a kind of mourning period for our fantasies. Some people do not survive this despair, but no major change within a person can occur without it.

  Philip Slater

  Reality, People, Mourning

  Philip Slater (1974). “Earth-walk”

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• Poetry has its uses for despair. It can carve a shape in which a pain can seem to be; it can give one’s loss a form and dimension so that it might be loss and not simply a hopeless haunting. It can do these things for one person, or it can do them for an entire culture. But poetry is for psychological, spiritual, or emotional pain. For physical pain it is, like everything but drugs, useless.

  Christian Wiman

  Spiritual, Pain, Loss

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• Those who make us believe that anything’s possible and fire our imagination over the long haul, are often the ones who have survived the bleakest of circumstances. The men and women who have every reason to despair, but don’t, may have the most to teach us, not only about how to hold true to our beliefs, but about how such a life can bring about seemingly impossible social change.

  Paul Rogat Loeb

  Believe, Men, Fire

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• What use would wings be to a man bound in iron fetters? They would only drive him to even greater despair.

  Adelbert von Chamisso

  Men, Wings, Iron

  Adelbert von Chamisso, Prosper Mérimée, Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1964). “3 great classics”

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• The doubters are always more blessed than the mere fellow travelers in faith. For they are the only ones who fully learn that their Lord is stronger than any doubt and any hell of despair.

  Helmut Thielicke

  Blessed, Doubt, Stronger

  Helmut Thielicke, John W. Doberstein (1966). “Life Can Begin Again: Sermons on the Sermon on the Mount”, p.65, James Clarke & Co.

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• There is a prayer intended to give strength to people faced with circumstances they don’t want to accept. The power of the prayer comes from it's insight into human nature. Because so many of us rage against the hand that life has dealt us. Because so many of us are cowardly. And afraid to stand up for what is right. Because so many of us give into despair when faced with an impossible choice. The good news for those who utter these words is that God will hear you and answer your prayer. The bad news is that sometimes the answer is no.

  Mary Alice

  Prayer, Hands, People

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• Travel is the discovery of truth; an affirmation of the promise that human kind is far more beautiful than it is flawed. With each trip comes a new optimism that where there is despair and hardship, there are ideas and people just waiting to be energized, to be empowered, to make a difference for good.

  Dan Thompson

  Beautiful, Discovery, Ideas

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• We who are in the arts are at the risk of being in a popularity contest rather than a profession. If that fact causes you despair . . . pick another profession. Your desire to communicate must be bigger than your relationship with the chaotic and unfair realities . . . We have to create our own standards of discipline.

  Anna Deavere Smith

  Art, Reality, Discipline

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• You don't have to say anything. You don't have to teach anything. You just have to be who you are: a bright flame shining in the darkness of despair, a shining example of a person able to cross bridges by opening your heart and mind.

  Tsoknyi Rinpoche

  Heart, Flames, Bridges

  Tsoknyi Rinpoche (2012). “Open Heart, Open Mind: A Guide to Inner Transformation”, p.237, Random House

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• You when the storm is raging - how do you face despair? It is you that the world discovers, whatever the clothes you wear.

  Edgar Guest

  Adversity, Clothes You Wear, Storm

  Edgar Albert Guest (1926). “The Light of Faith”

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• To parents who despair because their children are unable to master the first problems in arithmetic I can dedicate my examples. For, in arithmetic, until the seventh grade I was last or nearly last.

  Jacques Hadamard

  Children, Parent, Example

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• If we are industrious, we shall never starve; for, at the workingman's house hunger looks in, but dares not enter. Nor will the bailiff or the constable enter, for industry pays debts, while despair increaseth them.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Organization, House, Looks

  Benjamin Franklin (1839). “Memoirs of Benjamin Franklin”, p.7

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• 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.

  Angelina Grimke

  White, Silence, Lips

  Sarah Grimke, Angelina Grimke (2015). “On Slavery and Abolitionism: Essays and Letters”, p.116, Penguin

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• One of the best safeguards of our hopes, I have suggested, is to be able to mark off the areas of hopelessness and to acknowledge them, to face them directly, not with despair but with the creative intent of keeping them from polluting all the areas of possibility.

  William F. Lynch

  Creative, Hopeful, Able

  William F. Lynch (1974). “Images of Hope: Imagination as Healer of the Hopeless”

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• My good friends, we are all waiting. We are waiting, if not for the Messiah, as such, we are waiting for the messianic moment. And the messianic moment is what each and every one of us tries to build, meaning a certain area of humanity that links us to all those who are human and, therefore, desperately trying to fight despair as humanly as possible and - I hope - with some measure of success.

  Elie Wiesel

  Inspirational, Graduation, Fighting

  "Learning and Respect". Elie Wiesel's commencement speech at DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois, June 15, 1997.

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• Sometimes, people end up thankful for what they mourned. You cannot achieve this state by seeking tragedy, but you can keep yourself open more to sorrow's richness than to unmediated despair. Tragedies with happy endings may be sentimental tripe, or they may be the true meaning of love.

  Andrew Solomon

  Grief, People, Suffering

  Andrew Solomon (2013). “Far From the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity”, p.701, Simon and Schuster

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• The Imagination merely enables us to wander into the darkness of the unknown where, by the dim light of the knowledge we carry, we may glimpse something that seems of interest. But when we bring it out and examine it more closely it usually proves to be only trash whose glitter had caught our attention. Imagination is at once the source of all hope and inspiration but also of frustration. To forget this is to court despair.

  William Ian Beardmore Beveridge

  Inspiration, Frustration, Light

  William Ian Beardmore Beveridge (1950). “The Art of Scientific Investigation”

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• Desire is endless and unappeasable, is most intense where most forbidden, and is never far from despair.

  Allen Wheelis

  Desire, Intense, Endless

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• Despite what I had acchieved, I don't for a moment think I am any braver or better than anyone else.  This is how I attempt to explain what gives me the stregnth to do what I do; when that thunderbolt of an idea first hit me and inspired me to row across oceans, it filled me with a sense of purpose so strong that it overcame my fears.  Even when boredom, frustration, fatigue or despair threatened to overwhelm me, it was that powerful sense of purpose that kept me going.

  Roz Savage

  Strong, Powerful, Ocean

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• O men, grown sick with toil and care, Leave for awhile the crowded mart; O women, sinking with despair, Weary of limb and faint of heart, Forget your years to-day and come As children back to childhood's house.

  Phoebe Cary

  Children, Heart, Men

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• It is important to recognize the power of our emotions-and to take responsibility for them by creating a light and positive atmosphere around ourselves. This attitude of joy that we create helps alleviate states of hopelessness, loneliness, and despair. Our relationships with others thus naturally improve, and little by little the whole of society becomes more positive and balanced.

  Tarthang Tulku

  Life, Attitude, Loneliness

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• The greatest faith is born in the hour of despair. When we can see no hope and no way out, then faith rises and brings the victory.

  Lee Roberson

  Victory, Way, Hours

  Lee Roberson (2000). “The Faith That Moves Mountains”, p.41, Sword of the Lord Publishers

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• Never despair of a child. The one you weep the most for at the mercy-seat may fill your heart with the sweetest joys.

  Theodore L. Cuyler

  Children, Heart, Joy

  "Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers". Book by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, p. 50, 1895.

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