Despair Quotes

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

Food, Revenge, End

We have to go into the despair and go beyond it, by working and doing for somebody else, by using it for something else.
Elie Wiesel

Working, Else, Somebody

Look, if I were alone in the world, I would have the right to choose despair, solitude and self-fulfillment. But I am not alone.
Elie Wiesel

Alone, Solitude, Choose

It is necessary to work, if not from inclination, at least from despair. Everything considered, work is less boring than amusing oneself.
Charles Baudelaire

Work, Everything, Boring

Persuade thyself that imperfection and inconvenience are the natural lot of mortals, and there will be no room for discontent, neither for despair.
Ieyasu Tokugawa

Natural, Room, Neither

We define only out of despair, we must have a formula... to give a facade tot he void.
Emile M. Cioran

Give, Define, Void

To exist is a habit I do not despair of acquiring.
Emile M. Cioran

Exist, Habit, Acquiring

Intellectual despair results in neither weakness nor dreams, but in violence. It is only a matter of knowing how to give vent to one's rage; whether one only wants to wander like madmen around prisons, or whether one wants to overturn them.
Georges Bataille

Dreams, Give, Around

Innumerable confusions and a feeling of despair invariably emerge in periods of great technological and cultural transition.
Marshall McLuhan

Great, Feeling, Transition

Snobbery? But it's only a form of despair.
Joseph Brodsky

American society as a whole can never achieve the outer-reaches of potential, so long as it tolerates the inner cities of despair.
Jack Kemp

Society, Long, American

Then I despair... I remember that all through history, the way of truth and love has always won. There have been murderers and tyrants, and for a time they can seem invincible. But in the end they always fall. Think of it always.
Andre Malraux

Love, Time, History

Schizophrenia cannot be understood without understanding despair.
R. D. Laing

Cannot, Understood

Debauchery is perhaps an act of despair in the face of infinity.
Edmond de Goncourt

Face, Act, Perhaps

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

Hope, Black, Forever

I do believe that most men live lives of quiet desperation. For despair, optimism is the only practical solution. Hope is practical. Because eliminate that and it's pretty scary. Hope at least gives you the option of living.
Harry Nilsson

Men, Hope, Live

There is no greater folly in the world than for a man to despair.
Miguel de Cervantes

Oh rage! Oh despair! Oh age, my enemy!
Pierre Corneille

Age, Enemy, Rage

So long as we have failed to eliminate any of the causes of human despair, we do not have the right to try to eliminate those means by which man tries to cleanse himself of despair.
Antonin Artaud

Long, Human, Try

Do parents sit down and tell their kids everything? I don't know. I don't know. I've convinced myself - I hope I'm right - that children despair of you if you don't tell them the truth.
Maurice Sendak

Hope, Truth, Children

I've convinced myself - I hope I'm right - that children despair of you if you don't tell them the truth.
Maurice Sendak

Hope, Truth, Children

I want no part of making any contribution whatsoever to the despair which eventually follows downbeat thinking.
Loretta Young

Thinking, Making, Eventually

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, Best, Live

I think most artists create out of despair. The very nature of creation is not a performing glory on the outside, it's a painful, difficult search within.
Louise Berliawsky Nevelson

Nature, Difficult, Within

It's curious how we act in moments of personal despair.
Lawrence Welk

Personal, Act, Moments

Incumbent White House parties have won 10 of the last 18 presidential elections; the odds are tight, but they favor Obama in 2012. And so gloomy Democrats, check your despair; gleeful Republicans, watch the hubris.
Jon Meacham

Last, Won, House

With optimism, you look upon the sunny side of things. People say, 'Studs, you're an optimist.' I never said I was an optimist. I have hope because what's the alternative to hope? Despair? If you have despair, you might as well put your head in the oven.
Studs Terkel

Hope, Put, Said

Therefore, let us not despair, but instead, survey the position, consider carefully the action we must take, and then address ourselves to our common task in a mood of sober resolution and quiet confidence, without haste and without pause.
Arthur Henderson

Confidence, Action, Ourselves

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

Giant, Doubting, Castle

My generation, faced as it grew with a choice between religious belief and existential despair, chose marijuana. Now we are in our Cabernet stage.
Peggy Noonan

Between, Choice, Religious

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