Quotes & Sayings About Being Let Down Over And Over Again

Those then who know not wisdom and virtue, and are always busy with gluttony and sensuality, go down and up again as far as the mean; and in this region they move at random throughout life, but they never pass into the true upper world; thither they neither look, nor do they ever find their way, neither are they truly filled with true being, nor do they ever taste of pure and abiding pleasure. — Socrates

Yes, Boss?'
Dorcas, the last twenty or thirty years I've been a worthless, no-good parasite.'
She yawned again. 'Everybody knows that.'
Nevermind the flattery. There comes a time in every man's life when he has to stop being sensible
a time to stand up and be counted
strike a blow for liberty
smite the wicked.'
Ummm ... '
So quit yawning, the time has come.'
She glanced down. 'Maybe I had better get dressed. — Robert A. Heinlein

She must not cry in front of all these men. They would think her a useless watering pot unworthy of her father's inheritance. Everything went blurry as she turned away, trying to hide the tears. Colonel Lowe bent down to peek beneath her lowered head, a trace of humor on his strong face. "Tears? We've come all the way across the state to meet the famous Miss Mollie Knox, and all she has for us are tears?" She swiped them away. "It is just that I have felt so overwhelmed. It has been a difficult few weeks." "Then those are the last tears you will shed from being overwhelmed," he said. Colonel Lowe's face was a blend of kindness and humor as he smiled at her. "We will not leave this city until your factory is rebuilt and you are once again producing the world's most magnificent watches. — Elizabeth Camden

If ever you have had a romantic, uncalculating friendship, - a boundless worship and belief in some hero of your soul, - if ever you have so loved, that all cold prudence, all selfish worldly considerations have gone down like drift-wood before a river flooded with new rain from heaven, so that you even forgot yourself, and were ready to cast your whole being into the chasm of existence, as an offering before the feet of another, and all for nothing, - if you awoke bitterly betrayed and deceived, still give thanks to God that you have had one glimpse of heaven. The door now shut will open again. Rejoice that the noblest capability of your eternal inheritance has been made known to you; treasure it, as the highest honor of your being, that ever you could so feel, -that so divine a guest ever possessed your soul. — Harriet Beecher Stowe

A little way down the road I turned, and saw how his wife and daughter took him up. And I thought to myself: no, 'tis not all roses when one goes a-wandering. At the next place I came to I learned that he had been with the army, as quartermaster-sergeant; then he went mad over a lawsuit he lost, and was shut up in an asylum for some time. Now in the spring his trouble broke out again; perhaps it was my coming that had given the final touch. But the lightning insight in his eyes at the moment when the madness came upon him! I think of him now and again; he was a lesson to me. 'Tis none so easy to judge of men, who are wise or mad. And God preserve us all from being known for what we are! — Knut Hamsun

Samsara-the Wheel of Existence, literally, the "Perpetual Wandering"-is the name by which is designated the sea of life ever restlessly heaving up and down, the symbol of this continuous process of ever again and again being born, growing old, suffering, and dying. (It) is constantly changing from moment to moment, (as lives) follow continuously one upon the other through inconceivable periods of time. Of this Samsara, a single lifetime constitutes only a vanishingly tiny fraction. — Gautama Buddha

A leveller has long ago been set down as a ridiculous and chimerical being, who, if he could finish his work to-day, would have to begin it again tomorrow. — Charles Caleb Colton

In the silence that followed, violent anger hit Blay from out of
nowhere.
Now his hands shook for a different reason.
"So," Saxton said hoarsely. "How was your night?"
"What the hell happened down there?"
Saxton loosened his tie. Unbuttoned his collar. Took yet another
deep breath. "Family tiff, as it were."
"Bullsh*t."
Saxton shifted exhausted eyes over. "Must we do this?"
"What happened - "
"I think you and Qhuinn need to talk. And once you do, I won't have to worry about being jumped like a felon again."
Blay frowned. "He and I have nothing to say to each other - "
"With all due respect, the ligature marks around my neck would
suggest otherwise."
-Lover at Last, pg. 188 of the galleys — J.R. Ward

Should we keep on the lookout for tigers?" Kenda asked his guide.

