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Hope

optimistic attitude of mind based on an expectation of positive outcomes

Hope is a desire for future good.

Hope springs eternal in the human breast:
Man never is, but always to be blest. ~ Alexander Pope

Arranged alphabetically by author or source:
A · B · C · D · E · F · G · H · I · J · K · L · M · N · O · P · Q · R · S · T · U · V · W · X · Y · Z · Anon · See also · External links

A

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All hope abandon, ye who enter here. ~ Dante
 
Hope is a waking dream. ~ Aristotle
 
There’s no hope without endeavor. Hope has no meaning unless we are prepared to work to realize our hopes and dreams. ~ Aung San Suu Kyi
 
A leader is a dealer in hope. ~ Napoleon
  • When people talk of the Freedom of Writing, Speaking, or thinking, I cannot choose but laugh. No such thing ever existed. No such thing now exists; but I hope it will exist. But it must be hundreds of years after you and I shall write and speak no more.
    • John Adams Letter to Thomas Jefferson (15 July 1817)
  • Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch'entrate.
    • All hope abandon, ye who enter here.
    • Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy: Inferno, Canto III: The Gate of Hell, line 9
  • Senza speme vivemo in desio.
  • 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
  • For a moment hope, bright and cruel as a knife, presented itself to me. It took every ounce of strength I had to turn away.
  • This is what hope does to you when you’re not used to it. It is very like being drunk. You don’t realize how badly you’re impaired until you see the results of your spree.
  • Hope is the dream of a waking man.
    • Aristotle, as quoted by Diogenes Laërtius in The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers Literally translated by C. D. Yonge; Henry G. Bohn, 1853, p. 187
    • Variant translations:
    • You ask what hope is. He says it is a waking dream.
    • The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, Book V, 18 speaking of Aristotle; ascribed to Pindar by Stobæus—Sermon CIX; to Plato by Ælian—Var. Hist, XIII. 29, as reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 375-78
  • 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.
  • Our greatest good, and what we least can spare,
    Is hope: the last of all our evils, fear.

B

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Nature has fixed no limits on our hopes. ~ Björk
  • Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper.
  • Providence has given human wisdom the choice between two fates: either hope and agitation, or hopelessness and calm.
  • It is to hope, though hope were lost.
    • Anna Letitia Barbauld, Come here, Fond Youth, as reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 375-78
  • For the hopes of men have been justly called waking dreams.
  • HOPE, n. Desire and expectation rolled into one.
    • Ambrose Bierce, The Cynic's Dictionary (1906); republished as The Devil's Dictionary (1911).
  • Hope! thou nurse of young desire.
  • Nature has fixed no limits on our hopes.
  • I live in hope and that I think do all
    Who come into this world.
  • Love, hope, fear, faith — these make humanity;
    These are its sign and note and character.
  • That was all a man needed: hope. It was a lack of hope that discouraged a man.
  • 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?
  • The heart bowed down by weight of woe
    To weakest hope will cling.
    • Alfred Bunn, Bohemian Girl as reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 375-78
  • Hope springs exulting on triumphant wing.
  • Hope, withering, fled—and Mercy sighed farewell.
  • Farewell!
    For in that word that fatal word,—howe'er
    We promise, hope, believe,—there breathes despair.
  • 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

C

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Hope knows no fear. Hope dares to blossom even inside the abysmal abyss. ~ Sri Chinmoy
 
