Desolation Quotes

• The most noble fate a man can endure is to place his own mortal body between his loved home and the war's desolation.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  War, Home, Fate

  "Starship Troopers". Book by Robert A. Heinlein, 1959.

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• Desolation, desolation, I owe so much to desolation.

  Jack Kerouac

  Jack Kerouac (1986). “The Dharma Bums”, p.244, Penguin

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• It is a time when one's spirit is subdued and sad, one knows not why; when the past seems a storm-swept desolation, life a vanity and a burden, and the future but a way to death.

  Mark Twain

  Sad, Death, Past

  Mark Twain, General Press (2016). “The Complete Works of Mark Twain: All 13 Novels, Short Stories, Poetry and Essays”, p.1257, GENERAL PRESS

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• My desolation does begin to make A better life.

  William Shakespeare

  Reform, Doe, Better Life

  'Antony and Cleopatra' (1606-7) act 5, sc. 2, l. 1

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• There is nothing so cruel in this world as the desolation of having nothing to hope for.

  Haruki Murakami

  Hope, World, Emptiness

  "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle". Book by Haruki Murakami, August 25, 1995.

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• Without out suffering, our work would just be social work, very good and helpful, but it would not be the work of Jesus Christ, not part of the Redemption. All the desolation of the poor people, not only their material poverty, but their spiritual destitution, must be redeemed. And we must share it, for only by being one with them can we redeem them by bringing God into their lives and bringing them to God.

  Mother Teresa

  Spiritual, Jesus, People

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• The delusion of entertainment is devoid of meaning. It may amuse us for a bit, but after the initial hit we are left with the dark feeling of desolation.

  Arthur Erickson

  Dark, Feelings, May

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• Desolation is a file, and the endurance of darkness is preparation for great light.

  John of the Cross

  Light, Darkness, Preparation

  Saint John of the Cross (1947). “The Complete Works of Saint John of the Cross, Doctor of the Church”

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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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• I have outlasted all desire, My dreams and I have grown apart; My grief alone is left entire, The gleamings of an empty heart. The storms of ruthless dispensation Have struck my flowery garland numb, I live in lonely desolation And wonder when my end will come. Thus on a naked tree-limb, blasted By tardy winter's whistling chill, A single leaf which has outlasted Its season will be trembling still.

  Alexander Pushkin

  Dream, Lonely, Grief

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• Whole sight; or all the rest is desolation.

  John Fowles

  Sight, Whole

  John Fowles (1977). “Daniel Martin”, Jonathan Cape

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• 

  This is one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.

  Neil Armstrong

  Motivational, Positive, Moon

  In New York Times 31 July 1969, p. 20

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• A democracy is a volcano which conceals the fiery materials of its own destruction. These will produce an eruption and carry desolation in their way.

  Fisher Ames

  Volcanoes, Democracy, Way

  Fisher Ames (1809). “Works of Fisher Ames, compiled by a number of his friends”, p.24

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• I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell.

  William Tecumseh Sherman

  War, Tired, Blood

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• Every man may reign secure in his petty tyranny, and spread terror and desolation around him, until the trump of the archangel shall excite different emotions in his soul.

  James Otis

  Men, Tyrants, Soul

  "James Otis: Against Writs of Assistance". James Otis' speech (February 1761), as quoted in William Tudor "James Otis's Speech on the Writs of Assistance", books.google.com. 1906.

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• You have nice manners for a thief and a liar," said the dragon.

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  Nice, Liars, Dragons

  J.R.R. Tolkien (2012). “The Hobbit”, p.89, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• We mourn the blossoms of May because they are to whither; but we know that May is one day to have its revenge upon November, by the revolution of that solemn circle which never stops - which teaches us in our height of hope, ever to be sober, and in our depth of desolation, never to despair.

  William Peter Blatty

  Life, Revenge, Circles

  "The Exorcist". Book by William Peter Blatty, 1971.

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• In this first testing ground of the atomic bomb I have seen the most terrible and frightening desolation in four years of war. It makes a blitzed Pacific island seem like an Eden. The damage is far greater than photographs can show.

  Wilfred Burchett

  War, Islands, Years

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• Plant diseases, drought, desolation, despair were recurrent catastrophes during the ages - and the ancient remedies: supplications to supernatural spirits or gods.

  Norman Borlaug

  Despair, Age, Disease

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• And I think that after nearly 85 years upon this planet that I have a right after working so hard at showing the desolation and the poverty, to show something beautiful for somebody as well.

  Gordon Parks

  Beautiful, Thinking, Years

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• I have many times asked myself whether there can be more potent advocates of peace upon earth through the years to come than this massed multitude of silent witnesses to the desolation of war.

  George V

  War, Years, Earth

  Message read at Terlincthun Cemetery, Boulogne, 13 May 1922, in 'The Times' 15 May 1922

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• A week of sweeping fogs has passed over and given me a strange sense of exile and desolation. I walk round the island nearly every day, yet I can see nothing anywhere but a mass of wet rock, a strip of surf, and then a tumult of waves.

  John Millington Synge

  Journey, Hiking, Islands

  John Millington Synge (2008). “The Aran Islands and Connemara”, p.39, Mercier Press Ltd

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• On rolls the stream with a perpetual sigh;
  The rocks moan wildly as it passes by;
  Hyssop and wormwood border all the strand,
  And not a flower adorns the dreary land.

  William C. Bryant

  Flower, Rocks, Land

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• After desolation, grief brings back our humanity.

  Mason Cooley

  Grief, Humanity

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• The desolation and terror of, for the first time, realizing that the mother can lose you, or you her, and your own abysmal loneliness and helplessness without her.

  Francis Thompson

  Family, Mother, Loneliness

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