Quotes about depressive (670 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“My strong point is that even if I don’t do well in a competition, I don’t really get depressed. On the contrary, my motivation goes up 100% after a competition where I’ve failed.”

Yuzuru Hanyu (1994) Japanese figure skater (1994-)

Translation source: https://kaerb.tumblr.com/post/169640478259/my-strong-point-is-that-even-if-i-dont-do-well (user-translation) from 13 January 2018.
Page: 23.
Original: (ja) 試合でうまくいかなくてもあまり落ち込まないのが僕の特徴です。逆に失敗した試合のあとは100%モチベーションが上がります。

Strong , Motivation

“Recession is when your neighbor loses his job. Depression is when you lose yours. And recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

Speech in Jersey City, New Jersey (1 September 1980) http://www.slate.com/id/2201249/
1980s
Context: Let it show on the record that when the American people cried out for economic help, Jimmy Carter took refuge behind a dictionary. Well, if it's a definition he wants, I'll give him one. A recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose yours. And recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his.

Funny

“If you look at the world, you'll be distressed. If you look within, you'll be depressed. If you look at God you'll be at rest.”

Corrie ten Boom (1892–1983) Dutch resistance hero and writer

God , World

“You get depressed because you know that you're not what you should be.”

Marilyn Manson (1969) American rock musician and actor

“I go through a lot of depression, and I know other people do, too, but I have an outlet that so many people don't. If you have that inside of you and can't get it out, what do you do?”

Billie Eilish (2001) American singer-songwriter

People

“If it were not for the depressing heat and the urgency of the work, one could sit down and laugh to tears at the absurdity of the thing, and under the circumstances it is a little wearing. But our motto is the old west coast proverb,; in other words, don't flurry; patience gains the day.”

Robert Baden-Powell (1857–1941) lieutenant-general in the British Army, writer, founder and Chief Scout of the Scout Movement

Tear , Patience

“When a human being takes his life in depression, this is a natural death of spiritual causes. The modern barbarity of 'saving' the suicidal is based on a hair-raising misapprehension of the nature of existence.”

Peter Wessel Zapffe (1899–1990) Norwegian philosopher, mountaineer, and author

The Last Messiah [Den sidste Messias] (1933)

Life , Death , Nature , Suicide

“My day passes between logic, whistling, going for walks, and being depressed. I wish to God that I were more intelligent and everything would finally become clear to me - or else that I needn’t live much longer.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

Source: Letters to Russell, Keynes and Moore

God , Intelligence

“I'll never forget how the depression and loneliness felt good and bad at the same time. Still does.”

Henry Rollins (1961) American singer-songwriter

Source: The Portable Henry Rollins

Time , Loneliness , Forgetting

“When I am anxious it is because I am living in the future. When I am depressed it is because I am living in the past.”

Laozi (-604) semi-legendary Chinese figure, attributed to the 6th century, regarded as the author of the Tao Te Ching and fou…

Attributed to "Jimmy R." in Days of Healing, Days of Joy (1987)
Misattributed
Source: link https://books.google.com/books?id=7QNk4eNvS44C&pg=PA175&lpg=PA175&dq=%22days+of+healing+days+of+joy%22+%22jimmy+r%22&source=bl&ots=C-jAUVg8y8&sig=fB9m-eQ1IvtjJV6Ncz8mZ30RRHo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAGoVChMIrYnZyNDlyAIVV_5jCh07uQOs#v=onepage&q=%22days%20of%20healing%20days%20of%20joy%22%20%22jimmy%20r%22&f=false

Past , Future

“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.”

Joanne K. Rowling (1965) British novelist, author of the Harry Potter series

2000s
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.

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

Sad , Depressing , Hope

“Stress,
Anxiety
&
Depression
are caused when we are living to
please others.
Live your life for you.
Remove Toxic people from it.
Avoid
Dysfunction
&
Negativity
at
All Costs!”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

People , Life

“Depression, is usually the result of accepting suppression. Resulting from attempts to keep the peace in a relationship or subverting the truth.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

1995

Peace , Truth

“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

Heartbreaking , Depressing , Hurtful , Pain

“Melancholy suicide. —This is connected with a general state of extreme depression and exaggerated sadness, causing the patient no longer to realize sanely the bonds which connect him with people and things about him. Pleasures no longer attract;”

Émile Durkheim (1858–1917) French sociologist (1858-1917)

Source: On Suicide: A Study in Sociology

People , Pleasure , Sadness , Suicide

“The silence depressed me. It wasn't the silence of silence. It was my own silence. I knew perfectly well the cars were making a noise, and the people in them and behind the lit windows of the buildings were making a noise, and the river was making a noise, but I couldn't hear a thing. The city hung in my window, flat as a poster, glittering and blinking, but it might just as well not have been there at all, for the good it did me.”

