“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”
Agatha Christie (1890–1976) English mystery and detective writer
Depressing quotes
A collection of quotes on the topic of sad quotes, depressing, depression, depressive.
Best depressing quotes
“No man is free who cannot control himself.”
Pythagoras (-585–-495 BC) ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher
“If there is no struggle, there is no progress.”
Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman
Variant: Without a struggle, there can be no progress.
“Once you choose hope, anything's possible.”
Christopher Reeve (1952–2004) actor, director, producer, screenwriter
“To live is to not know that one is living”
Florbela Espanca (1894–1930) Portuguese poet
Diary (20 April, 1930), quoted in Afinado desconcerto (2002), p. 262
Context: Sometimes I start looking at the mirror and examining myself, feature by feature: eyes, mouth, shape of the forehead, eyelids curve, the face line... And this vulgar and hideous-looking, grotesque and miserable amalgam, would it know how to do verses? Oh, no! There is something else … but what? After all, why think? To live is to not know that one is living... Why don't I forget that I am living... to live?
“The mind is everything. What you think you become.”
Gautama Buddha (-563–-483 BC) philosopher, reformer and the founder of Buddhism
“It always seems impossible until it's done.”
Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) President of South Africa, anti-apartheid activist
“The secret to getting ahead is getting started.”
Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist
Depressing quotes
“When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”
Max Planck (1858–1947) German theoretical physicist
“It's sad when someone you know becomes someone you knew.”
Henry Rollins (1961) American singer-songwriter
Variant: It is sad when someone you know becomes someone you knew.
“There's a time for departure even when there's no certain place to go.”
Tennessee Williams (1911–1983) American playwright
The quote is mistakenly attributed to the author
“Those who have a 'why' to live, can bear with almost any 'how'.”
Viktor E. Frankl book Man's Search for Meaning
Source: Quoted in Man's Search for Meaning and attributed to Friedrich Nietzsche.
“It's not worth the bother of killing yourself, since you always kill yourself too late.”
Emil M. Cioran book The Trouble With Being Born
The Trouble With Being Born (1973)
Source: The Trouble with Being Born
“Whenever you get there, there is no there there.”
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) American art collector and experimental writer of novels, poetry and plays
Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica
Frequently attributed to Nin, but without cited source in her work (possibly due to a quotation in Living on Purpose: Straight Answers to Universal Questions (2000) by Dan Millman that attributed the quote to Nin without source).
In March 2013, a former Director of Public Relations at John F. Kennedy University in Orinda, Elizabeth Appell, claimed she had authored the quote in 1979 for an inspirational header on a class schedule: http://anaisninblog.skybluepress.com/2013/03/who-wrote-risk-is-the-mystery-solved/
Disputed
Variant: The day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
“All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet
Source: Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson, with Annotations - 1841-1844
“To love is to will the good of the other.”
Thomas Aquinas book Summa Theologica
II-II, q. 26, art. 6
Summa Theologica (1265–1274)
Joanne K. Rowling (1965) British novelist, author of the Harry Potter series
2000s <br class="br">Context: Depression is the most unpleasant thing I have ever experienced. … It is that absence of being able to envisage that you will ever be cheerful again. The absence of hope. That very deadened feeling, which is so very different from feeling sad. Sad hurts but it's a healthy feeling. It's a necessary thing to feel. Depression is very different.<br><br>As quoted in "J. K. Rowling : The Interview," by Ann Treneman in The Times (30 June 2000) http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/2000/0600-times-treneman.html
“It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.”
Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy
“One thing you can't hide - is when you're crippled inside.”
John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter
“the purpose of life is the life of purpose”
Robin S. Sharma book The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari
Source: The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari
“Stop feeling sorry for yourself and you will be happy.”
Stephen Fry (1957) English comedian, actor, writer, presenter, and activist
“If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.”
Henry Ford (1863–1947) American industrialist
“All alone! Whether you like it or not, alone is something you'll be quite a lot!”
Dr. Seuss (1904–1991) American children's writer and illustrator, co-founder of Beginner Books
Source: Oh, the Places You'll Go! and The Lorax
“It’s about understanding! Understanding the world!”
Peter Higgs (1929) British physicist
Explaining what led him to study theoretical physics, as quoted by Ian Sample, in The god of small things http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/nov/17/sciencenews.particlephysics, The Guardian, Saturday 17 November 2007.
“If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi
“There are years that ask questions and years that answer.”
Zora Neale Hurston book Their Eyes Were Watching God
Source: Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), Ch. 3, p. 21.
“I am in that temper that if I were under water I would scarcely kick to come to the top.”
John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet
“Breathing is hard. When you cry so much, it makes you realize that breathing is hard.”
David Levithan book Love Is the Higher Law
Source: Love Is the Higher Law
“Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change.”
Wayne W. Dyer (1940–2015) American writer
“I am terrified by this dark thing that sleeps in me.”
Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer
Source: The Collected Poems
Fannie Flagg (1944) American actress, comedian and author
Source: The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion
“It's a wonderful life if you can find it.”
Nick Cave (1957) Australian musician
Source: Complete Lyrics
“Sometimes there is not always a cure.”
Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire
Source: City of Heavenly Fire
“You know, a heart can be broken, but it keeps on beating, just the same.”
Fannie Flagg book Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe
Variant: You know, a heart can be broken, but it still keeps a-beating just the same.
Source: Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe
“Our dead are never dead to us until we have forgotten them.”
George Eliot book Adam Bede
Source: Adam Bede (1859)
“I didn't want to wake up. I was having a much better time asleep. And that's really sad.”
Ned Vizzini book It's Kind of a Funny Story
Source: It's Kind of a Funny Story
"Elm" http://www.angelfire.com/tn/plath/elm.html <br class="br">Source: Ariel (1965) <br class="br">Context: p>I am inhabited by a cry.<br>Nightly it flaps out<br>Looking, with its hooks, for something to love.I am terrified by this dark thing<br>That sleeps in me;<br>All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity.</p
“Pain is always emotional. Fear and depression keep constant company with chronic hurting.”
Siri Hustvedt (1955) novelist, essayist, poet
Source: The Shaking Woman, or A History of My Nerves
“It will never rain roses: when we want to have more roses, we must plant more roses.”
George Eliot (1819–1880) English novelist, journalist and translator
“Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.”
Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist
“The purpose of life is a life of purpose.”
Robert Byrne (1928–2013) American chess player and writer
“There is no right life in the wrong one.”
Theodor W. Adorno (1903–1969) German sociologist, philosopher and musicologist known for his critical theory of society
Source: Minima Moralia: Reflections from a Damaged Life
“The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.”
Matka Tereza (1910–1997) Roman Catholic saint of Albanian origin
Interview by Edward W. Desmond in TIME magazine (4 December 1989)
1980s
“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that there was within me an invincible summer.”
Albert Camus (1913–1960) French author and journalist
“What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.”
Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer
“Things are not as they seem. They are what they are.”
Terry Pratchett book Thief of Time
Source: Thief of Time
“Woke up this morning afraid I was gonna live.”
Elizabeth Wurtzel book Prozac Nation
Source: Prozac Nation
“Seeming and being are not one and the same.”
Cecelia Ahern (1981) Irish novelist
Source: P.S. I Love You
“Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, it's always your choice.”
Wayne W. Dyer (1940–2015) American writer
“Monsters are real. Ghosts are too. They live inside of us, and sometimes, they win.”
Stephen King book The Shining
Source: The Shining (1977)
“My only advice is to stay aware, listen carefully, and yell for help if you need it.”
Judy Blume (1938) American children's writer
“To know and not to do is really not to know.”
Stephen R. Covey (1932–2012) American educator, author, businessman and motivational speaker
“Depression is melancholy minus its charms.”
Susan Sontag book Illness as Metaphor
Source: Illness as Metaphor
“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover the prisoner was you.”
Corrie ten Boom (1892–1983) Dutch resistance hero and writer
Andrew Solomon book The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression
Source: The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression
“Depression is not sobbing and crying and giving vent, it is plain and simple reduction of feeling.”
Judith Guest (1936) Novelist, screenwriter
“Perhaps depression is caused by asking oneself too many unanswerable questions.”
Miriam Toews (1964) Canadian writer known for novels set in the Mennonite community
Source: Swing Low
William James The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy
"Is Life Worth Living?"
Variant: Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.
Source: 1890s, The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (1897)
“It's brilliant, being depressed; you can behave as badly as you like.”
Nick Hornby book High Fidelity
Source: High Fidelity
“The worst kind of pain is when you're smiling just to stop the tears from falling.”
Hiro Mashima (1977) Japanese manga artist
Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist
Not by Twain, but from Edward Abbey's A Voice Crying In The Wilderness (1989).
Misattributed
“In the midst of life, we are in death.”
Agatha Christie And Then There Were None
Source: And Then There Were None
“No one ever lacks a good reason for suicide.”
Cesare Pavese (1908–1950) Italian poet, novelist, literary critic, and translator
This Business of Living (1935-1950)
“When you are happy it is harder to write”
Gloria Estefan (1957) Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada
songs
Gayle King XM satellite radio program (October 23, 2006)
2007, 2008
“Know what to Do. And do it Yourself.”
Chinmayananda Saraswati (1916–1993) Indian spiritual teacher
Quotations from Gurudev’s teachings, Chinmya Mission Chicago
“Never give way to melancholy; resist it steadily, for the habit will encroach.”
Sydney Smith (1771–1845) English writer and clergyman
Vol. I, ch. 10
Lady Holland's Memoir (1855)
“I like the saying "The world is as you are."”
