Don’t say, “I am depressed”. If you want to say, “It is depressed,” that’s all right. If you want to say that depression is there, that’s fine; if you want to say gloominess is there, that’s fine. But not: I am gloomy. You’re defining yourself in terms of the feeling. That’s your illusion; that’s your mistake. There is a depression there right now, but let it be, leave it alone. It will pass. Everything passes, everything. Your depressions and your thrills have nothing to do with happiness. Those are swings of the pendulum. If you seek kicks or thrills, get ready for depression. Do you want your drug? Get ready for the hangover. One end of the pendulum swings over to the other.
—Anthony de Mello (1931–87) Indian-born American Theologian
The madness of depression is the antithesis of violence. It is a storm indeed, but a storm of murk. Soon evident are the slowed-down responses, near paralysis, psychic energy throttled back close to zero. Ultimately, the body is affected and feels sapped, drained.
—William Styron (1925–2006) American Novelist, Essayist, Writer
You largely constructed your depression. It wasn’t given to you. Therefore, you can deconstruct it.
—Albert Ellis (1913–2007) American Psychologist
The positive effect of kindness on the immune system and on the increased production of serotonin in the brain has been proven in research studies. Serotonin is a naturally occurring substance in the body that makes us feel more comfortable, peaceful, and even blissful. In fact, the role of most anti-depressants is to stimulate the production of serotonin chemically, helping to ease depression. Research has shown that a simple act of kindness directed toward another improves the functioning of the immune system and stimulates the production of serotonin in both the recipient of the kindness and the person extending the kindness. Even more amazing is that persons observing the act of kindness have similar beneficial results. Imagine this! Kindness extended, received, or observed beneficially impacts the physical health and feelings of everyone involved!
—Wayne Dyer (1940–2015) American Self-Help Author
Obviously, the real issue has nothing to do with fear itself, but, rather, how we hold the fear. For some, the fear is totally irrelevant. For others, it creates a state of paralysis. The former hold their fear from a position of power (choice, energy, and action), and the latter hold it from a position of pain (helplessness, depression, and paralysis).
—Susan Jeffers (1938–2012) American Psychologist, Self-Help Author
Depression is rage spread thin.
—George Santayana (1863–1952) Spanish-American Poet, Philosopher
You know what I love, sweetheart? The thoughts that used to send us into deep depression—these same thoughts, once understood, send us into laughter.
—Byron Katie (b.1942) American Speaker, Author
You are innately designed to use your personal power. When you don’t, you experience a sense of helplessness, paralysis, and depression—which is your clue that something is not working as it could. You, like all of us, deserve everything that is wonderful and exciting in life. And those feelings emerge only when you get in touch with your powerful self.
—Susan Jeffers (1938–2012) American Psychologist, Self-Help Author
He did not mean to depress us, rather to free us from expectations which inspire bitterness. It is consoling, when love has let us down, to hear that happiness was never part of the plan.
—Alain de Botton (b.1969) Swiss-born British Philosopher, Author
To laugh is to risk appearing the fool.
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.
To reach for another is to risk involvement.
To expose your feelings is to risk exposing your true self.
To place your ideas, your dreams before a crowd is to risk their loss.
To love is to risk not being loved in return.
To live is to risk dying.
To believe is to risk despair.
To try is to risk failure.
But risks must be taken, because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.
The person who risks nothing does nothing, has nothing, is nothing.
They may avoid suffering and sorrow, but they cannot learn, feel, change, grow, love, live.
Chained by their attitudes they are slaves; they have forfeited their freedom.
Only a person who risks is free.
—Anonymous
The term clinical depression finds its way into too many conversations these days. One has a sense that a catastrophe has occurred in the psychic landscape.
—Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian Singer, Songwriter, Poet, Novelist
In addition to my other numerous acquaintances, I have one more intimate confidant. My depression is the most faithful mistress I have known—no wonder, then, that I return the love.
—Soren Kierkegaard (1813–55) Danish Philosopher, Theologian
Mysteriously and in ways that are totally remote from normal experience, the gray drizzle of horror induced by depression takes on the quality of physical pain … it is entirely natural that the victim begins to think ceaselessly of oblivion.
—William Styron (1925–2006) American Novelist, Essayist, Writer
That’s the thing about depression: A human being can survive almost anything, as long as she sees the end in sight. But depression is so insidious, and it compounds daily, that it’s impossible to ever see the end. The fog is like a cage without a key.
—Elizabeth Wurtzel (1967–2020) American Writer, Journalist
Human existence must be a kind of error…it may be said of it, ‘it is bad today and every day it will get worse, until the worst of all happens’.
—Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German Philosopher
There exists, at the bottom of all abasement and misfortune, a last extreme which rebels and joins battle with the forces of law and respectability in a desperate struggle, waged partly by cunning and partly by violence, at once sick and ferocious, in which it attacks the prevailing social order with the pin-pricks of vice and the hammer-blows of crime.
—Victor Hugo (1802–85) French Novelist
The point to remember is that when you blame any outside force for any of your experience of life, you are literally giving away all your power and thus creating pain, paralysis and depression.
—Susan Jeffers (1938–2012) American Psychologist, Self-Help Author
The world leans on us. When we sag, the whole world seems to droop.
—Eric Hoffer (1902–83) American Philosopher, Author
For me being depressed means you can spend all day in bed, and still not get a good night’s rest.
—Unknown
This is my “depressed stance.” When you’re depressed, it makes a lot of difference how you stand. The worst thing you can do is straighten up and hold your head high because then you’ll start to feel better. If you’re going to get any joy out of being depressed, you’ve got to stand like this.
—Charles M. Schulz (1922–2000) American Cartoonist, Writer, Artist
Great men suffer hours of depression through introspection and self-doubt. That is why they are great. That is why you will find modesty and humility the characteristics of such men.
—Bruce Fairchild Barton (1886–1967) American Author, Advertising Executive, Politician
Noble deeds and hot baths are the best cures for depression.
—Dodie Smith (1896–1990) British Novelist, Playwright, Writer
The average man gets his living by such depressing devices that boredom becomes a sort of natural state to him.
—H. L. Mencken (1880–1956) American Journalist, Literary Critic
Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.
—Steven Wright (b.1955) American Comedian, Actor, Writer
Depression is melancholy minus its charms—the animation, the fits.
—Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American Writer, Philosopher
The only way to escape the abyss is to look at it, gauge it, sound it out and descend into it.
—Cesare Pavese (1908–50) Italian Novelist, Poet, Critic, Translator
I am in that temper that if I were under water I would scarcely kick to come to the top.
—John Keats (1795–1821) English Poet
The reason why all men honor love is because it looks up, and not down; aspires and not despairs.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
In depression…faith in deliverance, in ultimate restoration, is absent. The pain is unrelenting, and what makes the condition intolerable is the foreknowledge that no rememdy will come, not in a day, an hour, a month, or a minute. It is hopelessness even more than pain that crushes the soul.
—William Styron (1925–2006) American Novelist, Essayist, Writer
In all things it is better to hope than to despair.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet