Hopelessness Quotes - Page 4

• ... suffering does not ennoble. It destroys. To resist destruction, self-hatred, or lifelong hopelessness, we have to throw off the conditioning of being despised, the fear of becoming the they that is talked about so dismissively, to refuse lying myths and easy moralities, to see ourselves as human, flawed, and extraordinary. All of us extraordinary

  Dorothy Allison

  Lying, Self, Hatred

  Dorothy Allison (2013). “Skin: Talking about Sex, Class, and Literature”, p.25, Open Road Media

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• Being embodied as such is no insurance against feelings of hopelessness or meaningslessness. Beyond his body, he still has to know who he is.

  R. D. Laing

  Feelings, Body, Stills

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• False optimism sooner or later means disillusionment , anger and hopelessness.

  Abraham Maslow

  Mean, Optimism, Disillusionment

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• There are people who not only strive to remain static themselves, but strive to keep everything else so... their position is almost laughably hopeless.

  Odell Shepard

  People, Hopeless, Strive

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• I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless.

  Elizabeth Barrett Browning

  Grief, Hopeless

  'Grief' (1844)

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• If you know someone who’s depressed, please resolve never to ask them why. Depression isn’t a straightforward response to a bad situation; depression just is, like the weather. Try to understand the blackness, lethargy, hopelessness, and loneliness they’re going through. Be there for them when they come through the other side. It’s hard to be a friend to someone who’s depressed, but it is one of the kindest, noblest, and best things you will ever do.

  Stephen Fry

  Inspirational, Friendship, Sympathy

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• I felt as if I were riding a pendulum. Just as I would swing into the abyss of hopelessness, the pendulum would swing back with some small goodness.

  Ruta Sepetys

  Swings, Riding, Goodness

  Ruta Sepetys (2011). “Between Shades of Gray”, p.61, Penguin

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• When you're depressed, the whole body is depressed, and it translates to the cellular level. The first objective is to get your energy up, and you can do it through play. It's one of the most powerful ways of breaking up hopelessness and bringing energy into the situation.

  O. Carl Simonton

  Hope, Powerful, Play

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• Be calm and strong and patient. Meet failure and disappointment with courage. Rise superior to the trials of life, and never give in to hopelessness or despair. In danger, in adversity, cling to your principles and ideals. Aequanimitas!

  William Osler

  Life, Strong, Disappointment

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• I've seen that mixture of resignation and hopelessness before; its usually in my mirror.

  Mira Grant

  Mirrors, Mixtures, Resignation

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• Why is the forecast so bland? Why instead of 'stormy' don't they just say the sea's 'a frothing maelstrom of terror and hopelessness'?

  Jeremy Clarkson

  Sea, Maelstrom, Terror

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• I know of no restorative of heart, body, and soul more effective against hopelessness than the restoration of the Earth.

  Barry Lopez

  Inspirational, Heart, Soul

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• Though all three men faced the same hardship, their differing perceptions of it appeared to be shaping their fates. Louie and Phil's hope displaced their fear and inspired them to work toward their survival, and each success renewed their physical and emotional vigor. Mac's resignation seemed to paralyze him and the less he participated in their efforts to survive, the more he slipped. Though he did the least, as the days passed, it was he who faded the most. Louie and Phil's optimism, and Mac's hopelessness, were becoming self-fulfilling.

  Laura Hillenbrand

  Fate, Men, Emotional

  Laura Hillenbrand (2010). “Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption”, p.148, Random House

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• Can you imagine the hopelessness of trying to live a spiritual life when you’re secretly looking up at the skies not for illumination or direction, but to gauge, miserably, the odds of rain?

  Anne Lamott

  Spiritual, Rain, Odds

  Anne Lamott (2000). “Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith”, p.204, Anchor

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• As a 28 year old who's lived long enough to know the difference, I know now that the feelings I felt an 16 were not necessarily correct. But however overly dramatic, the desperation and hopelessness I felt at 16 was my reality.

  Billy Corgan

  Reality, Years, Differences

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• When they are gay, the waves echo their gaiety; but when they are sad, then every breaker, as it rolls, seems to bring additional sadness, and to speak to us of hopelessness and of the pettiness of all our joys.

  Baroness Orczy

  Sadness, Gay, Echoes

  Baroness Orczy (2012). “The Scarlet Pimpernel”, p.140, Courier Corporation

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• Politically, the goal of today’s dominant trend is statism. Philosophically , the goal is the obliteration of reason; psychologically , it is the erosion of ambition. The political goal presupposes the two others. The human characteristic required by statism is docility, which is the product of hopelessness and intellectual stagnation. Thinking men cannot be ruled; ambitious men do not stagnate.

  Ayn Rand

  Ambition, Men, Thinking

  Ayn Rand (1990). “The Voice of Reason: Essays in Objectivist Thought”, p.229, Penguin

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• My encounter with another world and another culture and the beginnings of an attachment to them had set up an irritation, barely perceptible but incurable-rather like unrequited love, like a symptom of the hopelessness of trying to grasp what is boundless, or unite what cannot be joined; a reminder of how finite, how curtailed, our experience on earth must be

  Andrei Tarkovsky

  Unrequited Love, Irritation, Attachment

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• Black men who have succeeded have an obligation to serve as role models for young men entrapped by a vicious cycle of poverty, despair, and hopelessness.

  Benjamin Hooks

  Men, Role Models, Black

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• The grey paintings, for example, a painted grey surface, completely monochromatic - they come from a motivation, or result from a state, that was very negative. It has a lot to do with hopelessness, depression and such things. But it has to be turned on its head in the end, and has to come to a form where these paintings possess beauty. And in this case, it's not a carefree beauty, but rather a serious one.

  Gerhard Richter

  Art, Motivation, Example

  Gerhard Richter, Dietmar Elger, Hans-Ulrich Obrist (2009). “Gerhard Richter: writings 1961-2007”, Distributed Art Pub Inc

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• The greatest disease in the West today is not TB or leprosy; it is being unwanted, unloved, and uncared for. We can cure physical diseases with medicine, but the only cure for loneliness, despair, and hopelessness is love. There are many in the world who are dying for a piece of bread but there are many more dying for a little love. The poverty in the West is a different kind of poverty -- it is not only a poverty of loneliness but also of spirituality. There's a hunger for love, as there is a hunger for God.

  Mother Teresa

  Love, Peace, Loneliness

  Mother Teresa (1995). “A Simple Path-Open Market”

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• I think what we owe each other is a celebration of life and to replace fear and hopelessness with fearlessness and joy.

  Vandana Shiva

  Thinking, Joy, Celebration

  "Earth Democracy - an interview with Vandana Shiva". Interview with Sarah Ruth van Gelder, www.yesmagazine.org. December 31, 2002.

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• Nothing is hopeless; we must hope for everything.

  Euripides

  Not Giving Up, Hopeless, Wrinkle In Time

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• In the face of such hopelessness as our eventual, unavoidable death, there is little sense in not at least trying to accomplish all of your wildest dreams in life.

  Kevin Smith

  Dream, Trying, Littles

  Kevin Smith (2012). “Tough Sh*t: Life Advice from a Fat, Lazy Slob Who Did Good”, p.13, Penguin

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• If I extend an empty hand and in retrieving it and finding it still empty, I feel disappointment, that is foolishness; yet if I extend a hand which is full and yet find no one to receive it, then that is hopelessness.

  Khalil Gibran

  Disappointment, Hands, Empty

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