Do Not Despair Quotes & Sayings

We do not want to comprehend that people may and do die of emotional pain, or to recognize the terror in ourselves when we cannot seem to help someone in despair
when our words are empty. — Jill Bialosky

I hear of a convention to be held at Baltimore, or elsewhere, for the selection of a candidate for the Presidency, made up chiefly of editors, and men who are politicians by profession; but I think, what is it to any independent, intellegent, and respectable man what decision they may come to? Shall we not have the advantage of his wisdom and honesty, nevertheless? Can we not count upon some independent votes? Are there not many individuals in the country who do not attend conventions? But no: I find that the respectable man, so called, has immediately drifted from his position, and despairs of his country, when his country has more reason to despair of him. He forthwith adopts one of the candidates thus selected as his only AVAILABLE one, thus proving that he is himself AVAILABLE for any purposes of the demagogue. His vote is of no more worth than that of any unprincipled foreigner or hireling native, who may have been bought. — Henry David Thoreau

You tell me there is no fighting or hatred or desire in the Town. That is a beautiful dream, and I do want your happiness. But the absence of fighting or hatred or desire also means the opposites do not exist either. No joy, no communion, no love. Only where there is disillusionment and depression and sorrow does happiness arise; without despair or loss, there is no hope. — Haruki Murakami

Humanity will be better served when those in power, privileged and keepers of it's flame realize that poverty is not a crime nor a curse but a condition though at times crippling can be the catalyst that can lead many from despair to prosperity. Each time we help feed the hungry we not only help satisfy their needs but also ours. When we help shelter the homeless, we also strengthen the foundations of our souls in the process. When we show others love and compassion ... it will always come back to us. In all we do to help better humanity ... it is never done in vain. — Timothy Pina

But I am not discouraged. I do not despair for our country. I believe tonight, as I always have, that the essential decency, compassion and common sense of the American people will prevail. — Jimmy Carter

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

You look furious," Pritkin said, watching me.
"I just - I can't understand not fighting for your life - for what you want. Just giving up - "
A corner of his mouth quirked. "No. You would not understand that. You never stop trying, do you?"
"What else is there?"
"Despair. Hopelessness. Anger. Depression."
"But those don't get you anywhere."
He huffed out something that might have been a laugh, only it didn't sound happy. "No. They don't. — Karen Chance

Once you're lost, you panic. You're in total despair, not knowing what to do. I hate it when that happens. Sex can be a real pain that way, 'cause when you get in the mood all you can think about is what's right under your nose - that's sex, all right. — Haruki Murakami

Our World Will Be A Better Place ... If We All Try To Remember That For Our Very Short Existence On This Planet That We Are Here To Help Humanity And Not Hurt It. That All On Our earth Are Here To Exist In Peace, To Prosper and Not To Suffer. May We Help All Those We Meet That Are Suffering And In Despair ... That In All We Do, Let Us Help Better Each Other And Bring Hope To Those In Need! — Timothy Pina

I saw that you can't do anything for anybody. We can't save each other. Or ourselves."
"What have you left, then? Isolation and despair! You're denying brotherhood, Shevek!" the tall girl cried.
"No - no, I'm not. I'm trying to say what I think brotherhood really is. It begins - it begins in shared pain. — Ursula K. Le Guin

One cannot properly drink without self-deception: the lips have to deny the liquor that just passed down the throat. It was surely for the relief of drunkards that the Lord God did not write upon the stone tablets the commandment: thou shalt not lie. The word has to deny the addiction. Among the tribe of alcoholics, lying is a badge of honor - the truth is first an indiscretion, later an affront, and finally a source of despair. If you truly drink, you have to announce to all and sundry that you do not drink; if you admit you drink, that means you do not truly drink. True all-out drinking has to be concealed; anyone who reveals it is giving in, confessing to helplessness, and all that remains for him is weeping, the gnashing of teeth, and the 12 step program. — Jerzy Pilch

Do not despair - many are happy much of the time; more eat than starve, more are healthy than sick, more curable than dying; not so many dying as dead; and one of the thieves was saved. Hell's bells and all's well - half the world is at peace with itself, and so is the other half; vast areas are unpolluted; millions of children grow up without suffering deprivation, and millions, while deprived, grow up without suffering cruelties, and millions, while deprived and cruelly treated, none the less grow up. No laughter is sad and many tears are joyful. At the graveside the undertaker doffs his top hat and impregnates the prettiest mourner. Wham, bam, thank you Sam. — Tom Stoppard

