Introduction:
Despair, a profound sense of hopelessness and loss, is an emotion that has been contemplated, explored, and expressed by writers, philosophers, and thinkers throughout history. From ancient texts to modern literature, the theme of despair resonates deeply with the human experience, touching upon moments of darkness and introspection that many can relate to. Whether it manifests as a result of personal struggles, societal turmoil, or existential questions, despair is a universal sentiment that has been eloquently captured in words.
This page is dedicated to exploring despair through the lens of quotes from various sources. These quotes encapsulate the raw emotions, deep reflections, and poignant insights associated with despair. As you peruse the collection below, you’ll find words that resonate with your own experiences, thoughts that offer solace in times of distress, and perspectives that shed light on the complexities of human existence. Feel free to use these quotes as a source of inspiration, reflection, or consolation as you navigate the highs and lows of life.
Jesus is the God whom we can approach without pride and before whom we can humble ourselves without despair. Blaise Pascal
Persuade thyself that imperfection and inconvenience are the natural lot of mortals, and there will be no room for discontent, neither for despair. Tokugawa Ieyasu
Sin pulls a man down into despondency and despair. Ezra Taft Benson
Men die in despair, while spirits die in ecstasy. Honore de Balzac
Only a man who has felt ultimate despair is capable of feeling ultimate bliss. Alexandre Dumas
Law is born from despair of human nature. Jose Ortega y Gasset
I have seen (as far as it can be seen) many persons changed in a moment from the spirit of horror, fear, and despair to the spirit of hope, joy, peace; and from sinful desires, till then reigning over them, to a pure desire of doing the will of God. John Wesley
We define only out of despair, we must have a formula… to give a facade tot he void. Emil Cioran
I have often been downcast but never in despair; I regard our hiding as a dangerous adventure, romantic and interesting at the same time. In my diary, I treat all the privations as amusing. Anne Frank
Anyone who cannot come to terms with his life while he is alive needs one hand to ward off a little his despair over his fate… but with his other hand he can note down what he sees among the ruins. Franz Kafka
Revenge is barren of itself: it is the dreadful food it feeds on; its delight is murder, and its end is despair. Friedrich Schiller
The slums are not a place of despair. Its inhabitants are all working towards a better life. Vikas Swarup
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
Action is the antidote to despair. Joan Baez
Schizophrenia cannot be understood without understanding despair. R. D. Laing
Despair is the damp of hell, as joy is the serenity of heaven. John Donne
Despair is a narcotic. It lulls the mind into indifference. Charlie Chaplin
The problems of a period are the existential crises of what can be but hasn’t yet been resolved; and regardless of how seriously we take that word ‘resolved,’ if there were not some new possibility, there would be no crisis – there would be only despair. Rollo May
Don’t despair, not even over the fact that you don’t despair. Franz Kafka
What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world. Paul Hawken
Innumerable confusions and a feeling of despair invariably emerge in periods of great technological and cultural transition. Marshall McLuhan
It is often when night looks darkest, it is often before the fever breaks that one senses the gathering momentum for change, when one feels that resurrection of hope in the midst of despair and apathy. Hillary Clinton
Boast is always a cry of despair, except in the young it is a cry of hope. Bernard Berenson
There is no despair so absolute as that which comes with the first moments of our first great sorrow, when we have not yet known what it is to have suffered and be healed, to have despaired and have recovered hope. George Eliot
I will indulge my sorrows, and give way to all the pangs and fury of despair. Joseph Addison
Just as despair can come to one only from other human beings, hope, too, can be given to one only by other human beings. Elie Wiesel
Black and white are the colors of photography. To me they symbolize the alternatives of hope and despair to which mankind is forever subjected. Robert Frank
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. Thomas Jefferson
The search is what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the everydayness of his own life. To become aware of the possibility of the search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair. Walker Percy
But what we call our despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope. George Eliot
The most glorious moments in your life are not the so-called days of success, but rather those days when out of dejection and despair you feel rise in you a challenge to life, and the promise of future accomplishments. Gustave Flaubert
Like the suffering child, gang members act out of their despair, and their actions are all the more alarming now for our not having heeded their cry long ago. The shortsighted neglect that keeps us locked up in our outrage has also kept us from viable solutions. Greg Boyle
He who labors diligently need never despair; for all things are accomplished by diligence and labor. Menander
Absence from whom we love is worse than death, and frustrates hope severer than despair. William Cowper
