#despair

American society as a whole can never achieve the outer-reaches of potential, so long as it tolerates the inner cities of despair. ↗

— Jack Kemp

#american #american society #cities #despair #inner

Certainly something had happened to me during the night. Or after months of tension I had arrived at the edge of some precipice and now I was falling, as in a dream slowly, even as I continued to hold the thermometer in my hand, een as I stood with the soles of my slippers on the floor, even as I felt myself solidly contained by the expectant looks of my children. It was the fault of the torture that my husband had inflicted. But enough, I had to tear the pain from memory, I had to sandpaper away the scratches that were damaging my brain. ↗

— Elena Ferrante

#divorce #elena-ferrante #love #pain #the-days-of-abandonment

What other people call dark and despairing, I call funny. ↗

— David Sedaris

#dark #despairing #funny #i #other

Terrorism is a real despair. These are people for whom life has been so negative that they're willing to die if they can take down some of their enemies. ↗

— John Shelby Spong

#despair #die #down #life #negative

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. ↗

— Louise Berliawsky Nevelson

#create #creation #despair #difficult #glory

My generation, faced as it grew with a choice between religious belief and existential despair, chose marijuana. Now we are in our Cabernet stage. ↗

— Peggy Noonan

#between #choice #chose #despair #existential

Jesus is the God whom we can approach without pride and before whom we can humble ourselves without despair. ↗

— Blaise Pascal

#before #despair #god #humble #jesus

If we openly declare what is wrong with us, what is our deepest need, then perhaps the death and despair will by degrees disappear. ↗

— J. B. Priestley

#declare #deepest #degrees #despair #disappear

The characteristic political attitude of today is not one of positive belief, but of despair. ↗

— Herbert Read

#belief #characteristic #despair #political #positive

Persuade thyself that imperfection and inconvenience are the natural lot of mortals, and there will be no room for discontent, neither for despair. ↗

— Ieyasu Tokugawa

#discontent #imperfection #inconvenience #lot #mortals