We’d like to fight but we fear defeat, we’d like to work but we’re feeling too weak, we’d like to be sick but we’d get the sack, we’d like to behave, we’d like to believe, we’d like to love, but we’ve lost the knack.
—Cecil Day-Lewis (1904–72) British Poet, Critic
Despair is the price one pays for setting oneself an impossible aim. It is, one is told, the unforgivable sin, but it is a sin the corrupt or evil man never practices. He always has hope. He never reaches the freezing-point of knowing absolute failure. Only the man of goodwill carries always in his heart this capacity for damnation.
—Graham Greene (1904–91) British Novelist, Playwright, Short Story Writer
He who despairs wants love and faith, for faith, hope, and love are three torches which blend their light together, nor does the one shine without the other.
—Metastasio (1698–1782) Italian Poet, Librettist
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
Despair is the only genuine atheism.
—Jean Paul (1763–1825) German Novelist, Humorist
Desperation is the raw material of drastic change. Only those who can leave behind everything they have ever believed in can hope to escape.
—William S. Burroughs (1914–97) American Novelist, Poet, Short Story Writer, Painter
Today we come across an individual who behaves like an automaton, who does not know or understand himself, and the only person that he knows is the person that he is supposed to be, whose meaningless chatter has replaced communicative speech, whose synthetic smile has replaced genuine laughter, and whose sense of dull despair has taken the place of genuine pain. Two statements may be said concerning this individual. One is that he suffers from defects of spontaneity and individuality which may seem to be incurable. At the same time it may be said of him he does not differ essentially from the millions of the rest of us who walk upon this earth.
—Erich Fromm (1900–80) German-American Psychoanalyst, Social Philosopher
Life begins on the other side of despair.
—Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–80) French Philosopher, Playwright, Novelist, Screenwriter, Political Activist
The depth of our despair measures what capability and height of claim we have to hope.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
All my life I believed I knew something. But then one strange day came when I realized that I knew nothing; yes, I knew nothing. And so words became void of meaning. I have arrived too late at ultimate uncertainty.
—Ezra Pound (1885-1972) American Poet, Translator, Critic
I will indulge my sorrows, and give way to all the pangs and fury of despair.
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719) English Essayist, Poet, Playwright, Politician
Man dies of cold, not of darkness.
—Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) Spanish Educator, Philosopher, Author
Voluptuaries, consumed by their senses, always begin by flinging themselves with a great display of frenzy into an abyss. But they survive, they come to the surface again. And they develop a routine of the abyss: “It’s four o clock. At five I have my abyss… “
—Colette (1873–1954) French Novelist, Performer
Despair is perfectly compatible with a good dinner, I promise you.
—William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–63) English Novelist
Through our sunless lanes creeps Poverty with her hungry eyes, and Sin with his sodden face follows close behind her. Misery wakes us in the morning and Shame sits with us at night.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
Religion converts despair, which destroys, into resignation, which submits.
—Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington (1789–1849) Irish Novelist, Writer
O God, O God, how weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world!
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
So long as we have failed to eliminate any of the causes of human despair, we do not have the right to try to eliminate those means by which man tries to cleanse himself of despair.
—Antonin Artaud (1896–1948) French Actor, Drama Theorist
Considering the unforeseen events of this world, we should be taught that no human condition should inspire men with absolute despair.
—Henry Fielding (1707–54) English Novelist, Dramatist
Despair gives the shocking ease to the mind that mortification gives to the body.
—George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick (1746–1816) British Nobleman, Politician
It is a time when one’s spirit is subdued and sad, one knows not why; when the past seems a storm-swept desolation, life a vanity and a burden, and the future but a way to death.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
I can imagine no more comfortable frame of mind for the conduct of life than a humorous resignation.
—W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) British Novelist, Short-Story Writer, Playwright
It is not hard to live through a day, if you can live through a moment. What creates despair is the imagination, which pretends there is a future, and insists on predicting millions of moments, thousands of days, and so drains you that you cannot live the moment at hand.
—Andre Dubus (1936–99) American Short Story Writer, Essayist
Just as he had shown no signs of despair when prospects looked bleak, he now showed no elation in what he wrote or in his outward manner or comments.
—David McCullough (b.1933) American Historian
In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.
—Aeschylus (525–456 BCE) Greek Poet
Dissipation is a form of self-sacrifice.
