“Someone in despair despairs over something. So, for a moment, it seems, but only for a moment. That same instant the true despair shows itself, or despair in its true guise. In despairing over something he was really despairing over himself, and he wants now to be rid of himself.”
Source: 1840s, The Sickness unto Death (July 30, 1849), p. 49
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Sören Kierkegaard 309
Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism 1813–1855Related quotes
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“It's not the despair, Laura, I can stand the despair. It's the hope.”
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“My despair is less despair than boredom and loneliness.”
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Context: I felt despair. The word’s overused and banalified now, despair, but it’s a serious word, and I’m using it seriously. For me it denotes a simple admixture — a weird yearning for death combined with a crushing sense of my own smallness and futility that presents as a fear of death. It’s maybe close to what people call dread or angst. But it’s not these things, quite. It’s more like wanting to die in order to escape the unbearable feeling of becoming aware that I’m small and weak and selfish and going without any doubt at all to die. It’s wanting to jump overboard.
General Security: The Liquidation of Opium (1925)