Despair Quotes - Page 39

• Anyone who would attempt the task of felling a virgin forest with a penknife would probably feel the same paralysis of despair that the reformer feels when confronted with existing school systems.

  Ellen Key

  Education, School, Tasks

  Ellen Key (2016). “The century of the child”, p.99, Ellen Key

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Now conscience wakes despair That slumber'd,-wakes the bitter memory Of what he was, what is, and what must be Worse.

  John Milton

  Memories, Slumber, Bitterness

  John Milton (1831). “Paradise Lost: A Poem, in Twelve Books”, p.76

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is only in the depths of crisis and despair that the fear of losing one's personality breeds millennial hopes of rescue: otherwise, complacency prevails.

  Stanley Hoffmann

  Personality, Depth, Millennials

  7 Copy quote

• The final test of religious faith... is whether it will enable men to endure insecurity without complacency or despair, whether it can so interpret the ancient verities that they will not become mere escape hatches from responsibilities but instruments of insights into what civilization means.

  Reinhold Niebuhr

  Religious, Mean, Responsibility

  8 Copy quote

• Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Do not despair if the answers don't come immediately. Some answers are only revealed with the passage of time.

  Rainer Maria Rilke

  Inspirational, Life, Heart

  73 Copy quote

• A man with his heart in his profession imagines and finds resources where the worthless and lazy despair.

  Frederick The Great

  Life, Heart, Men

  Frederick the Great (2012). “Instructions for His Generals”, p.44, Courier Corporation

  41 Copy quote

  Show source

• You have to know your own truth and stick to it. And never despair. Never give up. There's always hope.

  Aidan Chambers

  Giving Up, Sticks, Knows

  "Postcards from No Man's Land". Book by Aidan Chambers, January 7, 1999.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• In motivating people to love and defend the natural world, an ounce of hope is worth a ton of despair.

  George Monbiot

  People, World, Natural

  "For more wonder, rewild the world". TED Talk, www.ted.com. July 2013.

  29 Copy quote

  Show source

• I need not to be afraid of the void. The void is part of my person. I need to enter consciously into it. To try to escape from it is to try to live a lie. It is also to cease to be. My acceptance of despair and emptiness constitutes my being; to have the courage to accept despair is to be.

  Michael Novak

  Lying, Acceptance, Trying

  Michael Novak (1970). “The Experience of Nothingness”, p.67, Transaction Publishers

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• When I find that so much of my life has stolen unprofitably away, and that I can descry by retrospection scarcely a few single days properly and vigorously employed, why do I yet try to resolve again? I try, because reformation is necessary and despair is criminal. I try, in humble hope of the help of God.

  Samuel Johnson

  Life, Hope, Humble

  "The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D".

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Do not despair of your life. You have force enough to overcome your obstacles.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Life, Overcoming, Obstacles

  Henry David Thoreau (1894). “Winter”

  41 Copy quote

  Show source

• The essence of Christianity is the appeal to the life of Christ as a revelation of the nature of God and of God's agency in the world. The record is fragmentary, inconsistent, and uncertain. . . . But there can be no doubt as to what elements in the record have evoked a response from all that is best in human nature. The Mother, the Child, and the bare manger: the lowly man, homeless and self-forgetful, with his message of peace, love, and sympathy: the suffering, the agony, the tender words as life ebbed, the final despair: and the whole with the authority of supreme victory.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Life, Mother, Peace

  1938 Adventures of Ideas.

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• Sandoz turned and accepted the book, looking at the spine. "Aeschylus?"
  Wordlessly, Guiuliani pointed out the passage, and Emilio studied it a while, slowly translating the Greek in his mind. Finally, he said, "In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, againstour will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God."

  Mary Doria Russell

  Pain, Book, Fall

  "The Sparrow". Book by Mary Doria Russell, February 23, 2010.

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• Labor is blossoming or dancing where The body is not bruised to pleasure soul, Nor beauty born out of its own despair, Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil. O chestnut tree, great-rooted blossomer, Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole? O body swayed to music, O brightening glance How can we know the dancer from the dance?

  William Butler Yeats

  Wisdom, Oil, Dancing

  "Among School Children" l. 57 (1928) See Quarles 1

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is only necessary to know that love is a direction and not a state of the soul. If one is unaware of this, one falls to despair at the first onslaught of affliction.

  Simone Weil

  Love, Fall, Soul

  Simone Weil (2009). “Waiting on God (Routledge Revivals)”, p.46, Routledge

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• If I could tell the world just one thing
  It would be that we're all OK
  And not to worry 'cause worry is wasteful
  And useless in times like these
  I won't be made useless
  I won't be idle with despair
  I will gather myself around my faith
  For light does the darkness most fear
  
  My hands are small, I know
  But they're not yours, they are my own
  But they're not yours, they are my own
  And I am never broken

  Jewel

  Love, Light, Times Like These

  4 Copy quote

• My silks and fine array, My smiles and languished air, By love are driv'n away And mournful lean Despair Brings me yew to deck my grave: Such end true lovers have.

  William Blake

  Love, Air, Yew

  William Blake (2008). “The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake”, p.413, Univ of California Press

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know whether you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

  Oriah Dreamer

  Children, Grief, Night

  4 Copy quote

• A mother's love is like a fortress, And we seek protection there, When the waves of tribulation, Seem to drown us in despair.

  Helen Steiner Rice

  Family, Mother, Love Is

  Helen Steiner Rice, Virginia J. Ruehlmann (1999). “Gifts of Love”, Fleming H Revell Company

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Love is hope when reason despairs.

  Jack Hyles

  Love Is, Reason

  4 Copy quote

• True counselors of despair are those who hope against hope—and historical experience—that the government can and will act constructively.

  Robert Higgs

  Government, Historical, Counselor

  9 Copy quote

• The rhythm persisted, the unfaltering common meter of blues, but the blueness itself, the sorrow, the despair, began to give way to hope.

  Rudolph Fisher

  Giving, Sorrow, Way

  Rudolph Fisher (1990). “The City of Refuge: The Collected Stories of Rudolph Fisher”, p.156, University of Missouri Press

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• Despair itself if it goes on long enough, can become a kind of sanctuary in which one settles down and feels at ease.

  Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve

  Long, Goes On, Ease

  "Poésies completes de Sainte-Beuve" by Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, Paris: Charpentier, p. 16 ("Vie de Joseph Delorme"), 1840.

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• At the round earth's imagined corners, blow Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise From death, you numberless infinities Of souls **** All whom war, dearth, age, agues, tyrannies, Despair, law, chance, hath slain.

  John Donne

  War, Angel, Blow

  John Donne, John Daniel Thieme (2014). “John Donne Holy Sonnets: with an introduction by John Daniel Thieme”, p.23, Vicarage Hill Press

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• Hopelessness may be the saddest word in our language. Despair is the enemy of our souls. It can paralyze us, halt our progress, and cause us to lose our way. But hope awakens us like a light shining in the darkness. We can endure all things when our hope is centered in one who will never fail us-our Savior, Jesus Christ, who is the light of the world.

  Dwan J. Young

  Jesus, Light, Shining

  11 Copy quote