When faith and hope fail, as they do sometimes, we must try charity, which is love in action. ~ Dinah Craik
  • 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
  • Auspicious Hope! in thy sweet garden grow
    Wreaths for each toil, a charm for every woe.
  • Cease, every joy, to glimmer in my mind,
    But leave,—oh! leave the light of Hope behind!
  • There's a hope that's waiting for you, in the dark.
    • Alessia Cara, "Scars to your Beautiful" (2015), Know-It-All
  • 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)
  • I laugh, for hope hath happy place with me,
    If my bark sinks, 'tis to another sea.
  • This is President Anton Chekov of the United Federation of Planets, broadcasting on all emergency channels. Do not approach Earth. A signal of unknown origin has turned our young against us. They have been assimilated by the Borg. Our fleet has been compromised, and as we speak, our planetary defenses are falling. Sol Station is defending Earth as best it can, but we're almost out of time. We have not been able to find a way to stop this Borg signal, and unassimilate our young. But I know, if my father were here, he'd remind us all that "hope is never lost. There are always possibilities." Until then, I implore you: save yourselves. Farewell.
  • 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)
  • Aegroto dum anima est, spes esse dicitur.
    • There is said to be hope for a sick man, as long as there is life.
      • Cicero, Epistulae ad Atticum (Letters to Atticus) Book IX, Letter X, section 3
      • Often paraphrased as: Dum anima est, spes est ("While there is life there is hope")
      • Compare: "While there's life there’s hope, and only the dead have none." Theocritus, Idyll 4, line 42; as translated A. S. F. Gow
  • Maxima illecebra est peccandi impunitatis spes.
    • The hope of impunity is the greatest inducement to do wrong.
    • Cicero, Oratio Pro Animo Milone, XVI
  • 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
  • And Hope enchanted smiled, and waved her golden hair.
  • But thou, O Hope, with eyes so fair,
    What was thy delighted measure?
    Still it whisper'd promised pleasure,
    And bade the lovely scenes at distance hail!
  • Hope! of all ills that men endure,
    The only cheap and universal cure.
  • 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.

D

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Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies. ~ Frank Darabont
 
All human wisdom is summed up in these two words — wait and hope. ~ Alexander Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo
  • "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.
  • 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.

E

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The only hope, or else despair
Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre —
To be redeemed from fire by fire. ~ T. S. Eliot
  • Hopes have precarious life.
    They are oft blighted, withered, snapped sheer off
    In vigorous growth and turned to rottenness.
  • 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?
  • Although I do not hope to turn again
    Although I do not hope
    Although I do not hope to turn
  • 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.
  • The only hope, or else despair
    Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre —
    To be redeemed from fire by fire.
  • L'espoir ne fait pas de poussière.
    • Hope raises no dust.
    • Paul Éluard, "Ailleurs, ici, partout" (1946)

F

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  • 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)

G

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Always believe in your dreams, because if you don't, you'll still have hope. ~ Mahatma Gandhi
 
We always hope, and in all things it is better to hope than to despair. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 
The note of hope is the only note that can help us or save us from falling to the bottom of the heap of evolution, because, largely, about all a human being is, anyway, is just a hoping machine, a working machine. ~ Woody Guthrie
 
