Quotes & Sayings About Lost Cause

1.17 THE WORLDLY WAYS
The world, the din, the time, the kin,
In our days are a sin,
Love's condemned and not true,
A farce for sex, a laugh at You.
[179] - 1
Simplicity is a crime,
Frauds and liars are divine,
Sex is worshiped, live not true,
Cheat be cheated our mottos new.
[180] - 1
Love is lost - so dear to You,
And lovers are but a few,
'Cause they know that live if hell,
As customs are but their cell.
[181] - 1
The lies, the crime, the evil ways,
Are the paths of our days,
We love our neighbour as love's not true,
And hate the others cause they do too.
[182] - 1 — Munindra Misra

After the Spanish Civil War against Franco, a group of us got together: a group of well-to-do people who were sympathetic to the lost cause of a Republican state. We bought a convent in Toulouse and converted it into a hospital run by the Unitarians. It took care of the Spanish refugees who fled to Toulouse. — Howard Fast

And I know it might sound crazy, but after all that, I still love you. You wanna come back in my life But now there is something I have to do. I have to tell the one that I once adored, that they can't have my love no more, 'cause my heart can't take no more lies, And my eyes are all out of cries. — Amanda Perez

A lost of people recognize me and maybe will ask for an autograph, but it's nothing like if Elvis would've done something like that, 'cause he's so popular, or maybe The Beatles 'cause they stirred up a lot of action. — Mickey Gilley

There comes a point in life where each one of us who survives begins to feel like a ghost that has forgotten to die at the right time, and certainly most of us were more amusing when we were young. It seems that age folds the heart in on itself. Some of us walk detached, dreaming on the past, and some of us realize that we have lost the trick of standing in the sun. For many of us the thought of the future is a cause for irritation rather than optimism, as if we have had enough of new things, and wish only for the long sleep that rounds the edges of our lives — Louis De Bernieres

Wait, I got it. We, uh, won the battle and lost the war, or was it the other way around? 'Cause around here, it's hard to tell sometimes. — Kami Garcia

Do you want to be happy? Forget yourself and get lost in this great cause. — Gordon B. Hinckley

Though I knew so far as Anarchism was concerned I was backing a lost cause, it didn't seem to matter as every other cause had won at some time but that of the people themselves. At least it threw so a light on any other political persuasion. — Albert Meltzer

End Of The World

Why does the sun go on shining
Why does the sea rush to shore
Don't they know it's the end of the world
'Cause you don't love me any more

Why do the birds go on singing
Why do the stars glow above
Don't they know it's the end of the world
It ended when I lost your love

I wake up in the morning and I wonder
Why everything's the same as it was
I can't understand, no, I can't understand
How life goes on the way it does

Why does my heart go on beating
Why do these eyes of mine cry
Don't they know it's the end of the world
It ended when you said goodbye

Why does my heart go on beating
Why do these eyes of mine cry
Don't they know it's the end of the world
It ended when you said goodbye — Skeeter Davis

The main cause of the ineffectiveness of British propaganda is that those directing it seem to have lost their own belief in the peculiar values of English civilization or to be completely ignorant of the main points on which it differs from that of other people. The Left intelligentsia indeed, have so long worshiped foreign gods that they seem to have become almost incapable of seeing any good in the characteristic English institutions and traditions. That the moral values on which most of them pride themselves are largely the product of the institutions they are out to destroy, these socialists cannot, of course, admit. — Friedrich Hayek

It's a natural thing for a child to lose a parent. I lost my mom too young but it happened. And I'm happy she's out of pain, 'cause I love her and she's my friend. — Angelina Jolie

Honour is kind of what you get when you weaponise manners, but if you're brought up in a system where honour is valued more than life itself it makes a lot more sense. Some. A bit. Anyway: they attacked me as they were honour bound to do, and I defended myself as I was bound to do, but killed them in self-defence. I think it was what Gareth had planned. He had dishonoured himself by kidnapping Perkins in the first place and causing our tribes to fall out, then been the cause of me dishonouring myself, which then brought dishonour upon himself. By attacking me, he allowed me to restore my lost honour by killing him, and, odd as it might seem, his honour as well. He died with honour, and I thank and respect him for it. We didn't leave them to the slugs at all, and instead buried them with tribal honours, which is why we were kind of delayed. The ground was hard and we had to ride for miles to find a shovel. — Jasper Fforde