"Yes," Shahin said, his voice lowering again. "They like to pounce from behind. I've been watching our backs ever since we lost the thugs. I meant to tell you once you calmed down. Now that you know, you can help me."

"Then we are being followed?" He hoped his voice did not squeak.

"Yes," Shahin repeated gravely. "By whom or what, I do not know."

"This just gets better and better," he groaned. — Jennifer McKeithen

It is of no use mincing the matter; Dr John Marsh, after being regarded by his friends at home as hopelessly unimpressible - in short, an absolute woman-hater - had found his fate on a desolate isle of the Southern seas, he had fallen - nay, let us be just - had jumped over head and ears in love with Pauline Rigonda! Dr Marsh was no sentimental die-away noodle who, half-ashamed, half-proud of his condition, displays it to the semi-contemptuous world. No; after disbelieving for many years in the power of woman to subdue him, he suddenly and manfully gave in - sprang up high into the air, spiritually, and so to speak, turning a sharp somersault, went headlong down deep into the flood, without the slightest intention of ever again returning to the surface. — R.M. Ballantyne

A philosopher might have deplored this lack of mental ambition, but only if he was really certain about where his next meal was coming from.
In fact Lancre's position and climate bred a hard-headed and straightforward people who often excelled in the world down below. it had supplied the planins with many of their greatest wizards and witches and, once again, the philospher might have marveled that such a four-square people could give the world so many successful magical practitioners, being quite unaware that only those with their feet on rock can build castles in the air. — Terry Pratchett

She flashed me a quick black glance and then her dark eyelashes swept down on her cheeks. 'Not me,' she said 'I make my own plans. I don't risk being taken up and dropped again.'
'You told me to risk it.' I reminded her.
'That was for you,' she said 'I would not live my life as you live yours. You would always do as you were bid. I am not like you. I make my own way. — Philippa Gregory

And some day there will be nothing left of everything that has twisted my life and grieved it and filled me so often with such anguish. Some day, with the last exhaustion, peace will come and the motherly earth will gather me back home. It won't be the end of things, only a way of being born again, a bathing and a slumbering where the old and the withered sink down, where the young and new begin to breathe. Then, with other thoughts, I will walk along streets like these, and listen to streams, and overhear what the sky says in the evening, over and over and over. — Hermann Hesse

Exhausted, hardly knowing what she was doing, she came the last three steps and sat, took the man in her arms, actually held him, gazing out of her smudged eyes down the stairs, back into the morning. She felt wetness against her breast and saw that he was crying again. He hardly breathed but tears came as if being pumped. "I can't help," she whispered, rocking him, "I can't help." It was already too many miles to Fresno. — Thomas Pynchon

But in the real world, you couldnt really just split a family down the middle, mom on one side, dad the other, with the child equally divided between. It was like when you ripped a piece of paper into two: no matter how you tried, the seams never fit exactly right again. It was what you couldn't see, those tiniest of pieces, that were lost in the severing, and their absence kept everything from being complete. — Sarah Dessen

And he came to understand that the burial of the broken wasn't eccentric - this was what people did every day, stuffing their brokenness down, pushing it down, smoothing the surface over, making the surface look like nothing was broken underneath. Because, if people see that you are broken, they will not want to stand with you. They will migrate away from you the way groups of people walking down the street will move aside when a shambling ranting man approaches. They will look at the ground and look away so that such a person becomes invisible. So if you are such a person or just an everyday person with some broken places, some places really broken, you will pull them back from view so you can mingle with others without being seen as broken. Because if you have the look of a broken thing, if you are pushed aside and turned from, you will never find your footing again in the world. — Lindsay Hill

