90 Quiet Desperation Quotes

Following is our list of quiet desperation quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about desperate love.

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Famous Quiet Desperation Quotes

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. — Henry David Thoreau

Desperation is the raw material of drastic change. Only those who can leave behind everything they have ever believed in can hope to escape. — William S. Burroughs

The greatest inspiration is often born of desperation. — Comer Cotrell

But what we call our despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope. — George Eliot

Desperate times breed desperate measures — William Shakespeare

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. — Henry David Thoreau

Despair has its own calms. — Bram Stoker

A desperate disease requires a dangerous remedy. — Guy Fawkes

Despair often breeds disease. — Sophocles

Nothing remains but to hope the end will come to extinguish the unrelenting pain of waiting for it. — Pier Paolo Pasolini

To act out of desperation is to act out of instinct. To let oneself get to that point however, is to ignore self-preservation. — Isaac Mashman

Despair is a great incentive to honorable death. — Quintus Curtius Rufus

Without hope we live in desire. — Dante Alighieri

Nothing has more strength than dire necessity. — Euripides

Desperate affairs require desperate measures. - Horatio Nelson

Desperate affairs require desperate measures. — Horatio Nelson

Short Quiet Desperation Quotes

  • There is nothing so cruel in this world as the desolation of having nothing to hope for. — Haruki Murakami
  • In life you need either inspiration or desperation. — Tony Robbins
  • Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them. — Henry David Thoreau
  • There are no desperate situations, there are only desperate people. — Heinz Guderian
  • Hope means to keep living amid desperation and to keep humming in the darkness. — Henri Nouwen
  • To make profound changes in your life you need either inspiration or desperationTony Robbins
  • Extreme hopes are born from extreme misery. — Bertrand Russell
  • Extreme hopes are born of extreme misery, and in such a world hopes could only be irrational. — Bertrand Russell
  • Desperate diseases must have desperate remedies. — German proverbs
  • Hope is a song in a weary throat. — Pauli Murray

Quiet Desperation Image Quotes

Quiet desperation quote The planet does not need more "successful people". The planet desperately needs more peacemakers, he
The planet does not need more "successful people". The planet desperately needs more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers and lover of all kinds.

Acts Of Desperation Quotes

I learned again and again in my life, until you get your own act together, you’re not ready for Big Love. What you’re ready for is one of those codependent relationships where you desperately need a partner. — Bruce H. Lipton

Are zombies possible? They're not just possible, they're actual. We're all zombies. Nobody is conscious — not in the systematically mysterious way that supports such doctrines as epiphenomenalism. *It would be an act of desperate intellectual dishonesty to quote this assertion out of context! — Daniel Dennett

Like an animal caught in a trap, trying to gnaw off its own leg, a woman who seeks abortion is trying to escape a desperate situation by an act of violence and self-loss. Abortion is not a sign that women are free, but a sign that they are desperate. — Frederica Mathewes-Green

Quiet desperation quote Silence is better than bullshit.
Silence is better than bullshit.

Above all, we must understand that in leaving the toxic ways of the present we are healing ourselves, our places, and our planet. We rebel not as a last act of desperation but as a first act of creation. — Sam Smith

To work for libertarianism - to oppose the growth of government and aid the liberation of the individual - used to be an idealistic choice taken for purely idealistic reasons. Now it is an act of intelligent and almost desperate self-defense. — Robert Anton Wilson

Euthanasia and assisted suicide are never acceptable acts of mercy. They always gravely exploit the suffering and desperate, extinguishing life in the name of the 'quality of life' itself. — Pope John Paul II

Quiet desperation quote Never assume that loud is strong and quiet is weak.
Never assume that loud is strong and quiet is weak.

You might as well ask why a middle-aged man with no criminal record might put a paper bag over his head and rob a bank. I acted out of personal desperation. — Aldrich Ames

The force that has overcome Europe and destroyed entire states within days could cope with us, a handful of youngsters. It was an act of desperation . . . We aspired to only one thing: to sell our lives for the highest possible price. — Mordechaj Tenenbaum

You are desperate to communicate, to edify or entertain, to preserve moments of grace or joy or transcendence, to make real or imagined events come alive. But you cannot will this to happen. It is a matter of persistence and faith and hard work. So you might as well just go ahead and get started. — Anne Lamott

Abortion is an act of desperation. It's an awful solution to a situation that God can work out for good through adoption. — Bob Carlisle

Desperate Love Quotes

Children desperately need to know - and to hear in ways they understand and remember - that they're loved and valued by mom and dad. — Gary Smalley

My friends, how desperately we need to be loved and to love. With it we are creative. With it we march tirelessly. With it, and with it alone, we are able to sacrifice for others. — Chief Dan George

If you went to bed crying and woke up crying, it's time to reconsider some things. When tears outweigh the smiles, the love is fading. Don't hold on to someone who is desperately trying to let you go. — Tony Gaskins

