When we contemplate the heroes of Christianity, and compare our feeble efforts with their astonishing performance and self devotion, we should fall into despair, were there not a few softening features, by which they are brought back to the ranks of humanity.
John Strachan

When you get just a complete sense of blackness or void ahead of you, that somehow the future looks an impossible place to be, and the direction you are going seems to have no purpose, there is this word despair which is a very awful thing to feel.
Stephen Fry

When you get to know me, I don't despair - I just get up, clean up, and start again.
Avi Arad

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

Without lies humanity would perish of despair and boredom.
Anatole France

Would not the child's heart break in despair when the first cold storm of the world sweeps over it, if the warm sunlight of love from the eyes of mother and father did not shine upon him like the soft reflection of divine light and love?
Max Muller

You know one of the causes of modern despair is the fact that we have had proposed to us, from various quarters, an impossible perfection.
Morris West

You may not know it, but at the far end of despair, there is a white clearing where one is almost happy.
Joan Baez