Hope

Hope

All hope abandon, ye who enter in.
Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy: Inferno, Canto III: The Gate of Hell, line 9.
If thy hope be any thing worth, it will purify thee from thy sins.
Joseph Alleine, The Solemn Warnings of the Dead: or, An Admonition to Unconverted Sinners (1804), Chapter 3, p. 44.
Hope is a waking dream.
Aristotle, attributed by Diogenes Laërtius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers.
Know then, whatever cheerful and serene
Supports the mind, supports the body too:
Hence, the most vital movement mortals feel
Is hope, the balm and lifeblood of the soul.
John Armstrong, Art of Preserving Health (1744), Book IV, line 310.
Our greatest good, and what we least can spare,
Is hope: the last of all our evils, fear.
John Armstrong, Art of Preserving Health (1744), Book IV, line 318.
I’ve always said there’s no hope without endeavor. Hope has no meaning unless we are prepared to work to realize our hopes and dreams but in order to that we do need to have friends. We need those who believe in us. Friends are those who believe in us and who want to help us whatever it is that we are trying to achieve.
Aung San Suu Kyi, Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought Acceptance Speech by Aung San Suu Kyi, Strasbourg, 22 October 2013
Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper.
Francis Bacon, Apophthegms (1624), No. 36.
Providence has given human wisdom the choice between two fates: either hope and agitation, or hopelessness and calm.
Evgeny Baratynsky, "Two Fates" (1823), tr. Dmitri Obolensky.
Nature has fixed no limits on our hopes.
Björk, "Hope" on Volta (2007).
I live in hope and that I think do all
Who come into this world.
Robert Bridges, The Growth of Love (1898), Sonnet 63.
That was all a man needed: hope. It was a lack of hope that discouraged a man.
Charles Bukowski, Factotum.
Everything passes away — suffering, pain, blood, hunger, pestilence. The sword will pass away too, but the stars will still remain when the shadows of our presence and our deeds have vanished from the earth. There is no man who does not know that. Why, then, will we not turn our eyes towards the stars? Why?
Mikhail Bulgakov, The White Guard.
But what is Hope? Nothing but the paint on the face of Existence. The least touch of truth rubs it off, and then we see what a hollow-cheeked harlot we have got hold of.
Lord Byron, letter to Thomas Moore, 28 October 1815, in Byrons Letters and Journals (1975), Vol 4, ed. Leslie Marchand.
Daughter of Faith, awake, arise, illume
The dread unknown, the chaos of the tomb.
Thomas Campbell, "Pleasures of Hope", Part 2, St. 23; The Pleasures of Hope; With Other Poems (7th ed. 1803), p. 67
The present is nothing else than the sum of what one perceives, remembers and hopes for.
Fausto Cercignani in: Brian Morris, Simply Transcribed. Quotations from Writings by Fausto Cercignani, 2014, quote 56.
Unlike money, hope is all: for the rich as well as for the poor.
Fausto Cercignani in: Brian Morris, Simply Transcribed. Quotations from Fausto Cercignani, 2013, p. 5.
Con la vida muchas cosas se remedian.
With life many things are remedied.
(While there's life there's hope.)
Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605-1615).
Hasta la muerte todo es vida.
Until death all is life.
(While there's life there's hope.)
Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605-1615).
Hope knows no fear. Hope dares to blossom even inside the abysmal abyss. Hope secretly feeds and strengthens promise.
Sri Chinmoy, My Christmas-New Year-Vacation-Aspiration-Prayers Part 26 (2003).
As the days of spring arouse all nature to a green and growing vitality, so when hope enters the soul it makes all things new. It insures the progress which it predicts. Rooted in faith, growing up into love; these make the three immortal graces of the Gospel, whose intertwined arms and concurrent voices shed joy and peace over our human life.
James Freeman Clarke, Self-Culture: Physical, Intellectual, Moral, and Spiritual – A Course of Lectures (1880), Chapter 19: Education of Hope, p. 411
A variant, "As these summer days have roused all nature..." (with other minor alterations) appears as the entry for July 12 in Messages of Faith, Hope, and Love: Selections for Every Day in the Year from the Sermons and Writings of James Freeman Clarke (Boston: Geo. H. Ellis, 1895), p. 180.
Work without hope draws nectar in a sieve,
And hope without an object cannot live.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "Work Without Hope", 1825.
When faith and hope fail, as they do sometimes, we must try charity, which is love in action. We must speculate no more on our duty, but simply do it. When we have done it, however blindly, perhaps Heaven will show us why.
Dinah Craik, Christian's Mistake (1865). p. 64.
Remember, Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.
Frank Darabont, in the screenplay for The Shawshank Redemption (1994), based on a story by Stephen King
"Hope" is the thing with feathers —
That perches in the soul —
And sings the tune without the words —
And never stops — at all —
And sweetest — in the Gale — is heard —
And sore must be the storm —
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm —
Emily Dickinson, Poem 254 in The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (1960), edited by Thomas H. Johnson.