Modern conquerors can kill, but do not seem to be able to create. Artists know how to
create but cannot really kill. Murderers are only very exceptionally found among artists. In the long run,
therefore, art in our revolutionary societies must die. But then the revolution will have lived its allotted
span. Each time that the revolution kills in a man the artist that he might have been, it attenuates itself
a little more. If, finally, the conquerors succeed in molding the world according to their laws, it will not
prove that quantity is king, but that this world is hell. In this hell, the place of art will coincide with that of
vanquished rebellion, a blind and empty hope in the pit of despair. — Albert Camus

For when the grace of God cometh to a man, then he becometh able to do all things, and when it departeth then he will be poor and weak and given up unto troubles. In these thou art not to be cast down nor to despair, but to rest with calm mind on the will of God, and to bear all things which come upon thee unto the praise of Jesus Christ; for after winter cometh summer, after night returneth day, after the tempest a great calm. — Thomas A Kempis

I did point out that I have no prophetic gifts. I write books because I tried to do something more useful and failed. Since I've been trained to write, I do that as a defense against total despair. And seeing people like you, who are actively engaged in trying to salvage pieces of our wrecked lives, gives me hope that after all we are not alone. — Ayi Kwei Armah

I have been reading the morning paper. I do it every morning-knowing well that I shall find in it the usual depravities and basenesses and hypocrisies and cruelties that make up civilization, and cause me to put in the rest of the day pleading for the damnation of the human race. I cannot seem to get my prayers answered, yet I do not despair. — Mark Twain

Despair is the state in which anxiety and restlessness are immanent to existence. Nobody in despair suffers from "problems", but from his own inner torment and fire. It's a pity that nothing can be solved in this world. Yet there never was and here never will be anyone who would commit suicide for this reason. So much for the power that intellectual anxiety has over the total anxiety of our being! That is why I prefer the dramatic life, consumed by inner fires and tortured by destiny, to the intellectual, caught up in abstractions which do not engage the essence of our subjectivity. I despise the absence of risks, madness and passion in abstract thinking. How fertile live, passionate thinking is! Lyricism feeds it like blood pumped into the heart! — Emil M. Cioran

The pleasures of the world are deceitful; they promise more than they give. They trouble us in seeking them, they do not satisfy us when possessing them, and they make us despair in losing them. — Anne-Therese De Marguenat De Courcelles

Princess Keita," the dragon began, "this is Elina Shestakova of the Black Bear Riders of the Midnight Mountains of Despair in the Far Reaches of the Steppes of the Outerplains." He faced Elina and, smiling, said, "And Elina Shestakova of the Black Bear Riders of the Midnight Mountains of Despair in the Far Reaches of the Steppes of the Outerplains, this is Keita the Viper: Princess of the Royal House of Gwalchmai fab Gwyar, Second-Born Daughter and Fifth-Born Offspring to the White Dragon Queen of the Southlands, Protector of The Throne, and Bound Mate to Ragnar, Dragonlord Chief of the Olgeirsson Horde."
Keita narrowed blue eyes at the dragon. "Was that really necessary, Curled Horns?"
His grin did not falter. "It felt necessary and good. Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to get back to working with Elina Shestakova of the - "
"Do not bore me with that ridiculously long name yet again!" the royal roared. — G.A. Aiken

Sinner, I would be loth to have thy soul destroyed by wilful self-delusion ... So consequently, there is a despair which is a grievous sin; and there is a despair which is absolutely necessary to thy salvation. I would not have thee despair of the sufficiency of the blood of Christ to save thee, if thou believe, and heartily obey him; nor of the willingness of God to pardon and save thee, if thou be such a one; nor yet absolutely of thy own salvation; because, while there is life and time, there is some hope of thy conversion, and so of thy salvation ... Never stick at the sadness of the conclusion, man, but acknowledge plainly, If I die before I get out of this estate, I am lost forever. It is as good deal truly with thyself as not; God will not flatter thee, he will deal plainly whether thou do or not. The very truth is, this kind of despair is one of the first steps to heaven(233). — Richard Baxter

We who are privileged to be in these chambers today can view the challenges we face as opportunities, not as reasons for despair. We can do this only if we blend our independent spirits in terms of reverence for the life and respect for nature. Each of you might suggest different words, but our goal certainly is the same: a better Oregon. — Tom McCall

Do not despair whatever happens for behind the clouds is always the rainbow. — L. Frank Baum

We are not called to pray independently, by our merits. If we were expected to do so, there would be reason for anxiety and despair. But the call to prayer, by God's grace, is to pray in dependency on the Holy Spirit. — James W. Beeke

