Only a man who has felt ultimate despair is capable of feeling ultimate bliss.
A rabbi should not despair if people do not do as much as they should. Every parent has that with children. God is merciful.
No, no, I never despair, because George Bush is not running the universe. He may be running the United States, he may be running the military, he may be running even the world, but he is not running the universe, he is not running the human heart.
Long view of history shows evil triumphing more often than we’d like to admit. That’s just how it is. I don’t despair too much about dying, either. It’s just a fact of being human.
I realize that I live on the bubble of insanity. I feel the weight of human suffering, loneliness and despair on me all the time. It’s not getting easier; if anything, it’s always right on the edge of my skin.
If pessimism is despair, optimism is cowardice and stupidity. Is there any need to choose between them?
‘The Voice’ has lots of singers who fit the ‘Idol’ mold of young, innocent ingenues with psycho stage moms. But it also has long-suffering adult pros, with a whiff of thirtysomething despair in their voices. That adds an edge of realness.
There are always moments of despair when you get close to jobs and lose them at the last second. It feels like getting punched in the stomach. You feel like, ‘Why do I do this?’ Then you go to bed, get up the next day and forget about it.
It is my firm belief that I have a link with the past and a responsibility to the future. I cannot give up. I cannot despair. There’s a whole future, generations to come. I have to keep trying.
Single parenting is sometimes just a case of sitting around by yourself in mild despair, not knowing what to do.
Absence from whom we love is worse than death, and frustrates hope severer than despair.
With five chances on each hand and one unwavering aim, no boy, however poor, need despair. There is bread and success for every youth under the American flag who has energy and ability to seize his opportunity.
News-free existence is not a serious proposal, but it is worth noting that while today’s 24/7 media environment is wonderful in many ways, it can also be like drinking out of a fire hose and intensify a downward reinforcing cycle of despair.
Sometimes a poem should just be about a girl jumping rope. It doesn’t have to be something that is imbued with more despair.
‘Revelations’ is one of the most important pieces to the African American arts. It assesses the hope and despair of a people and overcoming the struggle with our faith.
My brother Steve was always considered the naughty one but I used to drive my parents to despair because I had no fear. Id climb a tree without testing the branches and I was always getting into scrapes.
The euro pleases dispirited people for whom European history is not Chartres and Shakespeare but the Holocaust and the Somme. The euro expresses cultural despair.
When I think of Hungarian films, I think of despair and bleakness, and what’s more, despair and bleakness of indefensible duration.
The writing of ‘Topdog’ was a great gift. I feel the play came to me because I realized that my circumstances, while causing me despair and heartbreak, also held great possibility, if only I could see it.
Then I despair… I remember that all through history, the way of truth and love has always won. There have been murderers and tyrants, and for a time they can seem invincible. But in the end they always fall. Think of it always.
Imagine a society in which there were neither rich nor poor. What evils, afflictions, sorrows, disorders, catastrophes, disasters, tribulations, misfortunes, agonies, calamities, despair, desolation and ruin would be unknown to man!
We have been given God in our souls and Christ in our flesh. We have the power to believe where others deny, to hope where others despair, to love where others hurt.
In these times of stress, snark, division and despair, I still suspect that two of the most important features we possess are imagination and a capacity for goodness. Those are qualities for which we will be remembered most fondly.
Plant diseases, drought, desolation, despair were recurrent catastrophes during the ages – and the ancient remedies: supplications to supernatural spirits or gods.
The characteristic political attitude of today is not one of positive belief, but of despair.
This book, conceived in sorrow, composed in grief, and constructed at the brink of despair, contains my mind’s best thoughts, and my soul’s triumph over the powers of darkness.
The only difference was one of them was trying to make a perfect cake and one of them was trying to write a great book. But if we remove that from the equation, it’s the same impulse and they are equally entitled to their ecstasies and their despair.
But what we call our despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope.
If you start in the pit of despair with these profane, awful things, even a glimmer of hope or awareness is going to occur that’s much brighter coming from this dark, awful beginning.
The celebrity thing, I mean, Lindsay Lohan – what’s she for? I look at that and throw my hands up in despair.
When too many Americans don’t vote or participate, some see apathy and despair. I see disappointment and even outrage. And I believe that out of this frustration can come hope and action.
God gave you not a spirit of faithlessness, not a spirit of despair.
The British were indeed very far superior to the Americans in every respect necessary to military operations, except the revivified courage and resolution, the result of sudden success after despair.
Would not the child’s heart break in despair when the first cold storm of the world sweeps over it, if the warm sunlight of love from the eyes of mother and father did not shine upon him like the soft reflection of divine light and love?
I think most artists create out of despair. The very nature of creation is not a performing glory on the outside, it’s a painful, difficult search within.
The chaos in our world may have brought you close to despair, but if you are willing to look at reasons for hope, perhaps you are ready for the ‘Aquarian Conspiracy.’
Life is filled with detours and dead ends, trials and challenges of every kind. Each of us has likely had times when distress, anguish, and despair almost consumed us.
The novel is born of disillusionment; the poem, of despair.
My primary goal is to eradicate poverty; I believe it is immoral and a stain on our society. And so when I despair or get angry, I take the time to think about how I can best achieve that goal – and then I get to work.
I despair of ever writing excellent poetry.
Don’t despair, not even over the fact that you don’t despair.
Sorrow for sin is indeed necessary, but it should not be an endless preoccupation. You must dwell also on the glad remembrance of God’s loving-kindness; otherwise, sadness will harden the heart and lead it more deeply into despair.
There’s a kind of despair about whether art can really do anything, but you have to incorporate that despair into the way you work. I try to soak my work in my sense of futility and fury.
Transformation is a process, and as life happens there are tons of ups and downs. It’s a journey of discovery – there are moments on mountaintops and moments in deep valleys of despair.
There is a lot of suffering and injustice in the world, and there is also a great deal of hope. When you step forward and start speaking about what you see and what you want to change, you can begin living in that hope instead of despair.
