Utter Despair Quotes

• 

  Because I remember, I despair. Because I remember, I have the duty to reject despair.

  Elie Wiesel

  Life, Despair, Remember

  Nobel Lecture, www.nobelprize.org. December 11, 1986.

  93 Copy quote

  Show source

• To my utter despair I have discovered, and discover every day anew, that there is in the masses no revolutionary idea or hope or passion.

  Mikhail Bakunin

  Passion, Ideas, Despair

  9 Copy quote

• In that one slight motion, I see the end of hope, beginning of destruction of everything I hold dear in the world. I can't guess what form my punishment will take, how wide the net will be cast, but when it is finished there most likely be nothing left. So you would think that at this moment, I would be in utter despair.

  Suzanne Collins

  Thinking, Punishment, Despair

  Suzanne Collins (2011). “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire”, p.64, Scholastic

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.

  Woody Allen

  Inspirational, Inspiring, Hope

  Side Effects "My Speech to the Graduates" (1980)

  95 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  78 Copy quote

• When you confuse personal love and cosmic heroism you are bound to fail in both spheres. The impossibility of the heroism undermines the love, even if it is real. This double failure is what produces the sense of utter despair that we see in modern man... Love, then, is seen a religious problem

  Ernest Becker

  Religious, Real, Men

  Ernest Becker (1997). “The Denial of Death”, p.166, Simon and Schuster

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

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

  Philip Yancey

  Despair, Devotion, Ecclesiastes

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

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Then we are assured by Sartre that owing to the final disappearance of God our liberty is absolute! At this the entire audience waves its hat or claps its hands. But this natural enthusiasm is turned abruptly into something much less buoyant when it is learnt that this liberty weighs us down immediately with tremendous responsibilities. We now have to take all God's worries on our shoulders -now that we are become men like gods. It is at this point that the Anxiety and Despondency begin, ending in utter despair.

  Wyndham Lewis

  God, Responsibility, Men

  Wyndham Lewis (1989). “The Essential Wyndham Lewis: An Introduction to His Work”, Andre Deutsch Limited

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• A friend came to visit James Joyce one day and found the great man sprawled across his writing desk in a posture of utter despair. James, what’s wrong?' the friend asked. 'Is it the work?' Joyce indicated assent without even raising his head to look at his friend. Of course it was the work; isn’t it always? How many words did you get today?' the friend pursued. Joyce (still in despair, still sprawled facedown on his desk): 'Seven.' Seven? But James… that’s good, at least for you.' Yes,' Joyce said, finally looking up. 'I suppose it is… but I don’t know what order they go in!

  Stephen King

  Writing, Men, Order

  4 Copy quote

• It is not envy or malice, as so many people think, but utter despair that has persuaded many educational reformers to recommend the abolition of the English public schools.

  Peter Medawar

  Educational, School, Thinking

  "The art of the soluble". Book by Peter Medawar, 1967.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• When he awoke it was dawn. Or something like dawn. The light was watery, dim and incomparably sad. Vast, grey, gloomy hills rose up all around them and in between the hills there was a wide expanse of black bog. Stephen had never seen a landscape so calculated to reduce the onlooker to utter despair in an instant. "This is one of your kingdoms, I suppose, sir?" he said. "My kingdoms?" exclaimed the gentleman in surprize. "Oh, no! This is Scotland!

  Susanna Clarke

  Light, Scotland, Rose

  Susanna Clarke, Portia Rosenberg (2005). “Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell”, p.604, A&C Black

  11 Copy quote

  Show source