No matter how ruined man and his world may seem to be, and no matter how terrible man's despair may become, as long as he continues to be a man his very humanity continues to tell him that life has a meaning.
Thomas MertonRead
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No matter how ruined man and his world may seem to be, and no matter how terrible man's despair may become, as long as he continues to be a man his very humanity continues to tell him that life has a meaning.
Do not despair when in spite of intense supplication, _x000D_ _x000D_ there is a delay in receiving the expected gift. _x000D_ _x000D_ He has guaranteed that he will respond_x000D_ _x000D_ in what He chooses for you, _x000D_ _x000D_ and not what you choose for yourself, _x000D_ _x000D_ and at the time He chooses _x000D_ _x000D_ not the time you desire.
It is because the world is so full of suffering, that your happiness is a gift. It is because the world is so full of poverty, that your wealth is a gift. It is because the world is so unfriendly, that your smile is a gift. It is because the world is so full of war, that your peace of mind is a gift. It is because the world is in such despair, that your hope and optimism is a gift. It is because the world is so afraid, that your love is a gift.
Whatever your sex or position, life is a battle in which you are to show your pluck, and woe be to the coward. Whether passed on a bed of sickness or a tented field, it is ever the same fair play and admits no foolish distinction. Despair and postponement are cowardice and defeat. Men were born to succeed, not to fail.
You may not know it, but at the far end of despair, there is a white clearing where one is almost happy.
Absence from whom we love is worse than death, and frustrates hope severer than despair.
There's no such thing as perfect writing, just like there's no such thing as perfect despair.
Would not the child's heart break in despair when the first cold storm of the world sweeps over it, if the warm sunlight of love from the eyes of mother and father did not shine upon him like the soft reflection of divine light and love?
Since it is likely that, being men, they would sin every day, St. Paul consoles his hearers by saying 'renew yourselves' from day to day. This is what we do with houses: we keep constantly repairing them as they wear old. You should do the same thing to yourself. Have you sinned today? Have you made your soul old? Do not despair, do not despond, but renew your soul by repentance, and tears, and Confession, and by doing good things. And never cease doing this.
In idleness there is a perpetual despair.
I think it's realistic to have hope. One can be a perverse idealist and say the easiest thing: 'I despair. The world's no good.' That's a perverse idealist. It's practical to hope, because the hope is for us to survive as a human species. That's very realistic.
I had wanted simply to convey to the reader by way of concrete example that life holds a potential meaning under any conditions, even the most miserable ones. And I thought that if the point were demonstrated in a situation as extreme as that in a concentration camp, my book might gain a hearing. I therefore felt responsible for writing down what I had gone through, for I thought it might be helpful to people who are prone to despair.
If the charter of your liberties entails death and despair for untold multitudes, then it is nothing but a license for slaughter.
Me miserable! Which way shall I fly_x000D_ Infinite wrath and infinite despair?_x000D_ Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell;_x000D_ And in the lowest deep a lower deep,_x000D_ Still threat'ning to devour me, opens wide,_x000D_ To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven.
It is necessary to work, if not from inclination, at least from despair. Everything considered, work is less boring than amusing oneself.
Nothing is so stifling as symmetry. Symmetry is boredom, the quintessence of mourning. Despair yawns. There is something more terrible than a hell of suffering - a hell of boredom.
I despair of the Republic! Such dreariness, such whining sallow women, such utter absence of the amenities, such crass food, crass manners, crass landscape!! What a horror it is for a whole nation to be developing without the sense of beauty, and eating bananas for breakfast.
I know nothing more mocking than a devil that despairs.
Without dreams, there could be no despair.
I treated despair in terms of hierarchy: if there was a more important pain in the world, it meant my own was negated. I thought I simply had to accept the fact that I was ugly, and that to feel despair about it was simply wrong.
Our efforts have brought new hope to all mankind. We have beaten back despair and defeatism. We have saved a number of countries from losing their liberty. Hundreds of millions of people all over the world now agree with us, that we need not have war-that we can have peace.
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