Hope of consciousness is strength. ~ G. I. Gurdjieff
  • People cannot live without hope; this is one of the statements I can defend without any reservations.
    • Hans-Georg Gadamer in one of his last interviews, "Die Menschen können nicht ohne Hoffnung leben", Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung (February 11, 2002)
  • Always believe in your dreams, because if you don't, you'll still have hope.
  • 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.
  • While there is life there's hope (he cried,)
    Then why such haste?—so groan'd and died.
    • John Gay, The Sick Man and The Angel, as reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 375-78
  • Bei so grosser Gefahr kommt die leichteste Hoffnung in Anschlag.
    • In so great a danger the faintest hope should be considered.
    • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Egmont, II, as reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 375-78
  • Wir hoffen immer, und in allen Dingen
    Ist besser hoffen als verzweifeln.
    • We always hope, and in all things it is better to hope than to despair.
    • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Torquato Tasso, III. 4. 197, as reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 375-78
  • Protesting is an act of love. It is born of a deeply held conviction that the world can be a better, kinder place. Saying "no" to injustice is the ultimate declaration of hope.
    • Amy Goodman Conclusion, Standing Up To the Madness: Ordinary Heroes In Extraordinary Times with David Goodman (2008)
  • Hope, like the gleaming taper's light,
    Adorns and cheers our way;
    And still, as darker grows the night,
    Emits a brighter ray.
  • In all my wanderings round this world of care,
    In all my griefs—and God has given my share—
    I still had hopes my latest hours to crown,
    Amidst these humble bowers to lay me down.
  • The wretch condemn'd with life to part,
    Still, still on hope relies;
    And every pang that rends the heart
    Bids expectation rise.
    • Oliver Goldsmith, Captivity, Song, as reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 375-78
  • I have hoped as many hopes and dreamed so many dreams, seen them swept aside by weather, and blown away by men, washed away in my own mistakes, that — I use to wonder if it wouldn't be better just to haul off and quit hoping. Just protect my own inner brain, my own mind and heart, by drawing it up into a hard knot, and not having any more hopes or dreams at all.
  • No matter how bad the wicked world has hurt you, in the long run, there is something gained, and it is all for the best] … The note of hope is the only note that can help us or save us from falling to the bottom of the heap of evolution, because, largely, about all a human being is, anyway, is just a hoping machine, a working machine.
    • Woody Guthrie, "Notes about Music" (29 March 1946) also quoted in Ramblin' Man: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie (2004) by Ed Cray
  • Gay hope is theirs by fancy fed,
    Less pleasing when possest;
    The tear forgot as soon as shed,
    The sunshine of the breast.
    • Thomas Gray, Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College (1742), Stanza 5

H

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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
 
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
 
Beware how you take away hope from any human being. ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
  • 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
  • Unhappy they who raise their hopes upon the shifting sand.
  • 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
  • History says don't hope / On this side of the grave. / But then, once in a lifetime / The longed for tidal wave / Of justice can rise up / And hope and history rhyme.
  • 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"
  • Youth fades; love droops, the leaves of friendship fall;
    A mother's secret hope outlives them all.

I

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  • I suppose it can be truthfully said that Hope is the only universal liar who never loses his reputation for veracity.

J

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Hope is necessary in every condition. The miseries of poverty, sickness and captivity would, without this comfort, be insupportable. ~ Samuel Johnson
 
Hope is itself a species of happiness, and, perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords. ~ Samuel Johnson
  • Wherever you are tonight, you can make it. Hold your head high, stick your chest out. You can make it. It gets dark sometimes, but the morning comes. Don't you surrender. Suffering breeds character, character breeds faith. In the end faith will not disappoint.
    You must not surrender. You may or may not get there but just know that you're qualified. And you hold on, and hold out. We must never surrender. America will get better and better.
  • 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.
  • When we realize the degree of agency we actually do have, we no longer have to "hope" at all. We simply do the work.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • In all the wedding cake, hope is the sweetest of the plums.
    • Douglas Jerrold, Jerrold's Wit, The Cats-paw, as reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 375-78
  • When there is no hope, there can be no endeavor.
    • Samuel Johnson, The Rambler, No. 110, as reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 375-78
  • Hope is necessary in every condition. The miseries of poverty, sickness and captivity would, without this comfort, be insupportable.
  • 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.
  • Hope is itself a species of happiness, and, perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords.
  • 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.

K

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Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement; nothing can be done without hope. ~ Hellen Keller
  • 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)
  • So, when dark thoughts my boding spirit shroud,
    Sweet Hope! celestial influence round me shed
    Waving thy silver pinions o'er my head.
  • Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement; nothing can be done without hope.
  • The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon
    Turns Ashes—or it prospers; and anon,
    Like Snow upon the Desert's dusty Face,
    Lighting a little hour or two—is gone.

