Quotes About Despair

No era feliz, no lo había sido nunca. ¿De dónde venía, pues, aquella insuficiencia, de la vida, aquella instantánea podredumbre de las cosas en que se apoyaba?[...]. Cada sonrisa disimulaba un bostezo de aburrimiento, cada alegría una maldición, cada placer su propio asco, y los mejores besos no dejaban sobre los labios más que un delirio irrealizable de una voluptuosidad más alta.

But her life was as cold as an attic facing north; and boredom, like a silent spider, was weaving its web in the shadows, in every corner of her heart.

But she—her life was cold as a garret whose dormer window looks on the north, and ennui, the silent spider, was weaving its web in the darkness in every corner of her heart.

But that happiness, no doubt, was a lie invented for the despair of all desire. She now knew the smallness of the passions that art exaggerated.

I lead a bitter life, devoid of all external joy and in which I have nothing to keep me going but a sort of permanent rage, which weeps at times from impotence, but which is constant.

Their separation was becoming intolerable. I would rather die! said Emma. She was writhing in his arms, weeping. Adieu! adieu! When shall I see you again?

She now felt an incessant and universal numbness.

All that has to do with life is repugnant to me; everything that draws me to it horrifies me. I should like never to have been born, or to die. I have within me, deep within me, a distaste which keeps me from enjoying anything and which fills my soul to the point of suffocating it. It reappears in relation to everything, like the bloated bodies of dogs which come back to the surface of the water despite the stones that have been tied to their necks to drown them.

Emma still had a joyless look, and, habitually, at the corners of her mouth, she had that tightness that crumples the faces of old maids and bankrupts.

Besides, nothing was worth the trouble of seeking it; everything was a lie. Every smile hid a yawn of boredom, every joy a curse, all pleasure satiety, and the sweetest kisses left upon your lips only the unattainable desire for a greater delight.

When she was taken too bad she went off quite alone to the sea-shore, so that the customs officer, going his rounds, often found her lying flat on her face, crying on the shingle. Then, after her marriage, it went off, they say. But with me, replied Emma, it was after marriage that it began.

In spite of her vapourish airs (as the housewives of Yonville called them), Emma, all the same, never seemed gay, and usually she had at the corners of her mouth that immobile contraction that puckers the faces of old maids, and those of men whose ambition has failed.

and now, their great love, in which she dwelt immersed, seemed to dwindle beneath her, like the waters that vanish into the bed of the river, and she could see the mud.

pass your examinations. It is always a good thing to have a handle to your name: and, without more ado, give up your Catholic and Satanic poets, whose philosophy is as old as the twelfth century! Your despair is silly. The very greatest men have had more difficult beginnings, as in the case of Mirabeau.

This sense of my own weakness and emptiness comforts me. I feel myself a mere speck of dust lost in space, yet I am part of that endless grandeur which envelopes me. I could never see why that should be cause for despair, since there could very well be nothing at all behind the black curtain.

León estaba cansado de amar sin resultados; además comenzaba a sentir esa postración que causa en una la repetición de la misma vida, cuando ningún interés la dirige y ninguna esperanza la sostiene.

e ela permanecia perdida em um frio terrível que a atravessava.

Fins quan havia de durar aquella existència miseriosa? No se'n sortiria mai? Què tenien de més, que ella no posseís, aquelles que trobaven el consol de la felicitat? [...] Això li feia execrar la injustícia de Déu.

But that happiness, no doubt, was a lie imagined in despair of all desire. She now knew the pettiness of the passions which art exaggerated.

Emma grew thinner, her cheeks paler, her face longer. With her black hair, her large eyes, her aquiline nose, her birdlike walk, and always silent now, did she not seem to be passing through life scarcely touching it, and to bear on her brow the vague impress of some divine destiny? She was so sad and so calm, at once so gentle and so reserved, that near her one felt oneself seized by an icy charm, as we shudder in churches at the perfume of the flowers mingling with the cold of the marble.

Era el desvarieig produït per l'absència d'una il·lusió sense retorn, la lassitud que deixen els fets acomplerts, el dolor, en fi, que promou la interrupció de tot moviment acostumat, la sobtada cessació d'una vibració perllongada.

Léon was het uitzichtloos verliefd zijn meer dan beu; daarbij meldde zich de neerslachtigheid die wordt veroorzaakt door de sleur van een eentonig bestaan dat geen doel of leidraad heeft, dat niet wordt gedragen door enige hoop.

Zij haatte niemand meer; een wemelend halfduister daalde neer over haar brein, en van alle aardse klanken hoorde Emma alleen nog de gestadige klacht van dit arme hart, zacht en vaag, als de laatste klanken van een wegstervende symfonie.

The next day, for Emma, was funereal. Everything appeared to her shrouded in a black mist that hovered uncertainly over the surface of things, and grief plunged deep into her soul, moaning softly like the winter wind in an abandonded chateau. She sank into that kind of brooding which comes when you lose something forever, that lassitude you feel after every irreversible event, that pain you suffer when a habitual movement is interrupted, when a long-sustained vibration is suddenly broken off.