Desperation is a feeling that emerges in us when we are faced with a situation that is very challenging and causes our emotions to overwhelm us. It can be an emotional conflict, an obstacle to self-improvement, or a growing problem that takes away our hope and leaves only worry in its wake.
To better understand the nuances and characteristics of this experience, there are many relevant thinkers and historical figures who have reflected on it. Here you will find a selection of those reflections, through several reflections and phrases about despair
Desperation can lead us to act impulsively, but also to solve problems. Therefore, it is important to understand this feeling. In this sense, here you will find a collection of reflections and quotes about despair, commented.
1. Don’t confuse desperation with loyalty. (Michelle Obama)
Desperation leads people to look for an immediate solution, without considering the long-term consequences.
2. Many live in mute desperation. (Robin Williams)
There are those who drown in their problems without first talking to anyone for help.
3. Do not despair, not even because you do not despair. When all seems over, new forces arise. This means that you live. (Franz Kafka)
Problems are not always solved in one way.
4. Do you know what you do when you can’t do it anymore? It changes. (Alberto Moravia)
When you see that you can’t move any further, look for a different path.
5. Who promised that? Who said there must be good news? (Clive Barker)
There is not good news all the time; you have to accept it.
6. Despair is the raw material for drastic change. (William S. Burroughs)
Sometimes it happens that, when a good change comes, we first enter a phase of worry.
7. The most common form of despair is not being who you are. (Soren Kierkegaard)
Not being able to do what we want makes us desperate.
8. The habit of despair is worse than despair itself. (Albert Camus)
When we normalize worries, they have no mercy.
9. When I despair, I remember that throughout history the path of truth and love has always won. (Mahatma Gandhi)
In the face of despair, you have to stay calm and look for positive things to get ahead.
10. Every age longs for a more beautiful world; The deeper the despair and depression about the present, the more intense the longing. (Johan Huizinga)
About the desire to want a better world.
11. Your secret is not to resign yourself, not to consider yourself a victim, not to show sadness or despair to others. (Oriana Fallaci)
Falling into despair leads us to a world of negativities.
12. The root of all passions is love. Sadness, joy, happiness and despair are born from it. (Lope de Vega)
When love is not what we think, we fall into despair.
13. Lost in oblivion. Dark, silent and complete. I found freedom. Losing all hope was freedom. (Edward Norton)
Losing what binds us gives us a feeling of freedom.
14. A situation becomes hopeless when you start to think that it is hopeless. (Willy Brandt)
The problems become bigger in our minds.
15. In the face of despair, human beings become animals. (Dan Brown)
The base instincts awaken in a desperate situation.
16. Buddha says that there are two types of suffering: the type that leads to more suffering and the type that ends suffering. (Terry Tempest Williams)
17. Despair gives courage to the coward. (Thomas Fuller)
Sometimes desperation can be an efficient engine for success.
18. The path built with hope is more pleasant to travel than the one built with despair, even if both lead to the same place. (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
It is always better to maintain a positive attitude over a negative one.
19. Once upon a time, but not anymore. (Anonymous)
When something ends, we can fall into a spiral of restlessness.
20. Disappointment, defeat and despair are the tools God uses to show us the way. (Paulo Coelho)
When we take desperation as a weapon to continue our path.
21. There are no desperate situations, only desperate people. (Heinz Guderian)
Many of the difficulties we go through are a product of our mind.
22. Impossible to attend more than a quarter of an hour without impatience to someone’s despair. (Emil Cioran)
Stress can attack us at any time of the day.
23. All well-governed States and all intelligent princes have taken care not to reduce the nobility to despair, nor the people to discontent. (Nicolas Machiavelli)
A good state keeps people of all strata happy.
24. On the outside, she was what every well-educated girl should be. Inside, she was screaming. (Gloria Stweart)
Sometimes our evils stay locked away until they explode.
25. Almost all people live life in quiet desperation. (Henry David Thoreau)
Stress is always the order of the day.
26. Ignorance of self generates pride; but ignorance of God generates despair. (Saint Bernard of Clairvaux)
There are people who need to cling to faith in order to have a meaning in life.
27. Schizophrenia cannot be understood without understanding despair. (Roland Laing)
Many people with schizophrenia experience a lot of anxiety derived from the symptoms of this pathology.
28. Not expecting a remedy, nor despairing of it, is usually the remedy for desperate cases. (Diego de Saavedra Fajardo)
Don’t wait for someone to solve your problems, look for the solution on your own.
29. Desperation is like stealing from the mafia: chances are you’ll end up attracting the attention of the wrong people. (Douglas Horton)
An interesting way of looking at desperation.
30. Anyone who is desperate or lonely will agree that there is comfort in routine. (Simon Van Booy)
Falling low can be a relief for some.
31. Despair has its own calms. (Bram Stoker)
A calm that comes from leaving everything that hurts us.
