There is something sustaining in the very agitation that accompanies the first shocks of trouble, just as an acute pain is often a stimulus, and produces an excitement which is transient strength. It is in the slow, changed life that follows – in the time when sorrow has become stale, and has no longer an emotive intensity that counteracts its pain – in the time when day follows day in dull unexpectant sameness, and trial is a dreary routine – it is then that despair threatens; it is then that the peremptory hunger of the soul is felt, and eye and ear are strained after some unlearned secret of our existence, which shall give to endurance the nature of satisfaction. George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss
There is no despair so absolute as that which comes with the first moments of our first great sorrow, when we have not yet known what it is to have suffered and be healed, to have despaired and have recovered hope. George Eliot
Schizophrenia cannot be understood without understanding despair. R D Laing
I think if Eternity held torment, its form would not be fiery rack, nor its nature, despair. I think that on a certain day amongst those days which never dawned, and will not set, an angel entered Hades – stood, shone, smiled, delivered a prophecy of conditional pardon, kindled a doubtful hope of bliss to come, not now, but at a day and hour unlooked for, revealed in his own glory and grandeur the height and compass of his promise: spoke thus – then towering, became a star, and vanished into his own Heaven. His legacy was suspense – a worse boon than despair. Charlotte Brontë, Villette
Me, nae cheerful twinkle lights me,
dark despair around benights me. Robert Burns
From the depth of need and despair, people can work together, can organize themselves to solve their own problems and fill their own needs with dignity and strength. Cesar Chavez
We draw our strength from the very despair in which we have been forced to live. We shall endure. Cesar Chavez
There is no love of life without despair of life. Albert Camus
Poverty breeds despair. We know this. Despair breeds violence. We know this. In turbulent times, isn't it cheaper, and smarter, to make friends out of potential enemies than to defend yourself against them later? Bono
Gaiety is often the reckless ripple over depths of despair. Edwin Hubbel Chapin
I can endure my own despair,
But not another’s hope. William Walsh, Song: Of All the Torments
Priest: Call me Dan. Dan.
Yosser: I’m desperate, Dan. Alan Bleasdale, Boys from the Blackstuff: Yosser’s Story, BBC 1982
... There are bad times just around the corner,
We can all look forward to despair,
It’s as clear as crystal
From Bridlington to Bristol
That we can’t save democracy and we don’t much care ... Noel Coward, There are Bad Times Just Around the Corner, 1953 song
Despair can be paralyzing. Al Gore, An Inconvenient Sequel, 2001
First love is such sweet despair, Colin. (Monroe & Love & Despair) My Week with Marilyn 2011 starring Michelle Williams & Kenneth Branagh & Eddie Redmayne & Emma Watson & Dougray Scott & Dominic Cooper & Julia Ormond & Judi Dench & Derek Jacobi & Zoe Wanamaker et al, director Simon Curtis, woman
Capitalism is a religion which offers not the reform of existence but its complete destruction. It is the expansion of despair, until despair becomes a religious state of the world in the hope that this will lead to salvation. Walter Benjamin