Sylvia Plath book The Bell Jar

Source: The Bell Jar (1963), Ch. 2

People , Cars , Silence

“A decline in courage may be the most striking feature that an outside observer notices in the West today. The Western world has lost its civic courage, both as a whole and separately, in each country, in each government, in each political party, and, of course, in the United Nations. Such a decline in courage is particularly noticeable among the ruling and intellectual elites, causing an impression of a loss of courage by the entire society. There are many courageous individuals, but they have no determining influence on public life.
Political and intellectual functionaries exhibit this depression, passivity, and perplexity in their actions and in their statements, and even more so in their self-serving rationales as to how realistic, reasonable, and intellectually and even morally justified it is to base state policies on weakness and cowardice. And the decline in courage, at times attaining what could be termed a lack of manhood, is ironically emphasized by occasional outbursts and inflexibility on the part of those same functionaries when dealing with weak governments and with countries that lack support, or with doomed currents which clearly cannot offer resistance. But they get tongue-tied and paralyzed when they deal with powerful governments and threatening forces, with aggressors and international terrorists.
Should one point out that from ancient times decline in courage has been considered the beginning of the end?”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) Russian writer

Variant translation: A loss of courage may be the most striking feature which an outside observer notices in the West in our days...
Harvard University address (1978)

Life , World , Courage , Support

“Credit expansion can bring about a temporary boom. But such a fictitious prosperity must end in a general depression of trade, a slump.”

Ludwig von Mises book Socialism

Socialism (1922), Epilogue (1947)

“I was a depressive and self-destructive alcoholic, but I was lucky enough to meet the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and be rescued by it 15 years ago.”

José José (1948–2019) Mexican singer

http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/notas/560409.html

Alcohol

“Everywhere I go people are making a mess of their lives. Everyone has his private tragedy. It's in the blood now - misfortune, ennui, grief, suicide. The atmosphere is saturated with disaster, frustration, futility. Scratch and scratch, until there's no skin left. However, the effect upon me is exhilarating. Instead of being discouraged or depressed, I enjoy it. I am crying for more and more disasters, for bigger calamities, grander failures. I want the whole world to be out of whack, I want every one to scratch himself to death.”

Henry Miller book Tropic of Cancer

Source: Tropic of Cancer (1934), Chapter One
Context: Well, I'll take these pages and move on. Things are happening elsewhere. Things are always happening. It seems wherever I go there is drama. People are like lice - they get under your skin and bury themselves there. You scratch and scratch until the blood comes, but you can't get permanently deloused. Everywhere I go people are making a mess of their lives. Everyone has his private tragedy. It's in the blood now - misfortune, ennui, grief, suicide. The atmosphere is saturated with disaster, frustration, futility. Scratch and scratch, until there's no skin left. However, the effect upon me is exhilarating. Instead of being discouraged or depressed, I enjoy it. I am crying for more and more disasters, for bigger calamities, grander failures. I want the whole world to be out of whack, I want every one to scratch himself to death.

Death , People , World , Failure

“If you can say something that's funny or do something that's ridiculous, it'll make people laugh. So many people struggle with dark thoughts, depression, and internal pain. I'm not an expert on it, but I know that if I'm ever feeling down, if someone can make me laugh, it really is a cure to those thoughts.”

Джош Дан (1988) American musician

Pain , People , Feeling

“Depression is often a misunderstood and misdiagnosed concept. Given how debilitating and life-choking depression can be, it's really essential that we truly appreciate the complexity of this condition. A one size fits all label that obscures each individual's unique circumstances is terribly short-sighted and perhaps inhumane.

Often, depression is what I call situational. In other words, outside stressors and the culture that we live may cause, contribute to or exacerbate this disorder. When dysfunction appears at epidemic rates, we need to take a deeper look at what's going on.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Life , Appearance

“You have an amazing ability to depress me sometimes, you know that?"
"I try my best.”

Derek Landy (1974) Irish children's writer

Source: Death Bringer

“Work is always an antidote to depression.”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

“We do not like to be robbed of an enemy; we want someone to hate when we suffer. It is so depressing to think that we suffer because we are fools; yet, taking mankind in the mass, that is the truth.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Source: Sceptical Essays

Hate , Truth , Fools , Thinking

“I'm currently in the middle of a depression. I couldn't really tell you what set it off, but I think it stems from my cowardice, which confronts me at every turn.”

Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary

Source: The Diary of a Young Girl

Thinking

“I am astonished, disappointed, pleased with myself. I am distressed, depressed, rapturous. I am all these things at once and cannot add up the sum.”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology

Disappointment

“If you are cold, tea will warm you;
if you are too heated, it will cool you;
If you are depressed, it will cheer you;
If you are excited, it will calm you.”

William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) British Liberal politician and prime minister of the United Kingdom

Tea

“A simile committing suicide is always a depressing spectacle.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

"The Poets' Corner III," The Pall Mall Gazette http://www.online-literature.com/wilde/1307/ (May 30, 1887)

Suicide

“Do research. Feed your talent. Research not only wins the war on cliche, it's the key to victory over fear and it's cousin, depression.”

Robert McKee (1941) American academic specialised in seminars for screenwriters

Source: Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting

War , Fear , Victory

“Om began to feel the acute depression that steals over every realist in the presence of an optimist.”

Terry Pratchett book Small Gods

Source: Small Gods

Feeling

“Depression on my left, Loneliness on my right. They don't need to show me thier badges. I know these guys very well.”

Elizabeth Gilbert (1969) American writer

Guy , Loneliness

“Depression is melancholy minus its charms.”

Susan Sontag book Illness as Metaphor

Source: Illness as Metaphor

Depressing

“Sunday neurosis, that kind of depression which afflicts people who become aware of the lack of content in their lives when the rush of the busy week is over and the void within themselves becomes manifest.”

Viktor E. Frankl book Man's Search for Meaning

Source: Man's Search for Meaning

People , Business , Affliction

“To get up in the morning, wash and then wait for some unforeseen variety of dread or depression. I would give the whole universe and all of Shakespeare for a grain of ataraxy.”