I am prepared for the worst, but hope for the best.
Benjamin Disraeli, The Wondrous Tale of Alroy, pt. 10, Chapter 3.
Until the day when God will deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is contained in these two words, Wait and hope.
Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo (1845), Chapter 117.
Hopes have precarious life.
They are oft blighted, withered, snapped sheer off
In vigorous growth and turned to rottenness.
George Eliot, The Spanish Gypsy (1868), Book III.
Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn
Desiring this man's gift and that man's scope
I no longer strive to strive towards such things
(Why should the agèd eagle stretch its wings?)
Why should I mourn
The vanished power of the usual reign?
T. S. Eliot, "Ash Wednesday", part 1.
Although I do not hope to turn again
Although I do not hope
Although I do not hope to turn
T.S. Eliot, "Ash Wednesday", part 6.
I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets, East Coker (1940), (III).
The only hope, or else despair
Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre —
To be redeemed from fire by fire.
T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets, Little Gidding (1942), (IV).

The only hope, or else despair
Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre —
To be redeemed from fire by fire. ~ T. S. Eliot
L'espoir ne fait pas de poussière.
Hope raises no dust.
Paul Éluard, "Ailleurs, ici, partout" (1946).
He that lives upon Hope will die fasting.
Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack (1758).
To hope means to be ready at every moment for that which is not yet born, and yet not become desperate if there is no birth in our lifetime.
Erich Fromm, The Revolution of Hope: Toward a Humanized Technology (1968).
Always believe in your dreams, because if you don't, you'll still have hope.
Mahatma Gandhi Young India (23 March 1924).
The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ. Indeed, nothing genuinely human fails to raise an echo in their hearts. For theirs is a community composed of men. United in Christ, they are led by the Holy Spirit in their journey to the Kingdom of their Father and they have welcomed the news of salvation which is meant for every man.
Gaudium et Spes, composed during the Second Vatican Council, promulgated by Pope John XXIII (7 December 1965), Preface.
You are as much a child of Earth now as you are of Krypton. You can embody the best of both worlds. The dream your mother and I dedicated our lives to preserve. The people of Earth are different from us, it's true, but ultimately I believe that is a good thing. They won't necessarily make the same mistakes we did, but if you guide them, Kal, if you give them hope. That's what this symbol means. [Pulls back his coat to reveal the House of El symbol on his chest] The symbol of the House of El means "Hope". Embodied within that hope is the fundamental belief in the potential of every person to be a force for good. That's what you can bring them.
David S. Goyer, in lines for Jor-El, in Man of Steel (2013)
Hope of consciousness is strength
Hope of feelings is slavery
Hope of body is disease.
G. I. Gurdjieff, All and Everything: Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson (1950).
Walk on, walk on with hope in your heart, and you'll never walk alone, you'll never walk alone.
Oscar Hammerstein II, lyric for "You'll Never Walk Alone" from the musical Carousel (1945).
Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.
Václav Havel, Disturbing the Peace (1986), Chapter 5 : The Politics of Hope.
Hope is the best possession. None are completely wretched but those who are without hope; and few are reduced so low as that.
William Hazlitt, Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims (1823), No. 34.
Hope is the poor man's bread.
English proverb, reported in George Herbert, Jacula Prudentum (1651), No. 437
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He that lives in hope danceth without music.
English proverb, reported in George Herbert, Jacula Prudentum (1640), No. 1006.
Beware how you take away hope from any human being.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., in his valedictory address to medical graduates at Harvard University (10 March 1858), published in The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. LVIII, No. 8 (25 March 1858), p. 158; this has also been paraphrased "Beware how you take away hope from another human being".
I suppose it can be truthfully said that Hope is the only universal liar who never loses his reputation for veracity.
Robert G. Ingersoll, speech (1892).
I steer my bark with Hope in the head, leaving Fear astern. My hopes, indeed, sometimes fail; but not oftener than the forebodings of the gloomy.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, 8 April 1816, as published in Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies, from the Papers of Thomas Jefferson (2nd edition, 1830), ed. Thomas Jefferson Randolph, Vol. 4, p. 271
When we realize the degree of agency we actually do have, we no longer have to "hope" at all. We simply do the work.
Derrick Jensen, Endgame Volume I: The Problem of Civilization, p. 330.
Casey Maddox wrote that when philosophy dies, action begins. I would say in addition that when we stop hoping for external assistance, when we stop hoping that the awful situation we're in will somehow resolve itself, when we stop hoping the situation will somehow not get worse, then we are finally free — truly free — to honestly start working to thoroughly resolve it. I would say when hope dies, action begins.
Derrick Jensen, Endgame Volume I: The Problem of Civilization, p. 330.
A wonderful thing happens when you give up on hope, which is that you realize you never needed it in the first place. You realize that giving up on hope doesn't kill you, nor did it make you less effective. In fact it made you more effective, because you ceased relying on someone or something else to solve your problems — you ceased hoping your problems somehow get solved, through the magical assistance of God, the Great Mother, the Sierra Club, valiant tree-sitters, brave salmon, or even the Earth itself — and you just began doing what's necessary to solve your problems yourself.