L

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  • L'espérance, toute trompeuse qu'elle est, sert au moins à nous mener à la fin de la vie par un chemin agréable.
  • Hope is a timid thing,
    Fearful, and weak, and born in suffering;
    At least, such Hope as human life can bring.
    • Letitia Elizabeth Landon The New Monthly Magazine (1834) 'The Future' page 303. Re-used in 'Ethel Churchill' Vol. I, Chapter 31
  • Hope is love's happiness, but not its life;—
    How many hearts have nourished a vain flame
    In silence and in secret, though they knew
    They fed the scorching fire that would consume them!
  • Hope destroys pleasure; …
    • This remark having been questioned by one to whose judgment I exceedingly defer, may I be permitted not to retract, but to defend my assertion? Hope is like constancy, the country, or solitude—all of which owe their reputation to the pretty things that have been said about them. Hope is but the poetical name for that feverish restlessness which hurries over to-day for the sake of to-morrow. Who among us pauses upon the actual moment, to own, "Now, even now, am I happy?" The wisest of men has said, that hope deferred is sickness to the heart: yet what hope have we that is not deferred? For my part, I believe that there are two spirits who preside over this feeling, and that hope, like love, has its Eros and Anteros. Its Eros, that reposes on fancy, and creates rather than calculates; while its Anteros lives on expectation, and is dissatisfied with all that Is, in vague longings for what may be.
    • Letitia Elizabeth Landon, Romance and Reality, Volume 3, Footnote to chapter 18 (1831).
  • Radical hope anticipates a good for which those who have the hope as yet lack the appropriate concepts with which to understand it.
  • 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
  • One only hope my heart can cheer,—
    The hope to meet again.
    • George Linley, Song, as reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 375-78
  • Races, better than we, have leaned on her wavering promise,
    Having naught else but Hope.
 
Hope is like a road in the country; there was never a road, but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence. ~ Lusin
  • Hope is like a road in the country; there was never a road, but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence.
    • Lu Xun, in "The Epigrams of Lusin", from The Wisdom of China and India, ed. and trans. Lin Yutang (New York: Random House, 1942)

M

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Hope proves man deathless. It is the struggle of the soul, breaking loose from what is perishable, and attesting her eternity. ~ Henry Melvill
 
A man without hope is a man without fear. ~ Frank Miller
 
I never loved a tree or flower,
But 'twas the first to fade away. ~ Thomas Moore
 
A holy life is a life of hope; and at the end of it, death is a great act of hope. ~ William Mountford
  • Vita dum superest, bene est.
    • While life remains it is well.
    • Mæcenas, quoted by Seneca, Epist., 101, as reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 375-78
  • Our dearest hopes in pangs are born,
    The kingliest Kings are crown'd with thorn.
    • Gerald Massey, The Kingliest Kings, as reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 375-78
  • “Hope hurts. That's what you need to learn, and fast, if you don't want it to cut you open from the inside out. Hope is bad. Hope means you keep on holding to things that won’t ever be so again, and so you bleed an inch at a time until there's nothing left. Ely-Eleanor is always saying 'don't use this word' and 'don't use that word,' but she never bans the ones that are really bad. She never bans hope.”
  • Hope is the feeling we have that the feeling we have is not permanent.
  • 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.
  • 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
  • Inflamed with the study of learning and the admiration of virtue; stirred up with high hopes of living to be brave men and worthy patriots, dear to God, and famous to all ages.
  • Where peace
    And rest can never dwell, hope never comes,
    That comes to all.
  • What reinforcement we may gain from hope;
    If not, what resolution from despair.
  • So farewell hope, and with hope farewell fear,
    Farewell remorse: all good to me is lost;
    Evil, be thou my good.
  • Toutes choses, disoit un mot ancien, sont esperables à un homme, pendant qu'il vit.
    • All things, said an ancient saw, may be hoped for by a man as long as he lives.
    • Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Book II, Chapter III
  • Hope against hope, and ask till ye receive.
  • Oh! ever thus, from childhood's hour,
    I've seen my fondest hopes decay;
    I never loved a tree or flower,
    But 'twas the first to fade away.
  • 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.
  • A hopeful sinner is closer to the mercy of Allah than a hopeless worshipper.
    • Muhammad Mizan al-hikma, Volume 10, Page 504, Tradition 7109

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Hope, in its stronger forms, is a great deal more powerful stimulans to life than any sort of realized joy can ever be. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
  • A leader is a dealer in hope.
  • Hope, in its stronger forms, is a great deal more powerful stimulus 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.