Emil M. Cioran book The Trouble With Being Born

The Trouble With Being Born (1973)
Source: The Trouble with Being Born

Universe , Waiting

“Depression is not sobbing and crying and giving vent, it is plain and simple reduction of feeling.”

Judith Guest (1936) Novelist, screenwriter

Depressing , Feeling , Cry

“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

Depressing , Question

“Depression is like a bruise that never goes away. A bruise in your mind. You just got to be careful not to touch it where it hurts. It's always there, though.”

Jeffrey Eugenides book The Marriage Plot

Source: The Marriage Plot

Depressing , Hurt

“i wondered if i would spend the rest of my life inventing complicated ways to depress myself..”

Miranda July (1974) American performance artist, musician and writer

Source: No One Belongs Here More Than You

Life , Way

“If there was anything that depressed him more than his own cynicism, it was that quite often it still wasn't as cynical as real life.”

Terry Pratchett book Guards! Guards!

Source: Guards! Guards!

Life

“It's brilliant, being depressed; you can behave as badly as you like.”

Nick Hornby book High Fidelity

Source: High Fidelity

Depressing

“Everything was usual. That was depression: being stuck, clinging to an out-of-date version of oneself.”

Edward St. Aubyn (1960) British writer

Source: The Patrick Melrose Novels

Depressing

“I don't like novels that end happily. They depress me so much”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

Source: The Importance of Being Earnest

“A part of my depression lies, I think, in my unanswered question: Where is home? I feel a sense, always, of trying to find my way back to a place that doesn't exist.”

Sally Brampton (1955–2016) British writer

Source: Shoot the Damn Dog: A Memoir of Depression

Way , Feeling , Home , Question

“Greedhas no satiation point, since its consummation does not fill the inner emptiness, boredom, loneliness, and depression it is meant to overcome.”

Erich Fromm (1900–1980) German social psychologist and psychoanalyst

Loneliness

“And try not to get too depressed in the part of the journey, because there’s a professional responsibility. If you are depressed, you can’t motivate your staff to extraordinary measures. So you have to keep your own spirits up even though you well understand that you don’t know what you’re doing.”

Andrew S. Grove (1936–2016) Hungarian-born American businessman, engineer, and author

Cited in: " Andy Grove Tells The Truth About What Great Leaders Do http://bobsutton.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/03/andy_grove_tell.html." bobsutton.typepad.com/my weblog. by Bob Sutton, March 11, 2007.
New millennium, Harvard Business School Press conference, 2002

Motivation , Understanding , Parting

“I used to work in jobs I hated because I needed the money to buy a guitar. I know what it feels like to be depressed. On the other hand, I also know what it feels like to have money, to be successful, to be independent, but I can tell you that money and success never solve your problems.”

Chris Cornell (1964–2017) American singer-songwriter, musician

NYROCK: Interview with Chris Cornell, October 1, 1999 https://web.archive.org/web/20030919022841/http://www.nyrock.com/interviews/1999/cornell_int.asp,
On depression and suicide

Money , Hate , Feeling , Problem

“I definitely had an eating disorder. What was really frustrating for me was that everyone thought I was anorexic, and I wasn't. I was really depressed and self-loathing. For me, it wasn't about being thin, it was about getting rid of the bait attached to my body. A lot of it came from the self-loathing that came from being raped at the point of developing my voluptuousness. I just thought that if you had a body and if you had anything on you that would be grabbed, it would be grabbed. So I did purposely get rid of it…I mean, my plan is to gain enough weight that I can really be considered voluptuous, and do my 'First Taste' video. And I am preparing myself for what is going to happen. Because soon they will be saying that I'm fat. And it will hurt me.”

Fiona Apple (1977) singer-songwriter, musician

Rolling Stone, "The Caged Bird Sings" January [1998]

Hurt

“I don't oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair, weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne. What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income, to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression. That’s what I’m opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Remarks of Illinois State Sen. Barack Obama Against Going to War with Iraq (2 October 2002) http://action.barackobama.com/page/share/2002iraqfull; referencing the positions of former Pentagon policy adviser Richard Perle, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and chief Bush political adviser Karl Rove.
2000-03

War , Passion

“If you accept the ordinary laws of science, you have to suppose that human life and life in general on this planet will die out in due course: it is a stage in the decay of the solar system… You see in the moon the sort of thing to which the earth is tending – something dead, cold, and lifeless.
I am told that that sort of view is depressing, and people will sometimes tell you that if they believed that, they would not be able to go on living. Do not believe it; it is all nonsense. Nobody really worries much about what is going to happen millions of years hence. Even if they think they are worrying much about that, they are really deceiving themselves. They are worried about something much more mundane, or it may merely be a bad digestion; but nobody is really seriously rendered unhappy by the thought of something that is going to happen to this world millions and millions of years hence. Therefore, although it is of course a gloomy view to suppose that life will die out – at least I suppose we may say so, although sometimes when I contemplate the things that people do with their lives I think it is almost a consolation – it is not such as to render life miserable. It merely makes you turn your attention to other things.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

"The Argument from Design"
1920s, Why I Am Not a Christian (1927)

Life , People , World , Law

“However, our task is far from over. Our friends in the other party will never forgive us for our success, and are doing everything in their power to rewrite history. Listening to the liberals, you'd think that the 1980's were the worst period since the Great Depression, filled with suffering and despair. I don't know about you, but I'm getting awfully tired of the whining voices from the White House these days. They're claiming there was a decade of greed and neglect, but you and I know better than that. We were there.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

Speech at 1994 Gala for 83rd Birthday http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/P/rr40/speeches/gala_speech.htm (3 February 1994)
Post-presidency (1989–2004)

History , Forgiveness , Thinking , Suffering

“I love tea. Mmmm. I know I'm getting old because I'm startin' get excited about tea. Just sitting in the loungeroom bored ya no. Somebody goes "You want a cup of tea?" and I go "Oar he hor." Start feeling a little bit depressed when it gets to the bottom, I think to myself I'll just make myself another cup, I can feel happy again.”

