Hopelessness

“ but in despair there are the most intense enjoyments, especially when one is very acutely conscious of the hopelessness of one's position. ”

“ In our conversation we find words, formulas, images, to express the inexpressible, the things that have never been said. The hopelessness, the misery that one carries about like the weight on a convict's leg, is incontestably lessened ”

“ I might point out that together with that abandonment, and as a direct result of that abandonment, a dark, drear hopelessness, not merely as to the immediate issue of the storms which convulse the atmosphere we breathe as spiritual, social, and intellectual beings, but as to the future and abiding consequences of501 those convulsions, appears to be settling down upon men's minds: a hopelessness for which there is no remedy save that which depends upon the triumph of righteousness and truth, a triumph to be achieved only under the banner of Christ. ”

“ Hopelessness, too, of remedy in that fixed state, which is to have no change but that of increase throughout eternity, would have caused his death to appear a greater reality, but it would not have made it a greater reality. ”

“ But, alas! how many human hopes and aspirations are continually doomed to perish unfulfilled; and were it not that “Hope springs eternal in the human breast,” all faith, all energy, all life, and all success would be at an end, as then we should know that most of our efforts are futile, whereas now we hope they may attain complete fruition. Yet, on the other hand, we learn that the fruit of dreamy hoping is waking blank despair. We were again in a region of scrubs as bad and as dense as those I hoped and thought, I had left behind me. ”

“ Is that my hope, then?—Sure, the sacred dust Of her that bore me trembles in its urn. Is it in man the sore distress to bear, When hope itself is blacken'd to despair? When all the bliss I pant for, is to gain In hell, a refuge from severer pain? ”

“ Hope, who has attended the victim of intemperance through all the changes of his downward fortune, and not forsaken him in any other exigency, has forsaken here. Earth had its vanities to solace him, but eternity has none. ”

“ These contradictions,—these differences of seeing,—these returns,—this stormy flow and ebb, are so many effects of hope, which plays upon us and never ceases. It is inherent in human nature to hope in adversity for a favorable change of fate, however the appearances may be ill-grounded of an end to its pain and suffering. ”

“ A great, a vivid ray of hope had pierced the darkness of her misery, it had flickered low at first, then had glowed with wonderful intensity, flickered again and finally died down as hope itself fell dying once more in the arms of despair. ”

“ The wretch condemned with life to part, Still, still on hope relies; And every pang that rends the heart Bids expectation rise. Hope, like the gleaming taper’s light, Adorns and cheers our way; And still as darker grows the night, Emits a brighter ray. ”

“ The future is more present than the past:
For one look back a thousand on we cast,
And Hope doth ever Memory outlast.
For Hope say Fear—Hope is a timid thing,
Fearful, and weak, and born in suffering;
At least, such Hope as human life can bring. ”

“ To say that hope had entirely abandoned him would not be true. Whilst the heart continues to pulsate hope will still be found to live, however faintly, in its throbs, though each moment be heavy with pain, and nothing seem sure but anguish and death. ”

“ And all the hope of the utterly hopeless of this world, who must live by their ultimate salvation, all the terrible, aching, homesick hope that is born of the infinite pain of the spirit, seemed to break from this man and shake those who listened, so that they sat with bent heads and clasped hands—they who were also among the hopeless sat with bent heads and clasped hands as they listened. ”

“ I was sated with the world which I did not know, nauseated by life of which I had no experience, having no strength because there was no hope, and there was no hope, because there was no-where for it to seize hold. ”

“ And where there's little left to hope,
There's little left to dread!
Oh, time glides ever quickly by!
Destroying all that's dear;
On earth there's little worth a sigh,
And nothing worth a tear!
What fears have I? What hopes in life? ”

“ What had they to fill the void of their tremendous loss? Surely, not to believe was not to hope, to be for ever without hope was the punishment of the damned, and to live hopeless in the world was to suffer the pains of hell on earth. ”

“ He was one of those natures which are too obstinate to give up even in the presence of despair itself; and which, even when hope is dead, still forces hope to linger, and struggles on while a particle of life or of strength remains. ”

