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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• In the range of my character at any given moment, I have acted in the only way it seemed to me I could have acted. This in no way means that I have done what was right; only what was possible for me. Sometimes I have done what I knew was wrong, and have rationalized. But rationalization is a form of desperation. It takes kindness to forgive oneself for one's life.

  Anne Truitt

  Forgiveness, Kindness, Mean

  Anne Truitt, Audrey Niffenegger (2013). “Daybook: The Journal of an Artist”, p.184, Simon and Schuster

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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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• 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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• 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 don't think human beings learn anything without desperation. Desperation is a necessary ingredient to learning anything or creating anything. Period. If you ain't desperate at some point, you ain't interesting.

  Jim Carrey

  Thinking, Creating, Interesting

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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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• Rock 'n Roll: The most brutal, ugly, desperate, vicious form of expression it has been my misfortune to hear.

  Frank Sinatra

  Music, Rock And Roll, Rocks

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• People need motivation to do anything. I don't think human beings learn anything without desperation.

  Jim Carrey

  Motivational, Thinking, People

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• Desperation is the perfume of the young actor. It's so satisfying to have gotten rid of it. If you keep smelling it, it can drive you crazy. In this business a lot of people go nuts, go eccentric, even end up dead from it. Not my plan.

  Uma Thurman

  Business, Crazy, Nuts

  Interview with Laura Yorke, Reader's Digest, July 2006.

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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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• 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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• Nowadays not even a suicide kills himself in desperation. Before taking the step he deliberates so long and so carefully that he literally chokes with thought. It is even questionable whether he ought to be called a suicide, since it is really thought which takes his life. He does not die with deliberation but from deliberation.

  Soren Kierkegaard

  Suicide, Suicidal, Long

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• In the short stories - if I can make a very lumpy contrast - in the short stories I feel like the lives of the people have a kind of prior desperation and a prior need and my longing is for the story and their lives to somehow come together, even if not finally or forever, to face something; and it felt like a lot of the time with the essays I was wading into situations where there was an assumption of finality of understanding, and I felt like I could wade into any understood moment and tear it apart and make it fall apart.

  Charles D'Ambrosio

  Fall, People, Forever

  Source: quarterlyconversation.com

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

  Trevor McDonald

  Men, Age, Aging

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