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

I wonder if they know they are fighting for a cause that was lost the minute the first shot as fired. — Margaret Mitchell

The righteousness of God in His election means, then, that as a righteous Judge God perceives and estimates as such the lost cause of the creature, and that in spite of its opposition He gives sentence in its favour, fashioning for it His own righteousness. — Karl Barth

But all good things come to an end, often a sad angry miserable end. The cause for such an end can usually be whittled down to one of three things: money, sickness, love lost. — James Frey

Everybody's bones are just holy branches cast from trees to cut patterns in the world. And in time we find some shelter, spill our leaves, and then sleep in the earth. And when we're there, we'll belong, 'cause the earth don't give a damn if you're lost. — Radical Face

Solving the population problem is not going to solve the problems of racism ... of sexism ... of religious intolerance ... of war ... of gross economic inequality But if you don't solve the population problem, you're not going to solve any of those problems. Whatever problem you're interested in, you're not going to solve it unless you also solve the population problem. Whatever your cause, it's a lost cause without population control. — Paul R. Ehrlich

The War Department in Washington briefly weighed more ambitious schemes to relieve the Americans on a large scale before it was too late. But by Christmas of 1941, Washington had already come to regard Bataan as a lost cause. President Roosevelt had decided to concentrate American resources primarily in the European theater rather than attempt to fight an all-out war on two distant fronts. At odds with the emerging master strategy for winning the war, the remote outpost of Bataan lay doomed. By late December, President Roosevelt and War Secretary Henry Stimson had confided to Winston Churchill that they had regrettably written off the Philippines. In a particularly chilly phrase that was later to become famous, Stimson had remarked, 'There are times when men have to die. — Hampton Sides

Sadly for you, I think I'm going to live, Simi. You can stop slapping me now. I've already lost enough sense. Can't afford to lose any more brain cells. I really really need my last three before I forget how to spell my name. It's hard enough to pronounce." Nick
"well, poo. Not poo that you'll live, 'cause the Simi would probably miss you if you died, but poo that I'll miss all that good old salty boy meat. Though we needs be fatting you up some to make you really good eats. Hmmm." Simi — Sherrilyn Kenyon

You remind me of a boy I used to know
Same Smile, same easy, laid-back style
And man, could he kiss
Blew my mind the very first time
His lips touched mine.
You remind me

You remind me of a boy I used to like.
Same eyes, strong arms, same open mind
And man, could he dance
Arms around me, lost in a trance
I'd hear his heart
You remind me

I'm scared of you
How did you find me?
Turn and walk away
'Cause you remind me

You remind me of a boy I used to love
Same laughter and tears, shared through the years
And man, how he felt

Made my bones more than melt
He touched my soul.
You remind me

I'm scared of you
How did you find me?
Turn and walk away
'Cause you remind me — Malorie Blackman

Only now do I understand the war against boredom, the lost cause of empty hours, of empty days and nights. — Jonathan Safran Foer

She started to rise, for she feared Dash might become angry, lose his temper as he had before with Finn, but this Dash, this man who was struggling to find his footing, planted his feet solidly on the deck.
"She married someone else, Finn," he said quietly. "There was no battle to fight once she'd done that. I'd lost, and sometimes when you lose, there is nothing you can do but move on."
Finn sighed and shook his head, the arguments and problems of adults far beyond his ken, but he still persisted, struggling to understand. "Did you?"
"Did I what?"
"Move on? After you lost her?"
Again, Dash shook his head. "Nay, I didn't. Not at all."
"'Cause you loved her?"
Dash looked away. "Aye. Without her, I lost my course and sailed about the seas rather like the Dutchman. — Elizabeth Boyle

Yet man dies not whilst the world, at once his mother and his monument, remains. His name is lost, indeed, but the breath he breathed still stirs the pine-tops on the mountains, the sound of the words he spoke yet echoes on through space; the thoughts his brain gave birth to we have inherited to-day; his passions are our cause of life; the joys and sorrows that he knew are our familiar friends
the end from which he fled aghast will surely overtake us also!
Truly the universe is full of ghosts, not sheeted churchyard spectres, but the inextinguishable elements of individual life, which having once been, can never die, though they blend and change, and change again for ever. — H. Rider Haggard

