A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind.
It is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately.
If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined...
How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.
It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.
No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof.
Nowadays men lead lives of noisy desperation.
Boys, you must strive to find your own voice, because the longer you wait to begin the less likely you are to find it at all.
The vast majority of the people who populate our planet live lives of quiet desperation that are all too often quite harsh and painful, lives in which events and circumstances usually don't turn out the way they had hoped or planned.
Studies of people who report high well-being in their fifties and sixties indicate that they have lived lives that involved personal risks. They are not people whose lives have been calm and predictable. A life under tight control sometimes produces quiet desperation. High well-being is a life that has depth and quality. Risks, losses, problems, and tragedy add pain to a life. That pain becomes a teacher. We learn; the pain gives us no choice.
Be still, and the world is bound to turn herself inside out to entertain you. Everywhere you look, joyful noise is clanging to drown out quiet desperation.
Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.
Any life he'd ever heard of, his own included, was burdened with emotions - love, loss, jobs, jealousy, money, death, pain. But if you were Jewish, always there was this extra one, the added pull at your endurance, the one more thing. There was that line in Thoreau about 'quiet desperation' - that was indeed true of most men. But for some men and women, for some fathers and mothers and children, the world still contrived that one extra test, endless and unrelenting.
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.
The worst curse to befall anyone is stagnation, a banal existence, the quiet desperation that comes out of a need for conformity.
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.
The Samaritan woman grasped what He said with fervor that came from an awareness of her real need. The transaction was fascinating. She has come with a buket. He sent her back with a spring of living water. She had come as a reject. He sent her back being accepted by God Himself. She came wounded. He sent her back whole. She came laden with questions. He sent her back as a source for answers. She came living a life of quiet desperation. She ran back overflowing with hope. The disciples missed it all. It was lunchtime for them.
I am interested in the gap between what people say and what they think - the undiscovered world of people's lives. Lives of quiet desperation.
or simply:
