Despair Quotes - Page 5

• Only a man who has felt ultimate despair is capable of feeling ultimate bliss.

  Alexandre Dumas

  Sad, Men, Feelings

  "Fictional character: Edmond Dantes". "The Count of Monte Cristo", January 23, 2002.

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• Invention flags, his brain goes muddy,
  And black despair succeeds brown study.

  William Congreve

  Black, Brain, Flags

  "An Impossible Thing". Poem by William Congreve, 1720.

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• Black and white are the colors of photography. To me they symbolize the alternatives of hope and despair to which mankind is forever subjected.

  Robert Frank

  Photography, Black And White, Color

  Sarah Greenough, Robert Frank, Philip Brookman, National Gallery of Art (U.S.) (1994). “Robert Frank”, Natl Gallery of Art

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• At its best our age is an age of searchers and discoverers, and at its worst, an age that has domesticated despair and learned to live with it happily.

  Flannery O'Connor

  Age, Literature, Worst

  Flannery O'Connor (1969). “Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose”, p.159, Macmillan

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• The poet's expression of joy conceals his despair at not having found the reality of joy.

  Max Jacob

  Reality, Expression, Joy

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• He that despairs degrades the Deity, and seems to intimate that He is insufficient, or not just to His word; and in vain hath read the scriptures, the world, and man.

  Owen Feltham

  Men, Scripture, Deities

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• When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall... think of it, always.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Inspirational, Motivational, Sad

  "Fictional character: Mahatma Gandhi". "Gandhi", 1982.

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• Presumption should never make us neglect that which appears easy to us, nor despair make us lose courage at the sight of difficulties.

  Benjamin Banneker

  Sight, African American, Challenges

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• Thank God for beautiful songs about feeling despair when you yourself are in despair. They really get us through.

  Susannah McCorkle

  Thank You, Beautiful, Song

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• My theory has always been, that if we are to dream, the flatteries of hope are as cheap, and pleasanter, than the gloom of despair.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Dream, Doom And Gloom, Hopeful

  Thomas Jefferson (2004). “Light and Liberty: Reflections on the Pursuit of Happiness”, p.85, Modern Library

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• My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Kings, Civilization, Names

  "Ozymandias" l. 9 (1819)

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• And on the pedestal these words appear:
 'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
 Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!' 
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
 Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
 The lone and level sands stretch far away.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Kings, Names, Pedestal

  "Ozymandias" l. 9 (1819)

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• To doubt is worse than to have lost; And to despair is but to antedate those miseries that must fall on us.

  Philip Massinger

  Fall, Doubt, Misery

  Philip Massinger (1816). “The Duke of Milan: A Tragedy in Five Acts”, p.10

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• The accidents of life separate us from our dearest friends, but let us not despair. God is like a looking glass in which souls see each other. The more we are united to Him by love, the nearer we are to those who belong to Him.

  Elizabeth Ann Seton

  God, Glasses, Soul

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• Los Angeles was an impression of failure, of disappointment, of despair, and of oddly makeshift lives. This is California? I thought.

  Joseph Barbera

  Disappointment, California, Los Angeles

  Joseph Barbera (1994). “My Life in 'Toons: From Flatbush to Bedrock in Under a Century”, Turner Pub

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• Sectional football games have the glory and the despair of war, and when a Texas team takes the field against a foreign state, it is an army with banners.

  John Steinbeck

  Football, War, Team

  John Steinbeck (1980). “Travels with Charley in Search of America”, p.126, Penguin

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• Then my verse I dishonor, my pictures despise, my person degrade and my temper chastise; and the pen is my terror, the pencil my shame; and my talents I bury, and dead is my fame.

  William Blake

  Talent, Shame, Fame

  William Blake, W. H. Stevenson (2007). “Blake: The Complete Poems”, p.491, Pearson Education

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• Man dies of cold, not of darkness.

  Miguel de Unamuno

  Death, Men, Darkness

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• Revenge is barren of itself: it is the dreadful food it feeds on; its delight is murder, and its end is despair.

  Friedrich Schiller

  Revenge, Delight, Literature

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• The road that is built in hope is more pleasant to the traveler than the road built in despair, even though they both lead to the same destination.

  Marion Zimmer Bradley

  Hope, Life Journey, Destination

  Marion Zimmer Bradley (2003). “The Fall of Atlantis”, p.391, Baen Publishing Enterprises

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• But he who dies in despair has lived his whole life in vain.

  Theodor Adorno

  Life, Vain, Whole

  Theodor W. Adorno, E. F. N. Jephcott (2005). “Minima Moralia: Reflections on a Damaged Life”, p.167, Verso

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• Comedy is an escape, not from truth but from despair; a narrow escape into faith.

  Christopher Fry

  Appreciation, Comedy

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• There was a castle called Doubting Castle, the owner whereof was Giant Despair.

  John Bunyan

  Doubt, Castles, Giants

  John Bunyan, William Mason (of Rotherithe.) (1814). “The pilgrim's progress from this world to that which is to come: delivered under the similitude of a dream ... In three parts”, p.127

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• Without lies humanity would perish of despair and boredom.

  Anatole France

  Lying, Boredom, Humanity

  "The last word on lying" by AC Grayling, www.theguardian.com. September 17, 1999.

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• Schizophrenia cannot be understood without understanding despair.

  R. D. Laing

  Understanding, Schizophrenia, Understood

  The Divided Self (1960) ch. 2

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