He lay wracked with pain and in moral despair; they told him about themselves, and when he felt even worse, he got an answer from God saying, Who on earth do you think you are? Question me? Let me give you a hint of who I am and what I know. But a peek into Divine knowledge was less important than gaining, at last, the Lord's attention. Which ... was all Job ever wanted. Not proof of His existence
he never questioned that. Nor proof of His power- everyone accepted that. He simply wanted to catch His eye. To be recognized not as worthy or worthless, but to be noticed as a life-form by the One who made and unmade it. — Toni Morrison

Because ... most of us think that the point is something to do with work, or kids, or family, or whatever. But you don't have any of that. There's nothing between you and despair, and you don't seem a very desperate person.'
'Too stupid.'
'You're not stupid. So why don't you ever put your head in the oven?'
'I don't know. There's always a new Nirvana album to look forward to, or something happening in NYPD Blue to make you want to watch the next episode.'
'Exactly.'
'That's the point? NYPD Blue? Jesus.' It was worse than he thought.
'No, no. The point is you keep going. You want to. So all the things that make you want to are the point. I don't know if you even realize it, but on the quiet you don't think life's too bad. You love things. Telly. Music. Food. — Nick Hornby

There is no world without you in it. Nothing. I'm not talking about despair. I've lost people. This isn't me being a child. There is one universe. Just one. And it's between us. If you destroy that universe, you destroy me. Do you understand what I'm saying? — C.D. Reiss

Let us not cease to do the utmost, that we may incessantly go forward in the way of the Lord; and let us not despair of the smallness of our accomplishments. — John Calvin

He couldn't understand how I could be so bright in my other classes and a total failure in his. I must not be trying hard enough, he told me. In truth, I didn't care, and I didn't want to care. Geometric shapes with their dangerously sharp angles seemed the mortal enemies of words, and formulas were written in a hostage-taking language that made me despair of ever freeing the words from their captors. The best I could do was to avoid the enemy and save myself. — Thom Satterlee

Do not despair. Heroes rarely live up to to our expectations — Rick Riordan

Now he haunts me seldom: some fierce umbilical is broken,
I live with my own fragile hopes and sudden rising despair.
Now I do not weep for my sins; I have learned to love them
And to know that they are the wounds that make love real.
His face illudes me; his voice, with its pity, does not ring in my ear.
His maxims memorized in boyhood do not make fruitless and pointless my experience.
I walk alone, but not so terrified as when he held my hand.
I do not splash in the blood of his son
nor hear the crunch of nails or thorns piercing protesting flesh.
I am a boy again
I whose boyhood was turned to manhood in a brutal myth.
Now wine is only wine with drops that do not taste of blood.
The bread I eat has too much pride for transubstantiation,
I, too
and together the bread and I embrace,
Each grateful to be what we are, each loving from our own reality. — James Kavanaugh

And then came the pain. First in her leg, as if something had sunk its teeth into it. A huge beast, a dog, maybe. It locked its jaws onto her limb and tore at the muscles with its teeth. She screamed, that was all she could do, scream. She could not describe the feeling of having her body ripped apart. She remembered her father's despair, his face as he leaned over her bed, and his words: What is it, tell me, what is it? As she writhed in pain, soaked in her own sweat, Don Guillermo, her kind, good father, waited for her to tell him. For an explanation. A meaningful verbalization of this horror, so that he could understand what was happening to his child. Otherwise, how could he help her? Because her frenzied cries were not enough. Pain needs to be articulated, communicated. It needs a kind of dialogue. It needs words. But only screams and shrieks of pain escaped from the child's lips. — Slavenka Drakulic

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 am president and do not have the right to give in to emotions. I have bad moods, very bad moods, but I never feel despair. — Dmitry Medvedev

Forsake me not in my joys, lest they absorb my heart. Forsake me not in my sorrows, lest I murmur against thee. Forsake me not in the day of my repentance, lest I lose the hope of pardon, and fall into despair; and forsake me not in the day of my strongest faith, lest faith degenerate into presumption. Forsake me not, for without thee I am weak, but with thee I am strong. Forsake me not, for my path is dangerous, and full of snares, and I cannot do without thy guidance. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Whatever happens in your life, no matter how troubling things might seem, do not enter the neighborhood of despair. Even when all doors remain closed, God will open up a new path only for you. Be thankful! — Elif Shafak

We live a pleasant life shopping at the Food Shoppe ... taking the kids to the Weinery-Beanery, ... and eating bran flakes .. and then, with no warning, we wake up one morning stricken with middle age, full of loneliness, dumb, in pain. Our work is useless, our vocation is lost, and nobody cares about us at all. This is not bearable. In despair, we go do something spectacularly dumb, like run away with Amber the cocktail waitress, and suddenly all the women in our life look at us with unmitigated disgust. — Garrison Keillor

