“Because I remember, I despair. Because I remember, I have the duty to reject despair.”

— Elie Wiesel

Hope, Despair, and Memory (1986)
Context: Because I remember, I despair. Because I remember, I have the duty to reject despair. I remember the killers, I remember the victims, even as I struggle to invent a thousand and one reasons to hope.

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Elie Wiesel 155

writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and … 1928–2016

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“And remember: you must never, under any circumstances, despair. To hope and to act, these are our duties in misfortune.”

Borís Pasternak book Doctor Zhivago

Source: Doctor Zhivago

“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible. But in the end they always fall. Think of it—always…”

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India

This appears to have been originally written by John Briley in the screenplay http://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/Gandhi.txt for the movie, Gandhi (1982), spoken by Ben Kingsley, playing Gandhi. The earliest [partial] misattribution to Gandhi appears to be by Ronald Reagan in an address http://www.nytimes.com/1984/09/25/world/transcript-of-reagan-s-address-to-the-un-general-assembly.html?pagewanted=all to the United Nations General Assembly on 24 September 1984 (also a misquotation, substituting the word fail for fall). John S. Dunne misattributes the first sentence in The Peace of the Present (1991) on p. 50 https://books.google.com/books?id=NYIJAAAAIAAJ&q=%22when+Gandhi+says%22+%22When+I+despair,+I+remember+that+all+through+history+the+way+of+truth+and+love+has+always+won.%22&dq=%22when+Gandhi+says%22+%22When+I+despair,+I+remember+that+all+through+history+the+way+of+truth+and+love+has+always+won.%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjhufXN09LWAhWG7SYKHbRdCJ0Q6AEIJzAA, just after misattributing the same first two sentences that Reagan did. Dunne also misattributes the final part of the quotation in the same book on p. 34 https://books.google.com/books?id=NYIJAAAAIAAJ&q=%22Think+of+it+%E2%80%94+always%E2%80%A6%22+%22When+you+are+in+doubt+that+that+is+God%27s+way,+the+way+the+world+is+meant+to+be%E2%80%A6+think+of+that.%22&dq=%22Think+of+it+%E2%80%94+always%E2%80%A6%22+%22When+you+are+in+doubt+that+that+is+God%27s+way,+the+way+the+world+is+meant+to+be%E2%80%A6+think+of+that.%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjEw57e1tLWAhUSdiYKHUNiA2kQ6AEIMTAC.
Misattributed
Context: When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible. But in the end they always fall. Think of it—always… When you are in doubt that that is God's way, the way the world is meant to be… think of that.

“It's not the despair, Laura, I can stand the despair. It's the hope.”

Michael Frayn (1933) British writer

Clockwise (1986), cited from Malcolm Page File on Frayn (London: Methuen, 1994) p. 65.

“There’s a really interesting thing about despair, I think. It has a spark in it of deep motivation. I think despair can be described as looking at every possible scenario and seeing no hopeful one. But what that means is, if you can present someone in despair with one scenario that looks hopeful – that looks like a real possibility – then there’s this immense wealth of motivation to drive toward it, because despair is not a nice place to be.”

Shaun Chamberlin

Kosmos interview on grief, Dark Optimism, aliveness and activism (2014) http://www.darkoptimism.org/2014/12/21/dark-optimism-power-of-grief/#post-4075

“And the other Don Quixote remained here among us, fighting with desperation. And does he not fight out of despair? …But "despair is the master of possibilities," as we learn from Salazar y Torres (Elegir al enemigo, Act I.), and it is despair and despair alone that begets heroic hope, absurd hope, mad hope. Spero quia absurdum [I hope because it is absurd], it ought to have been said, rather than credo”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher

Credo quia absurdam — I believe because it is absurd
The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), Conclusion : Don Quixote in the Contemporary European Tragi-Comedy