Quiet Desperation Quotes:

Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.

- Henry David Thoreau

source: "Fictional character: Don Birnam". "The Lost Weekend", www.imdb.com. October 5, 1945.

topic: Life, Song, Men, Quiet Desperation, Quiet Life

Civilizations grow by agreements and accomodations and accretions, not by repudiations. The rebels and the revolutionaries are only eddies, they keep the stream from getting stagnant but they get swept down and absorbed, they're a side issue. Quiet desperation is another name for the human condition. If revolutionaries would learn that they can't remodel society by day after tomorrow -- haven't the wisdom to and shouldn't be permitted to -- I'd have more respect for them ... Civilizations grow and change and decline -- they aren't remade.

- Wallace Stegner

topic: Agreement, Civilization, Names, Quiet Desperation

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.

- Henry David Thoreau

topic: Inspirational, Life, Success, Metaphors Of Life, Mink

Nowadays men lead lives of noisy desperation.

- James Thurber

topic: Fear, Men, Desperation, Quiet Desperation, Curmudgeon

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

source: Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

topic: Believe, Live Life, Men, Singer-songwriters, Quiet Desperation

It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.

- Henry David Thoreau

source: Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Quotable Thoreau: An A to Z Glossary of Inspiring Quotations from Henry David Thoreau”, p.87, BookBaby

topic: Inspirational, Motivational, Positive, Fine Arts, Inspiration And Art

It is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.

- Henry David Thoreau

topic: Wisdom, Business, Intelligence, Quiet Desperation, Muskrats

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

- Ray Milland

source: "Fictional character: Don Birnam". "The Lost Weekend", www.imdb.com. October 5, 1945.

topic: Men, Quiet, Desperation, Quiet Desperation

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

topic: Boys, Voice, Waiting, Quiet Desperation, Dead Poets

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

- Henry David Thoreau

source: "Walden". Book by Henry David Thoreau, 1854.

topic: Love, Inspirational, Life, Live For Yourself, Man Of My Dreams

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.

- Henry David Thoreau

source: Walden ch. 2 (1854)

topic: Life, Cutting, Wish, Marrow, Discovering Yourself

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

- Henry David Thoreau

source: Henry David Thoreau (1882). “Walden”, p.15

topic: Games, Despair, Amusement, Quiet Desperation, Concealed

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

topic: Two, Agitation, Quiet, Quiet Desperation, Resigned

How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.

- Henry David Thoreau

topic: Life, Beautiful, Book, Inspiration To Write, Creative Writing

No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof.

- Henry David Thoreau

topic: Thinking, Way, Ancient, Quiet Desperation, Walden Pond

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

- Deepak Chopra

topic: Spiritual, Individuality, Needs, Stagnation, Quiet Desperation

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

topic: Patience, Looks, World, Quiet Desperation

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

source: Frederick Lenz (1994). “Surfing the Himalayas: conversations and travels with Master Fwap”, Interglobal Seminars

topic: Inspirational, Live Life, Buddhism, Our Planet, Quiet Desperation

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

- Bob Thaves

topic: Live Life, People, Goes On, Quiet Desperation

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

topic: Dirty, Civilization, Role Models, Quiet Desperation, Wall And Piece

The Samaritan woman grasped what He said with fervor that came from an awareness of her real need. The transaction was fascinating. She has come with a buket. He sent her back with a spring of living water. She had come as a reject. He sent her back being accepted by God Himself. She came wounded. He sent her back whole. She came laden with questions. He sent her back as a source for answers. She came living a life of quiet desperation. She ran back overflowing with hope. The disciples missed it all. It was lunchtime for them.

- Ravi Zacharias

topic: Spring, Real, Water, Samaritans, Being Accepted

Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way.

- Roger Waters

source: "Song: 'Time'". 1973.

topic: Hanging On, Way, Quiet, Quiet Desperation

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

topic: Inner Peace, Quiet, Desperation, Disingenuous, Quiet Desperation

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

topic: Faith, Inspiration, Men, Intoxicated, Quiet Desperation

I am interested in the gap between what people say and what they think - the undiscovered world of people's lives. Lives of quiet desperation.

- Richard Eyre

source: "Richard Eyre: 'I don't feel directing has to be a young man's game'". Interview with Kate Kellaway, www.theguardian.com. November 3, 2012.

topic: Live Life, Thinking, People, Quiet Desperation

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

topic: Gratitude, Men, Dull Life, Quiet Desperation

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

source: Jennifer James (1986). “Success Is the Quality of Your Journey”, William Morrow Paperbacks

topic: Teacher, Pain, Loss, Quiet Desperation

Any life he'd ever heard of, his own included, was burdened with emotions - love, loss, jobs, jealousy, money, death, pain. But if you were Jewish, always there was this extra one, the added pull at your endurance, the one more thing. There was that line in Thoreau about 'quiet desperation' - that was indeed true of most men. But for some men and women, for some fathers and mothers and children, the world still contrived that one extra test, endless and unrelenting.

- Laura Z. Hobson

source: Laura Z. Hobson (2011). “Gentleman's Agreement”, p.310, Open Road Media

topic: Inspiring, Mother, Jobs, Quiet Desperation, Love Loss

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

source: Sterling Hayden (2015). “Wanderer”, p.44, Pickle Partners Publishing

topic: Men, Order, Years, Quiet Desperation, Credo

On the outside, Oscar simply looked tired, no taller, no fatter, only the skin under his eyes, pouched from years of quiet desperation, had changed. Inside, he was in a world of hurt. He saw black flashes before his eyes. He saw himself falling through the air. He knew what he was turning into. He was turning into the worst kind of human on the planet: an old bitter dork. Saw himself at the Game Room, picking through the miniatures for the rest of his life. He didn't want this future but he couldn't see how it could be avoided, couldn't figure his way out of it. Fukú.

- Junot Diaz

topic: Hurt, Fall, Eye, Quiet Desperation, Dork