Do you know I've been sitting here thinking to myself: that if I didn't believe in life, if I lost faith in the woman I love, lost faith in the order of things, were convinced in fact that everything is a disorderly, damnable, and perhaps devil-ridden chaos, if I were struck by every horror of man's disillusionment
still I should want to live. Having once tasted of the cup, I would not turn away from it till I had drained it! At thirty though, I shall be sure to leave the cup even if I've not emptied it, and turn away
where I don't know. But till I am thirty I know that my youth will triumph over everything
every disillusionment, every disgust with life. I've asked myself many times whether there is in the world any despair that could overcome this frantic thirst for life. And I've come to the conclusion that there isn't, that is until I am thirty. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I have heard that you should not do bed business after too much hard work, " Snow Flower told me, "but I don't believe that my mother-in-law has heard that." She looked exhausted. I felt the same way after visiting my husband's home-from the nonstop labor, from being polite, and from always being watched.
"This is the one rule my mother-in-law doesn't respect either," I commiserated. "Haven't they heard an exhausted well yields no water? — Lisa See

You are not here by chance, but by choice: God's choice. He has designed you with a purpose and for a purpose in order to advance His rule in this sinful and fallen world that He originally designed to be holy and pure. No one else can do what God has planned for you to do and running away from this, as Jonah found out, will not bring peace and rest. Only His plans for you will give you hope not despair, and they will lead you into a good future, not a dead end wilderness of wasted life and — Greg Haslam

Change is an easy thing to decide and a difficult thing to do. It is the day-to-day struggle of it that defeats people. Do not despair if old ways look good to you. Despair only if you fall into them too often. — Karleen Koen

I believe that it may happen that one will succeed, and one must not begin to despair, even though defeated here and there; and even though one sometimes feels a kind of decay, though things go differently from the expected, it is necessary to take heart again and new courage. For the great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together. And great things are not something accidental, but must certainly be willed. What is drawing? How does one learn it? It is working through an invisible iron wall that seems to stand between what one feels and what one can do. — Vincent Van Gogh

Do not despair of your life. You have force enough to overcome your obstacles. — Henry David Thoreau

According to the Buddha's teachings, the most basic condition for happiness is freedom. Here we do not mean political freedom, but freedom from the mental formations of anger, despair, jealousy, and delusion. — Thich Nhat Hanh

Frodo raised his head, and then stood up. Despair had not left him, but the weakness had passed. He even smiled grimly, feeling now as clearly as a moment before he had felt the opposite, that what he had to do, he had to do, if he could, and that whether Faramir or Aragorn or Elrond or Galadriel or Gandalf or anyone else knew about it was beside the purpose. He took his staff in one hand and the phial in his other. When he saw that the clear light was already welling through his fingers, he thrust it into his bosom and held it against his heart. Then turning from the city of Morgul, now no more than a grey glimmer across a dark gulf, he prepared to take the upward road. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Not merely hope, but any burdensome yearning: ambition, hatred, love (especially love) - how rarely do our emotions meet the object they seem to deserve? How hopelessly we signal; how dark the sky; how big the waves. We are all lost at see, washed between hope and despair, hailing something that may never come to rescue us. Catastrophe has become art; but this is no reducing process. It is freeing, enlarging, explaining. Catastrophe has become art: that is, after all, what it is for. — Julian Barnes

Do not despair, my friend. Today is theirs, but the future is ours — Rodman Philbrick

They can see everything they want to, but never forget that they cannot see beyond the distortion of their imagination where there is no color and everything exists in black and white. And that is why we will survive, because they do not have what is necessary to defeat us. The real war is between our imagination and theirs, what we can see and what they are blinded to. Do not despair. None of them can see far enough, and so long as we do not let them violate our imagination we will survive. — Lawrence Thornton

Single parenting is sometimes just a case of sitting around by yourself in mild despair, not knowing what to do. — Simon Van Booy

You were born into a glorious mess, and we all have become something of a glorious mess ourselves. And in the midst of our mess, God has a thing for us. He does not despise our humanity or despair over our condition as we sometimes do. He does not turn his face away from us in our failings or our self-centeredness, as we would like to. He is not surprised. — Stasi Eldredge

I do not know whether music knows how to despair over music, or marble over marble, but literature is an art which knows how to prophesize the time in which it might have fallen silent, how to attack its own virtue, and how to fall in love with its own dissolution and court its own end. — Jorge Luis Borges