Carl Barron (1964) Australian comedian

Carl Barron Live (2003)

Love , Feeling , Thinking , Tea

“I think yet again of my father, who struggled to become a painter after he was forced into early and unwelcome retirement by the Great Depression. He has reason to be optimistic about his new career, since the early stages of his pictures, whether still or portraits or landscapes, were full of pow. Mother, meaning to be helpful, would say of each one: "That's really wonderful, Kurt. Now all you have to do is finish it." He would then ruin it. I remember a portrait he did of his only brother, Alex, who was an insurance salesman, which he called "Special Agent". When he roughed it in, his hand and eye conspired with a few bold strokes to capture several important truths about Alex, including a hint of disappointment. Uncle Alex was a proud graduate of Harvard, who would rather have been a scholar of literature than an insurance man.
When Father finished the portrait, made sure every square inch of masonite had its share of paint, Uncle Alex had disappeared entirely. We had a drunk and lustful Queen Victoria instead. This was terrible.”

Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) American writer

Fates Worse than Death (1991)

Truth , Disappointment , Literature , Thinking

“I probably always say the same things; I hope people don't remember. One of the same things I say is that Japanese macroeconomic policy is perversely and inexcusably incompetent, and I surely would say that again. It's true-as Paul Krugman, a fellow participant in this program, has been saying and as I have said here in previous years-that Japan has reinvented the Keynesian liquidity trap. It can now reappear in classrooms where it had been long ignored or at best barely mentioned as a curiosum of the Great Depression.”

James Tobin (1918–2002) American economist

"Reflections on Japanese Political Economy" (1999)

People , Hope

“There were times where I was in the Oval Office and people would come to me with all kinds of political problems and policy problems and international problems, and my team would be getting discouraged and depressed, and I would say to them, I have to be optimistic, because the odds of somebody named Barack Obama being President of the United States were very low, and the fact that, in my lifetime, I have seen such enormous, positive change in the United States and around the world tells me that, although history does not travel in a straight line, it moves in the direction of justice and freedom and a better life for people. But we have to fight for it. We have to work for it.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2016, News Conference With Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany (November 2016)

Life , People , World , Justice

“No one, I think, can deny that the depression of the agricultural interest is excessive. Though I can recall periods of suffering, none of them have ever equalled the present in its instances. … the agricultural interest is suffering from a succession of bad harvest, accompanied, for the first time, by extremely low prices. That is a remarkable circumstance that has never before occurred—a combination that has never before been encountered. In old days, when we had a bad harvest we had also the somewhat dismal compensation of higher prices; but now, when the harvests are bad the prices are lower rather than higher…nor is it open to doubt that foreign competition has exercised a most injurious influence on the agricultural interests of the country. The country, however, was perfectly warned that if we made a great revolution in our industrial system, that was one of the consequences that would accrue. I may mention that the great result of the returns we possess is this, that the immense importations of foreign agricultural produce have been vastly in excess of what the increased demands of our population actually require, and that is why the low prices are maintained…That is to a great degree the cause of this depression.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Speech in the House of Lords on the state of agriculture (28 March 1879), reported in The Times (29 March 1879), p. 8.
1870s

Exercises , Thinking , Suffering , Time

“It is like reading of a land periodically devastated by hordes of lemmings or locusts; it is like turning from the history of a coral reef, in which every act and every death is a foundation, to the depressing chronicle of a succession of castles built on the waste sand of the sea-shore. This is Woodruff on the difference between European history and Indian history. He has chosen his images well. But the sandcastle is not quite exact. The sandcastle is flattened by the tide and leaves not trace, and India is above all the land of ruins.”

V.S. Naipaul book An Area of Darkness

An Area of Darkness (1964)

Death , History , Reading , Success

“As I traveled, talking about these issues, I met so many young people who had lost hope. Some were depressed; some were apathetic; some were angry and violent. And when I talked to them, they all more or less felt this way because we had compromised their future and the world of tomorrow was not going to sustain their great-grandchildren.”

Jane Goodall (1934) British primatologist, ethologist, and anthropologist

Then & Now: Jane Goodall (2005)

People , World , Hope , Way

“The gospel freely admitted makes a man happy. It gives him peace with God, and makes him happy in God. It gives to industry a noble, contented look which selfish drudgery never wore; and from the moment that a man begins to do his work for his Saviour's sake, he feels that the most ordinary employments are full of sweetness and dignity, and that the most difficult are not impossible. And if any of you, my friends, is weary with his work, if dissatisfaction with yourself or sorrow of any kind disheartens you, if at any time you feel the dull paralysis of conscious sin, or the depressing influence of vexing thoughts, look to Jesus, and be happy. Be happy, and your joyful work will prosper well.”

William Wilberforce (1759–1833) English politician

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 368.