O

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Hope is that thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us if we have the courage to reach for it and to work for it and to fight for it. ~ Barack Obama
 
Hope is the bedrock of this nation. The belief that our destiny will not be written for us, but by us, by all those men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is, who have the courage to remake the world as it should be. ~ Barack Obama
 
Hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting. ~ Barack Obama
 
No human being can truly be imprisoned if hope burns in your heart. … A true revolution of the spirit begins in each of our hearts. ~ Barack Obama
 
Hope does not arise by putting our fellow man down; it is found by lifting others up. ~ Barack Obama
  • Years from now, you'll look back and you'll say that this was the moment, this was the place where America remembered what it means to hope. For many months, we've been teased, even derided for talking about hope. But we always knew that hope is not blind optimism. It's not ignoring the enormity of the tasks ahead or the roadblocks that stand in our path. It's not sitting on the sidelines or shirking from a fight. Hope is that thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us if we have the courage to reach for it and to work for it and to fight for it.
  • Et res non semper, spes mihi semper adest.
    • My hopes are not always realized, but I always hope.
    • Ovid, Heroides, XVIII. 178

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Hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? ~ Paul of Tarsus
 
Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions soar;
Wait the great teacher, Death, and God adore;
What future bliss He gives not thee to know,
But gives that hope to be thy blessing now. ~ Alexander Pope
 
A man's hope measures his civilization. The attainability of the hope measures, or may measure, the civilization of his nation and time. ~ Ezra Pound
  •  Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be.
  • 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
  • We can never enter upon the path to virtue unless we have hope as our guide and companion.
    • Pelagius, in "Letter to Demetrias" as translated by B. Rees, in Readings in World Christian History (2013), pp. 206-210
  • Nam multa præter spem scio multis bona evenisse,
    At ego etiam qui speraverint, spem decepisse multos.
    • For I know that many good things have happened to many, when least expected; and that many hopes have been disappointed.
    • Plautus, Rudens, II. 3. 69; Mostellaria, Act I, scene 3, line 71
  • Even after all that, each and every being here believe,
    that the heat will be defeated and coolness will prevail.
    The experience knows
    that the rule of an autocrat cannot last long.
  • Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions soar;
    Wait the great teacher, Death, and God adore;
    What future bliss He gives not thee to know,
    But gives that hope to be thy blessing now.
  • Hope travels through, nor quits us when we die.
  • A man's hope measures his civilization. The attainability of the hope measures, or may measure, the civilization of his nation and time.
    • Ezra Pound, Guide to Kulchur (1938), part 3, Section 6, Ch. 22
  • “It’s the hope that’s important. Big part of belief, hope. Give people jam today and they’ll just sit and eat it. Jam tomorrow, now—that’ll keep them going forever.”
  • For hope is but the dream of those that wake!
    • Matthew Prior, Solomon on the Vanity of the World, Book III, line 102
  • Our hopes, like tow'ring falcons, aim
    At objects in an airy height;
    The little pleasure of the game
    Is from afar to view the flight.