In the middle '50s, I had written that the point would come, inevitably, at which the relationship between the cause of conflict and political objectives would be lost. — Henry A. Kissinger

Truthfully I don't remember much about anything after the Olympics 'cause I, I lost everything. — Tonya Harding

You're confusing desire and love,' she said, watching him. 'They are not the same.'
'I do love you. I feel near to murder at the idea of you marrying another man, and that's the truth of the matter.'
'Desire is bloody, perjured, full of blame.'
Ewan walked up the steps to her. 'Is that poetry?'
'Yes.'
'I don't like the sound of it. There's something nasty about that poet.'
'It's Shakespeare,' Annabel said.
Ewan obviously dismissed Shakespeare as a lost cause. 'We would be happy together,' he said. — Eloisa James

Two years he walks the earth. No phone, no pool, no pets, no cigarettes. Ultimate freedom. An extremist. An aesthetic voyager whose home is the road. Escaped from Atlanta. Thou shalt not return, 'cause "the West is the best." And now after two rambling years comes the final and greatest adventure. The climactic battle to kill the false being within and victoriously conclude the spiritual pilgrimage. Ten days and nights of freight trains and hitchhiking bring him to the Great White North. No longer to be poisoned by civilization he flees, and walks alone upon the land to become lost in the wild.
Alexander Supertramp, May 1992 — Christopher McCandless

If sequestration takes place, that's going to be a great setback. We don't need to be having something like sequestration that's going to cause these job losses - over 170 million jobs that could be lost, — Maxine Waters

Go back' Taran shouted at the top of his voice.'Have you lost your wits?'
Eilonwy, for it was she, half-halted. She had tucked her plaited hair under a leather helmet. The Princess of Llyr smiled cheerfully at him. 'I understand you're upset,' she shouted back, 'but that's no cause to be rude.' She galloped on.
For a time, Taran could not believe he had really seen her. — Lloyd Alexander

The dead-enders are still with us, those remnants of the defeated regimes who'll go on fighting long after their cause is lost. — Donald Rumsfeld

The problem for us was to move forward to a decisive victory, or our cause was lost. — Ulysses S. Grant

Is anarchism possible? The failure of attempts to attain freedom does not mean the cause is lost. — Johann Most

Any object that lost its nanotags automatically became government property, so hard-working people and those who had lived for generations in ancestral homes here would see their properties expropriated. The farmers who had brought their produce to sell no longer owned that produce. The government knew this would drive people into the rebel cause in droves, but they had no alternative. Their orders came from Earth, after all. Earth was very far away, and the Rights Owners there would not be sympathetic. — Karl Schroeder

Blood mixture and the result drop in the racial level is the sole cause of the dying out of old cultures; for men do not perish as a result of lost wars, but by the loss of that force of resistance which is continued only in pure blood. All who are not of good race in this world are chaff. — Adolf Hitler

I'm in a weird-ass mood today, Doc. Wired up, mind all over the place, looking for answers, reasons something solid to cling to, something real, but just when I think I've got it figured out and neatly filed under fixed instead of fucked, turns out I'm still shattered, scattered, and battered. But you probably already knew that, didn't you? ... You might not be able to help me. That makes me sad, but not for me. It makes me sad for you. It must be frustrating for a shrink to have a patient who's beyond fixing. That first shrink I saw when I got back to Clayton Falls told me no one is a lost cause, but I think that's bullshit. I think people can be so crushed, so broken, that they'll never be anything more than a fragment of a whole person. (129) — Chevy Stevens

It might cause considerable surprise to the informed observer (who does not exist) to note that Mr B's eyes begin to fill with tears. They overflow and spill down along the deep soft creases of his careworn face as he sits very still in the centre of the unstill world and weeps rivers of salty water for all the lost souls, including his own. — Meg Rosoff

I watched 60 Minutes ... and they showed this woman, she's in every kind of..thing like that. 'This woman', they say, 'she lost her first four children
died from malnutrition
and, now, she's afraid that her new six-month-old newborn twins will suffer the same fate' ... Who's going to step in and say ... 'kick her in the cunt 'til it doesn't work', 'that woman is a sociopath! that is a sick human being!' ... How much of a sociopath do you need to be? That is the slow ritual torture-murder of children, one after another! At what point does cause-and-effect not kick in? How many bulb-headed skeletons have to go stiff in your arms?! ... 'what? this one's not working ... oh, well let's try again', one after another. At what point do you not go 'I think this is bad'? ... How many kids are you going to fuckin' kill, lady? ... If you impregnate someone under those conditions, they should abort the parents! that's sick! — Doug Stanhope