He is so shy, Juliet. He always has been-I don't think anybody's ever been in love with him, or him with anybody before, so he'd not know the right thing to do about it. It'd be just like him to hide away mementos and never say a word. I despair for him, I do. — Mary Ann Shaffer

There is a virtuous fear, which is the effect of faith; and there is a vicious fear, which is the product of doubt. The former leads to hope, as relying on God, in whom we believe; the latter inclines to despair, as not relying on God, in whom we do not believe. Persons of the one character fear to lose God; persons of the other character fear to find Him. — Blaise Pascal

Since it is likely that, being men, they would sin every day, St. Paul consoles his hearers by saying 'renew yourselves' from day to day. This is what we do with houses: we keep constantly repairing them as they wear old. You should do the same thing to yourself. Have you sinned today? Have you made your soul old? Do not despair, do not despond, but renew your soul by repentance, and tears, and Confession, and by doing good things. And never cease doing this. — John Chrysostom

While there is life there is hope. I beg to assert ... that as long as a man's heart beats, as long as a man's flesh quivers, I do not allow that a being gifted with thought and will can allow himself to despair. — Jules Verne

When you look at her what do you feel?" "Are you fucking serious? Forget it." He can kiss my ass if he wants to start talking feelings with me. "You obviously want it for a reason." "I want a picture to jack off to. What do you care?" I keep drawing so I don't have to look at him, but I'm mutilating the sketch I'm working on. I'll have to start over, but I don't care. "Joy, fear, frustration, longing, friendship, anger, need, despair, love, lust?" "Yes." "Yes, what?" "All of it," I reply, because I'm all in now whether I like it or not. — Katja Millay

the whole Scripture of God is divided into two parts: precepts and promises. The precepts certainly teach us what is good, but what they teach is not forthwith done. For they show us what we ought to do, but do not give us the power to do it. They were ordained, however, for the purpose of showing man to himself, that through them he may learn his own impotence for good and may despair of his own strength. For this reason they are called the Old Testament, and are so. — Martin Luther

I run because I enjoy it - not always, but most of the time. I run because I have always run - not trained, but run. What do I get? Joy and pain. Good health and injuries. Exhilaration and despair. A feeling of accomplishment and a feeling of waste. The sunrise and the sunset. — Amby Burfoot

Knowledge is power, as some say. But on some days it is just as much pain and confusion as it is power; and any wise man worth his salt as a wise man at least understands this. One may be able to comprehend all the human perspectives in the universe, but this gives more to decipher regarding what is actually true; and even after discovering the truth, the challenge is in maintaining a patience for the infinite number of opinions that do not reflect that truth. Its consistency in man is challenge. A worldly knowledge ends at the former challenge of confusion, but the knowledge of Christ ends at the latter challenge of patience. — Criss Jami

I watch my loved ones weep with sorrow,
death's silent torment of no tomorrow.
I feel their hearts breaking, I sense their despair,
United in misery, the grief that they share.
How do I show that, I am not gone ...
but the essence of life's everlasting song
Why do they wee? Why do they cry?
I'm alive in the wind and I am soaring high.
I am sparkling light dancing on streams,
a moment of warmth in the fays of sunbeams.
The coolness of rain as it falls on your face,
the whisper of leaves as wind rushes with haste.
Eternal Song, a requiem by Avian of Celieria
from Crown of Crystal Flame by C.L. Wilson — C.L. Wilson

When you are sad, do not bow your head in despair, lift it up; you can see and fight better when your head is up! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

Perchance, coming generations will not abide the dissolution of the globe, but, availing themselves of future inventions in aerial locomotion, and the navigation of space, the entire race may migrate from the earth, to settle some vacant and more western planet ... It took but little art, a simple application of natural laws, a canoe, a paddle, and a sail of matting, to people the isles of the Pacific, and a little more will people the shining isles of space. Do we not see in the firmament the lights carried along the shore by night, as Columbus did? Let us not despair or mutiny. — Henry David Thoreau

In this moment
Do not wait to be beautiful. Be your beautiful, authentic self right now.
If the world offers up negativity and despair, surprise the world by giving back love and kindness. Send out the energy that you wish to experience, and you are certain to experience it.

Happiness and fulfillment are alive in this moment. Allow them to flow freely and creatively through your life.
Fall in love all over again with the miracle of being. Your imagination is great and magnificent, yet it cannot hold even a fraction of the possibilities.

You'll do, say and act your best when you feel your best. Feel the limitless wonder of this very moment.
Be beautiful, alive, aware and filled with the energy of the possible. In this moment, is every dream made and fulfilled — Ralph S. Marston Jr.