The irony is that while God doesn’t need us but still wants us, we desperately need God but don’t really want Him most of the time. — Francis Chan

The Heart is a lonely hunter with only one desire! To find some lasting comfort in the arms of anothers fire...driven by a desperate hunger to the arms of a neon light, the heart is a lonely hunter when there's no sign of love in sight! — Carson Mccullers

...intimacy being reduced to its content of mere sensation, will only be the misleading, obscure, and desperate alleviation of the existential disgust and anguish of him who has stumbled into a blind alley. — Julius Evola

Headline?" he asked. "'Swing Set Needs Home,'" I said. "'Desperately Lonely Swing Set Needs Loving Home,'" he said. "'Lonely, Vaguely Pedophilic Swing Set Seeks the Butts of Children,'" I said. — John Green

In desperate love, we always invent the characters of our partners, demanding they be what we need of them, and then feeling devastated when they refuse to perform the role we created in the first place. — Elizabeth Gilbert

Is it possible to love so desperately that life is unbearable? I don't mean unrequited, I mean being in the love. In the midst of it and desperate. Because knowing it will end, because everything does. End. — Peter Heller

Somewhere between love and hate lies confusion, misunderstanding and desperate hope. — Shannon Alder

Being Desperate Quotes

Our world today so desperately hungers for hope, yet uncounted people have almost given up. There is despair and hopelessness on every hand. Let us be faithful in proclaiming the hope that is in Jesus. — Billy Graham

Our policy is directed not against any country or doctrine but against hunger, poverty, desperation and chaos. Its purpose should be the revival of a working economy in the world so as to permit the emergence of political and social conditions in which free institutions can exist. — George C. Marshall

I desperately want Scotland to be an independent country. I cannot, though, sit here and tell you definitively that it will happen, and that it will happen on this timescale, because I have to respect the opinion of the people of Scotland. — Nicola Sturgeon

The secret to happiness is to be working at your passion. If you want to be miserable, lead a desperate life like everybody else where they drag their asses to work everyday because they hate their job. — Yvon Chouinard

It's an interesting combination: Having a great fear of being alone, and having a desperate need for solitude and the solitary experience. That's always been a tug of war for me. — Jodie Foster

He was desperate to tell his news to some other cat; he almost felt that if a mouse crossed his path he would stop to inform it that it was about to be eaten by a ThunderClan deputy. — Erin Hunter

The truth may be puzzling. It may take some work to grapple with. It may be counterintuitive. It may contradict deeply held prejudices. It may not be consonant with what we desperately want to be true. But our preferences do not determine what's true. — Carl Sagan

It would be nice to spend billions on schools and roads, but right now that money is desperately needed for political ads. — Andy Borowitz

I feel like I'm a stay-at-home mom, which I was for the five years before this. She's absolutely been my focus. That's the choice I made. Desperate Housewives is perfect for me. I get to go back to work and still be able to take my daughter to school and pick her up. — Teri Hatcher

Keep your head and heart clear. Perspective can just as easily be lost as it can be found. — Andy Andrews

People Writing About Quiet Desperation

Name Quotes Likes
Read quotes by Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau
quotes on nature, civil disobedience and solitude

2697 19655
Read quotes by Tony Robbins

Tony Robbins
quotes on change, leadership and love

888 9544
Read quotes by Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Russell
quotes on happiness, life and war

1131 8798
Read quotes by William S. Burroughs

William S. Burroughs
quotes on education, life and slavery

335 2843
Read quotes by George Eliot

George Eliot
quotes on love, friendship and death

1009 5007
Read quotes by William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare
quotes on success, death and love

4052 36000

More Quiet Desperation Quotes

Boys, you must strive to find your own voice, because the longer you wait to begin the less likely you are to find it at all. — Robin Williams

The United States is the most prosperous nation in the world, and yet our citizenship has been comprehensively reduced to consumerism... Buy and ye shall be happy. But what have we truly purchased? In the words of my favorite poet, Henry David Thoreau, 'The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation,' our lives prostrate at the altar of the false gods of our instant-gratification society. — Rich Roll

I do believe that most men live lives of quiet desperation. For despair, optimism is the only practical solution. Hope is practical. Because eliminate that and it's pretty scary. Hope at least gives you the option of living. — Harry Nilsson

One solitary God-centered, God-intoxicated man can do more to keep God's love alive and His presence felt in the world than a thousand half-hearted, talkative busy men living frightened, fragmented lives of quiet desperation. — Robert McNamara

You... are now servants to the ear that needs quiet solace, and the eye that needs the consolation of beauty, servants to the mind that needs desperate repose or pointed inquiry, to the heart that needs invitation to flight or silent understanding, and to the soul that needs safe landing, or fearless, relentless enlightenment. — Joyce DiDonato

Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way. — Roger Waters

Most men lead lives of quiet desperation. I can't take quiet desperation! — Ray Milland

