Desolation Quotes - Page 6

• The good Samaritan, he's getting dressed, he's getting ready for the show. He's going to the carnival tonight on Desolation Row.

  Bob Dylan

  Art, Media, Tonight

  Bob Dylan (2016). “The Lyrics: 1961-2012”, p.181, Simon and Schuster

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• I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world may still know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved. In a position of utter desolation, when a man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way - an honorable way - in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment.

  Viktor E. Frankl

  Men, Understanding, Suffering

  Viktor E. Frankl (2015). “Man's Search For Meaning, Gift Edition”, p.35, Beacon Press

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• There are houses in certain provincial towns whose aspect inspires melancholy, akin to that called forth by sombre cloisters, dreary moorlands, or the desolation of ruins. Within these houses there is, perhaps, the silence of the cloister, the barrenness of moors, the skeleton of ruins; life and movement are so stagnant there that a stranger might think them uninhabited, were it not that he encounters suddenly the pale, cold glance of a motionless person, whose half-monastic face peers beyond the window-casing at the sound of an unaccustomed step.

  Honore de Balzac

  Book, Thinking, Skeletons

  Honore de Balzac (2009). “Eugenie Grandet”, p.5, The Floating Press

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• The only sound that's left after the ambulances go is Cinderella sweeping up on Desolation Row.

  Bob Dylan

  Games, Sound, Nursery

  Song: Desolation Row, Album: Highway 61 Revisited, 1965

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• Man may be doomed to loss, sorrow, and desolation, but if he tries his strength and will, however briefly, upon the indifferent vast hostility of the elements, he rages against futility and asserts his right of being

  Jim Perrin

  Loss, Men, Climbing

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• The appearance presented by the streets of London an hour before sunrise, on a summer's morning, is most striking even to the few whose unfortunate pursuits of pleasure, or scarcely less unfortunate pursuits of business, cause them to be well acquainted with the scene. There is an air of cold, solitary desolation about the noiseless streets which we are accustomed to see thronged at other times by a busy, eager crowd, and over the quiet, closely-shut buildings, which throughout the day are swarming with life and bustle, that is very impressive.

  Charles Dickens

  Summer, Morning, Air

  Charles Dickens (1839). “Sketches by Boz: Pseud. Illustrative of Every-day Life and Every-day People”, p.55

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• I hope we shall prove how much happier for man the Quaker policy is, and that the life of the feeder is better than that of the fighter; and it is some consolation that the desolation by these maniacs of one part of the earth is the means of improving it in other parts. Let the latter be our office, and let us milk the cow, while the Russian holds her by the horns, and the Turk by the tail.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Mean, Men, Office

  Thomas Jefferson, Henry Augustine Washington (1854). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence, cont”, p.245

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• North was only a direction indicated by a compass--if a man had one, that is, for otherwise there was no north or south or east or west; there was only the brooding desolation.

  Shelby Foote

  Men, East, West

  Shelby Foote (2011). “The Civil War: A Narrative: Volume 2: Fredericksburg to Meridian”, p.128, Vintage

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• There is no hour that has not its births of gladness and despair, no morning brightness that does not bring new sickness to desolation as well as new forces to genius and love. There are so many of us, and our lots are so different, what wonder that Nature's mood is often in harsh contrast with the great crisis of our lives?

  George Eliot

  Morning, Balance, Despair

  George Eliot (2016). “Adam Bede”, p.316, George Eliot

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• Civilizations come and go; they conquer the earth and crumble into dust; but faith survives every desolation.

  Will Durant

  Dust, Civilization, Earth

  Will Durant (2011). “The Life of Greece: The Story of Civilization”, p.75, Simon and Schuster

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• Who shall contend with time,--unvanquished time, the conqueror of conquerors and lord of desolation?

  Henry Kirke White

  Time, Lord, Conqueror

  Henry Kirke White (1842). “The Works of Henry Kirke White: Containing His Life, Poems, and Melancholy Hours”, p.204

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• The wolf is the arch type of ravin, the beast of waste and desolation.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Arches, Waste, Beast

  Theodore Roosevelt (2016). “Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches”, p.113, Sheba Blake Publishing

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• But neither Europe nor Africa can show any such desolation as America. The proudest, stubbornest, bitterest peasant of deserted Spain, the most primitive and superstitious Arab of the remotest oases, are a little more than kin and never less than kind at their worst; whereas in the United States one is almost always conscious of an instinctive lack of sympathy and understanding with even the most charming and cultured people.

  Aleister Crowley

  America, Oasis, Europe

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• There are women to whom nature has granted the gift of silent emotion. They have mobile faces, changeful eyes, soft lips, which express joy or desolation naturally, and with the charm of perfect simplicity and truth.

  Sarah Doudney

  Eye, Perfect, Simplicity

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• Stand in despair anywhere old-growth forest has been clear-felled. All life has been replaced by blackened, poisoned desolation. Animals and birds have either fled or been killed, and baits are laid waiting for those that should return. And in these tortured places, the devastation is brutal and total. And this is what greed looks like.

  Peter Cundall

  Animal, Greed, Bird

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• When I think of this life I have led; the desolation of solitude it has been; the masoned, walled-town of a Captain's exclusiveness, which admits but small entrance to any sympathy from the green country without - oh, weariness! heaviness! Guinea-coast slavery of solitary command!

  Herman Melville

  Life, Country, Thinking

  1851 Captain Ahab. Moby Dick, ch.132.

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• Grace comes often clad in the dusky robe of desolation.

  Francis Beaumont

  Grace, Robes

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• I confess, without shame, that I am sick and tired of fighting — its glory is all moonshine; even success the most brilliant is over dead and mangled bodies, with the anguish and lamentations of distant families, appealing to me for sons, husbands, and fathers ... it is only those who have never heard a shot, never heard the shriek and groans of the wounded and lacerated ... that cry aloud for more blood, more vengeance, more desolation.

  William Tecumseh Sherman

  Husband, Father, Tired

  Letter to James E. Yeatman on May 21, 1865. "Sherman: Merchant of Terror, Advocate of Peace". Book by Charles Edmund Vetter, p. 289, 1992.

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• In times of desolation, God conceals Himself from us so that we can discover for ourselves what we are without Him.

  Margaret of Cortona

  Saint

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• While we are actually subjected to them, the 'moods' and 'spirits' of nature point no morals. Overwhelming gaiety, insupportable grandeur, sombre desolation are flung at you. Make what you can of them, if you must make at all. The only imperative that nature utters is, 'Look. Listen. Attend.

  C. S. Lewis

  Nature, Looks, Spirit

  C. S. Lewis (1971). “The Four Loves”, p.31, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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