This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
John M. Wilson, fully John Moulder Wilson
Let's learn and label properly Disappointment and Discouragement for what they are - two completely different states of mind. Disappointment can be a spur to improvement that will contribute to success. But Discouragement is a mortal enemy that destroys courage and robs one of the will to fight. It is not circumstance that causes Discouragement, but one's own reaction to that circumstance. Everyone must meet Disappointment, many times; it is simply a part of life. When it is met, we may resign ourselves to Discouragement and failure. Or we may recognize each Disappointment as an asset by which we can profit, and take new strength from a lesson learned. The choice is ours, each time, to make.
Character | Choice | Courage | Enemy | Failure | Improvement | Lesson | Life | Life | Mind | Mortal | Strength | Success | Time | Will | Wisdom | Circumstance | Learn |
Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter can be said to remedy anything.
Laughter |
He that would know hot to be always pleased, glad of success and glad of disappointment should accustom himself to reflect that every event of whatever complexion, increases his knowledge and in consequence his power.
Wilferd Peterson, fully Wilferd Arlan Peterson
Crisis is creative... Out of crises flow new ideas, new approaches, new patterns, new inventions, new discoveries, new leadership... Crisis is challenge. It can challenge you to create a new life. Out of disappointment and defeat, out of illness and despair you can find victory.
Challenge | Defeat | Despair | Ideas | Life | Life | Crisis |
Fred Rogers, "Mister Rogers," born Frederick McFeely Rogers
Part of the problem with the word 'disabilities' is that it immediately suggests an inability to see or hear or walk or do other things that many of us take for granted. But what of people who can't feel? Or talk about their feelings? Or manage their feelings in constructive ways? What of people who aren't able to form close and strong relationships? And people who cannot find fulfillment in their lives, or those who have lost hope, who live in disappointment and bitterness and find in life no joy, no love? These, it seems to me, are the real disabilities.
Bitterness | Feelings | Fulfillment | Life | Life | People |
The death anxiety of many people is fueled ... by disappointment at never having fulfilled their potential. Many people are in despair because their dreams didn't come true, and they despair even more that they did not make them come true. A focus on this deep dissatisfaction is often the starting point in overcoming death anxiety.
Anxiety | Anxiety | Death | Despair | Dreams | Focus | People |
[Intellectual courage is] the quality that allows one to believe in one's judgement in the face of disappointment and widespread skepticism. Intellectual courage is even rarer than physical courage.
Courage |
John M. Mason, fully John Mitchell Mason
When I go to the house of God I do not want amusement; I want the doctrine which is according to godliness. I want to hear the remedy against the harassing of my guilt and the disorder of my affections. I want to be led from weariness and disappointment to that goodness which filleth the hungry soul. I want to have light upon the mystery of Providence; to be taught how the judgments of the Lord are right; how I shall be prepared for duty and for trial; how I may fear God all the days of my life, and close them in peace.
Doctrine | Duty | Fear | God | Guilt | Light | Lord | Mystery | God |
There is no disappointment so numbing...as someone no better than you achieving more.
Better |
When we give ourselves in love we become our most vulnerable. We are never safe. We become open to disappointment and hurt
Love |
Ludwig Feuerbach, fully Ludwig Andreas von Feuerbach
Man has many wishes that he does not really wish to fulfil, and it would be a misunderstanding to suppose the contrary. He wants them to remain wishes, they have value only in his imagination; their fulfilment would be a bitter disappointment to him. Such a desire is the desire for eternal life. If it were fulfilled, man would become thoroughly sick of living eternally, and yearn for death. In reality man wishes merely to avoid a premature, violent or gruesome death. Everything has its measure, says a pagan philosopher; in the end we weary of everything, even of life; a time comes when man desires death. Consequently there is nothing frightening about a normal, natural death, the death of a man who has fulfilled himself and lived out his life.
Death | Desire | Eternal | Man | Nothing | Reality | Time | Wants | Wishes | Value |
Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh
I enjoy everything, but I have no desire for anything, so there is never any pain or disappointment from unfulfillment. Whatever I do, wherever I go, I enjoy myself.
Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh
The world ends for us when we are free from desires. I enjoy everything, but I have no desire for anything, so there is never any pain or disappointment from unfulfillment. Whatever I do, wherever I go, I enjoy myself.
Love is a disease no one wants to get rid of. Those who catch it never try to get better, and those who suffer do not wish to be cured… Love is a force that will never be subdued. If we try to control it, love will destroy us. If we try to keep it, love will enslave us. If we try to understand it, love will leave us in confusion… Love is a trap. When it appears, we see only its light, not its shadows… Love is always new. No matter that we love one, two, ten times in life we are always faced with a situation we do not know. Love can take us to hell or to paradise, but always leads somewhere. We must accept it, as is the food of our existence. If we are negative we, seeing starve the tree branches laden life, without courage to reach out and pick fruit. It is necessary to find love where you are, even if that means hours, days, weeks of disappointment and sadness. Because the moment we left in search of love, love comes to us also. And save us.
Control | Courage | Destroy | Disease | Force | Hell | Life | Life | Love | Means | Search | Wants | Will | Understand |
But love is always new. Regardless of whether we love once, twice, or a dozen times in our life, we always face a brand-new situation. Love can consign us to hell or to paradise, but it always takes us somewhere. We simply have to accept it, because it is what nourishes our existence. If we reject it, we die of hunger, because we lack the courage to stretch out a hand and pluck the fruit from the branches of the tree of life. We have to take love where we find it, even if that means hours, days, weeks of disappointment and sadness.
Peter McWilliams, fully Peter Alexander McWilliams
The simple solution for disappointment depression: Get up and get moving. Physically move. Do. Act. Get going.
There is no disappointment we endure one-half so great as what we are to ourselves.