They say that at Thomas More's trial, Master Secretary here followed the jury to their deliberations, and when they were seated he closed the door behind him and he laid down the law. "Let me put you out of doubt," he said to the jurymen. "Your task is to find Sir Thomas guilty, and you will have no dinner till you have done it." Then out he went and shut the door again and stood outside it with a hatchet in his hand, in case they broke out in search of a boiled pudding; and being Londoners, they care about their bellies above all things, and as soon as they felt them rumbling they cried, "Guilty! He is as guilty as guilty can be! — Hilary Mantel

Outside, the ocean was crashing, waves hitting sand, then pulling back to sea. I thought of everything being washed away, again and again. We make such messes in this life, both accidentally and on purpose. But wiping the surface clean doesn't really make anything neater. It just masks what is below. It's only when you really dig down deep, go underground, that you can see who you really are. — Sarah Dessen

When the sun of consciousness first shone upon me, behold a miracle! The stock of my young life which had perished, steeped in the waters of knowledge grew again, budded again, was sweet again with the blossoms of childhood. Down in the depths of my being, I cried, 'it is good to be alive!' I held out two trembling hands to life, and in vain silence would impose dumbness upon me henceforth! The world to which I awoke was still mysterious; but there was hope and love and God in it, and nothing else mattered. Is it not possible that our entrance into heaven may be like this experience of mine? — Helen Keller

I made a proposal to Peepy, in default of being able to do anything better for him, that he should let me wash him and afterwards lay him down on my bed again. To this he submitted with the best grace possible, staring at me during the whole operation as if he never had been, and never could again be, so astonished in his life - looking very miserable also, certainly, but making no complaint, and going snugly to sleep as soon as it was over. At first I was in two minds about taking such a liberty, but I soon reflected that nobody in the house was likely to notice it. — Charles Dickens

...why not let nature show you a few things? Cutting grass and pulling weeds can be a way of life... Lilacs on a bush are better than orchids. And dandelions and devil grass are better! Why? Because they bend you over and turn you away from all the people and the town for a little while and sweat you and get you down where you remember you got a nose again. And when you're all to yourself that way, you're really yourself for a little while; you get to thinking things through, alone. Gardening is the handiest excuse for being a philosopher. Nobody guesses, nobody accuses, nobody knows, but there you are, Plato in the peonies, Socrates force-growing his own hemlock. A man toting a sack of blood manure across his lawn is kin to Atlas letting the world spin easy on his shoulder. As Samuel Spaudling, Esquire, once said, 'Dig in the earth, delve in the soul.' Spin those mower blades, Bill, and walk in the spray of the Fountain of Youth. — Ray Bradbury

It's not about winning or losing, really," he's saying. "It's just the showing up every day. It's stepping up to the plate and whiffing, and then doing it over and over again, whether you get a hit or not. It's getting up every morning and failing and being disappointed and getting beat up and being let down, and then doing it all over again the next day. — Jennifer E. Smith

Where are you going?" he asked as she clomped down the bleachers in her heavy black boots. "I don't know." "I'll walk you," he said as he stood and followed her. "No." "I'm not going to let you walk alone at this time at night." She stepped off the last bleacher and walked across the track to the football field. She looked over her shoulder. "Stop following me." Once she reached the middle of the field, she looked back again. "I said, stop following me." "I'm' not letting you walk alone." That made her stop and turn to him. "What is the matter with you? Stop being so ... so ... " "What?" "Nice to me." She lowered herself to the ground and sat cross-legged. " I'm sitting here until you go away." This didn't exactly have the effect she wanted. "Don't sit beside me. Don't ... " She sighed when Sawyer sat beside her, right there on the fifty yard line. — Sarah Addison Allen

As I lay down my pen, let me record my immovable conviction that His is the noblest service in which any human being can spend or be spent; and that, if God gave me back my life to be lived over again, I would without one quiver of hesitation lay it on the altar to Christ, that He might use it as before in similar ministries of love, especially among those who have never yet heard the name of Jesus ... God gave His best, His Son, to me; and I give back my best, my all, to Him. — John Gibson Paton