The best I can say is that it’s better for me to write about despair and darkness than to be incapable of getting off the sofa. It’s better to write about suicide than to contemplate it too heavily. Paul Westerberg
Look, if I were alone in the world, I would have the right to choose despair, solitude and self-fulfillment. But I am not alone. Elie Wiesel
Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song. Pope John Paul II
For happiness one needs security, but joy can spring like a flower even from the cliffs of despair. Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Despair is the conclusion of fools. Benjamin Disraeli
At its best our age is an age of searchers and discoverers, and at its worst, an age that has domesticated despair and learned to live with it happily. Flannery O’Connor
Melancholy and sadness are the start of doubt… doubt is the beginning of despair; despair is the cruel beginning of the differing degrees of wickedness. Comte de Lautreamont
Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race. H. G. Wells
I think that historical processes have meaning and that we have to accept this – or else face utter despair. Rene Girard
Despair is a cop-out, the ultimate abdication of all responsibility, in which people feel justified in their feelings of impotence. But if, on the other hand, you feel that your work in the world does make a difference and that you do have the power to change things, the nay-sayers will turn a deaf ear. Marilyn Ferguson
Nothing earthly will make me give up my work in despair. David Livingstone
I went to Iraq because I wanted to see what one year of occupation had done to Iraqi society, and I went to the West Bank and Gaza Strip because I wanted to see what three generations of occupation had done to Palestinian society. I found a lot more hopelessness and despair in Palestine. Michael Franti
My generation, faced as it grew with a choice between religious belief and existential despair, chose marijuana. Now we are in our Cabernet stage. Peggy Noonan
Literature has been the salvation of the damned, literature has inspired and guided lovers, routed despair and can perhaps in this case save the world. John Cheever
I do believe that most men live lives of quiet desperation. For despair, optimism is the only practical solution. Hope is practical. Because eliminate that and it’s pretty scary. Hope at least gives you the option of living. Harry Nilsson
In their eyes as they pass is not hatred, not excitement, not despair, not the tonic of their victory – there is just the simple expression of being here as though they had been here doing this forever, and nothing else. Ernie Pyle
Beauty is unbearable, drives us to despair, offering us for a minute the glimpse of an eternity that we should like to stretch out over the whole of time. Albert Camus
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
Intellectual despair results in neither weakness nor dreams, but in violence. It is only a matter of knowing how to give vent to one’s rage; whether one only wants to wander like madmen around prisons, or whether one wants to overturn them. Georges Bataille
We cannot despair of humanity, since we ourselves are human beings. Albert Einstein
The writing of ‘Topdog’ was a great gift. I feel the play came to me because I realized that my circumstances, while causing me despair and heartbreak, also held great possibility, if only I could see it. Suzan-Lori Parks
There’s a kind of despair about whether art can really do anything, but you have to incorporate that despair into the way you work. I try to soak my work in my sense of futility and fury. Tony Harrison
Our Western society is showing its technological muscles in ever more threatening ways, but the experience of fear, anxiety and even despair has increased in equal proportion. Indeed, the paradox is that the powerful giants feel as powerless as a new-born babe. Henri Nouwen
A son can bear with equanimity the loss of his father, but the loss of his inheritance may drive him to despair. Niccolo Machiavelli
Man’s nature is not essentially evil. Brute nature has been known to yield to the influence of love. You must never despair of human nature. Mahatma Gandhi
Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ, and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in. C. S. Lewis
Words are singularly the most powerful force available to humanity. We can choose to use this force constructively with words of encouragement, or destructively using words of despair. Words have energy and power with the ability to help, to heal, to hinder, to hurt, to harm, to humiliate and to humble. Yehuda Berg
If your determination is fixed, I do not counsel you to despair. Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance. Samuel Johnson
All my humor is based on destruction and despair. If the whole world were tranquil, without disease and violence, I’d be standing in the bread line – right in back of J. Edgar Hoover. Lenny Bruce
Because I remember, I despair. Because I remember, I have the duty to reject despair. Elie Wiesel
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
There is no greater folly in the world than for a man to despair. Miguel de Cervantes
Every time I travel, I’m in a rage until I reach my destination. I find myself shouting at suitcases, as if it’s their fault that I’m an inefficient packer. I’ve also learnt that whenever you despair of humanity and start thinking that you hate people – as I frequently do – you only have to travel to realise that people are basically all right. Greg Davies
You may not know it, but at the far end of despair, there is a white clearing where one is almost happy. Joan Baez
The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing… not healing, not curing… that is a friend who cares. Henri Nouwen