32. Despair can be as great an inspiration as genius.
There are those who use hopelessness as a muse for their creations.
33. She almost never cried, and when it happened it was out of desperation, helplessness in the face of something that would not give way. (Jose Augustine)
It is important to know how to distinguish between what we can control and what we cannot.
34. Desperation takes most people, but awakens others completely. (William James)
Sometimes, this experience leads us to question beliefs that paralyzed us.
35. The wisest are characterized by not doing things out of desperation. (Henry David Thoreau)
When you can control despair.
36. My only hope lies in my despair. (Jean Racine)
Desperation also functions as a source of motivation.
37. Patience: minor form of desperation disguised as virtue. (Ambrose Bierce)
Desperation disguised as self-denial.
38. Don’t you feel uncomfortable with his naked desperation?
It is important to support those who are in a moment of darkness, so that they do not feel alone.
39. Never despair, even when you are in the darkest afflictions, because clean and fertile water falls from the black clouds. (Miguel de Unamuno)
Desperation can be the beginning of a good change.
40. When memories torture the soul, pleasures only reveal despair. (Robert Burns)
Pleasures are disrupted when they are used to silence pain.
41. When pain comes, spies do not come alone, but in battalions. (William Shakespeare)
Evil never comes alone.
42. Isak Dinesen said that she wrote a little every day, without hope and without despair. I want that. (Raymond Carver)
A perfect balance to achieve a goal.
43. Action is the antidote to despair. (Joan Baez)
Staying still will not solve anything.
44. Despair is the smallest of our mistakes. (Count of Lautréamont)
It can be part of our daily life. But it doesn’t need to become unmanageable.
You may be interested: “How to learn from mistakes: 9 effective tips”
45. Despair often breeds illness. (Sophocles)
Desperation affects us emotionally.
46. In life you are either an inspiration or a despair.
What do you choose to be?
47. You can’t be disappointed by something that doesn’t exist.
Be careful with the thoughts that live in your mind.
48. Love drives away fear and, reciprocally, fear drives away love. (Aldous Huxley)
A cycle that everyone chooses.
49. You gave me the best gift anyone has ever given me, despair. (Guy Pearce)
What remains after a failed love.
50. When all else is lost, there will always be the future. (Christian Bovee)
There is a new and different path you can take.
51. Desperation is perfectly compatible with a good dinner, I assure you. (William Thackeray)
When it becomes normal to be in a constant state of stress.
Related article: “Hedonic adaptation: how do we modulate our search for well-being?”
52. We have to go through despair and go beyond it, using it to help others. (Elie Wiesel)
An excellent way to take desperation as motivation.
53. We are all subject to destiny, but we must pretend it were not so or die of despair. (Philip Pullman)
The destiny may be written, but we can make some modifications.
54. Despair is meaningless suffering. (Viktor E. Frankl)
Hopelessness can be felt on the surface.
55. Disappointment is just the action of your brain readjusting to reality after discovering that things are not the way you thought they were. (Brad Warner)
Disappointment arises when we create very high expectations about something.
56. I fear falling into hopeless despair because of the uselessness of my life. (Margaret Atwood)
When we feel bad about ourselves, it’s easy to fall into despair.
57. How can you live after someone to whom you swore eternal love tells you that they never loved you, how do you learn to breathe again.
It may seem impossible, but in time you will find relief.
58. When a man is desperate, it means that he still believes in something. (Dimitri Shostakovich)
A reaction that shows our vulnerable side.
59. All passion has been lost now. The world is mediocre, weak, without strength. And madness and despair are a force. And force is a crime in the eyes of the foolish, the weak and the foolish. (Joseph Conrad)
A criticism of what passions have become today.
60. What we call despair is sometimes just the painful longing for an unfed hope. (George Eliot)
Desperation and disappointment go hand in hand.
61. Time and hope sow the seeds of despair. (Harlan Coben)
When we let things happen, we will soon regret it.
62. Hope and despair ignore the cries of others. (Mason Cooley)
When someone falls into despair they withdraw into themselves.
63. People seem to believe that despair is the same as anguish, but it is not. (Elizabeth Kostova)
Desperation can go further or be extinguished in an instant. Depending on the person.
64. There can be a lot of magic in a desperate act. (Zedd)
This is if you take desperation as an inspiration.
65. Do not pressure a desperate enemy. An exhausted animal will continue to fight, because that is the law of nature. (Sun Tzu)
When you put pressure on someone who is hurt, they can show their worst side.
66. It is true that despair is surrounded by anguish, but in essence, despair is a silent, blank page. (Elizabeth Kostova)
It’s like being lost even when surrounded by people.
67. You have to wait when you are desperate, and walk when you wait. (Gustave Flaubert)
Stay calm, find a break and continue.