My God, whose son, as on this night, took on Him the form of man, and for man vouchsafed to suffer and bleed, controls thy hand, and without His behest, thou canst not strike a stroke. My God is sinless, eternal, all-wise, and in Him is my trust, and though stripped and crushed by thee, -though naked, desolate, void of resource- I do not despair:where the lance of Guthrum now wet with my blood, I should not despair. I watch, I toil, I hope, I pray: Jehovah, in His own time, will aid. — Charlotte Bronte

Do not despair. I know you will not despair. You have a manly and a proud heart. A proud heart can survive a general failure because such a failure does not prick its pride. It is more difficult and more bitter when a man fails alone. — Chinua Achebe

No one observed and beheld me, I observed and beheld myself; the invisible current went out and it came back to me. I came to love myself out of defiance, out of despair, because there was nothing else. Such a love will do, but it will only do, it is not the best kind; it has the taste of something left out on a shelf too long that has turned rancid, and when eaten makes the stomach turn. It will do, it will do, but only because there is nothing else to take its place; it is not to be recommended. — Jamaica Kincaid

Do other dads not end their phone calls with existential despair? Because that's what my dad does. Papa ends most of his calls with me the way you might close a conversation with someone you want to menace. "Anyway," he'll say, "I'll be here. Staring into the abyss." Or, when I have given him good news, "The talented will rule and the rest will perish in the sea of mediocrity." Or, when I have given him bad news, "I am for for everything that happens to you, as everything is my fault." He never ends with anything that couldn't one day be construed as a tragic yet comic last word. — Scaachi Koul

What they have is science, and in science only that which is subject to the senses. The spiritual world, on the other hand, the loftier half of the man's being, is rejected altogether, cast out with a certain triumph, hatred even. The world has proclaimed freedom of theirs: nothing but servitude and suicide! For the world says: 'You have needs, so satisfy them, for you have the same rights as the wealthiest and most highly placed of men. Do not be afraid to satisfy them, but even multiply them'
that is the present-day teaching of the world. In that, too, they see freedom. And what is the result of this right to the multiplication of needs? Among the rich solitariness and spiritual suicide, and among the poor
envy and murder, for while they have been given rights, they have not yet been afforded the means with which to satisfy their needs. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

At least her anger was empowering. Not that it actually empowered her to do anything, but it was more energizing than despair. — Karen McCullah Lutz

Do not despair. To be friendless is indeed to be unfortunate, but the hearts of men, when unprejudiced by any obvious self-interest, are full of brotherly love and charity. — Mary Shelley

Do not despair. Have faith. It is going to work out and you will be delivered. — Bryant McGill

Do not despair. In every defeat are found the seeds of victory. — Walter F. Mondale

If there's more that you can do, then do it. If there's not more that you can do, then be content with what you're doing. But if there is despair, the despair can only be that you can do more. Because when you're doing as much as you can do, you will not feel despair. Because despair is the gap between what you could be doing and what you are doing. — Stefan Molyneux

I dare say you are planning on a late repentance. You do not know what you are doing. You are planning without God. Repentance and faith are the gifts of God, and they are gifts that He often withholds, when they have been long offered in vain. I grant you true repentance is never too late, but I warn you at the same time, late repentance is seldom true. I grant you, one penitent thief was converted in his last hours, that no man might despair; But I warn you, only one was converted, that no man might presume. I grant you it is written, Jesus is 'Able to save completely those who come to God through him' (Hebrews 7:25). But I warn you, it is also written by the same Spirit, 'Since you rejected me when I called and no one gave heed when I stretched out my hand, I in turn will laugh at your disaster; I will mock when calamity overtakes you' (Proverbs 1:24-26).

Believe me, you will find it no easy matter to turn to God whenever you please. — J.C. Ryle

Despair is typical of those who do not understand the causes of evil, see no way out, and are incapable of struggle. — Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

Fairy tales in childhood are stepping stones throughout life, leading the way through trouble and trial. The value of fairy tales lies not in a brief literary escape from reality, but in the gift of hope that goodness truly is more powerful than evil and that even the darkest reality can lead to a Happily Ever After. Do not take that gift of hope lightly. It has the power to conquer despair in the midst of sorrow, to light the darkness in the valleys of life, to whisper "One more time" in the face of failure. Hope is what gives life to dreams, making the fairy tale the reality. — L.R. Knost

Despair ... is the only cure for illusion. Without despair we cannot transfer our allegiance to reality - it's a kind of mourning period for our fantasies. Some people do not survive this despair, but no major change within a person can occur without it. — Philip Slater

Some of you may feel that if you don't do something soon to change your life, you will be left by the roadside, alone, homeless and in despair. But is the despair not there as you reach and grapple to create or manifest your desires through your own effort and will? What happens if or when those things appear in your life? Joy? Peace? Or a temporary sense of relief?