David Lynch book Catching the Big Fish
The Circle, p. 21
Catching the Big Fish (2006)
Context: I like the saying "The world is as you are." And I think films are as you are. That's why, although the frames of a film are always the same — the same number, in the same sequence, with the same sounds — every screening is different. The difference is sometimes subtle but it's there. It depends on the audience. There is a circle that goes from the audience to the film and back. Each person is looking and thinking and feeling and coming up with his or her own sense of things. And it's probably different from what I fell in love with.
So you don’t know how it's going to hit people. But if you thought about how it's going to hit people, or if it's going to hurt someone, or if it's going to do this or do that, then you would have to stop making films. You just do these things that you fall in love with, and you never know what's going to happen.
H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author
Letter to "The Keicomolo"—Kleiner, Cole, and Moe (October 1916), in Selected Letters I, 1911-1924 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, pp. 26-27
Non-Fiction, Letters
Context: Frankly, I cannot conceive how any thoughtful man can really be happy. There is really nothing in the universe to live for, and unless one can dismiss thought and speculation from his mid, he is liable to be engulfed by the very immensity of creation. It is vastly better that he should amuse himself with religion, or any other convenient palliative to reality which comes to hand. … There is much relief from the burden of life to be derived from many sources. To the man of high animal spirits, there is the mere pleasure of being alive; the Joi de vivre, as our Gallick friends term it. To the credulous there is religion and its paradisal dreams. To the moralist, there is a certain satisfaction in right conduct. To the scientist there is the joy in pursuing truth which nearly counteracts the depressing revelations of truth. To the person of cultivated taste, there are the fine arts. To the man of humour, there is the sardonic delight of spying out pretensions and incongruities of life. To the poet there is the ability and privilege to fashion a little Arcadia in his fancy, wherein he may withdraw from the sordid reality of mankind at large. In short, the world abounds with simple delusions which we may call "happiness", if we be but able to entertain them.
Laozi (-604) semi-legendary Chinese figure, attributed to the 6th century, regarded as the author of the Tao Te Ching and fou…
“To be or not to be. That's not really a question.”
Jean-Luc Godard (1930) French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic
Norman Vincent Peale (1898–1993) American writer
Positive Thinking Every Day : An Inspiration for Each Day of the Year (1993), "April 13"
Earlier variant: People become really quite remarkable when they start thinking that they can do things. And those who have learned to have a realistic, nonegotistical belief in themselves, who possess a deep and sound self-confidence, are assets to mankind, too, for they transmit their dynamic quality to those lacking it.
You Can If You Think You Can (1987), p. 84
“It has been my philosophy of life that difficulties vanish when faced boldly”
Isaac Asimov book Foundation
Variant: It has been my philosophy of life that difficulties vanish when faced boldly.
Source: Foundation
Kay Redfield Jamison (1946) American bipolar disorder researcher
Source: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
Andrew Solomon book The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression
Source: The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression
“Life's under no obligation to give us what we expect.”
Margaret Mitchell (1900–1949) American author and journalist
Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism
Source: Either/Or: A Fragment of Life
Edward Abbey (1927–1989) American author and essayist
Source: A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto) (1990), Ch. 4 : Life and Death and All That p.43
“Change is no loss, Will. Not always.”
Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Princess
Source: Clockwork Princess
William Styron book Darkness Visible
Source: Darkness Visible (1990), III
Context: This general unawareness of what depression is really like was apparent most recently in the matter of Primo Levi, the remarkable Italian writer and survivor of Auschwitz who, at the age of sixty-seven, hurled himself down a stairwell in Turin in 1987. Since my own involvement with the illness, I had been more than ordinarily interested in Levi’s death, and so, late in 1988, when I read an account in The New York Times about a symposium on the writer and his work held at New York University, I was fascinated but, finally, appalled. For, according to the article, many of the participants, worldly writers and scholars, seemed mystified by Levi’s suicide, mystified and disappointed. It was as if this man whom they had all so greatly admired, and who had endured so much at the hands of the Nazis — a man of exemplary resilience and courage — had by his suicide demonstrated a frailty, a crumbling of character they were loath to accept. In the face of a terrible absolute — self-destruction — their reaction was helplessness and (the reader could not avoid it) a touch of shame.
My annoyance over all this was so intense that I was prompted to write a short piece for the op-ed page of the Times. The argument I put forth was fairly straightforward: the pain of severe depression is quite unimaginable to those who have not suffered it, and it kills in many instances because its anguish can no longer be borne. The prevention of many suicides will continue to be hindered until there is a general awareness of the nature of this pain. Through the healing process of time — and through medical intervention or hospitalization in many cases — most people survive depression, which may be its only blessing; but to the tragic legion who are compelled to destroy themselves there should be no more reproof attached than to the victims of terminal cancer.