The gift of willingness is the only thing that stands between the quiet desperation of a disingenuous life and the actualization of unexpressed potential. — Jim McDonald

Every man, when he gets quiet, when he becomes desperately honest with himself, is capable of uttering profound truths. We all derive from the same source. There is no mystery about the origin of things. We are all part of creation, all kings, all poets, all musicians; we have only to open up, only to discover what is already there. — Henry Miller

No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof. — Henry David Thoreau

The worst curse to befall anyone is stagnation, a banal existence, the quiet desperation that comes out of a need for conformity. — Deepak Chopra

A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. — Henry David Thoreau

Somehow it is the male's duty to put the best years of his life into work he doesn't like in order that he may "retire" and enjoy himself as soon as he is too old to do so. This is more than just the system - it is the credo. It is the same thing that prompted Thoreau to say, in 1839: 'The majority of men lead lives of quiet desperation.' — Sterling Hayden

On Painting Rats, and the Glorification of Them. They exist without permission. They are hated, hunted and persecuted. They live in quiet desperation amongst the filth. And yet they are capable of bringing entire civilizations to their knees. If you are dirty, insignificant, and unloved then rats are the ultimate role model. — Banksy

Everyman, when he gets quiet, when he becomes desperately honest with himself, is capable of uttering profound truths. — Henry Miller

My disease is one of the best things that has happened to me; it has pulled me out of a quietly desperate life toward one full of love and hope. — Tom O'Connor

Be still, and the world is bound to turn herself inside out to entertain you. Everywhere you look, joyful noise is clanging to drown out quiet desperation. — Barbara Kingsolver

There are thousands and thousands of people out there leading lives of quiet, screaming desperation, where they work long, hard hours at jobs they hate to enable them to buy things they don't need to impress people they don't like. — Nigel Marsh

I'm fortunate enough to get to make books for a living, so I spend my entire workday alone in my studio quietly doing my favorite thing in the world. When I need a break from that, it's usually because I'm desperate to see other human beings again! — Vera Brosgol

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things. — Henry David Thoreau

People used to live lives of quiet desperation - now they go on talk shows! — Bob Thaves

You may well ask how I expect to assert my privacy by resorting to the outrageous publicity of being one's actual self on paper. There's a possibility of it working if one chooses the terms, to wit: outshouting image-gimmick America through a quietly desperate search for self. — Kate Millett

Human beings, as far as I can tell, seem to be divided into two subspecies -- the resigned, who live in quiet desperation, and the exhausted, who exist in restless agitation. — Sarah Ban Breathnach

The vast majority of the people who populate our planet live lives of quiet desperation that are all too often quite harsh and painful, lives in which events and circumstances usually don't turn out the way they had hoped or planned. — Frederick Lenz

Studies of people who report high well-being in their fifties and sixties indicate that they have lived lives that involved personal risks. They are not people whose lives have been calm and predictable. A life under tight control sometimes produces quiet desperation. High well-being is a life that has depth and quality. Risks, losses, problems, and tragedy add pain to a life. That pain becomes a teacher. We learn; the pain gives us no choice. — Jennifer James

Men and women in all parts of the world have a desperate need to take time from their demanding routines of everyday life and to quietly observe God's miracles taking place all around them. Think of what would happen if all of us took time to look carefully at the wonders of nature that surround us and devoted ourselves to learning more about this world that God created for us! — M. Russell Ballard

Countries like ours are full of people who have all of the material comforts they desire, yet lead lives of quiet (and at times noisy) desperation, understanding nothing but the fact that there is a hole inside them and that however much food and drink they pour into it, however many motorcars and television sets they stuff it with, however many well-balanced children and loyal friends they parade around the edges of it. . . it aches! — Bernard Levin

The intellect of most men is barren. They neither fertilize or are fertilized. It is the marriage of the soul with nature that makes the intellect fruitful, that gives birth to imagination...without nature-awakened imagination most persons do not really live in the world, they merely pass through it as they live dull lives of quiet desperation. — Henry David Thoreau

As lives go, I'll take the quietly desperate over the radically bipolar. — John Green

There was our father, the heart we knew held all of us. Held us heavily and desperately, the doors of his heart opening and closing with the rapidity of stops on an instrument, the quiet felt closures, the ghostly fingering, practice and practice and then, incredibly, sound and melody and warmth. — Alice Sebold

And his eyes frighten me, too. They're the eyes of an old man, an old man who's seen so much in life that he no longer cares to go on living. They're not even desperate... just quiet and expectant, and very, very lonely, as if he were quite alone of his own free choice. — Anne Holm

Everyday we slaughter our finest impulses. That is why we get a heartache when we read the lines written by the hand of a master and recognize them as our own, as the tender shoots which we stifled because we lacked the faith to believe in our own powers, our own criterion of truth and beauty. Everyman, when he gets quiet, when he becomes desperately honest with himself, is capable of uttering profound truths. — Henry Miller

In Conclusion

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