Quotes About Despair

It was inside me. The more I sought it, the stronger it grew. It loved me. Loved me even if I couldn't, wouldn't, didn't love myself. Love me even if I hated. It set its tiny teeth in my soul and braced and held so that I couldn't crawl any further. And when I tried, a howl of despair burst from it, searing me, forbidding me to break so sacred trust. It was Smithy.

When one has been disappointed for so long, hope becomes the enemy. One cannot be dashed to the earth unless one is lifted first, and I learned to avoid hope.

I felt a familiar squeezing in what I thought must be my heart. I had heard of being "heartbroken" or "heavy-hearted" but I had never known it was an actual sensation one felt when the whole world abandons you

When has been disappointed for so long, hope becomes the enemy. One cannot be dashed to the earth unless one is lifted first, and I learned to avoid hope.

Somewhere beneath the tides of those superficial emotions she knew the cold deep current of her grief sought to pull her down and drown her.

when I became sad, I was prone to wallow in grief, piling up my woes and sprawling on them like a dragon on a hoard.

My dream was dead in my arms.

Estamos aqui', respondi, e soltei uma gargalhada. Nunca pensara que a ira e o desespero pudessem fazer um homem rir.

For a time I tried to bolster myself with anger, but my despair was too clammy and dark a thing for anger's flames to overcome.

Hay un punto muerto en la noche, la hora más negra y fría, cuando el mundo se ha olvidado del atardecer y el alba no es todavía ninguna promesa. Un momento en que es demasiado pronto para levantarse, pero tan tarde que irse a la cama no tiene sentido.

Nothing takes the heart out of a man more than the expectation of failure.

More curiously, why have women, suffering greater powerlessness and having greater cause for despair than the most powerless of men, avoided resorting to it on our own behalf?

Self-will means believing that you alone have all the answers. Letting go of self-will means becoming willing to hold still, be open, and wait for guidance for yourself. It means learning to let go of fear (all of the "what ifs") and despair (all of the "if onlys") and replacing them with positive thoughts and statements about your life.

That sound you hear is my dreams crashing and burning.

Joanna Macy writes that until we can grieve for our planet we cannot love it—grieving is a sign of spiritual health. But it is not enough to weep for our lost landscapes; we have to put our hands in the earth to make ourselves whole again. Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the earth gives me daily and I must return the gift.

We are deluged by information regarding our destruction of the world and hear almost nothing about how to nurture it. It is no surprise then that environmentalism becomes synonymous with dire predictions and powerless feelings. Our natural inclination to do right by the world is stifled, breeding despair when it should be inspiring action.

Despair is paralysis. It robs us of agency. It blinds us to our own power and the power of the earth.

Opium and heroin had not caused our poverty and hopelessness. Rather, poverty and hopelessness had brought about an unquenchable desire to forget. After

When you're held underwater, you think only of air. I remember how I felt about Shanghai in the days after our lives changed - how streets that had once seemed exciting suddenly stank of nightsoil, how beautiful women suddenly were nothing more than girls with three holes, how all the money and prosperity suddenly rendered everything forlon, dissolute and futile. The way I see Los Angeles and Chinatown during these difficult and frightening days couldn't be more different.

In my life, no three miles have been flat and no three days have had sun. I've been brave in the past, but now I'm beyond devastated. My grief is like dense clouds that cannot be dispersed. I can't think beyond the blackness of my clothes and heart.

They don't find peace. It's pure bullshit. When something unspeakable happens, or when you do something unspeakable, it changes you. It takes you apart and reassembles you. You are a Frankenstein of circumstance, and the parts never fit back quite right and the life you live is a stolen one. You don't deserve to walk among the living, and you know it.

I didn't understand depression, how it was a con and a thief of joy. How it lured people away, making them believe that the world was better off without them.

Give up, she wanted to tell them. You lost. The world is crap, and no amount of communicating is going to change it.

Grief and trauma, I remind myself, are not linear experiences. There are good days and bad ones, hard dips into despair, moments of light and hope.