Never ignore someone who loves you and cares about you. 'Cause one day you may realize you lost the moon while counting stars. — John O'Callaghan

It is only after an unknown number of unrecorded labors, after a host of noble hearts have succumbed in discouragement, convinced that their cause is lost; it is only then that cause triumphs. — Francois Guizot

Thinking ahead often seems to be a lost art. Many people are so caught up in instant gratification that they never stop to think about the long-term effects of some of their actions. They also don't see the connections between today's actions and tomorrow's results - and this causes an awful lot of pain and frustration in life. Whatever I do today, I should be aware of the possible effects - negative and positive - that can show up in the future, near or far. Of course, we can't let the fear of what might happen in the future keep us from acting today. But we can make our lives much easier if we just remember the law of cause and effect, and realize that some of what we do today will be the cause of effects that won't show up until later. — Tom Walsh

It is when we are at our darkest hour, when we can see no evidence that God loves us or that he is even there to listen to our prayers, much less answer them ... and yet, we still obey.
It is then that the devil is reminded that his cause is lost. — Tom King

Maybe tomorrow is counting on me
To learn my lessons today
I'll start by taking a step at a time
And stop throwing my blessings away
I'll get myself up and I'll brush myself off
And take back some of the pride that I've lost
'Cause you can't always keep your feet on the ground
I guess we all learn the hard way and we all fall down — Bekka Bramlett

I began reading cook books when I was six, cause my father had hundreds of cook books in the kitchen. I was obsessed with cooking and tasting different recipes. I got lost in being a compulsive eater. It brought me much happiness. Sadness too, sure. But I have to say, and compulsive eaters will agree with me, for that few seconds that you're eating, food tastes just great. — Richard Simmons

At the time, I prayed to God only intermittently, and then mainly to ask for things, such as: "Please let me get an A on my next test." "Please let me do well in Little League this year." "Please let my skin clear up for the school picture." I used to envision God as the Great Problem Solver, the one who would fix everything if I just prayed hard enough, used the correct prayers, and prayed in precisely the right way. But when God couldn't fix things (which seemed more frequent than I would have liked), I would turn to St. Jude. I figured that if it was beyond the capacity of God to do something, then surely it must be a lost cause, and it was time to call on St. Jude. — James Martin

Revolution is an art that I pursue rather than a goal I expect to achieve. Nor is this a source of dismay; a lost cause can be as spiritually satisfying as a victory. — Robert A. Heinlein

People always sounded worried when I called them. Maybe because I only ever called a lot of them when I was in trouble and needed help. I needed to set up more lunch dates or have more parties, to cure people of the idea that a call from me automatically equaled danger. Then again, that was probably a lost cause. — Carrie Vaughn

Found one of my old journals. from right around the time we were heading out on tour with NFG in the UK early 2008. i started reading it and couldn't help but cry a little bit. cause that person was really confused. and very lost. and as it went on, the person behind the pen seemed to get a little bit stronger.. that part felt good. it was the reminder that i needed that right now i'm as strong as ever. there really isn't a point to telling you all of this. except maybe i want to thank you. cause you are a constant reminder. that i'm not as lost as i once was. — Hayley Williams

Narrow minds devoid of
imagination. Intolerance, theories cut off from reality, empty terminology, usurped
ideals, inflexible systems. Those are the things that really frighten me. What I absolutely
fear and loathe. Of course it's important to know what's right and what's wrong.
Individual errors in judgment can usually be corrected. As long as you have the courage
to admit mistakes, things can be turned around. But intolerant, narrow minds with no
imagination are like parasites that transform the host, change form, and continue to
thrive. They're a lost cause — Haruki Murakami

On the set of 'Community,' we quote 'Community' to each other. We're a lost cause. We're like a bunch of little kids running around and yelling things. — Gillian Jacobs

I was a lost cause a long time ago. — Katja Millay

Fear stifles our thinking and actions. It creates indecisiveness that results in stagnation. I have known talented people who procrastinate indefinitely rather than risk failure. Lost opportunities cause erosion of confidence, and the downward spiral begins. — Charles F. Stanley

