Despair Quotes
“Despair comes because energy goes on leaking, and people have forgotten how to contain it. In a thousand and one thoughts, worries, desires, imagination, dreams, memories, energy is leaking. And energy is leaking in unnecessary things that can be easily avoided. When there is no need to talk, people go on talking. When there is no need to do anything, they cannot sit silently; they have to ‘do.’ People are obsessed with doing, as if doing is a sort of intoxicant; it keeps them drunk. they remain occupied so that they don’t have time to think about the real problems of life. They keep themselves busy so that they don’t bump into themselves. They are afraid—afraid of the abyss that is yawning within. This is how energy goes on leaking, and this is why you never have too much of it. One has to learn how to drop the unnecessary. And ninety percent of ordinary life is unnecessary; it can easily be dropped.”
Osho, Everyday Osho (Page 211)
“Anticipation can soften despair. Always have something on the calendar that you’re looking forward to.”
Mari Andrews, Out of the Blue
“So long as you’re struggling, quarreling, there can’t be despair. Despair is one of the supreme sins, because a despairing person ceases to struggle. That makes despair the ultimate defeat; it is death. It has a feeling of completeness to it, closely connected to smugness: the despairing person makes no attempt to move from the point he is at—no attempt to change himself or the world—and this completeness is a mark of dying. Dying is completion.”
Adin Steinsaltz, via Sunbeams (Page 142)
“I have found that battling despair does not mean closing my eyes to the enormity of the tasks of effecting change, nor ignoring the strength and the barbarity of the forces aligned against us. It means teaching, surviving and fighting with the most important resource I have, myself, and taking joy in that battle. It means, for me, recognizing the enemy outside and the enemy within, and knowing that my work is part of our power, and knowing that this work did not begin with my birth nor will it end with my death. And it means knowing that within this continuum, my life and my love and my work has particular power and meaning relative to others. It means trout fishing on the Missisquoi River at dawn and tasting the green silence, and knowing that this beauty too is mine forever.” ~ Audre Lorde, The Cancer Journals
“The real and most dangerous opponents we face are fear, anger, confusion, doubt, and despair. If we overcome those enemies that attack us from within, we can attain a true victory over any attack from without.” ~ Morihei Ueshiba, Budo Secrets