quotations about hope
"I hope" is used in order to voice a bunch of trivial alibis that express (or deserve) no commitment or future--that ally themselves with the acceptance of the most awful present. People "hope to" win the lottery, or the slots, or to be the ninth caller to a radio station; and pretty soon this caricature is too much of a burden to carry. The delicate fabric of hope is easy to tear; then all we are left with is a tic, we have gone to the opposite extreme from the firmness of faith--and extremes often touch, we know: there are those who go straight from a church service to a bingo game.
ERMANNO BENCIVENGA
Dancing Souls
How can hope be false when it is as much a part of the human experience as birth or death?
LORI HOPE
Help Me Live
Hope is the shadow of faith.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
Hope deceives more men than cunning can.
MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES
Reflecions et Maximes
Hope is the best possession.
WILLIAM HAZLITT
Characteristics
With thee, sweet Hope! resides the heav'nly light,
That pours remotest rapture on the sight:
Thine is the charm of life's bewilder'd way,
That calls each slumb'ring passion into play:
Wak'd by thy touch, I see the sister band,
On tiptoe watching, start at thy command,
And fly where'er thy mandate bids them steer,
To Pleasure's path, or Glory's bright career.
THOMAS CAMPBELL
The Pleasures of Hope
Men of warm imaginations and towering thoughts are apt to overlook the goods of fortune which are near them, for something that glitters in the sight at a distance; to neglect solid and substantial happiness for what is showy and superficial; and to contemn that good which lies within their reach, for that which they are not capable of attaining. Hope calculates its schemes for a long and durable life; presses forward to imaginary points of bliss; grasps at impossibilities; and consequently very often ensnares men into beggary, ruin, and dishonour.
JOSEPH ADDISON
The Spectator, Nov. 13, 1712
Hope is a waking dream.
ARISTOTLE
attributed, Lives of Eminent Philosophers
Man ever talks, and Man ever dreams
Of better days that are yet to be,
After glittering goal, that distant gleams,
Running and racing untiringly.
The worldly may grow old and young as it will,
But the Hope of man is Improvement still.
Hope bears him into life in her arms,
She flutters around the boy's young bloom,
The soul of youth with her magic warms,
Nor rests with age in the silent tomb;
For ends man his weary course at the grave,
There plants he Hope o'er his ashes to wave.
FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
"Hope"
In reality, hope is the worst of all evils, because it prolongs the torments of man.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
Human
Though Hope be a small child, she can carry a great anchor!
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
The Last of the Barons
I think it's a mistake to ever look for hope outside of one's self.
ARTHUR MILLER
After the Fall
Hope is the soul's best bower anchor let go in good holding ground. Through every trial, through every woe, in health, in sickness, in poverty, and in want, hope, like a bright fixed star of promise, shines aloft, and bids us not despair.
T. AUGUSTUS FORBES LEITH
"On Hope", Short Essays
Hope is not like a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky.... hope is an ax you break down doors with in an emergency.
REBECCA SOLNIT
Hope in the Dark
Hope never abandons you; you abandon it.
GEORGE WEINBERG
Self Creation
Any little thing can give hope, like a candle in the dark.
CHRISTIAAN MOSTERT
Hope: Challenging the Culture of Despair
Once you lost all hope, time began to go faster and the senseless days deadened your soul.
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
The Prisoner of Heaven
The absence of hope can rot a society from within.
BARACK OBAMA
Nobel Lecture, Dec. 10, 2009
Never give out while there is hope; but hope not beyond reason, for that shows more desire than judgment.
WILLIAM PENN
Some Fruits of Solitude
One thing you cannot know:
The sudden extinction of every alternative,
The unexpected crash of the iron cataract.
You do not know what hope is, until you have lost it.
You only know what it is not to hope:
You do not know what it is to have hope taken from you
Or to fling it away, to join the legion of the hopeless
Unrecognized by other men, though sometimes by each other.
T. S. ELIOT
The Family Reunion