—Eric Hoffer (1902–83) American Philosopher, Author
Fatalism is the lazy man’s way of accepting the inevitable.
—Natalie Clifford Barney (1876–1972) American Playwright, Poet, Novelist
The fact that God has prohibited despair gives misfortune the right to hope all things, and leaves hope free to dare all things.
—Sophie Swetchine (1782–1857) Russian Mystic, Writer
They had both noticed that a life of dissipation sometimes gave to a face the look of gaunt suffering spirituality that a life of asceticism was supposed to give and quite often did not.
—Katherine Anne Porter (1890–1980) American Short-Story Writer, Novelist
If we are to find our way across toubled waters, we are better served by the company of those who have built bridges, who have moved beyond despair and inertia.
—Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American Author, Editor, Orator
Despair, in short, seeks its own environment as surely as water finds its own level.
—Al Alvarez (1929–2019) English Critic, Poet, Novelist
Then my verse I dishonor, my pictures despise, my person degrade and my temper chastise; and the pen is my terror, the pencil my shame; and my talents I bury, and dead is my fame.
—William Blake (1757–1827) English Poet, Painter, Printmaker
Because I remember, I despair. Because I remember, I have the duty to reject despair.
—Elie Wiesel (b.1928) Romanian-born American Writer, Professor, Political Activist
Desperation is sometimes as powerful an inspirer as genius.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
Washington was a man of exceptional, almost excessive self-command, rarely permitting himself any show of discouragement or despair.
—David McCullough (b.1933) American Historian
Make sense who may. I switch off.
—Samuel Beckett (1906–1989) Irish Novelist, Playwright
Let judges secretly despair of justice: their verdicts will be more acute. Let generals secretly despair of triumph; killing will be defamed. Let priests secretly despair of faith: their compassion will be true.
—Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian Singer, Songwriter, Poet, Novelist
Resignation, not mystic, not detached, but resignation open-eyed, conscious, and informed by love, is the only one of our feelings for which it is impossible to become a sham.
—Joseph Conrad (1857–1924) Polish-born British Novelist
Despair is the offspring of fear, of laziness, and impatience; it argues a delect of spirit and resolution, and often of honesty too. I would not despair unless I saw my misfortune recorded in the book of fate, and signed and sealed by necessity.
—Jeremy Collier (1650–1726) Anglican Church Historian, Clergyman
Depression is the inability to construct a future.
—Rollo May (1909–94) American Philosopher
Despair is typical of those who do not understand the causes of evil, see no way out, and are incapable of struggle. The modern industrial proletariat does not belong to the category of such classes.
—Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian Revolutionary Leader
She wore far too much rouge last night and not quite enough clothes. That is always a sign of despair in a woman.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
What is most original in a man’s nature is often that which is most desperate. Thus new systems are forced on the world by men who simply cannot bear the pain of living with what is. Creators care nothing for their systems except that they be unique. If Hitler had been born in Nazi Germany he wouldn’t have been content to enjoy the atmosphere.
—Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian Singer, Songwriter, Poet, Novelist
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
Beware of desperate steps.—The darkest day, live till tomorrow, will have passed away.
—William Cowper (1731–1800) English Anglican Poet, Hymn writer
To those who despair of everything reason cannot provide a faith, but only passion, and in this case it must be the same passion that lay at the root of the despair, namely humiliation and hatred.
—Albert Camus (1913–60) Algerian-born French Philosopher, Dramatist, Essayist, Novelist, Author
What is courage? This courage will not be the opposite of despair. We shall often be faced with despair, as indeed every sensitive person has been during the last several decades in this country. Hence Kierkegaard and Nietzsche and Camus and Sartre have proclaimed that courage is not the absence of despair; it is, rather, the capacity to move ahead in spite of despair.
—Rollo May (1909–94) American Philosopher
All experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) American Head of State, Lawyer
With the situation as gray as it could be, no one was more conspicuous in his calm presence of mind than Washington. They must be “cool but determined” he had told the men before the battle, when spirits were high. Now, in the face of catastrophe, he was demonstrating what he meant by his own example. Whatever anger or torment or despair he felt, he kept to himself.
—David McCullough (b.1933) American Historian
When the tide of life turns against you
And the current upsets your boat,
Don’t waste tears on what might have been,
Just lie on your back and float.
—Anonymous