Definition of Desperation

Desperation

The act of despairing or becoming desperate; a giving up of hope.

A state of despair, or utter hopeless; abandonment of hope; extreme recklessness; reckless fury.

Related Definitions:

Abandonment, Act, Becoming, Despair, Despairing, Desperate, Extreme, Fury, Giving, Hope, Hopeless, Of, Or, Reckless, State, The, Up, Utter

Desperation Quotations

In life you need either inspiration or desperation.
Tony Robbins

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.
Henry David Thoreau

The tragedy of it is that nobody sees the look of desperation on my face. Thousands and thousands of us, and we're passing one another without a look of recognition.
Henry Miller

Wheels of fire, cosmic, rich, full-bodied honest victories over desperation.
Thomas Merton

Desperation is sometimes as powerful an inspirer as genius.
Benjamin Disraeli

If I were a Roman Catholic, I should turn a heretic, in sheer desperation, because I would rather go to heaven than go to purgatory.
Charles Spurgeon

Desperation is the raw material of drastic change. Only those who can leave behind everything they have ever believed in can hope to escape.
William S. Burroughs

Niger is not an isolated island of desperation. It lies within a sea of problems across Africa - particularly the 'forgotten emergencies' in poor countries or regions with little strategic or material appeal.
Desmond Tutu

Nowadays men lead lives of noisy desperation.
James Thurber

The abjection of our political situation is the only true challenge today. Only facing up to this situation in all its desperation can help us get out of it.
Jean Baudrillard

I don't think human beings learn anything without desperation. Desperation is a necessary ingredient to learning anything or creating anything. Period. If you ain't desperate at some point, you ain't interesting.
Jim Carrey

Desperation is a necessary ingredient to learning anything, or creating anything. Period. If you ain't desperate at some point, you ain't interesting.
Jim Carrey

People need motivation to do anything. I don't think human beings learn anything without desperation.
Jim Carrey

We all need money, but there are degrees of desperation.
Anthony Burgess

Lottery tickets are a surtax on desperation.
Doug Coupland

Today, for a Jew who writes in the German language, it is totally impossible to make a living. In no group do I see as much misery, disappointment, desperation and hopelessness as in Jewish writers who write in German.
Stefan Zweig

Every age yearns for a more beautiful world. The deeper the desperation and the depression about the confusing present, the more intense that yearning.
Johan Huizinga

Now people want what the movie was about, which is violent comedy. And that's really what The Aristocrats is based on - what will a family do out of desperation.
Bob Saget

Who knows where inspiration comes from. Perhaps it arises from desperation. Perhaps it comes from the flukes of the universe, the kindness of the muses.
Amy Tan

I have always used the world of make-believe with a certain desperation.
Ruth Benedict

Desperation is like stealing from the Mafia: you stand a good chance of attracting the wrong attention.
Douglas Horton

I sort of got into Westerns... It was a sort of desperation move, really. I had several pictures that didn't go very well, and I just realised that I would have to try something else.
James Stewart

Killing yourself is a major commitment, it takes a kind of courage. Most people just lead lives of cowardly desperation. It's kinda half suicide where you just dull yourself with substances.
Robert Crumb

I like movies about longing and desperation, and dark and light things, stories about people struggling to raise children, and to have relationships and be intimate with each other.
Laura Dern

Desperation is the perfume of the young actor. It's so satisfying to have gotten rid of it. If you keep smelling it, it can drive you crazy. In this business a lot of people go nuts, go eccentric, even end up dead from it. Not my plan.
Uma Thurman

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

So, how to stay inside the world of entertainment without actually getting another job? I felt the only logical answer was to become a novelist. So I wrote the first book - driven by some very real feelings of desperation - and it worked.
Lee Child

My interest in desperation lies only in that sometimes I find myself having become desperate. Very seldom do I start out that way. I can see of course that, in the abstract, thinking and all activity is rather desperate.
Willem de Kooning

I am one of those people who thrive on deadlines, nothing brings on inspiration more readily than desperation.
Harry Shearer

My hunger and desperation, being an actor, an out of work actor - my memory of that is as fresh as an open wound.
Griffin Dunne

More Desperation Quotations

Desperation Translations

desperation in German is Verzweifelung, Verzweiflung

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