God , Peace , Feeling , Time

“I am cross and depressed, and people bore me with their excessive attentions. I can't breathe, I can't work; I feel alone, alone, alone, although I am surrounded. There are a whole lot of ladies, 70 to 80 year-old lords, but no young folk: they are all out shooting. One can't get out of doors because it has been raining and blowing for several days.”

Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849) Polish composer

Source: Cited in chopin-society.org.uk http://www.chopin-society.org.uk/articles/chopin-britain.htm

People , Feeling

“By virtue of depression, we recall those misdeeds we buried in the depths of our memory. Depression exhumes our shames.”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

Anathemas and Admirations (1987)

Memory

“And now, ladies and gentlemen, that we've enjoyed some good times this evening, and enjoyed some laughter together, I feel it is my obligation to remind you of some of the negative, depressing, dangerous, life-threatening things that life is really all about; things you have not been thinking about tonight, but which will be waiting for you as soon as you leave the theater or as soon as you turn off your television sets. Anal rape, quicksand, body lice, evil spirits, gridlock, acid rain, continental drift, labor violence, flash floods, rabies, torture, bad luck, calcium deficiency, falling rocks, cattle stampedes, bank failure, evil neighbors, killer bees, organ rejection, lynching, toxic waste, unstable dynamite, religious fanatics, prickly heat, price fixing, moral decay, hotel fires, loss of face, stink bombs, bubonic plague, neo-Nazis, friction, cereal weevils, failure of will, chain reaction, soil erosion, mail fraud, dry rot, voodoo curse, broken glass, snake bite, parasites, white slavery, public ridicule, faithless friends, random violence, breach of contract, family scandals, charlatans, transverse myelitis, structural defects, race riots, sunspots, rogue elephants, wax buildup, killer frost, jealous coworkers, root canals, metal fatigue, corporal punishment, sneak attacks, peer pressure, vigilantes, birth defects, false advertising, ungrateful children, financial ruin, mildew, loss of privileges, bad drugs, ill-fitting shoes, widespread chaos, Lou Gehrig's disease, stray bullets, runaway trains, chemical spills, locusts, airline food, shipwrecks, prowlers, bathtub accidents, faulty merchandise, terrorism, discrimination, wrongful cremation, carbon deposits, beef tapeworm, taxation without representation, escaped maniacs, sunburn, abandonment, threatening letters, entropy, nine-mile fever, poor workmanship, absentee landlords, solitary confinement, depletion of the ozone layer, unworthiness, intestinal bleeding, defrocked priests, loss of equilibrium, disgruntled employees, global warming, card sharks, poisoned meat, nuclear accidents, broken promises, contamination of the water supply, obscene phone calls, nuclear winter, wayward girls, mutual assured destruction, rampaging moose, the greenhouse effect, cluster headaches, social isolation, Dutch elm disease, the contraction of the universe, paper cuts, eternal damnation, the wrath of God, and PARANOIAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

Playing With Your Head (1986)

Life , God , Bad luck , Children

“Tonight, more than 200 years after a former colony won the right to determine its own destiny, the task of perfecting our union moves forward. It moves forward because of you. It moves forward because you reaffirmed the spirit that has triumphed over war and depression, the spirit that has lifted this country from the depths of despair to the great heights of hope, the belief that while each of us will pursue our own individual dreams, we are an American family and we rise or fall together as one nation and as one people.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2012, Re-election Speech (November 2012)

War , People , Family , Dreams

“It seems beyond doubt that the tariff policy pursued during the last half century has not raised the standard of living of the labouring classes. It is doubtful if agricultural duties increase the relative scarcity of manual labour compared with other factors, and they certainly raise the cost of living for the working classes. It is, however, true that manufacturing duties tend to depress the rent of farm land… It is on the whole not at all unlikely that the sum total of rent is reduced in countries with high manufacturing duties… In most countries, however, the sum of rents is small compared with the sum of wages to manual workers. Even a substantial reduction of the former brings only a slight increase in the latter.”

Bertil Ohlin (1899–1979) Swedish economist and politician

Source: Interregional and international trade. (1933), p. 307; As cited in: Irwin, Douglas A. "Ohlin Versus Stolper-Samuelson." No. w7641. National bureau of economic research, 2000. p. 4.

Country

“Beer, of course, is actually a depressant. But poor people will never stop hoping otherwise.”

Kurt Vonnegut book Hocus Pocus

Hocus Pocus (1990)

People , Hope , Beer

“Interviewer: "So Jeff, what are your main musical influences?" Jeff (after a long pause): "Love, anger, depression, joy and dreams…. And Zeppelin. Totally."”

Jeff Buckley (1966–1997) American singer, guitarist and songwriter

From Grace EPK (Electronic Press Kit)

Love , Dreams , Music , Joy

“I know these are difficult times. I know folks are worried. But I also know that now is not the time for fear or panic. Now is the time for resolve and steady leadership. Because I know we can steer ourselves out of this crisis. This is a nation that has faced down war and depression; great challenges and great threats. We have seen always that mountaintop from the deepest valley. We have always risen to the moment when the moment was hard – and we can do it again. We can restore confidence in our economy and renew that fundamental belief – that here in America, our destiny is not written for us, but by us.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

OBAMA: ‘Our Destiny Is Not Written For Us, But By Us’, STARS AND STRIPES: Rally For Change, Progress Plaza, Philadelphia, 8 AM, (10 October 2008) http://www.phawker.com/2008/10/11/obama-our-destiny-is-not-written-for-us-but-by-us/
2008