What if it is relief from the wanting you have been craving for so long, not the outcome, but the relief from the constant wanting. — Kelly Martin

There may not be any romance to mental illness but who needs romance when the preferable route is agency? The prevailing conversation around mental health issues is agency and the lack thereof on the part of the mentally ill. But what do you do if you're a paid-up member of the mentally ill populace in question? Do you curl up into a ball and give up? No, you look for solutions. Ultimately, it's about keeping despair at bay and sometimes simple things like running, taking up a hobby, doing charity work, painting or, in my case, writing can be a galvanizing part of the recovery process. Keeping the brain and the body active can give life a semblance of pleasure and hope. This is what writing has done for me. I took every traumatic element of my condition and channelled it into something useful. — Diriye Osman

We are reviled but we do not intend to speak evil in return. We are in desperate straits but do not despair. We are persecuted but not forsaken. It's easy to humiliate and crush people who are open, but when I am weak, then I am strong. — Nadezhda Tolokonnikova

Happiness increases and decreases depending on the level of power one has. When you have more power, more control on your life, you feel more happy and self-confident, as your power decreases and the control of your life slips away, you get less and less happy and when you no longer have any power to rely on you reach depression and despair. This is the point where your power meter has hit 0. You now need to rely on the good favors of others to live. For those who believe in the power of god, it sustains them through this dark hour. For those who do not believe, they think they have reached the end and may take their lives. That's why all conflict in life is about power and many lose life in its pursuit. Power is life itself. — Bangambiki Habyarimana

To despair over one's sins indicates that sin has become or wants to be internally consistent. It wants nothing to do with the good, does not want to be so weak as to listen occasionally to other talk. No, it insists on listening only to itself, on having dealings only with itself; it closes itself up within itself, indeed, locks itself inside one more inclosure, and protects itself against every attack or pursuit by the good by despairing over sin. — Soren Kierkegaard

Are we aware of our obligations to a mob? It is the mob that labor in your fields and serve in your houses - that man your navy, and recruit your army - that have enabled you to defy the world, and can also defy you when neglect and calamity have driven them to despair. You may call the people a mob; but do not forget that a mob too often speaks the sentiments of the people. — Lord Byron

The problem of race is deep and wide and requires seismic change. But if we look to government to solve it, we might as well feel hopeless. If we look corporate America to solve it, we'll be waiting a long, long time. And if we agree with Ta-Nehisi Coates, who tentatively suggests that "the only work that will matter, will be the work done by us," then we will truly despair, for we know how well that has worked. If we follow that track, we'll quickly add in disbelief, as he did, "Or perhaps not."

As I've said, the problem of race is not "out there." It's "in here," in the human heart. And though there is no task in heaven or on earth more difficult than changing the human heart,I believe in the one who can do it. It requires a supernatural solution.

Yes, I believe in God. You see, I know how God can change a person's heart. — Benjamin Watson

Think positive. Envision your rest as you become more deprived. Envision your success as you endure more failure. Do not fuel despair with false truth. Instead, battle despair with hope. — Peter S. Fogg

Advent Prayer
In our secret yearnings
we wait for your coming,
and in our grinding despair
we doubt that you will.
And in this privileged place
we are surrounded by witnesses who yearn more than do we
and by those who despair more deeply than do we.
Look upon your church and its pastors
in this season of hope
which runs so quickly to fatigue
and in this season of yearning
which becomes so easily quarrelsome.
Give us the grace and the impatience
to wait for your coming to the bottom of our toes,
to the edges of our fingertips.
We do not want our several worlds to end.
Come in your power
and come in your weakness
in any case
and make all things new.
Amen. — Walter Brueggemann

The discrepancy is that the ethical self should be found immanently in the despair, that the individual won himself by persisting in the despair. True, he has used something within the category of freedom, choosing himself, which seem to remove the difficulty, one that presumably has not struck many, since philosophically doubting everything and then finding the true beginning goes one, two, three. But that does not help. In despairing, I use myself to despair, and therefore I can indeed despair of everything by myself. But if I do this, I cannot come back by myself. It is in this moment of decision that the individual needs divine assistance, whereas it is quite correct that in order to be at this point one must first have understood the existence-relation between the aesthetic and the ethical; that is to say, by being there in passion and inwardness, one surely becomes aware of the religious - and of the leap. — Soren Kierkegaard

