John Steinbeck Quotes

When there is no hope, there can be no endeavor.

Any system which says, This is a rotten world, wait for the next, give up, do nothing, succumb--that may be the basic Lie and if we participate in believing it and acting (or rather not acting) on it we involve ourselves in the Lie and suffer dreadfully... which only reinforces that particular Lie.

I don't like to sing things that just sound like they're going straight down the tubes, and they're circling the drain, and there's no hope. It doesn't feel good in any way to sing.

People don't believe or understand that a community can lose hope. You can have a whole community where hopelessness is the norm, where folks don't have faith that things will get better because history and circumstances have proven over 30, 40, or 50 years that things don't get better.

I never really thought of myself as depressed so much as paralyzed by hope.

If one truly has lost hope, one would not be on hand to say so.

To live without Hope is to Cease to live.

There is no power in cynicism. There is no forward thrust in cynicism.

We have no hope and yet we live in longing.

In a world that's ugly and a lie, it's hard to even want to try.

Also, it was a bit hopeless," he said. "A bit defeatist." "If by defeatist you mean honest, then I agree." "I don't think defeatism is honest, " Dad answered. "I refuse to accept that.

To deride the hope of progress is the ultimate fatuity, the last word in poverty of spirit and meanness of mind.

If there is a chronic infirmity by which every teacher ought to be afflicted, it is, indeed, hope.

People are always shouting they want to create a better future. It's not true. The future is an apathetic void of no interest to anyone.

At this moment, many people have stopped living. They do not become angry, nor cry out; they merely wait for time to pass. They did not accept the challenges of life, so life no longer challenges them

One cannot live without motives. I have no motives left, and I am living.

Tragedy is restful: and the reason is that hope, that foul, deceitful thing, has no part in it.

I hope I don't just sit around moping for two years.

Helplessness induces hopelessness, and history attests that loss of hope and not loss of lives is what decides the issue of war.

Let whatever is going to happen to me happen. I'm expecting the worst for myself and I'm resigned to it.

Well, I've been reading a lot about the fifty years since the Second World War, about Western foreign policy and all that. I try not to let it get to me, but sometimes I just think that there's no hope.

Pessimists are the people who have no hope for themselves or for others. Pessimists are also people who think the human race is beneath their notice, that they're better than other human beings.

When we can't dream any longer we die.

Cynical realism is the intelligent man's best excuse for doing nothing in an intolerable situation.

Despair is the conclusion of fools.