#despair

By this time I was no longer very much terrified or very miserable. I had, as it were, passed the limit of terror and despair. I felt now that my life was practically lost, and that persuasion made me capable of daring anything ↗

— H.G. Wells

#terror #life

How could I have been so ignorant? she thinks. So stupid, so unseeing, so given over to carelessness. But without such ignorance, such carelessness, how could we live? If you knew what was going to happen, if you knew everything that was going to happen next—if you knew in advance the consequences of your own actions—you'd be doomed. You'd be as ruined as God. You'd be a stone. You'd never eat or drink or laugh or get out of bed in the morning. You'd never love anyone, ever again. You'd never dare to. ↗

— Margaret Atwood

#despair #ignorance #insight #loneliness #love

And in despair I bowed my head; "There is no peace on earth," I said; "For hate is strong, And mocks the song Of peace on earth, good-will to men!" Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: "God is not dead, nor doth he sleep! The Wrong shall fail, the Right prevail, With peace on earth, good-will to men! ↗

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

#despair #god #hope #poetry #men

...you can take comfort that despair is the worst thing he can spring on you. Things can appear to grow worse, but if you conquer despair, no deeper pit remains to trap you. ↗

— Bodie Thoene

#men

When a man is in despair, it means that he still believes in something. ↗

— Dmitri Shostakovich

#music #music

So one must be resigned to being a clock that measures the passage of time, now out of order, now repaired, and whose mechanism generates despair and love as soon as its maker sets it going? Are we to grow used to the idea that every man relives ancient torments, which are all the more profound because they grow comic with repetition? That human existence should repeat itself, well and good, but that it should repeat itself like a hackneyed tune, or a record a drunkard keeps playing as he feeds coins into the jukebox... ↗

— Stanisław Lem

#cycles #despair #emotion #fear #free-will

In the world it is called Tolerance, but in hell it is called Despair...the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and remains alive because there is nothing for which it will die. ↗

— Dorothy L. Sayers

#despair

Because thou must not dream, thou need not despair. ↗

— Matthew Arnold

#despair #dream #must #need #thou

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

#causes #cleanse #despair #eliminate #failed

He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God. ↗

— Aeschylus

#awful #cannot #comes #despair #drop