If the person did not have anxiety, he or she would also not have freedom. Anxiety demonstrates that values, no matter how beclouded, do exist in the person. Without values there would be only barren despair. — Rollo May

How do you generalize? War is hell, but that's not the half of it, because war is also mystery and terror and adventure and courage and discovery and holiness and pity and despair and longing and love. War is nasty; war is fun. War is thrilling; war is drudgery. War makes you a man; war makes you dead. The truths are contradictory. — Tim O'Brien

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

My friends, if even God's law, written directly by His own finger and full of so much glory that it transfigured Moses' face, is a "ministry of death" to those who try to fulfill it, then these to-do lists, steps, and pieces of ludicrous advice will not produce the fruit we're hoping for. They will not build or protect the family or God's people in the world. They will not glorify Him. They will not make Him smile. They will only breed pride, despair, exhaustion, anger, self-pity, hypocrisy, addiction to introspection, and even abandonment of the faith. — Elyse M. Fitzpatrick

There is much I do not understand about the way humans think of punishment and forgiveness, and what happens to sinners when they die. I wish Jessamine was here to explain it to me, for the plants do not speak of heaven and hell. They speak only of the turning of the seasons and of starting anew each spring. Never despair, they counsel, for the orchard that is barren one season may bear fruit in plenty in the next. — Maryrose Wood

Despair is not solid. Neither is joy. They alternate, and contain each other. There is no joy that is not also touched by sorrow, no grief that is not rendered sharper by the memory of bliss. If things move forward in one direction and not another, they do so by rolling there, passing through the same tight orbit, touching here an ecstasy, there another shattering loss. — Ben Ehrenreich

The hobbit is hallowed for his terrible and grace-filled journey and hollowed out by it. His body seems too small for all that he endures but not so his heart. Fear, fatigue, cold, hunger, and thirst torment him, but he continues out of love. Frodo's struggle shows that there are, in fact, two quests going on: his to destroy the Ring and the Ring's to dominate and destroy him. Despite the despair that it causes, which both fills and empties him, the Ring-bearer remains as intent upon saving everyone as Denethor is not. Frodo's torn heart still beats, and it pushes past terror and hopelessness because of Sam's blessed aid and his own battered and bleeding will to do so. Both hobbits teach us the great value of redemptive suffering. — Anne Marie Gazzolo

Do not despise your gift. We are all valuable. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Don't you know that you are all my life to me? ... But peace I do not know, and can't give to you. My whole being, my love ... yes! I cannot think about you and about myself separately. You and I are one to me. And I do not see before us the possibility of peace either for me or for you. I see the possibility of despair, misfortune ... or of happiness-what happiness! ... Is it impossible?
Vronksy — Leo Tolstoy

She used to come home alone at two in the morning. When I asked if she wasn't afraid of sexual maniacs, she told me her method. When a sexual maniac approached, threatening, she would take his arm and say, "Come on, let's do it." And he would go away, bewildered.
If you're a sexual maniac, you don't want sex; you want the excitement of its theft, you want the victim's resistance and despair. If sex is handed to you on a platter, here it is, go to it, naturally you're not interested, otherwise what sort of sexual maniac would you bee? — Umberto Eco

Do not despair! Work steadily. Sincerity and love will conquer hate. How many seemingly impossible events are coming to pass in these days! Set your faces steadily towards the Light of the World. Show love to all ... Take courage! God never forsakes His children who strive and work and pray! Let your hearts be filled with the strenuous desire that tranquillity and harmony may encircle all this warring world. So will success crown your efforts, and with the universal brotherhood will come the Kingdom of God in peace and goodwill. — Abdu'l- Baha

And John Kearns whispered into my ear: "Do you see it now? *You* are the nest. *You* are the hatchling. *You* are the chrysalis. *You* are the progeny. *You* are the rot that falls from the stars. All of us
you and I and poor, dear Pellinore. Behold the face of the magnificum, child. And despair."
Though I was sickened by the sight, I looked. In the bower of the beast at the top of the world, I beheld the face of the magnificum, and I did not turn away. — Rick Yancey

Men without hope, resigned to despair and oppression, do not make revolutions. It is when expectation replaces submission, when despair is touched with the awareness of possibility, that the forces of human desire and the passion for justice are unloosed. — Robert Kennedy

I tell you it's no joke to paint a portrait. I wonder that I am not more timid when I begin. I feel almost certain that I can do it. It seems very simple. I don't think of the time that is sure to come when I almost despair, when the whole thing seems hopeless. — William Morris Hunt