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  • Et spes inanes, et velut somnia quædam, vigilantium.
    • Vain hopes are like certain dreams of those who wake.
    • Quintilian, VI. 2. 27

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Life and hope for the world are to be found only in the deeds of love. ~ Bertrand Russell
  • Life and hope for the world are to be found only in the deeds of love.
    • Bertrand Russell, Political Ideals (1917), Chapter V: National Independence and Internationalism

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Have Hope. Though clouds environ now,
And gladness hides her face in scorn,
Put thou the shadow from thy brow, —
No night but hath its morn. ~ Friedrich Schiller
 
Hope is brightest when it dawns from fears. ~ Walter Scott
 
Hope is a lover's staff; walk hence with that
And manage it against despairing thoughts. ~ William Shakespeare
 
The miserable have no other medicine
But only hope:
I've hope to live, and am prepar'd to die. ~ William Shakespeare
 
Fear cannot be without hope nor hope without fear. ~ Baruch Spinoza
 
This tree is our symbol. Our affirmation of Life, and everyone in this town gives part of their water rations to keep it alive. We've learned, administrator, that hope is a powerful weapon against anything, even drought. ~ Star Trek: The Next Generation
 
It is not necessary to succeed in order to persevere. As long as there is a margin of hope, however narrow, we have no choice but to base all our actions on that margin. ~ Leó Szilárd
  • Optimism is the belief that things will get better. Hope is the faith that, together, we can make things better.
  • Who in Life's battle firm doth stand
    Shall bear Hope's tender blossoms
    Into the Silent Land.
    • J. G. Van Salis, Song of the Silent Land, as reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 375-78
  • I'm an idealist. I don't know where I'm going, but I'm on my way.

  • There are three lessons I would write, —
    Three words — as with a burning pen,
    In tracings of eternal light
    Upon the hearts of men.

    Have Hope. Though clouds environ now,
    And gladness hides her face in scorn,
    Put thou the shadow from thy brow, —
    No night but hath its morn.

    Have Faith. Where'er thy bark is driven, —
    The calm's disport, the tempest's mirth, —
    Know this: God rules the hosts of heaven,
    The habitants of earth.

    Have Love. Not love alone for one,
    But men, as man, thy brothers call;
    And scatter, like the circling sun,
    Thy charities on all.

    Thus grave these lessons on thy soul, —
    Hope, Faith, and Love, — and thou shalt find
    Strength when life's surges rudest roll,
    Light when thou else wert blind.

    • Friedrich Schiller, Hope, Faith, and Love (c. 1786); also known as "The Words of Strength", as translated in The Common School Journal Vol. IX (1847) edited by Horace Mann, p. 386
  • Verzweifle keiner je, dem in der trübsten Nacht
    Der Hoffnung letzte Sterne schwinden.
    • Let no one despair, even though in the darkest night the last star of hope may disappear.
    • Friedrich Schiller, Oberon, I. 27
  • The sickening pang of hope deferr'd.
  • Hope is brightest when it dawns from fears.
  • Omnia homini, dum vivit, speranda sunt.
    • All things are to be hoped by a man as long as he is alive.
    • Seneca the Younger, Epistles, 70
  • True hope is swift, and flies with swallow's wings:
    Kings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings.
  • Life doesn't end just because someone leaves.
  • Worse than despair,
    Worse than the bitterness of death, is hope.
  • Through the sunset of hope,
    Like the shapes of a dream,
    What paradise islands of glory gleam!
    • Percy Bysshe Shelley, Hellas, Semi-chorus I, as reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 375-78
  • To hope till hope creates
    From its own wreck the thing it contemplates.
  • But hope will make thee young, for Hope and Youth
    Are children of one mother, even Love.
  • Hope makes itself every day
    springs up from the tiniest places
  • Imagine a man who doesn't believe in anything, hope for anything, doesn't love anyone. This is a description of a dead or paralyzed soul. This happens from great grief, or from an unhappy upbringing when parents make from their children's souls paralytics.
  • It is never right to consider that a man has been made happy by fate, until his life is absolutely finished, and he has ended his existence.
  • Fear cannot be without hope nor hope without fear.
  • “What hope can a man have,” my father had once shouted at me, “if he has none of Heaven?” Even in 1910 he thought the world a vale of tears without relent.
    “The hope of enlightened life,” I had replied then.
  • Let the sweet hope that Thou art mine,
    My life and death attend;
    Thy presence through my journey shine,
    And crown my journey's end.
    • Anne Steele, in "The Grace of God", as quoted in Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895) edited by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, p. 328
  • It is not necessary to succeed in order to persevere. As long as there is a margin of hope, however narrow, we have no choice but to base all our actions on that margin. America and Russia have one interest in common which may override all their other interests: to be able to live with the bomb without getting into an all-out war that neither of them wants.
    • Leó Szilárd, as quoted in "Some Szilardisms on War, Fame, Peace", LIFE‎ magazine, Vol. 51, no. 9 (1 September 1961), p. 79