Life begins on the other side of despair. Jean-Paul Sartre
To be truly radical is to make hope possible rather than despair convincing. Raymond Williams
Courage is not the absence of despair; it is, rather, the capacity to move ahead in spite of despair. Rollo May
A religious man is a person who holds God and man in one thought at one time, at all times, who suffers harm done to others, whose greatest passion is compassion, whose greatest strength is love and defiance of despair. Abraham Joshua Heschel
Our government is founded upon the intelligence of the people. I for one do not despair of the republic. I have great confidence in the virtue of the great majority of the people, and I cannot fear the result. Andrew Jackson
I tried out various experiments described in treatises on physics and chemistry, and the results were sometimes unexpected. At times, I would be encouraged by a little unhoped-for success; at others, I would be in the deepest despair because of accidents and failures resulting from my inexperience. Marie Curie
Now, God be praised, that to believing souls gives light in darkness, comfort in despair. William Shakespeare
If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair. C. S. Lewis
There’s no such thing as perfect writing, just like there’s no such thing as perfect despair. Haruki Murakami
Presumption should never make us neglect that which appears easy to us, nor despair make us lose courage at the sight of difficulties. Benjamin Banneker
The middle way is a view of life that avoids the extreme of misguided grasping born of believing there is something we can find, or buy, or cling to that will not change. And it avoids the despair and nihilism born from the mistaken belief that nothing matters, that all is meaningless. Sharon Salzberg
My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world. Jack Layton
There was a castle called Doubting Castle, the owner whereof was Giant Despair. John Bunyan
Never despair, but if you do, work on in despair. Edmund Burke
I really don’t make a concerted effort to try to find a type of role. Maybe I’ve just done enough of them now where people are like, ‘Oh, it’s the guy that’s in a swirling vortex of despair, send it to Kinnear!’ I don’t really know, but it does seem to be a recurring theme. Greg Kinnear
To state the facts frankly is not to despair the future nor indict the past. The prudent heir takes careful inventory of his legacies and gives a faithful accounting to those whom he owes an obligation of trust. John F. Kennedy
The British were indeed very far superior to the Americans in every respect necessary to military operations, except the revivified courage and resolution, the result of sudden success after despair. Mercy Otis Warren
You accept that this civilisation could be abolished and life will begin later on after a few thousand years because that is something that has happened in the history of this planet. When you have peace in yourself and accept, then you are calm enough to do something, but if you are carried by despair there is no hope. Thich Nhat Hanh
When you have closed the Bible, you have neither closed God’s mind nor shut God’s mouth. God continues to speak, live and exist. I think we should consult the living God for the living word for living people dealing with death, destruction and despair in the midst of our hurt humanity. I believe love will conquer all. Michael Eric Dyson
Do parents sit down and tell their kids everything? I don’t know. I don’t know. I’ve convinced myself – I hope I’m right – that children despair of you if you don’t tell them the truth. Maurice Sendak
It has never been, and never will be easy work! But the road that is built in hope is more pleasant to the traveler than the road built in despair, even though they both lead to the same destination. Marion Zimmer Bradley
We draw our strength from the very despair in which we have been forced to live. We shall endure. Cesar Chavez
Sorrow for sin is indeed necessary, but it should not be an endless preoccupation. You must dwell also on the glad remembrance of God’s loving-kindness; otherwise, sadness will harden the heart and lead it more deeply into despair. Saint Bernard
My brother Steve was always considered the naughty one but I used to drive my parents to despair because I had no fear. Id climb a tree without testing the branches and I was always getting into scrapes. Tony Hadley
After watching my poor mother being sometimes neglected by my father, it was almost tattooed on my brain that I would never cause hardship or despair to a partner. Steven Berkoff
He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God. Aeschylus
Everyone seems to see bleakness and despair in my books. I don’t read them that way. I see myself as writing comic books, books about ordinary people trying to live ordinary, dull, happy lives while the world is falling to pieces around them. J. M. Coetzee
If pessimism is despair, optimism is cowardice and stupidity. Is there any need to choose between them? Francis Parker Yockey
With optimism, you look upon the sunny side of things. People say, ‘Studs, you’re an optimist.’ I never said I was an optimist. I have hope because what’s the alternative to hope? Despair? If you have despair, you might as well put your head in the oven. Studs Terkel
Transformation is a process, and as life happens there are tons of ups and downs. It’s a journey of discovery – there are moments on mountaintops and moments in deep valleys of despair. Rick Warren
When you have peace in yourself and accept, then you are calm enough to do something, but if you are carried by despair, there is no hope. Thich Nhat Hanh