You may be interested: “Personal Development: 5 reasons for self-reflection”
68. I must lose myself doing something before despair consumes me. (Alfred Tennyson)
Distracting ourselves can be an excellent antidote to stress.
69. Our policy is not directed against any country or doctrine, but against hunger, poverty, desperation and chaos. (George Catlett Marshall)
The way all political promises should be directed.
70. Despair is our chance to fight the fire and prevail. (Christina Baldwin)
Desperation can bring the strength we need.
71. Those who cry out for help are almost always silent.
Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it.
72. Those who feel hopeless see empathy slowly clouded.
In this state many may isolate themselves from others, believing that they are a nuisance.
Related article: “Empathy, much more than putting yourself in someone else’s shoes”
73. Trust the man who promises the least; he will be the one who disappoints the least. (Bernard M. Baruch)
Try to keep your expectations as realistic as possible.
74. I am alone with the pain and I have no choice but to savor it to the core. I have been close to despair. (Václav Havel)
When we feel alone, it is easier to fall into a state of darkness.
75. He knows how to dare well, he who has nothing to lose.
When you’re at the bottom, risk jumping and getting out of there.
76. Education without inspiration is only a recipe for despair. (Ernest Agyemang Yeboah)
Education can become a torment when more than necessary is demanded of us.
77. The history of humanity is almost entirely a narrative of broken projects, disappointments and disappointed hopes. (Samuel Johnson)
The dark side of human history.
78. Despair is fury with nowhere to go. (Mignon McLaughlin)
A feeling of being lost and trapped infinitely.
79. A sadness full of despair had nestled in his soul like a zoophagous worm. With increasing speed, she began to devour her helpless heart. (Nikolai Gogol)
The way desperation escalates in people’s hearts.
80. In everything it is better to hope than to despair. (Goethe)
Patience is a virtue that leads us to achieve goals.
You may be interested: “How to be more patient with others and with projects: 7 tips”
81. Despair will lead you to do things that will never make you feel whole again and even lose what you are desperate for. (Laura Miller)
A very positive way of looking at desperation.
82. Excessive desire is a form of despair and a declaration that something is missing. (Bryant McGill)
No whim can solve that emptiness that you carry inside.
83. Hopelessness is based on what we know, which is nothing, and hope is based on what we do not know, which is everything. (Maurice Maeterlinck)
Desperation attacks and questions all our beliefs.
84. Only in our greatest desperation can we come to know who we really are.
Self-knowledge in the midst of chaos.
85. Desperation makes Sunday and Monday, and makes breakfast smell every morning. (Martin Adam)
Desperation can sow discomfort at any moment.
86. Despair exaggerates not only our misery but our weaknesses. (Luc de Clapiers)
Bringing out the worst in us.
87. Disappointment is preferable to remaining in suspense. (Anonymous)
It is better to know a person’s real intentions than to live eternally deceived.
88. Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair about the future of the human race. (H.G. Wells)
A hope about being able to achieve the impossible.
89. Despair gives the mind the amazing tranquility that mortification gives the body. (Sir Fulke Greville)
In a moment of darkness, we can understand many things.
90. If the most desperate moments require desperate measures, I am free to act as desperately as I please. (Suzanne Collins)
An interesting resolution in a moment of despair.
91. There is no love in life, without despair in it. (Albert Camus)
Restlessness as a natural part of love.
92. There are two wolves that are always fighting. One is darkness and despair. The other is light and hope. Which one wins? The one you feed. (Britt Robertson)
Be careful which wolf you feed.
93. Writers are desperate people and when they stop being desperate, they start being writers. (Charles Bukowski)
Desperation as an inexhaustible source of literary inspiration.
94. It’s so easy to get into the “If only” game, and playing it is a quick, slippery slide into despair. (William P. Young)
Regret can lead us to fall into a pit of gloom.
95. You are as young as your hope and as old as your despair. (Samuel Ullman)
Are you getting younger or older every day?
96. What we usually call despair is just our painful hunger for hope. (George Eliot)
That is why it is important to feed our spirits every day.
97. One of the greatest dangers of big dreams in your youth is waking up to despair as an adult. (Tice Davids)
Adulthood can hit us very hard.
Related article: “The 3 stages of adolescence”
98. She wondered if hope was much more difficult than despair. (Patricia Briggs)
It may happen that having a good mood is more complicated than remaining sad.
99. Only the person who has felt the maximum despair is capable of feeling the maximum happiness. (Alexandre Dumas)
Without suffering, we are not able to appreciate the good moments.
100. We are born crying, we regret living and we die in disappointment. (Thomas Fulle)
I’m Emily Williams Jones, a psychologist specializing in mental health with a focus on cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) and mindfulness. With a Ph.D. in Psychology, my career has spanned research, clinical practice and private counseling. I’m dedicated to helping individuals overcome anxiety, depression and trauma by offering a personalized, evidence-based approach that combines the latest research with compassionate care.
