Desperation Quotes

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  Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Life, Song, Men

  Henry David Thoreau (2006). “Thoreau and the Art of Life: Precepts and Principles”, p.27, Heron Dance Press

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• Desperation is the raw material of drastic change. Only those who can leave behind everything they have ever believed in can hope to escape.

  William S. Burroughs

  Change, Believe, Despair

  William S. Burroughs (1988). “The Western Lands”, Penguin Group USA

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• Success is the good fortune that comes from aspiration, desperation, perspiration,and inspiration.

  Evan Esar

  Inspirational, Motivational, Strength

  Evan Esar (1961). “Humorous English: a guide to comic usage, jocular speech and writing, and witty grammar”

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• In life you need either inspiration or desperation.

  Tony Robbins

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  FaceBook post by Tony Robbins from Apr 14, 2015

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• Who knows where inspiration comes from. Perhaps it arises from desperation. Perhaps it comes from the flukes of the universe, the kindness of the muses.

  Amy Tan

  Kindness, Inspiration, Flukes

  Amy Tan (2004). “The Opposite of Fate: A Book of Musings”

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• The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Inspirational, Life, Success

  Walden ch. 1 (1854)

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• It is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Wise, Wisdom, Business

  'Walden' (1854) 'Economy'

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• Desperation is sometimes as powerful an inspirer as genius.

  Benjamin Disraeli

  Wisdom, Powerful, Intelligent

  Benjamin Disraeli, Edmund Gosse, Robert Arnot (1904). “The Works of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield: Embracing Novels, Romances, Plays, Poems, Biography, Short Stories and Great Speeches”

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• I am one of those people who thrive on deadlines. Nothing brings on inspiration more readily than desperation.

  Harry Shearer

  Inspiration, People, Deadline

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• The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Wisdom, Country, Men

  'Walden' (1854) 'Economy'

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• Desperation is like stealing from the Mafia: you stand a good chance of attracting the wrong attention.

  Douglas Horton

  Mafia, Attention, Chance

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• I think we're a kind of desperation. We're sort of a maddening luxury. The basic and essential human is the woman, and all that we're doing is trying to brighten up the place. That's why all the birds who belong to our sex have prettier feathers - because males have got to try and justify their existence.

  Orson Welles

  Sex, Thinking, Luxury

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• It's an interesting combination: Having a great fear of being alone, and having a desperate need for solitude and the solitary experience. That's always been a tug of war for me.

  Jodie Foster

  War, Being Alone, Interesting

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• The people at the record company had asked me if I could write a song about my life, my relationship with God, and where I'm from. Well, I can't write a song on purpose, my songs come in a moment of inspiration or desperation.

  Billy Ray Cyrus

  Song, Inspiration, Writing

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• I do believe that most men live lives of quiet desperation. For despair, optimism is the only practical solution. Hope is practical. Because eliminate that and it's pretty scary. Hope at least gives you the option of living.

  Harry Nilsson

  Inspirational, Hope, Believe

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• If I were a Roman Catholic, I should turn a heretic, in sheer desperation, because I would rather go to heaven than go to purgatory.

  Charles Spurgeon

  Heaven, Catholic, Should

  Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1873). “The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit: Sermons Preached and Revised”, p.57

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• My hunger and desperation, being an actor, an out of work actor - my memory of that is as fresh as an open wound.

  Griffin Dunne

  Memories, Actors, Hunger

  "Griffin Dunne is 'Famous'". Interview with Anthony Kaufman, www.indiewire.com. August 21, 2001.

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• Wheels of fire, cosmic, rich, full-bodied honest victories over desperation.

  Thomas Merton

  Fire, Victory, Wheels

  Thomas Merton (1997). “Dancing In The Water Of Life Volume 5:1963-1965: Seeking Peace in the Hermitage”, HarperOne

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• The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Sad, Men, Despair

  Walden ch. 1 (1854)

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• Every age yearns for a more beautiful world. The deeper the desperation and the depression about the confusing present, the more intense that yearning.

  Johan Huizinga

  Depression, Beautiful, Confusing

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• I like movies about longing and desperation, and dark and light things, stories about people struggling to raise children, and to have relationships and be intimate with each other.

  Laura Dern

  Children, Struggle, Dark

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• Men of my age live in a state of continual desperation.

  Trevor McDonald

  Men, Age, Aging

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• We all need money, but there are degrees of desperation.

  Anthony Burgess

  Money, Degrees, Needs

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• There are no desperate situations, there are only desperate people.

  Heinz Guderian

  Desperate Situations, People, Historical

  "Die Deutschen gepanzerten Truppen bis 1945". Book by Oskar Munzel, 1965.

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• Today, for a Jew who writes in the German language, it is totally impossible to make a living. In no group do I see as much misery, disappointment, desperation and hopelessness as in Jewish writers who write in German.

  Stefan Zweig

  Disappointment, Writing, German Language

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