Helpless Quotes - Page 7

• Never does one feel oneself so utterly helpless as in trying to speak comfort for great bereavement.

  Jane Welsh Carlyle

  Death, Bereavement, Trying

  Jane Welsh Carlyle (1883). “Letters and Memorials...”

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• We are brought into this world cold, weak, and helpless. Then it gets worse.

  Christopher Titus

  Philosophy, Philosophical, World

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• It turned out that the country was helpless in the face of a new reality.

  Andrzej Wajda

  Country, Reality, Faces

  "Why Not Have Our Own World?". Interview with Renata Murawska, sensesofcinema.com. July 2005.

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• Since the election, since the formation of a government, the death in Iraq has increased. The United States stands by, helpless to do anything about it. That's the reality, not George Bush's revisionist history!

  Mark Shields

  Reality, Government, Iraq

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• As her sons have seen her: the mother in patriarchy: controlling, erotic, castrating, heart-suffering, guilt-ridden, and guilt-provoking; a marble brow, a huge breast, an avid cave; between her legs snakes, swamp-grass, or teeth; on her lap a helpless infant or a martyred son. She exists for one purpose: to bear and nourish the son.

  Adrienne Rich

  Mother, Heart, Son

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• Why, lies are like a sticky juice overspreading the world, a living, growing flypaper to catch and gum the wings of every human soul. . . And the little helpless buzzings of honest, liberal, kindly people, aren't they like the thin little noise flies make when they're caught?

  John Dos Passos

  Lying, Wings, People

  John Dos Passos (1922). “One Man's Initiation--1917”

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• Speaking of myself, I was made to realize long ago that the old trade union was utterly incompetent to deal successfully with the exploiting corporations in this struggle. I was made to see that in craft unionism the capitalist class have it within their power to keep the workers divided, to use one part of them to conquer and crush another part of them. Indeed, I was made to see that the old form of unionism separates the workers and keeps them helpless at the mercy of their masters.

  Eugene V. Debs

  Crush, Struggle, Long Ago

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• people who refuse to take risks live with a feeling of dread that is far more severe than what they would feel if they took the risks necessary to make them less helpless - only they don't know it!

  Susan Jeffers

  People, Feelings, Risk

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• Ironically, the universities have trained hundreds of thousands of graduates for jobs that soon will not exist. They have trained people to maintain a structure that cannot be maintained. The elite...know only how to feed the beast until it dies. Once it is dead, they will be helpless. Don't expect them to save us. They don't know how....and when it all collapses, when our rotten financial system with its trillions in worthless assets implodes and our imperial wars end in humiliation and defeat, the power elite will be exposed as being as helpless, and as self-deluded as the rest of us

  Chris Hedges

  Jobs, War, Self

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• My anti-Americanism has become almost uncontrollable. It has possessed me, like a disease. It rises up in my throat like acid reflux, that fashionable American sickness. I now loathe the United States and what it has done to Iraq and the rest of the helpless world.

  Margaret Drabble

  Iraq, United States, Done

  "I loathe America, and what it has done to the rest of the world" by Margaret Drabble, www.telegraph.co.uk. May 8, 2003.

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• Most important, however, is the third avenue to meaning in life: even the helpless victim of a
  hopeless situation, facing a fate he cannot change, may rise above himself, may grow beyond
  himself, and by so doing change himself. He may turn a personal tragedy into a triumph.

  Viktor E. Frankl

  Inspirational, Fate, Challenges

  Viktor E. Frankl (2006). “Man's Search for Meaning”, p.142, Beacon Press

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• Abide with me; fast falls the eventide; The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide; When other helpers fail, and comforts flee, Help of the helpless, O, abide with me. Swift to its close ebbs out life's little day; Earth's joys grow dim, its glories pass away; Change and decay in all around I see; O Thou, who changest not, abide with me.

  Henry Francis Lyte

  Life, Failure, Fall

  "Abide with Me" l. 1 (1847)

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• Do you recall the laughter of the Philistines at the helpless Sampson? You can hear the echo of that laughter to-day, as the church, shorn of her strength by her own sin, is an object of ridicule to the world, who cry in derision, "Where is your boasted triumph and your Millennial glory?

  Abbott Eliot Kittredge

  Laughter, Echoes, Church

  "Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers" by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, p. 147, 1895.