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While there's life there's hope, and only the dead have none. ~ Theocritus
 
Hope keeps you focused on the future, and this continued focus perpetuates your denial of the Now and therefore your unhappiness. ~ Eckhart Tolle
  • We do not stray out of all words into the ever silent;
    We do not raise our hands to the void for things beyond hope.
  • Behold, we know not anything;
    I can but trust that good shall fall
    At last—far off—at last, to all,
    And every winter change to spring.
  • Ego spem pretio non emo.
    • I do not buy hope with money.
    • Terence, Adelphi, II. 2. 12
  • Væ misero mihi! quanta de spe decidi.
    • Woe to my wretched self! from what a height of hope have I fallen!
    • Terence, Heauton timorumenos, II. 3. 9
  • While there's life there's hope, and only the dead have none.
    • Theocritus (3rd century BC), Idyll 4, line 42; tr. A. S. F. Gow, Theocritus ([1950] 1952) vol. 1, p. 37.
    • Variant translation: For the living there is hope, but for the dead there is none.
    • Later variant: Ægroto, dum anima est, spes est.
      • While the sick man has life, there is hope.
      • Cicero (1st century BC), Epistolarum ad Atticum [Epistle To Atticus], Book IX, 10, 4
  • Spes fovet, et fore eras semper ait melius.
    • Hope ever urges on, and tells us to-morrow will be better.
    • Tibullus, Carmina, II. 6. 20
  • Many are the strange chances of the world... and help oft shall come from the hands of the weak when the Wise falter.
  • Hope keeps you focused on the future, and this continued focus perpetuates your denial of the Now and therefore your unhappiness.
  • As long as I breathe I hope. As long as I breathe I shall fight for the future, that radiant future, in which man, strong and beautiful, will become master of the drifting stream of his history and will direct it towards the boundless horizons of beauty, joy and happiness!
    • Leon Trotsky, "On Optimism and Pessimism, on the Twentieth Century, and on Many Other Things" (1901), as quoted in The Prophet Armed : Trotsky, 1879-1921 (2003) by Isaac Deutscher , p. 45
  • In bitter despair, some people have come to believe that wars are inevitable. With tragic fatalism, they insist that wars have always been, of necessity, and of necessity wars always will be. To such defeatism, men and women of good will must not and can not yield. The outlook for humanity is not so hopeless. During the dark hours of this horrible war, entire nations were kept going by something intangible--hope! When warned that abject submission offered the only salvation against overwhelming power, hope showed the way to victory. Hope has become the secret weapon of the forces of liberation! Aggressors could not dominate the human mind. As long as hope remains, the spirit of man will never be crushed.

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  • Vestras spes uritis.
  • Speravimus ista
    Dum fortuna fuit.
    • Such hopes I had while fortune was kind.
    • Virgil, Æneid (29-19 BC), X. 42