“ Till he got to telling me chapters of the tale that never ends;
The battle of grief and hope with riches and folly and wrong.
He told how the weak conspire, he told of the fear of the strong;
He told of dreams grown deeds, deeds done ere time was ripe,
Of hope that melted in air like the smoke of his evening pipe;
Of the fight long after hope in the teeth of all despair;
Of battle and prison and death, of life stripped naked and bare.
But to me it all seemed happy, for I gilded all with the gold
Of youth that believes not in death, nor knoweth of hope grown cold. ”

“ For we shall still find Hope shining, be it for fond invitation, be it for anger and menace; as a mild heavenly light it shone; as a red conflagration it shines: burning sulphurous-blue, through darkest regions of Terror, it still shines; and goes not out at all, since Desperation itself is a kind of Hope. Thus is our Era still to be named of Hope, though in the saddest sense,—when there is nothing left but Hope. ”

“ Glide, rich streams, away!
With lips unbrighten'd, wreathless brow, I stroll:
And would you learn the spells that drowse my soul?
Work without Hope draws nectar in a sieve,
And Hope without an object cannot live. ”

“ There is no distress so complete but that even in the most critical moments the inexplicable sunrise of hope is seen in its depths. These poor wretches were ready to declare to themselves that they were saved. ”

“ Which all seem idly spent and vain,
Fair Hope comes, saying: “Nought is lost,
Life’s failures bring the better gain!”
When sorrow, troubles come in flocks,
Like angry clouds, driven by the blast,
Like waves against the riven rocks,
On which my helpless soul is cast,
And night and darkness come apace,
With not a friend around to cheer,
Again she shows her angel face,
And whispers gently: “Do not fear.” ”

“ Sometimes thou servest the devil, and sometimes thou doest business on thine own account. Again, I say, hang thee for an intermeddling imp!
Men talk of the pleasures of hope! have they never felt the misery of hope deferred—the pang of hope crushed? Have they ever estimated the amount of misery chargeable to this self-same hope? Who fathers Ambition, with all its woes, attendant and consequent? Hope. How many dream away their lives in listless vacuity, hoping all the while, that something will turn up! What injuries has Hope not done to youth? ”

“ I interrupted; "better to be disappointed than hopeless; few indeed are the brave souls that need not hope; many a weary spirit, without that one poor consolation, would pass through its joyless existence like a wanderer in the desert without sun or star to guide him on."
But the sage said, "Happy is he who after a lapse of years can yet hope! Happy the one whose heart has not grown sick from hope long deferred; for hope departed, can faith exist? ”

“ I have ever preferred the most dreadful certainty to a hopeful uncertainty. If peace and quiet were the only remedies which could strengthen my suffering nerves, and ward off the menacing disease from my oppressed chest, then I could only be saved by the firm belief that I was doomed. And the undecided wavering hope of life would only have aggravated my illness. ”

“ Hope conquers cowardice, joy grief;
Or at least, faith unbelief. ”

“ The saddest spectacle of all—sadder even than pain, and bereavement, and death—is a man void of hope. The most abject people is a hopeless people, in whose hearts the memories of the past, and the pulses of endeavor, and the courage of faith are dead, and who crouch by their own thresholds and the crumbling tombstones of their fathers, and take the tyrant's will, without an incentive, and without even a dream. The most intense form in which misery can express itself is in the phrase, "I have nothing to live for." ”

“ He stood silent for a moment watching hope filter into their faces, hope that made their dull eyes shine in the semi-darkness.
"Do not let joy curl your lips until you have listened, for it would be a false joy." ”

“ Count on, rest not, for hope is dead.
Weep, though no hair’s breadth thou shalt move
The living Earth, the heaven above
By all the bitterness of love!
Weep and cease not, now hope is dead!
Sighs rest thee not, tears bring no ease,
Life hath no joy, and Death no peace:
The years change not, though they decrease,
For hope is dead, for hope is dead. ”

