Forlorn Quotes

• Oft hope is born when all is forlorn.

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  Inspirational, Life, Hope

  J.R.R. Tolkien (2012). “The Return of the King: Being the Third Part of the Lord of the Rings”, p.859, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• "Duty, Honor, Country" - those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be. They are your rallying point to build courage when courage seems to fail, to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith, to create hope when hope becomes forlorn.

  Douglas MacArthur

  Country, War, Rallying Point

  Sylvanus Thayer Award Acceptance Address, delivered 12 May 1962, West Point, NY

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• Music is the balm that heals the forlorn ache of a distant star.

  Don Williams

  Music, Stars, Ache

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• There is no God, no universe, no human race, no earthly life, no heaven, no hell. It is all a dream, a grotesque and foolish dream. Nothing exists but you. And you are but a thought -a vagrant thought, a useless thought, a homeless thought, wandering forlorn among the empty eternities!

  Mark Twain

  Dream, Lonely, Loneliness

  The Mysterious Stranger ch. 11 (1916)

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• Pity the selfishness of lovers: it is brief, a forlorn hope; it is impossible.

  Elizabeth Bowen

  Love, Selfishness, Impossible

  Elizabeth Bowen (1938). “The death of the heart”, Viking Pr

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• Nothing exists but you. And you are but a thought.

  Mark Twain

  Atheist, Atheism, Vagrants

  The Mysterious Stranger ch. 11 (1916)

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• Life is but a dream, a grotesque and foolish dream.

  Mark Twain

  Dream, Crazy, Mad

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• For beauty with sorrow Is a burden hard to be borne: The evening light on the foam, and the swans, there; That music, remote, forlorn.

  Walter de La Mare

  Swans, Evening Light, Sorrow

  Walter De la Mare (1941). “Collected poems”

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• Looking back, of course, it was irresponsible, mad, forlorn, idiotic, but if you don't take chances then you'll never have a winning hand, and I've no regrets.

  Bernard Cornwell

  Regret, Winning, Hands

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• Venerable are letters, infinitely brave, forlorn, and lost.

  Virginia Woolf

  Brave, Letters, Lost

  Virginia Woolf (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Virginia Woolf (Illustrated)”, p.783, Delphi Classics

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• He soon acquired the forlorn look that one sees in vegetarians.

  Gabriel Garcia Marquez

  Looks, Vegetarian, One Hundred Years Of Solitude

  "Love in the Time of Cholera". Book by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, www.theguardian.com. 1985.

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• Any day above ground is a good one. A woman's beauty is her inherent ability to better a man in every way. My father, now in heaven, is the watcher of birds. And his eye is on his sparrow. God, in his great silence, is still there. Of that I haven't a single doubt. Music is the balm that heals the ache of a forlorn star.

  Donald E. Williams, Jr.

  Stars, Father, Eye

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• We are forlorn like children, and experienced like old men, we are crude and sorrowful and superficial—I believe we are lost.

  Erich Maria Remarque

  Children, Believe, Men

  Erich Maria Remarque (2013). “All Quiet on the Western Front: A Novel”, p.92, Random House

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• When one by one our ties are torn, and friend from friend is snatched forlorn; when man is left alone to mourn, oh! then how sweet it is to die!

  Anna Letitia Barbauld

  Friendship, Death, Sweet

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• It is a curious subject of observation and inquiry, whether hatred and love be not the same thing at bottom. Each, in its utmost development, supposes a high degree of intimacy and heart-knowledge; each renders one individual dependent for the food of his affections and spiritual life upon another; each leaves the passionate lover, or the no less passionate hater, forlorn and desolate by the withdrawal of his object.

  Nathaniel Hawthorne

  Spiritual, Hate, Heart

  Nathaniel Hawthorne (2010). “The Scarlet Letter”, p.225, Bibliolis Books

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• So, cutting the lashing of the waterproof match keg, after many failures Starbuck contrived to ignite the lamp in the lantern; then stretching it on a waif pole, handed it to Queequeg as the standard-bearer of this forlorn hope. There, then, he sat, holding up that imbecile candle in the heart of that almighty forlornness. There, then, he sat, the sign and symbol of a man without faith, hopelessly holding up hope in the midst of despair.

  Herman Melville

  Hope, Heart, Cutting

  Herman Melville, General Press (2016). “Moby Dick”, p.242, GENERAL PRESS

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• Through the sad heart of Ruth, when sick for home She stood in tears amid the alien corn; The same that ofttimes hath Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

  John Keats

  Heart, Home, Sea

  "Ode to a Nightingale" l. 61 (1820)

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• “I often think,” said she, “that there is nothing so bad as parting with one's friends. One seems so forlorn without them.”

  Jane Austen

  Thinking, Said, Parting

  "The Complete Novels of Jane Austen".

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• This is the way you look at the poorest details of the world resurfaced, after you've been driving for a long time -- you feel their singleness and precise location and the forlorn coincidence of you being there to see them.

  Alice Munro

  Travel, Long, Way

  Alice Munro (2015). “A Wilderness Station: Selected Stories, 1968-1994”, p.429, Vintage

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• To use Newton's words, our efforts up till this moment have but turned over a pebble or shell here and there on the beach, with only a forlorn hope that under one of them was the gem we were seeking. Now we have the sieve, the minds, the hands, the time, and, particularly, the dedication to find those gems-no matter in which favorite hiding place the children of distant worlds have placed them.

  Frank Drake

  Beach, Time, Children

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• Thou wast not born for death, immortal bird! No hungry generations tread thee down; The voice I hear this passing night was heard In ancient days by emperor and clown.

  John Keats

  Night, Voice, Bird

  "Ode to a Nightingale" l. 61 (1820)

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• Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!     No hungry generations tread thee down;   The voice I hear this passing night was heard     In ancient days by emperor and clown:   Perhaps the self-same song that found a path      Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,       She stood in tears amid the alien corn;             The same that ofttimes hath     Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam       Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

  John Keats

  Song, Home, Heart

  "Ode to a Nightingale" l. 61 (1820)

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• Great God! I'd rather be A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn

  William Wordsworth

  Prayer, Blow, Sight

  "TheWorld Is Too Much with Us" l. 10 (1807)

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• Poetry is a bad medium for philosophy. Everything in the philosophical poem has to satisfy irreconcilable requirements: for instance, the last demand that we should make of philosophy (that it be interesting) is the first we make of a poem; the philosophical poet has an elevated and methodical, but forlorn and absurd air as he works away at his flying tank, his sewing-machine that also plays the piano.

  Randall Jarrell

  Philosophy, Philosophical, Air

  "Poetry and the Age" by Randall Jarrell, Vintage paperback, (p. 127), 1955.

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• I saw old Autumn in the misty morn Stand shadowless like silence, listening To silence, for no lonely bird would sing Into his hollow ear from woods forlorn, Nor lowly hedge nor solitary thorn;- Shaking his languid locks all dewy bright With tangled gossamer that fell by night, Pearling his coronet of golden corn.

  Thomas Hood

  Lonely, Autumn, Night

  Thomas Hood (2016). “Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Thomas Hood (Illustrated)”, p.296, Delphi Classics

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