For all the civilians saved thanks to the presence of peacekeepers, there have been those who were lost - the United Nations personnel who sacrificed their lives for a noble cause. Even as we mourn our fallen colleagues, we are all uplifted by their unflinching commitment and are inspired to strive even harder for the collective cause so eloquently envisaged in the United Nations Charter: a world free from the scourge of war. — Jan Eliasson

If you dread tomorrow it's because you don't know how to build the present, and when you don't know how to build the present, you tell yourself you can deal with it tomorrow, and it's a lost cause anyway because tomorrow always ends up being today don't you see ... We have to live with the certainty that we'll get old and that it won't look nice or be good or feel happy. And tell ourselves that it's now that matters: to build something now at any price using all our strength. Always remember that there's a retirement home waiting somewhere and so we have to surpass ourselves every day, make every day undying. Climb our own personal Everest and do it in such a way that every step is a little bit of eternity. That's what the future is for: to build the present with real plans made by living people. — Muriel Barbery

Not far away lay the big cannons that had held Ulysses Grant at bay for fifty siege days while the citizens of the town ate rat flesh and clung to their long-cherished beliefs. How many had died in that lost cause? Dr. Tarver wondered. Fifty thousand casualties at Gettysburg alone, and for what? To free the slaves who built this house? To preserve the Union? Had Stonewall Jackson died to create a nation of couch potatoes ignorant of their own history and incapable of simple mathematics? If those brave soldiers in blue and gray had seen what lay in the future, they would have laid down their muskets and walked home to their farms. — Greg Iles

He's visitin' an old friend," supplied Eragon, dropping his voice into a thick accent. "I'm along t' make sure he don't get lost, if y' get m'meaning. He ain't as young as he used to be - had a bit too much sun when he was young'r. Touch o' the brain fever, y' know." Brom bobbed his head pleasantly. "Right. Go on through," said the guard, waving his hand and dropping the pike. "Just make sure he doesn't cause any trouble." "Oh, he won't," promised Eragon. He urged Cadoc forward, and they rode into Teirm. The cobblestone street clacked under the horses' hooves. Once they were away from the guards, Brom sat up and growled, "Touch of brain fever, eh?" "I couldn't let you have all the fun," teased Eragon. Brom harrumphed and looked away. — Christopher Paolini

And as long as there's one thing in this world you do because it brings you joy, then you're not a lost cause. — Abigail Strom

There is no such thing as a lost cause, because there is no such thing as a gained cause — T. S. Eliot

I didn't know I was lost
Until you found me
I never knew what love was
Until you touched my hand
I lost myself long ago
In between your lips
And now here you are
You steal my breath away
Until you I never really knew heaven
Cause until you it was only ever hell
I didn't know I was so far gone
Until you brought me home
I promise you, girl
I know you're shattered
I'll pick up your pieces
And make you whole again
Cause until you girl
I've been shattered too
Since my very first kiss
It's only been you — Christine Zolendz

I'm through accepting limits 'cause someone says they're so Some things I cannot change But till I try, I'll never know! Too long I've been afraid of Losing love I guess I've lost Well, if that's love It comes at much too high a cost! — Stephen Schwartz

In other words, neither oppression nor exploitation as such is ever the main cause for resentment; wealth without visible function is much more intolerable because nobody can understand why it should be tolerated. Antisemitism reached its climax when Jews had similarly lost their public functions and their influence, and were left with nothing but their wealth. — Hannah Arendt

He who, having lost his parents or being abandoned, by them without ,just cause, gives himself to a ,man , is called a son self given. — Guru Nanak

There is nothing to be compared to this, 'cause we lost our brother, our hero. The world is mourning. We are mourning. The fans are mourning. It is unreal. Unbelievable. — Jermaine Jackson

Ain't no love lost, cause there was never none there. — Eric Murray

And who died and made you boss?" But I knew a lost cause when I saw it and was already pulling my hair back with nimble fingers.
Niko slapped a shoulder holster against my chest. "No one. Like all truly great dictators, I seized that power myself. Now finish up. We leave in five minutes. — Rob Thurman

I know, it looks pure and beautiful to you now, at your great old age of twenty-two. But do you know what it means? Thirty years of a lost cause, that sounds beautiful, doesn't it? But do you know how many days there are in thirty years? Do you know what happens in those days? ... I want you to know what's in store for you. There will be days when you'll look at your hands and you'll want to take something and smash every bone in them, because they'll be taunting you with what they could do, if you found a chance for them to do it, and you can't find that chance, and you can't bear your living body because it has failed those hands somewhere. — Ayn Rand

Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for lost faith in ourselves. — Eric Hoffer

Let the words of a virgin, though in a good cause, and to as good purpose, be neither violent, many, nor first, nor last; it is less shame for a virgin to be lost in a blushing silence than to be found in a bold eloquence. — Francis Quarles

You've got to be in the moment, especially in the playoffs. If you're worried about the past, worried about what happened last game, that's a lost cause. — Drew Storen

Beneatha: Love him? There is nothing left to love.
Mama: There is always something left to love. And if you ain't learned that, you ain't learned nothing. (Looking at her) Have you cried for that boy today? I don't mean for yourself and for the family 'cause we lost the money. I mean for him: what he been through and what it done to him. Child, when do you think is the time to love somebody the most? When they done good and made things easy for everybody? Well then, you ain't through learning - because that ain't the time at all. It's when he's at his lowest and can't believe in hisself 'cause the world done whipped him so! when you starts measuring somebody, measure him right, child, measure him right. Make sure you done taken into account what hills and valleys he come through before he got to wherever he is. — Lorraine Hansberry

Common sense got drunk and giddy when Olivia was on the premises. Maybe he should just raise a glass, too, and dub reason a lost cause. — Kelly Moran

A man who has never lost himself in a cause bigger than himself has missed one of life's mountaintop experiences. Only in losing himself does he find himself. Only then does he discover all the latent strengths he never knew he had and which otherwise would have remained dormant. — Richard M. Nixon

Simply because I have lost faith in the cause doesn't mean the training has lost all of its usefulness. — Susan Dennard

Nobody is a lost cause. They just think they are, so they don't even bother to try sometimes. — Anna Todd

I'm trying to decide
Which way to go
I think I made a wrong turn back there somewhere
Didn't cha know, didn't cha know
Tried to move but I lost my way
Didn't cha know, didn't cha know
Stopped to watch my emotions sway
Didn't cha know, didn't cha know
Knew the toll, but I would not pay
Didn't cha know, didn't cha know
Cause you never know where the cards may lay
Time to save the world
Where in the world is all the time
So many things I still don't know
So many times I've changed my mind
Guess I was born to make mistakes
But I ain't scared to take the weight
So when I stumble off the path
I know my heart will guide me back — Erykah Badu

Trying to effect change in others is a lost cause especially if you are unwilling to first change yourself. It's easier to focus on other people's issues or shortcomings rather than look inward. It's counter-productive to try to clean someone else's house, while your house is a disaster. Not to mention, hypocritical. Start with yourself and then worry about others. ~Jason Versey — Jason Versey

I was living in New York City and flat broke. My next door neighbor was an actor and he always seemed to be having more fun than I was. He convinced me to give acting a shot, but because of my shyness I was sure it would be a lost cause. — Joe Flanigan

A word may give me its meaning, but first it suppresses it. For me to be able to say, 'This woman' I must somehow take her flesh and blood reality away from her, cause her to be absent, annihilate her. The word gives me the being, but it gives it to me deprived of being. The word is the absence of that being, its nothingness, what is left of it when it has lost being - the very fact that it does not exist. — Maurice Blanchot

In not a single one of these little campaigns was I victorious. In other words, in each case, I personally failed, but I have lived to see the thesis upon which I was operating vindicated. And what I very often say is that I've lived to see my lost causes found. — Pauli Murray

It's time to re-think charity. It's time to give charity the big-league freedoms we really give to business. The fight for these freedoms must be our new cause, because without them, all of our causes are ultimately lost. — Dan Pallotta

Similarly, when Lincoln insisted the Civil War was about the union, not about slavery, this is understood by competent historians to reflect Lincoln's determination to keep border states - Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, and Missouri - within the union. These states had slavery, and if Lincoln framed the war as one to end slavery, the border states would have seceded. If they seceded, Lincoln believed the union cause was lost. Once again, Lincoln acted in statesmanlike fashion to hold the border states, and he was successful in doing so, thus shortening the war and ending slavery more quickly. — Dinesh D'Souza

