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

My theory has always been, that if we are to dream, the flatteries of hope are as cheap, and pleasanter, than the gloom of despair.
Thomas Jefferson

Naturally I drew register a little exaggerated, in order to create something new in the sense of a sublime literature that sings of despair only in order to oppress the reader, and make him desire the good as the remedy.
Comte de Lautreamont

Never despair, but if you do, work on in despair.
Edmund Burke

No matter how ephemeral it is, a novel is something, while despair is nothing.
Mario Vargas Llosa

No, no, I never despair, because George Bush is not running the universe. He may be running the United States, he may be running the military, he may be running even the world, but he is not running the universe, he is not running the human heart.
Martin Sheen

Nothing earthly will make me give up my work in despair.
David Livingstone

Now, God be praised, that to believing souls gives light in darkness, comfort in despair.
William Shakespeare

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

Only a man who has felt ultimate despair is capable of feeling ultimate bliss.
Alexandre Dumas

Our government is founded upon the intelligence of the people. I for one do not despair of the republic. I have great confidence in the virtue of the great majority of the people, and I cannot fear the result.
Andrew Jackson

People are really suffering these days. There's a lot of corporate triumph and a lot of personal despair as they wonder what are they working for.
Laurie Anderson

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

Plant diseases, drought, desolation, despair were recurrent catastrophes during the ages - and the ancient remedies: supplications to supernatural spirits or gods.
Norman Borlaug

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

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

Sad Patience, too near neighbour to despair.
Matthew Arnold

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

Scotsmen are metaphisical and emotional, they are sceptical and mystical, they are romantic and ironic, they are cruel and tender, and full of mirth and despair.
William Dunbar

Sectional football games have the glory and the despair of war, and when a Texas team takes the field against a foreign state, it is an army with banners.
John Steinbeck