Quotes about Despair

To those who despair of everything reason cannot provide a faith, but only passion, and in this case it must be the same passion that lay at the root of the despair, namely humiliation and hatred.

O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon, Irrecoverably dark, total eclipse Without all hope of day!

Upon himself; horror and doubt distract His troubl'd thoughts, and from the bottom stirr The Hell within him, for within him Hell He brings, and round about him, nor from Hell One step no more then from himself can fly By

Now conscience wakes despair That slumbered, wakes the bitter memory Of what he was, what is, and what must be Worse; of worse deeds worse sufferings must ensue.

Current religiosity and ethics, especially those that replace the story of the cross with demands for social reform, have produced many a theology of glory. It still flourishes along with its attendant despair. There is no cure through the law. It will take some dying. So we are already on the way to the cross.

A man must completely despair of himself in order to become fit to obtain the grace of Christ.

When he has lost all hope, all object in life, man becomes a monster in his misery.

Men die and they are not happy.

Therefore we ought not to despair when we are tempted, but the more fervently should cry unto God, that He will vouchsafe to help us in all our tribulation; and that He will, as St. Paul saith, with the temptation make a way to escape that we may be able to bear it.(2) Let us therefore humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God in all temptation and trouble, for He will save and exalt such as are of an humble spirit.

While injustice is the worst of sins, despair is the most dangerous; because when you are in despair you care neither about yourself nor about others.

Reply to Objection 4: Even if by a special privilege their predestination were revealed to some, it is not fitting that it should be revealed to everyone; because, if so, those who were not predestined would despair; and security would beget negligence in the predestined.

They died less from lack of food or medicine than from lack of hope, lack of something to live for.