More than at any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads.One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.

-Allen,Woody pseudonym of  Allen Stewart Konigsberg
  Side Effects,'My Speech to the Graduates'.

Because thou must not dream, thou needst not then despair!

-Arnold, Matthew
  'Empedocles on Etna', act1, sc.2, l.426.

Il faut travailler sinon par go u" t, au moins par de¤  sespoir, puisque, tout bien ve¤  rifie¤  , travailler est moins ennuyeux que s'amuser. We should work: if not by preference, at least out of despair. All things considered, work is less boring than amusement.

-Baudelaire, Charles
  Mon coeur mis a'   nu, pt.18.

We aretroubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair.

-Bible (NewTestament)
Corinthians 4:8.

Snobbery? But it's onlya form of despair.

-Brodsky, Ioseph
  Less Than One,'Flight From Byzantium'.

Now Giant Despair had a wife, and her name was Diffidence.

-Bunyan,John
  The Pilgrim's Progress, pt.1.

The very knowledge that he lived in vain, That all was over on this side the tomb, Had made Despair a smilingness assume.

-Rochdale
^18  Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, canto 3, stanza16.

Ma bouche sera la bouche des malheurs qui n'ont point de bouche, ma voix, la liberte¤   de celles qui s'affaissent au cachot du de¤  sespoir. My voice will be the voice of those who suffer and have no voice. My voice, the freedom of those weakened in the dungeon of despair.

-Ce¤  saire, Aime¤   Fernand
  Cahier d'un retour au pays natal.

It isclosing time inthegardens oftheWest and fromnow on an artist will be judged only by the resonance of his solitude or the quality of his despair.

-Connolly, Cyril Vernon
  Horizon, no.120^1, Dec1949^  Jan1950 (double issue, the final issue of the journal).

When I thinkof my own native land, In a moment I seem to be there; But alas! recollection at hand Soon hurries me back to despair.

-Cowper,William
  Poems,'Verses Supposed to be Written by Alexander Selkirk, During His Solitary Abode in the Island of  Juan Fernandez'.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way.

-Dickens, CharlesJohn Huffam
  A  Tale of  Two Cities, bk.1, ch.1.

Had every Christian in Hitler's Europe followed the example of the king of Denmark and decided to put on the yellow star, there would be today neither despair in the church nor talk of the death of God.

-Fackenheim, Emil L
  Quest for Past and Future.

I hope I will be religious again but as for reganing my charecter I despare for it.

-Fleming, Marjory
  'Journal 2' in F Sidgwick (ed)  The Complete Marjory Fleming (1934).

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; Where there is injury, pardon; Where there is doubt, faith; Where there is despair, hope; Where there is darkness, light; Where there is sadness, joy. O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek To be consoled as to console; To be understood as to understand; To be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; It is in pardoning that we are pardoned; And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

-Franklin, Benjamin
Attributed prayer, traditionally known as the'Prayer of St Francis'.

   Happiness lies in conquering one's enemies, in driving them in front of oneself, in taking their property, in savouring their despair, in outraging their wives and daughters.

-Genghis Khan originally Temujin
c.1210  Quoted in Witold Rodzinski The Walled Kingdom:  A History of China (1979).

'Be thine despair and sceptred care; To triumph, and to die, are mine.' He spoke, and headlong from the mountain's height Deep in the roaring tide he plunged to endless night.

-Gray,Thomas
  The Bard.  A Pindaric Ode, l.141^4.

   Not, I'll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee; Not untwistöslack they may beöthese last strands of man In me or, most weary, cry I can no more. I can; Cansomething, hope, wish daycome, not choose not to be.

-Gerard Manley Hopkins
  'Carrion Comfort'.

La syme¤  trie, c'est l'ennui, et l'ennui est le fond me"  me du deuil. Le de¤  sespoir ba"  ille. Symmetry isboredomand boredom isthe foundation of grief. Despair yawns.

-Hugo,Victor Marie
  Les Mise¤  rables, vol.2, bk.4, ch.1.

Charlie Parker†always filled me with a kind of despair, because he played the way I would have liked to write, and this wasn't possible for me or anyone else. He made poetry seem word-bound.

-Kavanagh, P(atrick) J(oseph Gregory)
  The Perfect Stranger, ch.5.

   7.Joy is fleeting, sinful and the forerunner of despair.

-Kennedy, A(lison) L(ouise)
  Looking for thePossible Dance,'The Scottish Methodfor the Perfection of Children'.