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There is always hope. ~ Frances Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Peter Jackson, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
  • Hope is the denial of reality. It is the carrot dangled before the draft horse to keep him plodding along in a vain attempt to reach it.
  • Behind the cloud the starlight lurks,
    Through showers the sunbeams fall;
    For God, who loveth all his works,
    Has left his Hope with all.
    • John Greenleaf Whittier, Dream of Summer, as reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 375-78
  • As I said, such a possibility is a remote one, and I refuse to allow hope, that winged menace, to find purchase in my heart.
    • Tim Wirkus, The Infinite Future (2018), Part 2, Chapter 10
  • Hope told a flattering tale
    That joy would soon return;
    Ah, naught my sighs avail
    For love is doomed to mourn.
    • John Wolcot, song introduced into the Opera, Artaxerxes
  • Is Man
    A child of hope? Do generations press
    On generations, without progress made?
    Halts the individual, ere his hairs be gray,
    Perforce?
  • Hopes; what are they?—Beads of morning
    Strung on slender blades of grass;
    Or a spider's web adorning
    In a straight and treacherous pass.
  • Hope tells a flattering tale,
    Delusive, vain and hollow.
    Ah! let not hope prevail,
    Lest disappointment follow.
    • "Miss Wrother", in the Universal Songster, Volume II, p. 86, as reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 375-78

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  • Hope of all passions, most befriends us here
    • Edward Young, Night Thoughts (1742-1745), Night VII, line 1,470
  • Hope, like a cordial, innocent, though strong,
    Man's heart, at once, inspirits, and serenes,
    Nor makes him pay his wisdom for his joys.
    • Edward Young, Night Thoughts (1742-1745), Night VII, line 1,514
  • Confiding, though confounded; hoping on,
    Untaught by trial, unconvinced by proof,
    And ever looking for the never-seen.
    • Edward Young, Night Thoughts (1742-1745), Night VIII, line 116

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Turn you to the strong hold, ye prisoners of hope: even to day do I declare that I will render double unto thee. ~ Zechariah
  • Turn you to the strong hold, ye prisoners of hope: even to day do I declare that I will render double unto thee; When I have bent Judah for me, filled the bow with Ephraim, and raised up thy sons, O Zion, against thy sons, O Greece, and made thee as the sword of a mighty man. And the Lord shall be seen over them, and his arrow shall go forth as the lightning: and the Lord God shall blow the trumpet, and shall go with whirlwinds of the south.
  • To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places — and there are so many — where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.
    • Howard Zinn, A Power Governments Cannot Suppress, p. 270

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Hope for the best and prepare for the worst. ~ Anonymous
  • Hope is the poor man's bread.
    • English proverb, reported in George Herbert, Jacula Prudentum (1651), No. 437
  • He that lives in hope danceth without music.
    • English proverb, reported in George Herbert, Jacula Prudentum (1640), No. 1006
  • Hope for the best and prepare for the worst.

See also

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Virtues
Altruism • Asceticism • Beneficence • Benevolence • Bravery • Carefulness • Charity • Cheerfulness • Cleanliness • Common sense • Compassion • Constancy • Courage • Dignity • Diligence • Discretion • Earnestness • Faith • Fidelity • Forethought • Forgiveness • Friendship • Frugality • Gentleness • Goodness • Grace • Gratitude • Holiness • Honesty • Honor • Hope • Hospitality • Humanity • Humility • Integrity • Intelligence • Justice • Kindness • Love • Loyalty • Mercy • Moderation • Modesty • Optimism • Patience • Philanthropy • Piety • Prudence • Punctuality • Poverty • Purity • Self-control • Simplicity • Sincerity • Sobriety • Sympathy • Temperance • Tolerance

Vices
Aggression • Anger • Apathy • Arrogance • Bigotry • Contempt • Cowardice • Cruelty • Dishonesty • Drunkenness • Egotism • Envy • Evil speaking • Gluttony • Greed • Hatred • Hypocrisy • Idleness • Ignorance • Impatience • Impenitence • Ingratitude • Inhumanity • Intemperance • Jealousy • Laziness • Lust • Malice • Neglect • Obstinacy • Philistinism • Prejudice • Pretension • Pride • Recklessness • Self-righteousness • Selfishness • Superficiality • Tryphé • Unkindness • Usury • Vanity • Worldliness

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