War , Fear , Confidence , Time

“[On his childhood problems and his father's second marriage to Helen] It was very difficult in the beginning, when everybody was talking about it. My mother just couldn't take it. It hurt her terribly. She used to worry all the time, go in to depression frequently. When she cried, we children used to cry with her”

Salman Khan (1965) Indian film actor

Quotes By Salman

Marriage , Children , Problem , Time

“There's not a stupidest thing--I've dressed in women's clothes, I've dressed as a Nazi. I've gone onstage naked. I've gone on so drunk I didn't even know I did a show. I've done so many stupid things, but it's all part of Ozzy. I never pre-planned 99.9% of the things I've done. Some were drastically wrong, some were drastically right. I don't know if you saw the VH1 thing [VH1's Behind The Music Ozzy documentary] recently. In one hour, it's impossible to write my life down. I come from a rather large family, three older sisters and two younger brothers. On the documentary, they interviewed my sister and it was the first time I'd seen her in years. I've had a very, very unique life. I often sit back and remember when I had no money--when you're in the middle of it, you get depressed thinking it's going to last forever. All of a sudden, out of nowhere--a bolt of lightning--here I am! I'm very well-off; I've got property all over the place, I've had a very fruitful career. But I've never had a No.1 album in America. But I've lasted several generations and somebody says to me, "Do you notice any difference in the audience?"”

Ozzy Osbourne (1948) English heavy metal vocalist and songwriter

I've been doing it now for 30 years. Some of the fans are older, but I've picked up new fans along the way.

Launch.com, October 30, 1998

Life , Women , Money , Stupidity

“Consistent failure to attain goals throughout life results in defeatism, low self-esteem or depression.”

Theodore Kaczynski book Industrial Society and Its Future

"The Power Process", item 36
Industrial Society and Its Future (1995)

Life , Failure

“Let there be no fainting of heart and no depression, and also let there be no unforeseeing fury, no blindly-striking madness. We are at the beginning of a time of terrible trial. The passage is not to be easy, the crown is not to be cheaply earned. India is going down into the valley of the shadow of death, into a great horror of darkness and suffering. Let us realise that what we are now suffering, is a small part of what we shall have to suffer, and work in that knowledge, with resolution, without hysteria…. The first need at the present moment is courage, a courage which knows not how to flinch or shrink.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

Bande Mataram, 1907
India's Rebirth

Death , Courage , Knowledge , Suffering

“It seems to me as good as certain that we cannot get the upper hand against England. The English — the best race in the world — cannot lose! We, however, can lose and shall lose, if not this year then next year. The thought that our race is going to be beaten depresses me terribly, because I am completely German.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

Writing about the eventual outcome of World War I, in which he was a volunteer in the Austro-Hungarian army (25 October 1914), as quoted in The First World War (2004) by Martin Gilbert, p. 104
1910s

World

“For three years I was immersed in a depression, I did not know how to assimilate the loss of my voice, which was a reality.”

José José (1948–2019) Mexican singer

http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/notas/551253.html

Reality , Loss

“[Unlike the] utilitarian… I judge pleasure and pain to be of small importance compared to knowledge, the appreciation and contemplation of beauty, and a certain intrinsic excellence of mind which, apart from its practical effects, appears to me to deserve the name of virtue. [For] many years it seemed to me perfectly self-evident that pleasure is the only good and pain the only evil. Now, however, the opposite seems to me self-evident.
What first turned me away from utilitarianism was the persuasion that I myself ought to pursue philosophy, although I had (and have still) no doubt that by doing economics and the theory of politics I could add more to human happiness. It appeared to me that the dignity of which human existence is capable is not attainable by devotion to the mechanism of life, and that unless the contemplation of eternal things is preserved, mankind will become no better than well-fed pigs. But I do not believe that such contemplation on the whole tends to happiness. It gives moments of delight, but these are outweighed by years of effort and depression.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Letter to Gilbert Murray, April 3, 1902
1900s

Life , Pain , Pleasure , Beauty

“We have been to Rodmell, and as usual I come home depressed – for no reason. Merely moods. Have other people as many as I have? That I shall never now. And sometimes I suppose that even if I came to the end of my incessant search into what people are and feel I should know nothing still.”

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English writer

23 May 1921
A Moment's Liberty (1990)

People , Feeling , Home , Search

“I created an environment for myself and a way of living for myself that on the outside seemed incredibly gregarious and vivacious and it was just… I don't believe I have any chemical pre-disposition towards depression but let's just call it, I was suffering from a spiritual malady I suppose, for years, and I just indulged that and it was sweet. Because at times to be in pain, if it's self-perpetuated, at times, can be sweet. You can feel very alive when you're in pain. And I also know that from another perspective when somebody who I love in my life has passed away, there is something incredibly internally vivacious about feeling pain and mourning and even if it's as egocentric and self-indulgent as mourning for yourself or pitying for yourself and that sort of stuff. So I'm glad I'm out of that cycle of my life, and I'm very lucky that way.”

Colin Farrell (1976) Irish actor

2008-10-11, Friday Night with Jonathan Ross

Love , Life , Pain , Way

“I had, to be sure, been drawn into economics when the General Theory was an exciting revelation for students hungry for explanation and remedy of the Great Depression. At the same time, I was uncomfortable with several aspects of Keynes’ theory, and I sought to improve what would now be called the microfoundations of his macroeconomic relations.”

