Lost Cause Quotes

• Lost causes are the only ones worth fighting for.

  Clarence Darrow

  Fighting, Causes, Lost

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• We fight for lost causes because we know that our defeat and dismay may be the preface to our successors' victory, though that victory itself will be temporary; we fight rather to keep something alive than in the expectation that anything will triumph.

  T. S. Eliot

  Fighting, Expectations, Victory

  T. S. Eliot (2014). “Essays Ancient and Modern”, p.59, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• The only lost cause is one we give up on before we enter the struggle.

  Vaclav Havel

  Giving Up, Struggle, Causes

  "From Prisoner to President - A Tribute". Amnesty International essay,

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• Always retain the ability to walk away, without sentimentality, from a situation that felt unmanageable. That was a basic rule of survival. Don't lift a finger for a lost cause.

  Steig Larsson

  Survival, Causes, Lost

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• I am not the champion of lost causes, but the champion of causes not yet won.

  Norman Thomas

  Champion, Causes, Lost

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• Know when to give up a lost cause. Anyone who needs to be persuaded to be free, doesn't deserve to be.

  L. Neil Smith

  Giving Up, Needs, Causes

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• I shared a vagrant optimism that some of us were making real progress, that we had taken an honest road, and that the best of us would inevitably make it over the top. At the same time, I felt that the life we were leading was a lost cause, that we were all actor, kidding ourselves on a senseless odyssey. It was the tension between those two poles - a restless idealism on one hand and a sense of impending doom on the other - that kept me going.

  Hunter S. Thompson

  Real, Taken, Hands

  "The Rum Diary". Book by Hunter S. Thompson, 1998.

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• There's no such thing as a lost cause.

  Ben Sherwood

  Causes, Lost

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• We were always loyal to lost causes...Success for us is the death of the intellect and of the imagination. ~ Professor MacHugh

  James Joyce

  Imagination, Loyal, Causes

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• Memories begin to creep forward from hidden corners of your mind. Passing disappointments. Lost chances and lost causes. Heartbreaks and pain and desolate, horrible loneliness. Sorrows you thought long forgotten mingle with still-fresh wounds.

  Erin Morgenstern

  Pain, Memories, Disappointment

  FaceBook post by Erin Morgenstern from Nov 07, 2012

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• Home of lost causes, and forsaken beliefs, and unpopular names, and impossible loyalties!

  Matthew Arnold

  Loyalty, Home, Names

  Essays in Criticism First Series, preface (1865)

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• An intelligent person fights for lost causes, realizing that others are merely effects

  e. e. cummings

  Fighting, Intelligent, Causes

  E. E. Cummings, Richard Kostelanetz, John M. Rocco (1999). “AnOther E.E. Cummings”, p.276, W. W. Norton & Company

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• The Bible teaches that there are no lost causes. No permanent pit-dwellers except those who refuse to leave.

  Beth Moore

  Pits, Causes, Lost

  Beth Moore (2015). “Looking Up: Trusting God With Your Every Need”, p.8, Harper Collins

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• Maybe tomorrow is counting on me
  To learn my lessons today
  I'll start by taking a step at a time
  And stop throwing my blessings away
  I'll get myself up and I'll brush myself off
  And take back some of the pride that I've lost
  'Cause you can't always keep your feet on the ground
  I guess we all learn the hard way and we all fall down

  Bekka Bramlett

  Song, Fall, Pride

  Song: We All Fall Down

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• I've always had a weakness for lost causes once they're really lost.

  Margaret Mitchell

  Weakness, Causes, Lost

  "Fictional character: Rhett Butler". "Gone with the Wind", www.imdb.com. 1939.

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• There's no such thing as a lost cause, or a dead end. Through persistence, attitude, and creativity, there's always an escape route.

  Urijah Faber

  Attitude, Creativity, Persistence

  FaceBook post by Urijah Faber from Oct 08, 2013

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• Ain't no love lost, cause there was never none there.

  Eric Murray

  Lost Love, Rap, Hip Hop

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• I know your cause is lost, but in the heart / Of all right causes is a cause that cannot lose.

  Christopher Fry

  Heart, Causes, Lost

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• Revolution is an art that I pursue rather than a goal I expect to achieve. Nor is this a source of dismay; a lost cause can be as spiritually satisfying as a victory.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Art, Goal, Victory

  Robert A Heinlein (1966). “Moon Is Harsh Mistres”, Berkley

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• ..if you dread tomorrow, it's because you don't know how to build the present, you tell yourself you can deal with it tomorrow, and it's a lost cause anyway because tomorrow always ends up becoming today, don't you see?

  Muriel Barbery

  Today, Causes, Becoming

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• There really is something irresistible about a lost cause.

  Stephenie Meyer

  Causes, Lost, Irresistible

  Stephenie Meyer (2008). “Eclipse”, Little Brown & Company

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• You've got to be in the moment, especially in the playoffs. If you're worried about the past, worried about what happened last game, that's a lost cause.

  Drew Storen

  Past, Games, Lasts

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• Solving the population problem is not going to solve the problems of racism, of sexism, of religious intolerance, of war, of gross economic inequality. But if you don't solve the population problem, you're not going to solve any of those problems. Whatever problem you're interested in, you're not going to solve it unless you also solve the population problem. Whatever your cause, it's a lost cause without population control.

  Paul R. Ehrlich

  Religious, War, Population Problem

  "Paul Ehrlich and the Population Bomb". PBS video produced by David Suzuki,

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• That first shrink I saw when I got back to Clayton Falls told me no one is a lost cause, but I think that’s bullshit. I think people can be so crushed, so broken, that they’ll never be anything more than a fragment of a whole person.

  Chevy Stevens

  Fall, Thinking, People

  Chevy Stevens (2011). “Still Missing”, p.148, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• It's tucked away in a quiet corner, shadowed and obscured, no part of the Nightside's usual bright gaudy neon noir. It doesn't advertise and it doesn't care if you habitually pass by on the other side. It's just there for when you need it. Dedicated to the patron saint of lost causes, St. Jude's is an old old place... St. Jude's isn't a place for comfort for frills and fancies and the trappings of religion. just a place where you can talk to your god and sometimes get an answer.

  Simon R. Green

  Usual, Comfort, Saint

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