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Depression Quotes

Depression is often a silent battle, a heavy weight that distorts reality and creates a sense of profound isolation. Yet, reading the articulated experiences of others can pierce through that fog.

"Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional."
Haruki Murakami
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Source: Book: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

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"In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer."
Albert Camus
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Source: Essay: Return to Tipasa

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"I felt a funeral, in my brain, / And mourners to and fro / Kept treading - treading - till it seemed / That Sense was breaking through."
Emily Dickinson
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Source: Poem: I felt a Funeral, in my Brain

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"Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal."
Albert Camus
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Source: Inspired by: Notebook: Notebooks 1942-1951

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"It’s so difficult to describe depression to someone who’s never been there, because it’s not sadness. I know sadness. Sadness is to cry and to feel. But it’s that cold absence of feeling—that really hollowed-out feeling."
J.K. Rowling
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Source: Interview: The Oprah Winfrey Show

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"It is very hard to explain to people who have never known serious depression or anxiety the sheer continuous intensity of it. There is no off switch."
Matt Haig
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Source: Book: Reasons to Stay Alive

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"My mind is like a bad neighborhood, I try not to go there alone."
Anne Lamott
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Source: Book: Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith

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"The opposite of depression is not happiness, but vitality, and it was vitality that seemed to seep away from me in that moment."
Andrew Solomon
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Source: Book: The Noonday Demon

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"Depression is not a side effect of cancer. Depression is a side effect of dying."
John Green
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Source: Book: The Fault in Our Stars

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"Depression is the inability to construct a future."
Rollo May
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Source: Book: Love and Will

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"Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad."
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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Source: Book: Hyperion

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"Mental pain is less dramatic than physical pain, but it is more common and also more hard to bear. The frequent attempt to conceal mental pain increases the burden: it is easier to say 'My tooth is aching' than to say 'My heart is broken'."
C.S. Lewis
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Source: Book: The Problem of Pain

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"I need one of those long hugs where you kinda forget whatever else is happening around you for a minute."
Marilyn Monroe
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Source: Biography: My Story

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"I am in that temper that if I were under water I would scarcely kick to come to the top."
John Keats
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Source: Letter: To John Hamilton Reynolds

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"I didn't want my picture taken because I was going to cry. I didn't know why I was going to cry, but I knew that if anybody spoke to me or looked at me too closely the tears would fly out of my eyes and the sobs would fly out of my throat and I'd cry for a week."
Sylvia Plath
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Source: Book: The Bell Jar

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"Living with anxiety, turning up, and doing stuff with anxiety takes a strength most people will never know."
Matt Haig
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Source: Social Post: Twitter

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"Depression lies. It tells you you’ve always felt this way, and you always will. But you haven’t, and you won’t."
Matt Haig
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Source: Book: Reasons to Stay Alive

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"There is no point treating a depressed person as though she were just feeling sad, saying, 'There now, hang on, you'll get over it.' Sadness is more or less like a head cold—with patience, it passes. Depression is like cancer."
Barbara Kingsolver
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Source: Book: The Bean Trees

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"At times I feel as if I am spread out over the landscape and inside things, and am myself living in every tree, in the splashing of the waves, in the clouds and the animals, in the procession of the seasons."
Carl Jung
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Source: Book: Memories, Dreams, Reflections

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Why these quotes matter

Understanding depression through these quotes is vital because it validates the intense and often misunderstood pain of mental illness, reducing the stigma that forces many to suffer in silence. By articulating the 'invisible' symptoms, these words foster empathy in loved ones and provide a vocabulary for sufferers to express their own experiences.

How to apply them daily

Use these quotes as daily affirmations to remind yourself that you are not alone, or share them with friends and family to help bridge the gap of understanding. They can also serve as powerful prompts for journaling or therapy, helping to externalize feelings that seem too heavy to carry internally.

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"While the journey through depression is arduous, these voices from history and culture prove that survival is possible and that the human spirit is resilient. May these words offer a lantern in the dark, reminding you that winter eventually yields to an invincible summer."