quotations about hope
Hope is a psychological mechanism unaffected by external realities.
GENE WOLFE
The Shadow of the Torturer
A ship ought not to be held by one anchor, nor life by a single hope.
EPICTETUS
fragment
Hope was an instinct only the reasoning human mind could kill. An animal never knew despair.
GRAHAM GREENE
The Power and the Glory
Hope is a day the end of which we may never see.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
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
False hopes are more dangerous than fears.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN
The Children of Hurin
Work without hope draws nectar in a sieve,
And hope without an object cannot live.
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
Work Without Hope
Sometimes hope become scarce as midnight rainbow.
CHARLIE CHAN
Charlie Chan's Chance
Cut the Wings of your Hens and Hopes, lest they lead you a weary Dance after them.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Poor Richard's Almanack, 1754
What heart has not false Hope misled?
WILLIAM B. TAPPAN
"What Heart Has Not False Hope Misled"
We can have hope even while maintaining a negative--or sometimes simply realistic--attitude. For instance, if you're dying of cancer, you can still hope for pain relief. If you have a difficult-to-treat cancer, you can still hope for new treatments.
LORI HOPE
Help Me Live
Hope hath a large mouth.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
And then the spirit brings hope, hope in the strictest Christian sense, hope which is hoping against hope. For an immediate hope exists in every person; it may be more powerfully alive in one person than in another; but in death every hope of this kind dies and turns into hopelessness. Into this night of hopelessness (it is death that we are describing) comes the life-giving spirit and brings hope, the hope of eternity. It is against hope, for there was no longer any hope for that merely natural hope; this hope is therefore a hope contrary to hope.
SOREN KIERKEGAARD
For Self-Examination
Hope, whose whisper would have given
Balm to all my frenzied pain,
Stretched her wings, and soared to heaven,
Went, and ne'er returned again!
EMILY BRONTE
Hope
I plant a seed of Hope, and ere the tread
Of nimble-footed Day has run the hours,
The seed has grown a tree that woos the skies,
Its verdant branches starred with golden flowers.
LOUISE AYRES GARNETT
"The Tree of Hope"
Hope, the magician, charms the distant prospect,
And fancy pictures all the world as good!
C. B. LANGSTON
"Youth"
In hopelessness there is always hope.
DAN SIMMONS
Hyperion
Those that hope little cannot grow much.
GEORGE MACDONALD
The Hope of the Gospel
Strange as it may seem, I still hope for the best, even though the best, like an interesting piece of mail, so rarely arrives, and even when it does it can be lost so easily.
LEMONY SNICKET
The Beatrice Letters
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.
LIN YUTANG
The Wisdom of China