Derrick Jensen, Endgame Volume I: The Problem of Civilization, p. 332.
Hope is necessary in every condition. The miseries of poverty, sickness and captivity would, without this comfort, be insupportable.
Samuel Johnson, The Rambler, No. 67 (6 November 1750).
Yet it is necessary to hope, though hope should always be deluded, for hope itself is happiness, and its frustrations, however frequent, are yet less dreadful than its extinction.
Samuel Johnson, The Idler, No. 58 (26 May 1759).
Hope is itself a species of happiness, and, perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords.
Samuel Johnson, letter of 8 June 1762, in James Boswell, Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol. 1, p. 103.
The triumph of hope over experience.
Samuel Johnson, in reference to an unhappily married man remarrying immediately after his wife's death, as quoted in James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol. 2, p. 82.
It's the hope for all the hopeless in the worst of trying times.
Nick Jonas, in "Don't Speak", in Lines (2009).
Δεν ελπίζω τίποτε. Δεν φοβούμαι τίποτε. Είμαι λεύτερος
I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.
Nikos Kazantzakis, epitaph, adapted from The Saviors of God (1923).
Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement; nothing can be done without hope.
Helen Keller, Optimism (1903).
When love leaves the world, all hearts are still. Tell them of my love and tell them of my pain and tell them of my hope, which still lives. For this is all I have and all I am and all I ask.
Stephen King, The Dark Tower, Vol I: The Gunslinger.
One's thoughts turn towards Hope.
Leonardo da Vinci, The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci (1938), X Studies and Sketches for Pictures and Decorations, as translated by Edward MacCurdy; by the side of this passage is a sketch of a cage with a bird sitting in it.
If you've lost your faith in love and music, the end won't be long
The Libertines, "The Good Old Days", Babyshambles Sessions (2003).
Hope is the feeling we have that the feeling we have is not permanent.
Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook (1963), Chapter 5 (Often misattributed to Jean Kerr, who borrowed the line).
Hope for the best and prepare for the worst.
Traditional proverb, as found in Roger L'Estrange, Seneca's Morals (1702).
Hope proves man deathless. It is the struggle of the soul, breaking loose from what is perishable, and attesting her eternity.
Henry Melvill, in "The Advantages of a State of Expectation" in Sermons by Henry Melvill, B. D (1844), edited by Charles Pettit McIlvaine, Sermon X, p. 113.
So, cutting the lashing of the waterproof match keg, after many failures Starbuck contrived to ignite the lamp in the lantern; then stretching it on a waif pole, handed it to Queequeg as the standard-bearer of this forlorn hope. There, then, he sat, holding up that imbecile candle in the heart of that almighty forlornness. There, then, he sat, the sign and symbol of a man without faith, hopelessly holding up hope in the midst of despair.
Herman Melville, Moby-Dick (1851), chapter 48, p. 251.
And the young gay people in the Altoona, Pennsylvanias and the Richmond, Minnesotas who are coming out and hear Anita Bryant in television and her story. The only thing they have to look forward to is hope. And you have to give them hope. Hope for a better world, hope for a better tomorrow, hope for a better place to come to if the pressures at home are too great. Hope that all will be all right. Without hope, not only gays, but the blacks, the seniors, the handicapped, the us'es, the us'es will give up. And if you help elect to the central committee and other offices, more gay people, that gives a green light to all who feel disenfranchised, a green light to move forward. It means hope to a nation that has given up, because if a gay person makes it, the doors are open to everyone.
Harvey Milk, A version of his staple "Hope Speech," quoted in Randy Shilts, The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk (1982), p. 363.
A man without hope is a man without fear.
Frank Miller, Daredevil:Born Again.
And tho't that the light-house look't lovely as hope,
That star on life's tremulous ocean.
Thomas Moore,"The Lighthouse", as reprinted in Melodies, Songs, Sacred Songs, and National Airs (1821), p. 64.
Variant: I thought that the light-house looked lovely as hope, ...
As rendered in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895).
With a mind not diseased, a holy life is a life of hope, and at the end of it, death is a great act of hope.
William Mountford, Euthanasy (4th ed., 1852), Ch. 11
A leader is a dealer in hope.
Napoleon I of France, Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916), Ch. V : Concerning the Fine Arts.
Hope, in its stronger forms, is a great deal more powerful stimulans to life than any sort of realized joy can ever be. Man must be sustained in suffering by a hope so high that no conflict with actuality can dash it — so high, indeed, that no fulfilment can satisfy it: a hope reaching out beyond this world.
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Antichrist (1888), Sec. 23.
But Hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has?
δὲ βλεπομένη οὐκ ἔστιν ἐλπίς ὃ γὰρ βλέπει τίς ἐλπίζει.
Paul of Tarsus, Romans 8:24.