James Tobin (1918–2002) American economist

"Price Flexibility and Output Stability: An Old Keynesian View" (1993)

Time

“The economic history of the last half century offers two cases of serious international depressions in countries with an essential orientation towards a market economy: In the first half of the 1930ies and in the middle of the 1970ies. With some simplification one can say that in the former case recovery started after a few years without the aid of much conscious expansionist policy.”

Bertil Ohlin (1899–1979) Swedish economist and politician

Ohlin, Bertil. " 1933 and 1977: Some Expansion Policy Problems in Cases of Unbalanced Domestic and International Economic Relations http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economic-sciences/laureates/1977/ohlin-lecture.pdf." Nobel Memorial Lecture, December 8, 1977; Published in: The Scandinavian Journal of Economics (1978): 360-374.
1970s

History , Country

“Christianity is not satisfied with producing merely the specious guise of virtue. She requires the substantial reality, which may stand the scrutinizing eye of that Being “who searches the heart.” Meaning therefore that the Christian should live and breathe; in an atmosphere, as it were, of benevolence, she forbids whatever can tend to obstruct its diffusion or vitiate its purity. It is on this principle that Emulation is forbidden: for, besides that this passion almost insensibly degenerates into envy, and that it derives its origin chiefly from pride and a desire of self-exaltation; how can we easily love our neighbour as ourselves, if we consider him at the same time our rival, and are intent upon surpassing him in the pursuit of whatever is the subject of our competition?
Christianity, again, teaches us not to set our hearts on earthly possessions and earthly honours; and thereby provides for our really loving, or even cordially forgiving, those who have been more successful than ourselves in the attainment of them, or who have even designedly thwarted us in the pursuit. “Let the rich,” says the Apostle, “rejoice in that he is brought low.” How can he who means to attempt, in any degree, to obey this precept, be irreconcilably hostile towards any one who may have been instrumental in his depression?
Christianity also teaches us not to prize human estimation at a very high rate; and thereby provides for the practice of her injunction, to love from the heart those who, justly or unjustly, may have attacked our reputation, and wounded our character. She commands not the shew, but the reality of meekness and gentleness; and by thus taking away the aliment of anger and the fomenters of discord, she provides for the maintenance of peace, and the restoration of good temper among men, when it may have sustained a temporary interruption.
It is another capital excellence of Christianity, that she values moral attainments at a far higher rate than intellectual acquisitions, and proposes to conduct her followers to the heights of virtue rather than of knowledge. On the contrary, most of the false religious systems which have prevailed in the world, have proposed to reward the labour of their votary, by drawing aside the veil which concealed from the vulgar eye their hidden mysteries, and by introducing him to the knowledge of their deeper and more sacred doctrines.”

William Wilberforce (1759–1833) English politician

Source: Real Christianity (1797), p. 257.

Love , Men , Hostility , World

“So many women have experienced horrific forms of male violence throughout their lives, and why isn't there a song about how you get depressed because of it? And you don't know what to do, and you don't know how to talk to your friends and how weird it is to be a feminist in that situation, where there's sort of the expectation that you're super-strong superwoman but you're just, like, eating pizza in your house avoiding talking about it.”

Kathleen Hanna (1968) American musician and feminist activist

The original riot grrrl on Katy Perry, '90s revival http://www.cnn.com/2011/SHOWBIZ/Music/06/07/kathleen.hanna.documentary/, CNN (2011).

Women , Strong , Housing

“The medical professionals are a lot more comfortable calling it "depression" than calling it "loneliness."”

Patch Adams (1945) Physician, activist, diplomat, author

"Conferenza con Patch Adams a Reggio Emilia" arcoiris tv (27 March 2008) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0goppIcodJo

Loneliness

“I still say to myself when I am depressed and find myself forced to listen to pompous and tiresome people "Well, I have done one thing you could never have done, and that is to have collaborated with Littlewood and Ramanujan on something like equal terms."”

G. H. Hardy book A Mathematician's Apology

A Mathematician's Apology (1941)

People

“I tend to follow a very nocturnal sort of existence mainly because I don't much care for sunlight. Bright colors of any kind depress me, in fact. And my moods are more or less inversely related to the clarity of the sky, on any given day. A matter of fact, my private motto has always been that behind every silver lining there is a cloud.”

Glenn Gould (1932–1982) Canadian pianist

transcribed from The Life and Times of Glenn Gould

Color , Mood

“If just once you were depressed for no reason, you have been so all your life without knowing.”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

All Gall Is Divided (1952)

Life

“Dread of disaster makes everybody act in the very way that increases the disaster. Psychologically the situation is analogous to that of people trampled to death when there is a panic in a theatre caused by a cry of 'Fire!' In the situation that existed in the great depression, things could only be set right by causing the idle plant to work again. But everybody felt that to do so was to risk almost certain loss. Within the framework of classical economics there was no solution. Roosevelt saved the situation by bold and heretical action. He spent billions of public money and created a huge public debt, but by so doing he revived production and brought his country out of the depression. Businessmen, who in spite of such a sharp lesson continued to believe in old-fashioned economics, were infinitely shocked, and although Roosevelt saved them from ruin, they continued to curse him and to speak of him as 'the madman in the White House.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Except for Fabre's investigation of the behavior of insects, I do not know any equally striking example of inability to learn from experience.
Part II: Man and Man, Ch. 14: Economic Co-operation and Competition, pp. 132–3
1950s, New Hopes for a Changing World (1951)

Death , Money , People , Way

“The sort of life which I had previous to this popular success was one that required endurance, a life of clawing and scratching along a sheer surface and holding on tight with raw fingers to every inch of rock higher than the one caught hold of before, but it was a good life because it was the sort of life for which the human organism is created. I was not aware of how much vital energy had gone into this struggle until the struggle was removed. I was out on a level plateau with my arm still thrashing and my lungs still grabbing at air that no longer resisted. This was security at last. I sat down and looked about me and was suddenly very depressed.”