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• So if waiting is an aggravation, it is at least partly because we do not like being reminded of our limits. We like doing -- earning, buying, selling, building, planting, driving, baking -- making things happen, whereas waiting is essentially a matter of being -- stopping, sitting, listening, looking, breathing, wondering, praying. It can feel pretty helpless to wait for someone or something that is not here yet and that will or will not arrive in its own good time, which is not the same thing as our own good time.

  Barbara Brown Taylor

  Breathing, Aggravation, Waiting

  Barbara Brown Taylor (1995). “Gospel Medicine”, p.153, Rowman & Littlefield

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• I have achieved the 'sacred' pilgrimage to Ktaadn MT - exceeding all my expectations so far that I am sort of helpless with words. I feel as if I have seen God for the first time, and find him so nonchalantly solemn.

  Marsden Hartley

  Expectations, Sacred, Firsts

  Letter to Adelaide Kuntz; as cited in "Marsden Hartley", by Gail R. Scott, 1988, p. 130, October 24, 1939.

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• Helpless lust and unreasoning anxiety were just part of growing up.

  Octavia Butler

  Growing Up, Anxiety, Lust

  Octavia E. Butler (2012). “Imago”, p.168, Open Road Media

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• Love is not feeling, child, nor even the passion of lovers, which always seeks only its own gratification. It is the act of caring, of giving, the act of protecting the weak, the helpless, the imprisoned and the desperate. Love is the hand raised in defence. You cannot love and keep your hands clean.

  Patricia Duncker

  Children, Passion, Caring

  Patricia Duncker (1999). “James Miranda Barry”

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• Darkest of all Decembers ever has my life known, Sitting here by the embers, stunned, helpless, alone.

  Mary Boykin Chesnut

  War, History, Sitting

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• Once we remember that all that takes place during the first days of life on the emotional level shapes the patterns of all future reactions , we cannot but wonder why such a torture has been inflicted on the child. How could a being who has been aggressed in this way, while totally helpless, develop into a relaxed, loving, trusting person? Indeed, he will always never be able to trust anyone in life. He will always be on the defensive, unable to open up to others and to life.

  Frederick Leboyer

  Children, Emotional, Levels

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• Helplessness is such a rotten feeling. There's nothing you can do about it. Being helpless is like being paralyzed. It's sickness. The cure calls for a monumental effort to stand up and start walking somewhere, anywhere. But that takes some doing.

  Chuck Barris

  Effort, Feelings, Rotten

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• I grew a love for helpless, defenseless things. People would give me lions and jaguars. I had cheetahs, monkeys.

  Dick Dale

  People, Giving, Lions

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• In any trial, in any bitter situation, you are not alone, you are not helpless, you are not a victim. You have a tree, a cross, shown to you by the Sovereign God of Calvary. Whatever the trial or temptation, it is not more than you can bear. It is bearable. It can be handled. You can know as Joseph knew, "You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive" (Genesis 50:20).

  Kay Arthur

  Order, People, Evil

  Kay Arthur (1994). “Beloved: From God's Heart to Yours”, Harvest House Pub

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• In everything, depend upon yourself, but work in harmony with all things. Do not depend even upon the Infinite, but learn to work and live in harmony with the Infinite. The highest teachings of the Christ reveal most clearly the principle that no soul was created to be a mere helpless instrument in the hands of Supreme Power, but that every soul should act and live in perfect oneness with that Power. And the promise is that we all are not only to do the things that Christ did, but even greater things.

  Christian D. Larson

  Teaching, Hands, Oneness

  Christian D. Larson (2012). “The Optimist Creed”, p.339, Penguin

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• It's one thing to be helpless as one tries to lace a corset or to mount an elephant, quite another to be helpless as a bandit pushes a black steel knife against the flesh of your throat while his brother comes to join him.

  John Speed

  Brother, Knives, Elephants

  John Speed (2007). “The Temple Dancer: A Novel of India”, p.86, Macmillan

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• The important thing is to tell yourself a life story in which you, the hero, are primarily a problem solver rather than a helpless victim. This is well within your power, whatever fate might have dealt you.

  Martha Beck

  Hero, Fate, Important

  Martha Beck (2008). “Finding Your Own North Star: Claiming the Life You Were Meant to Live”, p.96, Harmony

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