Melancholy Quotes - Page 15

• It is a melancholy illusion of those who write books and articles that the printed word survives. Alas, it rarely does.

  Eric Hobsbawm

  Book, Writing, Printed Word

  Eric Hobsbawm (2011). “How To Change The World: Tales of Marx and Marxism”, p.126, Hachette UK

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• The tune was sad, as the best of Ireland was, melancholy and lovely as a lover's tears.

  Nora Roberts

  Romance, Lovely, Tears

  Nora Roberts (2011). “Nora Roberts' The Irish Born Trilogy”, p.19, Penguin

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• For the traveler we see leaning on his neighbor is an honest and well-meaning man and full of melancholy, like those Chekhov characters so laden with virtues that they never know success in life.

  Orhan Pamuk

  Character, Men, Honest

  FaceBook post by Orhan Pamuk from Mar 27, 2012

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• I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano!

  William Shakespeare

  Philosophical, Venice, World

  'The Merchant of Venice' (1596-8) act 1, sc. 1, l. 77

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• I know not why there is such a melancholy feeling attached to the remembrance of past happiness, except that we fear that the future can have nothing so bright as the past.

  Julia Ward Howe

  Past, Remembrance, Feelings

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• Melancholy and sadness are the start of doubt... doubt is the beginning of despair; despair is the cruel beginning of the differing degrees of wickedness.

  Isidore Ducasse Lautreamont

  Sadness, Doubt, Despair

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• But with writers, there's nothing wrong with melancholy. It's an important color in writing.

  Paul McCartney

  Writing, Color, Important

  Interview with Robert Siegel, www.avclub.com. June 27, 2007.

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• I pray God I may never be brought to the melancholy trial, but if ever I should, it will be then known how far I can reduce to practice, principles, which I know to be founded in truth.

  James Otis

  Practice, Principles, Trials

  "James Otis: Against Writs of Assistance". James Otis' speech (February 1761), as quoted in William Tudor "James Otis's Speech on the Writs of Assistance", books.google.com. 1906.

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• I stayed there loving you, though the love made me, not sad but I guess melancholy, for a reason I couldn’t point to.

  Daniel Handler

  Loving You, Reason, Made

  Daniel Handler (2012). “Why We Broke Up”, p.165, Egmont UK

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• I found him well educated, with unusual powers of mind, but infected with misanthropy, and subject to perverse moods of alternate enthusiasm and melancholy.

  Edgar Allan Poe

  Mind, Enthusiasm, Unusual

  Edgar Allan Poe (2015). “A Classic Crime Collection”, p.104, Simon and Schuster

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• Chekhov is this poet of melancholy and isolation and of wishing you were somewhere else than where you are.

  Salman Rushdie

  Somewhere Else, Wish, Isolation

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• Never give way to melancholy; resist it steadily, for the habit will encroach.

  Sydney Smith

  Giving, Way, Habit

  Sydney Smith, Sarah Austin, Lady Saba Smith Holland Holland (1855). “A Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith”, p.323, London, Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans

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• Let it not be imagined that the life of a good Christian must be a life of melancholy and gloominess; for he only resigns some pleasures to enjoy others infinitely better.

  Blaise Pascal

  Christian, Pleasure, Enjoy

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• There's little of the melancholy element in her, my lord: she is never sad but when she sleeps; and not ever sad then; for I have heard my daughter say, she hath often dreamt of unhappiness, and waked herself with laughing.

  William Shakespeare

  Happiness, Daughter, Sleep

  1598 Leonato, of Beatrice. Much Ado About Nothing, act 2, sc.1, l.321-5.

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• We rightly scorn those who have no made use of their defects, who have not exploited their deficiencies, and have not been enriched by their losses, as we despise any man who does not suffer at being a man or simply at being. Hence no graver insult can be inflicted than to call someone 'happy', no greater flattery than to grant him a 'vein of melancholy'... This is because gaiety is link to no important action and because, except for the mad, no one laughs when he is alone.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Loss, Men, Mad

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• There is a delight in the hardy life of the open. There are no words that can tell the hidden spirit of the wilderness, that can reveal its mystery, its melancholy and its charm. The nation behaves well if it treats the natural resources as assets which it must turn over to the next generation increased; and not impaired in value. Conservation means development as much as it does protection.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Mean, Delight, Development

  Theodore Roosevelt (1955). “Theodore Roosevelt's America: Selections from the Writings of the Oyster Bay Naturalist”

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• She was not crying Which surprised me very much But I understand now That she had found places For her melancholy That were behind more masks Than only her eyes

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Eye, Cry, Mask

  Jonathan Safran Foer (2013). “Everything Is Illuminated”, p.185, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• And that dismal cry rose slowly And sank slowly through the air, Full of spirit's melancholy And eternity's despair; And they heard the words it said,- "Pan is dead! great Pan is dead! Pan, Pan is dead!"

  Elizabeth Barrett Browning

  Air, Rose, Spirit

  Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1871). “The Poetical Works of”

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• The funeral is a quiet one, despite the number of mourners present. There are no sobs or flailing handkerchiefs. There is a smattering of color amongst the sea of traditional black. Even the light rain cannot push it down into the realms of despair. It rests instead in a space of thoughtful melancholy.

  Erin Morgenstern

  Rain, Thoughtful, Light

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• The diabolical thing about melancholy is not that it makes you ill but that it makes you conceited and shortsighted; yes almost arrogant. You lapse into bad taste, thinking of yourself as Heine's Atlas, whose shoulders support all the world's puzzles and agonies, as if thousands, lost in the same maze, did not endure the same agonies.

  Hermann Hesse

  Thinking, Conceited, Agony

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• My name is Eva, which means 'life,' according to a book of names my mother consulted. I was born in the back room of a shadowy house, and grew up amidst ancient furniture, books in Latin, and human mummies, but none of those things made me melancholy, because I came into the world with a breath of the jungle in my memory.

  Isabel Allende

  Mother, Memories, Latin

  Isabel Allende (1989). “Eva Luna”, Bantam

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• There is nothing like employment, active indispensable employment, for relieving sorrow. Employment, even melancholy, may dispel melancholy.

  Jane Austen

  Sorrow, Employment, May

  Jane Austen (2005). “Jane Austen: 8 Books in 1”, p.305, Shoes & Ships & Sealing Wax

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• Despite her cough, Rose was in unusually good spirits. That was irritating. If I’m to trade my life for Rose’s, I’d appreciate her exhibiting a touch of melancholy. Also acceptable would be despair.

  Franny Billingsley

  Appreciate, Rose, Despair

  Franny Billingsley (2011). “Chime”, p.65, Penguin

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• At that moment, beauty itself struck me as a kind of painful melancholy.

  Arthur Golden

  Kind, Painful, Moments

  Arthur Golden (2008). “Memoirs Of A Geisha”, p.187, Random House

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• Time brought resignation and a melancholy sweeter than common joy.

  Emily Bronte

  Joy, Common, Resignation

  Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, Anne Bronte (2009). “The Bronte Sisters: Three Novels: Jane Eyre; Wuthering Heights; and Agnes Grey (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.497, Penguin

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