Tennessee Williams book The Catastrophe of Success

page 15
The Catastrophe of Success (1945)

Life , Success

“To be depressed or neurotic is passive. It happened to us; we are its victim, and we have no control over it. This use of nouns and adjectives makes it logical for us to believe that we can do nothing for ourselves…but you are capable of choosing something better. If it is a choice, it follows that you are responsible for making it. With verbs, you are not a victim of mental illness; you are either the beneficiary of your own good choices or the victim of your own bad choices. You are not ill in the usual sense of having the flu or food poisoning. A choice theory world is a tough responsible world; you cannot use grammar to escape responsibility for what you are doing.”

William Glasser (1925–2013) American psychiatrist

Source: Choice Theory (1997), p. 75

World , Food , Sense

“There exists, I grant you, a clinical depression, upon which certain remedies occasionally have effect; but there exists another kind, a melancholy underlying our very outbursts of gaiety and accompanying us everywhere, without leaving us alone for a single moment. And there is nothing that can rid us of this lethal omnipresence: the self forever confronting itself.”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

Anathemas and Admirations (1987)

“I say, then, assuming, as I have given you reason to assume, that the price of wheat, when this system is established, ranges in England at 35s. per quarter, and other grain in proportion, this is not a question of rent, but it is a question of displacing the labour of England that produces corn, in order, on an extensive and even universal scale, to permit the entrance into this country of foreign corn produced by foreign labour. Will that displaced labour find new employment? … But what are the resources of this kind of industry to employ and support the people, supposing the great depression in agricultural produce occur which is feared—that this great revolution, as it has appropriately been called, takes place—that we cease to be an agricultural people—what are the resources that would furnish employment to two-thirds of the subverted agricultural population—in fact, from 3,500,000 to 4,000,000 of people? Assume that the workshop of the world principle is carried into effect—assume that the attempt is made to maintain your system, both financial and domestic, on the resources of the cotton trade—assume that, in spite of hostile tariffs, that already gigantic industry is doubled…you would only find increased employment for 300,000 of your population…What must be the consequence? I think we have pretty good grounds for anticipating social misery and political disaster.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1846/may/15/corn-importation-bill-adjourned-debate in the House of Commons (15 May 1846).
1840s

Hostility , People , World , Fear

“I like thought which preserves a whiff of flesh and blood, and I prefer a thousand times an idea rising from sexual tension or nervous depression to empty abstraction.”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

On the Heights of Despair (1934)

Idea , Time

“Some people think reality must be constantly depressing, but I think reality is something you rise above.”

Liza Minnelli (1946) American actress and singer

Interview with Rona Barrett. Quoted by Emanuel Levy in Vincente Minnelli: Hollywood's Dark Dreamer (2009) http://books.google.com/books?id=AxI9_F9MXxIC&q=%22Some+people+think+reality+must+be+constantly+depressing%22+%22but+I+think+reality+is+something+you+rise+above%22&pg=PA218#v=onepage

People , Thinking , Reality

“The miserable failures of capitalist economies in the Great Depression were root causes of worldwide social and political disasters.”

James Tobin (1918–2002) American economist

"James Tobin - Biographical" (1981)
Context: For me, growing up in the 1930s, the two motivations powerfully reinforced each other. The miserable failures of capitalist economies in the Great Depression were root causes of worldwide social and political disasters. The crisis triggered a fertile period of scientific ferment and revolution in economic theory.

Failure

“To the scientist there is the joy in pursuing truth which nearly counteracts the depressing revelations of truth.”

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.

Depressing , Truth , Joy

“Before enlightenment, I used to be depressed; after enlightenment, I continue to be depressed.”

Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer

"Hidden Agenda" p. 145
Awareness (1992)
Context: Before enlightenment, I used to be depressed; after enlightenment, I continue to be depressed. You don't make a goal out of relaxation and sensitivity. Have you ever heard of people who get tense trying to relax? If one is tense, one simply observes one's tension. You will never understand yourself if you seek to change yourself. The harder you try to change yourself the worse it gets. You are called upon to be aware.

“Whenever in my dreams, I see the dead, they always appear silent, bothered, strangely depressed, quite unlike their dear bright selves.”

Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) Russian-American novelist, lepidopterist, professor

Speak, Memory: A Memoir (1951)
Context: Whenever in my dreams, I see the dead, they always appear silent, bothered, strangely depressed, quite unlike their dear bright selves. I am aware of them, without any astonishment, in surroundings they never visited during their earthly existence, in the house of some friend of mine they never knew. They sit apart, frowning at the floor, as if death were a dark taint, a shameful family secret. It is certainly not then — not in dreams — but when one is wide awake, at moments of robust joy and achievement, on the highest terrace of consciousness, that mortality has a chance to peer beyond its own limits, from the mast, from the past and its castle-tower. And although nothing much can be seen through the mist, there is somehow the blissful feeling that one is looking in the right direction.

Dreams , Appearance , Dead