Desolate Quotes

• No soul is desolate as long as there is a human being for whom it can feel trust and reverence.

  George Eliot

  Friendship, Trust, Character

  George Eliot (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)”, p.1454, Delphi Classics

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• It keeps eternal whisperings around desolate shores

  John Keats

  Whispering, Shore, Eternal

  'On the Sea' (1817)

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• Memories begin to creep forward from hidden corners of your mind. Passing disappointments. Lost chances and lost causes. Heartbreaks and pain and desolate, horrible loneliness. Sorrows you thought long forgotten mingle with still-fresh wounds.

  Erin Morgenstern

  Pain, Memories, Disappointment

  FaceBook post by Erin Morgenstern from Nov 07, 2012

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• We are the music-makers, And we are the dreamers of dreams... Yet we are the movers and shakers of the world for ever, it seems.

  Arthur O'Shaughnessy

  Life, Dream, World

  'Ode" l. 7 (1874)

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• Music I heard with you was more than music, and bread I broke with you was more than bread. Now that I am without you, all is desolate; all that was once so beautiful is dead.

  Conrad Aiken

  Music, Beautiful, Bread

  Conrad Aiken (1970). “Collected poems”, Oxford Univ Pr

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• We come to know who we really are in life during the dark and difficult and desolate days of our journey.

  Tavis Smiley

  Dark, Journey, Difficult

  Source: www.pittsburghurbanmedia.com

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• The sky was different, without color, taut and unforgiving. But the water was the most unforgiving thing, nearly black at times, cold enough, I knew, to kill me, violent enough to break me apart. The waves were immense, battering rocky beaches without sand. The farther I went, the more desolate it became, more than any place I'd been, but for this very reason the landscape drew me, claimed me as nothing had in a long time.

  Jhumpa Lahiri

  Beach, Color, Sky

  FaceBook post by Jhumpa Lahiri from Oct 29, 2012

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• We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams.

  Arthur O'Shaughnessy

  Inspirational, Music, Dream

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• We are the music-makers, And we are the dreamers of dreams, Wandering by lone sea-breakers, And sitting by desolate streams. World-losers and world-forsakers, Upon whom the pale moon gleams; Yet we are the movers and shakers, Of the world forever, it seems.

  Arthur O'Shaughnessy

  Life, Music, Dream

  'Ode" l. 7 (1874)

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• How many desolate creatures on the earth have learnt the simple dues of fellowship and social comfort, in a hospital.

  Elizabeth Barrett Browning

  Simple, Comfort, Earth

  'Aurora Leigh' (1857) bk. 3, l. 1121

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• When our forefathers put down roots in desolate places, the thing that allowed them to survive was that they had a faith to see them through the tough times.

  Lee Greenwood

  Roots, Tough Times, Forefathers

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• Still let my tyrants know, I am not doomed to wear
  Year after year in gloom, and desolate despair;
  A messenger of Hope comes every night to me,
  And offers for short life, eternal liberty.

  Emily Bronte

  Hope, Short Life, Night

  Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, Anne Bronte (2014). “Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell”, p.109, The Floating Press

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• Envy is the coward side of Hate, And all her ways are bleak and desolate.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Hate, Envy, Coward

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• The triumphs of a mysterious non-meeting are desolate ones; unspoken phrases, silent words.

  Anna Akhmatova

  Communication, Triumph, Phrases

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• it is a curious subject of observation and inquiry, whether hatred and love be not the same thing at bottom.

  Nathaniel Hawthorne

  Hate, Love Is, Hatred

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

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• Women and men in the crowd meet and mingle, Yet with itself every soul standeth single.

  Alice Cary

  Men, Soul, Crowds

  Alice Cary, Phoebe Cary, Mary Clemmer (1876). “The Poetical Works of Alice and Phoebe Cary”, p.180

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• Come! Poor little heart! Be cheery and brave. We'll be a great deal to one another, if we are thrown off and left desolate.

  Elizabeth Gaskell

  Heart, Brave, Littles

  Elizabeth Gaskell (2010). “The Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell (20+ Books)”, p.1624, BookCaps Study Guides

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• I will weep and wail for the mountains and take up a lament concerning the desert pastures. They are desolate and untraveled, and the lowing of cattle is not heard. The birds of the air have fled and the animals are gone.

  Jeremiah

  Animal, Air, Bird

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• As long as there is one upright man, as long as there is one compassionate woman, the contagion may spread and the scene is not desolate. Hope is the thing that is left us in a bad time.

  E. B. White

  Hope, Time, Women

  E. B. White (2011). “In the Words of E.B. White: Quotations from America's Most Companionable of Writers”, p.126, Cornell University Press

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• My head was a desolate place and as barren as the bare hills of Le Marche. Until I began to build in it, only vultures nested there.

  Lisa St. Aubin de Terán

  Hills, Barren, Vulture

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• I expected the unexpected and went [on the Moon] with an open mind. I think the visual scene was described by my words on first landing - "magnificent desolation." Magnificent for the achievement of being there, and desolate for the eons of lifelessness.

  Buzz Aldrin

  Thinking, Moon, Achievement

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• The world about us would be desolate except for the world within us.

  Wallace Stevens

  Would Be, World

  Wallace Stevens (1951). “The Relations Between Poetry and Painting”

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• Sort of desolate, decayed, the smell of - I don't want to dramatise it - but death, you know. That is what it feels like, no-man's-land, and it is not a nice place to be.

  Anton Oliver

  Nice, Men, Land

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• He was swept with a sadness, a sadness deep and penetrating, leaving him desolate like someone washed up on a beach, a lone survivor in a world full of strangers.

  Robert Cormier

  Beach, Sadness, Leaving

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• THESE are the desolate, dark weeks when nature in its barrenness equals the stupidity of man. The year plunges into night and the heart plunges lower than night.

  William Carlos Williams

  Heart, Dark, Night

  Ian D. Copestake, William Carlos Williams (2004). “Rigor of Beauty: Essays in Commemoration of William Carlos Williams”, p.100, Peter Lang

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