Quotes About Despair

I don't think that people are disinterested or uninterested in politics. I think very often they are disengaged from the formal political process. To some extent they are suspicious or even despairing of formal politics as a means to give expression and effect to what they want.

The United States is the ultimate land of optimistic promise, but it also gave birth to quintessentially pessimistic tragedy: 'Moby-Dick.'

I think the degree of alienation and despair is more universal.

I remember, May 1944: I was 15-and-a-half, and I was thrown into a haunted universe where the story of the human adventure seemed to swing irrevocably between horror and malediction.

Loneliness is a terrible blindness.

The dark skies of despair are no match for the bright skies of hope.

DEAR LIGHT : you colored my life, and then you destroy me!

She was a tragic beauty. Sadness had left its fingerprints all over her face.

Courage lightens distress, hope alleviates grief, doubt aggravates affliction, fear worsens anguish, worry magnifies misery, and faith overthrows despair.

Every day starts, my eyes open and I reload the program of misery. I open my eyes, remember who I am, what I'm like, and I just go, 'Ugh'.

While one might laugh at the meaningless boredom of people a decade or two ago, the emptiness has for many now moved from the state of boredom to a state of futility and despair, which holds promise of dangers.

Alone! Alone! No beacon, far or near! No chart, no compass, and no anchor stay!

Since my earliest childhood a barb of sorrow has lodged in my heart. As long as it stays I am ironic if it is pulled out I shall die.

I believe I could commit a crime. We all can. It depends on which situations we find ourselves in. In despair, I would steal food if my children were hungry.

Anti-populism is all about despair. Its attitude toward ordinary humans is bitter. Its hope for human redemption is nil. Its vision of the common good is bleak. Its dark mood gives us books with titles like In Defense of Elitism and Against Democracy.

WHAT THESE EXAMPLES show us is a generation of centrist liberals collectively despairing over democracy itself. After turning their backs on working-class issues, traditionally one of the core concerns of left parties, Democrats stood by while right-wing demagoguery took root and thrived. Then, after the people absorbed a fifty-year blizzard of fake populist propaganda, Democrats turned against the idea of "the people" altogether.17

Despair gives courage to a coward.

Grim-visag'd comfortless Despair.

The infidel may well despond, When sorrow's tear he sheds, His bosom knows no hope beyond The dust on which he treads.

Oh! virtue knows no hopeless grief, 'Tis sin that must despair; The true believer finds relief In solitary pray'r.

Appetite, with an opinion of attaining, is called hope the same, without such opinion, despair.

Cowards, 'tis said, in certain situations, Derive a sort of courage from despair, And then perform, from downright desperation, Much more than many a bolder man would dare.

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.

My views and feelings (are) in favor of the abolition of war--and I hope it is practicable, by improving the mind and morals of society, to lessen the disposition to war; but of its abolition I despair.