And here in Los Angeles, once again, I'm going to go down and be a witness. There's a guilty plea. I don't mind being on the witness stand, but I think they mind it a lot. — Patty Hearst

They went to the tree. Daemon dismounted and leaned against the tree, staring in the direction of the house. The stallion jiggled the bit, reminding him he wasn't alone. "I wanted to say good-bye," Daemon said quietly. For the first time, he truly saw the intelligence - and loneliness - in the horse's eyes. After that, he couldn't keep his voice from breaking as he tried to explain why Jaenelle was never going to come to the tree again, why there would be no more rides, no more caresses, no more talks. For a moment, something rippled in his mind. He had the odd sensation he was the one being talked to, explained to, and his words, echoing back, lacerated his heart. To be alone again. To never again see those arms held out in welcome. To never hear that voice say his name. To ... Daemon gasped as Dark Dancer jerked the reins free and raced down the path toward the field. Tears of grief pricked Daemon's eyes. The horse might have a simpler mind, but the heart was just as big. — Anne Bishop

Odd: I wish I could believe in reincarnation.
Chief Porter: Not me. Once down the track is enough of a test. Pass me or fail me, Dear Lord, but don't make me go through high school again.
Odd: If there's something we want so bad in this life but we can't have it, maybe we could get it the next time around.
Chief Porter: Or maybe not getting it, accepting less without bitterness and being grateful for what we have is a part of what we're here to learn. — Dean Koontz

Kestilan? There was that name again. Oliver fought down an irrational surge of jealousy for this mysterious being who took up so much of Petunia's attention. — Jessica Day George

Baldwin told the story again and again of standing on Broadway and being told by Delaney to look down. Delaney asked him what he saw, and Baldwin said a puddle. Delaney said, 'Look again,' and then Baldwin saw the reflections of the buildings, distorted and radiant in the oil on the puddle. He taught me to see, Baldwin said, and that 'what one cannot or will not see, says something about you. — Rachel Cohen

The difference between being a winner and being a loser is how you pick yourself up again, especially when you're down for the third or fourth or twentieth time! — Susan Humphreys

When I was tiny, the county fair came through town. Our parents took us, and got tickets for the rides, even though I was scared to death of all of them. Edward was the one who convinced me to go on the merry-go-round. He put me up on one of the wooden horses and he told me the horse was magic, and might turn real right underneath me, but only if I didn't look down. So I didn't. I stared out at the pinwheeling crowd and searched for him. Even when I started to get dizzy or thought I might throw up, the circle would come around again and there he was. After a while, I stopped thinking about the horse being magic, or even how terrified I was, and instead, I made a game out of finding Edward.
I think that's what family feels like. A ride that takes you back to the same place over and over. — Jodi Picoult

Comes again the longing, the desire that has no name. Is it for Mrs. Prouty, for a drink, for both: for a party, for youth, for the good times, for dear good drinking and fighting comrades, for football-game girls in the fall with faces like flowers? Comes the longing and it has to do with being fifteen and fifty and with the winter sun striking down into a brick-yard and on clapboard walls rounded off with old hard blistered paint and across a doorsill onto linoleum. Desire has a smell: of cold linoleum and gas heat and the sour piebald bark of crepe myrtle. A good-humored thirty-five-year-old lady takes the air in a back lot in a small town. — Walker Percy

What's glamorous is being a good father, a good husband, a good fucking dog owner. That's what I care about today. That's what matters. I will devote everything to that. And I will succeed. Because I cannot fall down again. I will not fall down again. I mean, I don't have to fall. None of us have to fall. We don't all fall down. We don't. So I'm over this drug shit. It's done. And this is my last recovery memoir ever. — Nic Sheff

Bodily pain affects man as a whole down to the deepest layers of his moral being. It forces him to face again the fundamental questions of his fate, of his attitude toward God and fellow man, of his individual and collective responsibility and of the sense of his pilgrimage on earth. — Pope Pius XII

