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I buried my head under the darkness of the pillow and pretended it was night. I couldn’t see the point of getting up. I had nothing to look forward to. Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
Living by a total falsehood, as I think they are living with their religious views. I can’t help admiring them. But despairing for them. Francis Bacon, cited The Art of Francis Bacon
Life is just filled really with suffering and despair. Francis Bacon, cited The Art of Francis Bacon
I feel ever so strongly that an artist must be nourished by his passions and his despairs. These things alter an artist whether for the good or the better or the worse. It must alter him. The feelings of desperation and unhappiness are more useful to an artist than the feeling of contentment, because desperation and unhappiness stretch your whole sensibility. Francis Bacon, cited John Gruen ‘The Artist Observed’ 1991
If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair. C S Lewis
Life begins on the other side of despair. Jean-Paul Sartre
Who shall hinder me?
I will despair, and be at enmity
With cozening hope. He is a flatterer,
A parasite, a keeper-back of death,
Who gently would dissolve the bonds of life,
Which false hope lingers in extremity. William Shakespeare, Richard II II ii 67-72, Queen to Bushy et al
Our hap is loss, our hope but sad despair. ibid. II iii 9, George
Till then fair hope must hinder life’s decay,
And I the rather wean me from despair. ibid. IV v 16-17, Lady Gray
Two loves I have of comfort and despair,
Which like two spirits do suggest me still:
The better angel is a man right fair,
The worser spirit a woman, coloured ill. William Shakespeare, Sonnet 144
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. Henry David Thoreau, Walden, 1854
cf.
Most men live lives of quiet desperation. The Lost Weekend 1945 starring Ray Milland & Jane Wyman & Phillip Terry & Howard Da Silva & Doris Dowling & Frank Faylen & Mary Young & Anita Sharp-Bolster & Lilian Fontaine et al, director Billy Wilder, Don to Helen
The name of the slough was Despond. John Bunyan, The Pilgrims’ Progress
It is closing time in the gardens of the West and from now on an artist will be judged only by the resonance of his solitude or the quality of his despair. Cyril Connolly, Horizon December 1949 - January 1950
Vincent was left to his own despair. Vincent – The Untold Story of Our Uncle II, caption, 2011
He’s got his hands on his knees and holds his head in despair. David Coleman, football commentary
This fall I think you're riding for – it’s a special kind of fall, a horrible kind. The man falling isn’t permitted to feel or hear himself hit bottom. He just keeps falling and falling. The whole arrangement’s designed for men who, at some time or other in their lives, were looking for something their own environment couldn’t supply them with. Or they thought their own environment couldn't supply them with. So they gave up looking. They gave it up before they ever really even got started. J D Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye
You’re fucked. You thought you were going to be someone, but now it’s obvious you’re nobody. You haven’t got as much talent as you thought you had, and there was no Plan B, and you got no skills and no education, and now you’re looking at forty or fifty years of nothing. Less than nothing, probably. That’s pretty heavy. That’s worse than having the brain thing, because what you got now will take a lot longer to kill you. You’ve got the choice of a slow, painful death, or a quick, merciful one. Nick Hornby, A Long Way Down
I sit alone
In the room
On the chair
As I look at the silver moon
I feel nothing
But despair. Jim Bean, Despair, Leicester University magazine 1994
Never despair. [Nil desperandum] Horace, Odes
Only in the firm foundation of unyielding despair can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built. Bertrand Russell, Philosophical Essays, 1910
Down-dragged like corpse in sucking, slimy fen,
I sank to feel the breath of that Despair. Wilfred Owen, Supposed Confessions of a Secondrate Sensitive Mind in Dejection
I think you underestimate my commitment to despair. Rab C Nesbitt: Bug, Rab, BBC 1999
In all things it is better to hope than to despair. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The nympholepsy of some fond despair. Lord Byron
Vaunting aloud, but racked with deep despair. John Milton, Paradise Lost I:126
What reinforcement we may gain from hope;
If not, what resolution from despair. ibid. I:190
Stood up, the strongest and the fiercest spirit
That fought in heaven now fiercer by despair. ibid. II:44
Thus repulsed, our final hope
Is flat despair. ibid. II:141
Night was our friend, our leader was Despair. John Denham
In despair there are the most intense enjoyments, especially when one is very acutely conscious of the hopelessness of one’s position. Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes From the Underworld
To be thoroughly conversant with a man’s heart, is to take our final lesson in the iron-clasped volume of despair. Edgar Allan Poe
That life believe me I can say in all seriousness I would not wish on my worst enemy. It has made a wreck of me. I am ill. You understand? Physically ill. I suffer from shortness of breath. I have heartburn. My digestion doesn’t function. My vision is blurred. And I live in constant fear of something. You might not believe this, but I have turned into a psychopath. Anton Chekhov: Comedy Shorts: A Reluctant Tragic Hero starring Johnny Vegas & Mackenzie Crook, Vegas, Sky Arts 2010
When I despair I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it – always. Mahatma Gandhi
The greatest hazard of all, losing one’s self, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all. No other loss can occur so quietly; any other loss – an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife, etc. – is sure to be noticed. Søren Kierkegaard, The Sickness Unto Death
The only real laughter comes from despair. Groucho Marx, The Groucho Letters
The difference between hope and despair is a different way of telling stories from the same facts. Alain de Botton
Don’t despair: despair suggests you are in total control and know what is coming. You don’t. Surrender to events with hope. Alain de Botton