Hopelessness Quotes - Page 4

• This is who I want to be in the world. This is who I think we are supposed to be, people who help call forth human beings from deep inside hopelessness.

  Anne Lamott

  Thinking, People, World

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• More than at any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.
  I speak, by the way, not with any sense of futility, but with a panicky conviction of the absolute meaninglessness of existence which could easily be misinterpreted as pessimism. It is not. It is merely a healthy concern for the predicament of modern man.

  Woody Allen

  Men, Healthy, Despair

  Side Effects "My Speech to the Graduates" (1980)

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

  Mira Grant

  Mirrors, Mixtures, Resignation

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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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• 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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• 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 tell you, hopeless grief is passionless.

  Elizabeth Barrett Browning

  Grief, Hopeless

  'Grief' (1844)

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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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• The real problems are cultural. The problems of the people who take drugs as a cultural trap - I think there's a real problem there, the crack stuff, the hopelessness of the junkie. The urban angst.

  Jerry Garcia

  Real, Thinking, People

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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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• the hopelessness that comes from knowing too little and feeling too much (so brittle, so dry he is in danger of the reverse: feeling nothing and knowing everything)

  Toni Morrison

  Knowing Everything, Feelings, Dry

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• Fishing in a bucket. The total hopelessness of the activity was very soothing. It was the perfect sport. Without the emotional stresses of success and failure, she was entirely free to enjoy the pleasures of the moment... It was a good hobby, and cheap, and if more people did it more often

  Hilary McKay

  Sports, Stress, Emotional

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• While civilization is more than a high material living standard, it is nevertheless based on material abundance. It does not thrive on abject poverty or in an atmosphere of resignation and hopelessness. Therefore the end objectives of solar system exploration are social objectives in the sense that they relate to, or are dictated by, present and future human needs.

  Krafft Arnold Ehricke

  Space, Civilization, Atmosphere

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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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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• It is the first purpose of hope to make hopelessness bearable.

  Robert Breault

  Hope, Purpose, Firsts

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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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• But look what we have built low-income projects that become worse centers of delinquency, vandalism and general social hopelessness than the slums they were supposed to replace. Cultural centers that are unable to support a good bookstore. Civic centers that are avoided by everyone but bums. Promenades that go from no place to nowhere and have no promenaders. Expressways that eviscerate great cities. This is not the rebuilding of cities. This is the sacking of cities.

  Jane Jacobs

  Cities, Support, Vandalism

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• No longer is the body a temple to be worshipped as the house of God; it has become a commodified and regulated object that must be strictly monitored by its owner to prevent lapses into health-threatening behaviors as identified by risk discourse. For those with the socioeconomic resources to indulge in risk modification, this discourse may supply the advantages of a new religion; for others, this discourse has the potential to create anxiety and guilt, to promote hopelessness and fear of the future.

  Deborah Lupton

  Indulge In, House, Anxiety

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