We have given you, O Adam, no visage proper to yourself, nor endowment properly your own, in order that whatever place, whatever form, whatever gifts you may, with premeditation, select, these same you may have and possess through your own judgement and decision. The nature of all other creatures is defined and restricted within laws which We have laid down; you, by contrast, impeded by no such restrictions, may, by your own free will, to whose custody We have assigned you, trace for yourself the lineaments of your own nature [ ... ]. We have made you a creature neither of heaven nor of earth, neither mortal nor immortal, in order that you may, as the free and proud shaper of your own being, fashion yourself in the form you may prefer. It will be in your power to descend to the lower, brutish forms of life; you will be able, through your own decision, to rise again to the superior orders whose life is divine. — Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola

Feeling alone among the many is normal.

Feeling many when you are alone, calls for a professional help. A qualified shrink can always shrink your ego down to being again alone.
— Boris Zubry

The next day I was driven down to New York City to take the physical. It was one of the strangest things I'd ever seen. Several hundred young men, maybe even a thousand, in their skivvies, walking around an enormous room, all of us lost, dazed, and confused.
Some of these guys had dodged the draft and were there under the watchful eyes of dozens of federal marshals lined up against one of the walls. After eight hours of being poked, prodded, stuck, and poked again, I was given a large red envelope. I had been rejected. I had the respiratory problems of an old man, high blood pressure, partial loss of hearing, very bad teeth, very flat, very wide feet and I tested positive for tuberculosis.
"Frankly," the doctor said, "I don't know how the hell you're even standing up," and that was when the sergeant told me that if they bottled everything that was wrong with me "we could take over the world without a shot. — John William Tuohy

All of nature was a record of crisis and destruction and adaptation and flourishing and being knocked back down again. What had happened on New Terra was singular and concrete, but the pattern it was part of seemed to apply everywhere and maybe always. — James S.A. Corey

He lashed the belt against my ass again, and I was starting to feel like I was some supernatural being that was more than he was. He was just human, but I felt like something from heaven, an angel from the stars, that had come down to grace him with my presence.

How beautiful lust is, when it makes you feel this way. Have you felt this yourself, do you know what I mean? — Fiona Thrust

Being in Nirvana was amazing an experience that will never happen again for me. And I look on them as some of the best and worst times of my life. But we're in this band, the Foo Fighters, making music for the love of music. We all came from bands that had disbanded, and we were drawn to each other because we missed playing - we missed getting in the van, loading our equipment, and watching it break down in the middle of a show. And that feeling hasn't gone away. There's nothing I'd rather do than make music. It's the love of my life. — Dave Grohl

Again and again we picture ourselves sitting together with the people we feel drawn to all our lives, precisely these so-called simple people, whom naturally we imagine much differently from the way they truly are, for if we actually sit down with them we see that they aren't the way we've pictured them and that we absolutely don't belong with them, as we've talked ourselves into believing, and we get rejected at their table and in their midst as we logically should get after sitting down at their table and believing we belonged with them or we could sit with them for even the shortest time without being punished, which is the biggest mistake, I thought. All our lives we yearn to be with these people and want to reach out to them and when we realize what we feel for them are rejected by them and indeed in the most brutal fashion. — Thomas Bernhard

When you're dying, the unicorn up in heaven gets a note from an angel telling her there's a person who's going to need a ride up soon. The unicorn finds out what the person likes. Favorite foods and books, colors and activities, pets and games. She gets a room ready for him, or her, near people who she knows they'll enjoy being with, maybe other friends and family who have died before.
When the unicorn is done, she jumps off of heaven's perch, flies through the blue sky, around the clouds, over any rainbows, and down to the person. She's invisible to everyone. She patiently waits. When the person dies, she gathers them up on her back, using her hooves and horn. All of a sudden, they sit up straight and smile, they laugh, because they're on top of a unicorn and alive again. They hold on tight to her golden reins and the unicorn takes them to their new home, where they're happy. — Cathy Lamb