quotations about hope
Cut the Wings of your Hens and Hopes, lest they lead you a weary Dance after them.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Poor Richard's Almanack, 1754
Work without hope draws nectar in a sieve,
And hope without an object cannot live.
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
Work Without Hope
Without a minimum of hope, we cannot so much as start the struggle.
PAULO FREIRE
Pedagogy of Hope
A ship ought not to be held by one anchor, nor life by a single hope.
EPICTETUS
fragment
Better hope deferred than none.
SAMUEL BECKETT
Company
Help, then, is the ballast that keeps us steady, that recognizes where along the path are the dangers and pitfalls that can throw us off; hope tempers fear so we can recognize dangers and then bypass or endure them.
JEROME GROOPMAN
The Anatomy of Hope
What doctor possesses such curative resources as those latent in a spark of happiness or a single ray of hope?
HENRI-FREDERIC AMIEL
Journal Intime
If you have a dream, live it. If you have a hope, chase it.
EARL PFEIFFER
Clash by Night
The road that is built in hope is more pleasant to the traveler than the road built in despair, even though they both lead to the same destination.
MARIAN ZIMMER BRADLEY
The Fall of Atlantis
We are promised abundance of all good things--yet we are rich only in hunger and thirst. What would become of us if we did not take our stand on hope, and if our heart did not hasten beyond this world!
JEAN CALVIN
Commentaries on the Epistles of Paul
Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense regardless of how it turns out.
VACLAV HAVEL
Disturbing the Peace
The mind which renounces, once and forever, a futile hope, has its compensations in ever-growing calm.
GEORGE GISSING
The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft
What we call our despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope.
GEORGE ELIOT
Middlemarch
Hope is the power of being cheerful in circumstances which we know to be desperate.
G. K. CHESTERTON
Heretics
Hope, the magician, charms the distant prospect,
And fancy pictures all the world as good!
C. B. LANGSTON
"Youth"
False hopes are more dangerous than fears.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN
The Children of Hurin
Hope is the only method of recapturing hope.
HIROKAZU MIYAZAKI
The Method of Hope
In somewhat the same way as reasonable belief is to be distinguished from superstition, so is reasonable hope ("hope that maketh not ashamed") to be distinguished from that which is vain and illusory. It is also true that in somewhat the same way as the strength of the belief furnishes a very effective evidence for the reasonableness of the belief to the man who holds it, so does the assurance of hoping give much additional testimony to the reasonableness of the hope for the mind that entertains it. In both cases, a certain value, which is something more than purely "subjective," cannot easily be denied to this support of truth in a form that is primarily emotional. It is more reasonable to believe what one can honestly believe with a strong feeling of confidence in its "objective" truthfulness. It is more reasonable to hope what one can honestly hope with a large measure of firm assurance. Nor is this measure of emotional evidence to be esteemed as of value to those only who store it in their own bosoms. Beliefs and hopes that are kept ever warm and vital in the bosom of humanity, by being near to its heart and source of vital life-currents, are lawfully as well as actually most well nourished and most vigorous.
GEORGE TRUMBULL LADD
What May I hope?
Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come.
ANNE LEMOTT
Bird by Bird
The quality of our expectations determines the quality of our actions.
ANDRÉ GODIN
In Thought