Despair Quotes - Page 21

• God delights in our temptations and yet hates them. He delights in them when they drive us to prayer; he hates them when they drive us to despair.

  Martin Luther

  Prayer, Hate, Temptation

  Martin Luther (1848). “The table talk or familiar discourse of Martin Luther, tr. by W. Hazlitt”, p.40

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• I do not despair in the least of ultimate triumph. I repeat it with intense conviction.

  Emile Zola

  Triumph, Intense, Conviction

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• When you look in the mirror and despair and none of your clothes seem appropriate, relax, put the kettle on. It might suit you.

  Simon Munnery

  Mirrors, Suits You, Clothes

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• After each failure, ask forgiveness, pick yourself up, and try again. Very often what God first helps us toward is not the virtue itself but just this power of always trying again. For however important chastity (or courage, or truthfulness, or any other virtue) may be, this process trains us in habits of the soul which are more important still. It cures our illusions about ourselves and teaches us to depend on God. We learn, on the one hand, that we cannot trust ourselves even in our best moments, and, on the other, that we need not despair even in our worst, for our failures are forgiven.

  C. S. Lewis

  Hands, Always Trying, Soul

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• Never flinch, never weary, never despair.

  Winston Churchill

  Fair Play, Weary

  Winston Churchill (2013). “Never Give In!: Winston Churchill's Speeches”, p.399, A&C Black

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• If democracy is ever to be threatened, it will not be by revolutionary groups burning government offices and occupying the broadcasting and newspaper offices of the world. It will come from disenchantment, cynicism and despair caused by the realisation that the New World Order means we are all to be managed and not represented.

  Tony Benn

  Mean, Order, Government

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• The soul-stirring image of death is no bugbear to the sage, and is looked on without despair by the pious. It teaches the former to live, and it strengthens the hopes of the latter in salvation in the midst of distress. Death is new life to both.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Soul, New Life, Sage

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• In the middle of this despair [of postwar Germany], my family learned about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the healing message of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. This message made all the difference; it lifted us above our daily misery. Life was still thorny and the circumstances still horrible, but the gospel brought light, hope, and joy into our lives. The plain and simple truths of the gospel warmed our hearts and enlightened our minds. They helped us look at ourselves and the world around us with different eyes and from an elevated viewpoint.

  Dieter F. Uchtdorf

  Jesus, Eye, Healing

  "Have We Not Reason to Rejoice?". Dieter F. Uchtdorf's priesthood session address at the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City, Utah, www.lds.org. November 2007.

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• Let us never lose courage or despair of God's mercy. We have only to humble ourselves before God in order to obtain grace to become all that we ought to be.

  Rose Philippine Duchesne

  Humble, Order, Grace

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• Nothing but religious faith has been able to save men from despair.

  Hugh B. Brown

  Religious, Men, Able

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• The world surely has not another place like Oxford; it is a despair to see such a place and ever to leave it, for it would take a lifetime and more than one to comprehend and enjoy it satisfactorily.

  Nathaniel Hawthorne

  Oxford, World, Lifetime

  Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Julian Hawthorne (2015). “Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne: Letters, Diaries, Reminiscences and Extensive Biographies: Autobiographical Writings of the Renowned American Novelist, Author of “The Scarlet Letter”, “The House of Seven Gables” and “Twice-Told Tales””, p.710, e-artnow

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• I don't panic. The same thing applies to me as to everybody else, so I'm given to euphoria and despair. And I would say that I basically have survived by recognizing my mistakes.

  George Soros

  Mistake, Panic, Given

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• The most common despair is...not choosing, or willing, to be oneself...[but] the deepest form of despair is to choose to be another than oneself.

  Soren Kierkegaard

  Common, Form, Willing

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• Like Magellan, let us find our islands To die in, far from home, from anywhere Familiar. Let us risk the wildest places, Lest we go down in comfort, and despair.

  Mary Oliver

  Home, Islands, Risk

  Mary Oliver (1992). “New and Selected Poems”, Beacon Press (MA)

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• While I am usually in despair when a movie abandons its plot for a third act given over entirely to action, I have no problem with the way Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets ends, because it has been pointing toward this ending, hinting about it, preparing us for it, all the way through. What a glorious movie.

  Roger Ebert

  Secret, Plot, Potters

  Roger Ebert (2004). “Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbook 2005”, p.274, Andrews McMeel Publishing

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• The path to joy leads through despair.

  Alexander Lowen

  Joy, Path

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• The stark truth is that as long as the welfare state makes it possible for young women - or teenage girls - to have children without a husband and survive without a job, out-of-wedlock births will remain ruinously high, and the inner city will continue to be marked by crime, poverty, and despair.

  David Boaz

  Girl, Jobs, Children

  David Boaz (1997). “Libertarianism: A Primer”, p.261, Simon and Schuster

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• Boredom is an evil that is not to be estimated lightly. It can come in the end to real despair. The public authority takes precautions against it everywhere, as against other universal calamities.

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Real, Evil, Boredom

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• An extensive empire must be supported by a refined system of policy and oppression; in the centre, an absolute power, prompt in action and rich in resources; a swift and easy communication with the extreme parts; fortifications to check the first effort of rebellion; a regular administration to protect and punish; and a well-disciplined army to inspire fear, without provoking discontent and despair.

  Edward Gibbon

  Communication, Army, Effort

  Edward Gibbon (2008). “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, p.302, Cosimo, Inc.

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• A stout heart, a clear conscience, and never despair.

  John Quincy Adams

  Heart, Stout, Clear

  "The works of Charles Sumner". Book by Charles Sumner, 1870.

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• Fight against yourself, recover yourself to decency, to modesty, to freedom. And, in the first place, condemn your actions; but when you have condemned them, do not despair of yourself. For both ruin and recovery are from within.

  Epictetus

  Recovery, Fighting, Over You

  Epictetus (1866). “The Works of Epictetus: Consisting of His Discourses, in Four Books, the Enchiridion, and Fragments”, p.354

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• As Ecclesiastes tells it, a wholesale devotion to pleasure will, paradoxically, lead to a state of utter despair.

  Philip Yancey

  Devotion, Ecclesiastes, Pleasure

  Philip Yancey (2002). “The Bible Jesus Read: An Eight-session Exploration of the Old Testament Participant's Guide”, p.97, Harper Collins

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• Though you have sinned much, that is no reason why you should despair, but only why you should love much, having so much forgiven.

  George Whitefield

  Reason Why, Should, Forgiven

  George Whitefield (1832). “Sermons”, p.537

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• Conservatism is pessimistic, with a negative tendency - which we mostly resist - towards despair. Liberals are optimists, with a negative tendency, rarely resisted, towards utopianism.

  John Derbyshire

  Pessimistic, Negative, Tendencies

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• Your success in investing will depend in part on your character and guts, and in part on your ability to realize at the height of ebullience and the depth of despair alike that this too shall pass.

  John C. Bogle

  Character, Depth, Investing

  John C. Bogle (2015). “Bogle On Mutual Funds: New Perspectives For The Intelligent Investor”, p.242, John Wiley & Sons

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