“ In what hope he lived, no man could tell; but that he had some hope of finding her again--some faint and shadowy hope, deferred from day to day, and making him from day to day more sick and sore at heart--was plain to all. ”

“ And, indeed, what hope is left for a man, and what deliverance is possible, when he makes light of his own most sacred experience, and doubts whether after all there was any Divine voice in that part of his life which once he felt to be full of significance? Sadness, cynical worldliness, irritability, sour and isolating selfishness, rapid deterioration in every part of the character—these are the results which follow our repudiation of past experience and denial of truth that once animated and purified us ”

“ Even taking your own view of the sorrows which have come upon you, as a consequence of refusing to be guided by your natural and appointed guides and friends, even admitting that there is no more prospect or hope for you in this world—if it were possible for an instant to suppose such folly—even if it were so, is that a reason for forfeiting all hope in the next world also? ”

“ What hope, what energy, what enterprise, what industry, in but two years of one human existence! What a world of doubt, of distressful anxiety and misgiving in the heart of the woman, left to patient expectation, to prayerful, tearful hopes and fears! ”

“ Of a hope against hope through the night and the day;
For although it is true, there is hope while there’s breath,
Still some rush to death while the end is but death,
As though anguish of thought finds its only surcease
To yield quickly to death and its certain release.
Lord, help us and save us; we ask for no crown,
But we do want the house till the flood shall go down. ”

“ But as we grow in years, there springs up a dissatisfaction, a restlessness, of which we may be only half conscious, and still less know how to cure. With some, this may subside into merely a fearful and worldly discontent; others may heed the prophecy and lay hold on a celestial hope, an immortal possession as the only remedy. In this secret sense of want, which neither nature nor man can fill they will hear already that low, divine voice,—"Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." ”

“ Would you know what it is to hope again, and have all your hopes at hand?—hang upon the crags at a gradient: that makes your next step a debate between the thing you are and the thing you may become. There the merry little hopes grow for the climber like flowers and food, immediate, prompt to prove their uses, sufficient: if just within the grasp, as mortal hopes should be. How the old lax life closes in about you there! You are the man of your faculties, nothing more. Why should a man pretend to more? ”

“ Be perfectly hopeless, that is the highest state. What is there to hope for? Burst asunder the bonds of hope, stand on your Self, be at rest, never mind what you do, give up all to God, but have no hypocrisy about it. ”

“ Without change, break, or ripple the sunshiny days glide past, each bringing in its hands the same offering of love and peace monotonous as a dove’s cooing. My life is without hope, for, having all, what is there to hope for? ”

“ Without Hope we should suffer moral death, and by the help of Hope we yet may climb to Heaven, or at the worst, if she also prove but a kindly mockery given to hold us from despair, be gently lowered into the abysses of eternal sleep. ”

“ Send me away with some hope, however little, some faint hope of ultimate deliverance, and I will nerve myself to endure, from hour to hour, the hideous dream into which my existence has been transformed. ”

“ Wishing to hope without a hope, some fears
About my future worldly maintenance,
And, more than all, a strangeness in the mind,
A feeling that I was not for that hour,
Nor for that place. But wherefore be cast down?
For (not to speak of Reason and her pure
Reflective acts to fix the moral law
Deep in the conscience, nor of Christian Hope,
Bowing her head before her sister Faith
As one far mightier) , hither I had come,
Bear witness Truth, endowed with holy powers
And faculties, whether to work or feel. ”

“ But hope is the lever that moves the world onward, and the faint hope that had dawned on my thick night was too dear and bright a one to leave me crushed again by my old despondency, and I felt that there must be some way of untangling the problem. ”

“ Hope lives like a spark amid the very blackest embers of despondency. Twenty minutes before I had awakened from a sort of swoon and was overwhelmed with misery; and now here was I taking a collected view of my situation, even to the extent of being willing to believe that on the whole it was perhaps as well that I should have been hindered from putting to sea in my little eggshell. ”

“ And if we have nothing more to fan hope than the unexplored mystery of the whole region, or the unknown remainders among the potencies of Life, then, as those who have "hope only in this world," we are "of all men the most miserable." ”