You know me, I love lost causes. — Mort Sahl

It was shameless how life made fun of one; it was a joke, a cause for weeping! Either one lived and let one's senses play, drank full at the primitive mother's breast - which brought great bliss but was no protection against death; then one lived like a mushroom in the forest, colorful today and rotten tomorrow. Or else one put up a defense, imprisoned oneself for work and tried to build a monument to the fleeting passage of life - then one renounced life, was nothing but a tool; one enlisted in the service of that which endured, but one dried up in the process and lost one's freedom, scope, lust for life...
Ach, life made sense only if one achieved both, only if it was not split by this brittle alternative! To create, without sacrificing one's senses for it. To live, without renouncing the mobility of creating. Was that impossible? — Hermann Hesse

The fact that we have not had a terrorist attack in this country in the last six years is not a cause for complacency or a time to celebrate the end of the struggle. The threat is not going away. The enemy has not lost interest ... Fundamentally, we're in a struggle about ideology. Terrorists want to remake the world in their own image and it is the image that is intolerant of the kinds of institutions that we cherish. — Michael Chertoff

More truly characteristic of dissent is a dignity, an elevation, of mood and thought and phrase. Deep conviction and warm feeling are saying their last say with knowledge that the cause is lost. The voice of the majority may be that of force triumphant, content with the plaudits of the hour, and recking little of the morrow. The dissenter speaks to the future, and his voice is pitched to a key that will carry through the years. — Benjamin Cardozo

Not every lost soul is a lost cause — M. Alice LeGrow

You're not as much of a lost cause as she was. I mean, with her, I had to overcome her deep, epic love with a Russian warlord. You and I just have to overcome hundreds of years' worth of deeply ingrained prejudice and taboo between our two races. Easy. — Richelle Mead

More business is lost every year through neglect than through any other cause. — Rose Kennedy

Always retain the ability to walk away, without sentimentality, from a situation that felt unmanageable. That was a basic rule of survival. Don't lift a finger for a lost cause. — Stieg Larsson

There really is something irresistible about a lost cause. — Stephenie Meyer

Like most others, I was a seeker, a mover, a malcontent, and at times a stupid hell-raiser. I was never idle long enough to do much thinking, but I felt somehow that some of us were making real progress, that we had taken an honest road, and that the best of us would inevitably make it over the top. At the same time, I shared a dark suspicion that the life we were leading was a lost cause, that we were all actors, kidding ourselves along on a senseless odyssey. It was the tension between these two poles - a restless idealism on one hand and a sense of impending doom on the other - that kept me going. — Hunter S. Thompson

I think that beauty can injure you to death. It can cause an injury that can never be cured. Or it can so traumatise you, your life changes direction. The beauty of the harmony of nature that is forever lost, or a daily rite that you perform, or diving into the sea for a swim. Those experiences are going to mark you. — Toni Servillo

I was outclassed and outgunned, and I was only realizing it when it was too late to do a damn thing about it. A heart could only break so many times before the cause was lost. — R.K. Lilley

Most lawyers who win a case advise their clients, "We have won," and when justice has frowned upon their cause ... "You have lost. — Louis Nizer

She was attempting to flirt with him, in hopes he'd put in a good word for her with Captain Alvarez. Lost cause, Cadence, I thought. Flirting with a guy who has a boyfriend was unlikely to yield positive results. — Sophie Davis

Life isn't worth living if you're not fighting for something. A lost cause is a life mission worthy of pursuit just to prove them wrong. — Shannon L. Alder

Only when Christian faith in God is lost do people feel compelled to make use of all means - even criminal - to force the victory of their cause. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Apollo widened his eyes, trying to look harmless - sadly, nearly impossible. He'd hit six feet at age fifteen and topped that by several inches in the fourteen years since. Add to that the width of his shoulders, his massive hands, and a face that his sister had once affectionately compared to a gargoyle's, and trying to appear harmless became something of a lost cause. — Elizabeth Hoyt

The cause of right is never lost, Leal. I've often thought the biggest damned fool in the world could to down in history as a great man if he would just consistently vote for the greatest good of the greatest number - Kilkenny — Louis L'Amour

You feel like a candle in a hurricane, just like a picture with a broken frame. alone and helpless, like you've lost your fight, but you'll be alright, you'll be alright. Cause when push comes to shove you taste what your made of you might bend till you break cause it's all you can take. you get mad, you get strong, wipe your hands, shake it off then you stand! — Rascal Flatts