Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Despair
I will indulge my sorrows, and give way
To all the pangs and fury of despair.
Addison—Cato. Act IV. Sc. 3.
Despair of ever being saved, “except thou be born again,” or of seeing God “without holiness,” or of having part in Christ except thou “love him above father, mother, or thy own life.” This kind of despair is one of the first steps to heaven.
Baxter—Saint’s Rest. Ch. VI.
The world goes whispering to its own,
“This anguish pierces to the bone;”
And tender friends go sighing round,
“What love can ever cure this wound?”
My days go on, my days go on.
E. B. Browning—De Profundis. St. 5.
The name of the Slough was Despond.
Bunyan—Pilgrim’s Progress. Pt. I. Ch. II.
The nympholepsy of some fond despair.
Byron—Childe Harold. Canto IV. St. 115.
Darkness our guide, Despair our leader was.
John Denham—Essay on Vergil’s Æneid.
Night was our friend, our leader was Despair.
Dryden. Trans. of Vergil’s Æneid. Bk. II. 487.
Nil desperandum Teucro duce et auspice Teucro.
Never despair while under the guidance and auspices of Teucer.
Horace—Carmina. I. 7. 27.
Stood up, the strongest and the fiercest spirit
That fought in heaven, now fiercer by despair.
Milton—Paradise Lost. Bk. II. L. 44.
Thus repuls’d, our final hope
Is flat despair.
Milton—Paradise Lost. Bk. II. L. 141.
Desperatio magnum ad honeste moriendum incitamentum.
Despair is a great incentive to honorable death.
Quintus Curtius Rufus—De Rebus Gestis Alexandri Magni. IX. 5. 6.
O, that this too too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!
Hamlet. Act I. Sc. 2. L. 129.
They have tied me to a stake; I cannot fly.
But, bear-like, I must fight the course.
Macbeth. Act V. Sc. 7. L. 1.
For nothing canst thou to damnation add
Greater than that.
Othello. Act III. Sc. 3. L. 372.
Discomfort guides my tongue
And bids me speak of nothing but despair.
Richard II. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 65.
Oh, break, my heart! poor bankrupt, break at once!
To prison, eyes, ne’er look on liberty!
Vile earth, to earth resign; end motion here;
And thou and Romeo press one heavy bier!
Romeo and Juliet. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 57.
Thou tyrant!
Do not repent these things, for they are heavier
Than all thy woes can stir: therefore, betake thee
To nothing but despair.
Winter’s Tale. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 208.
No change, no pause, no hope! Yet I endure.
Shelley—Prometheus Unbound. Act I. L. 24.
***then black despair,
The shadow of a starless night, was thrown
Over the world in which I moved alone.
Shelley—Revolt of Islam. Dedication. St. 6.
Alas for him who never sees
The stars shine through his cypress-trees
Who, hopeless, lays his dead away,
Nor looks to see the breaking day
Across the mournful marbles play!
Whittier—Snow-Bound. L. 204.