quotations about hope
Hope is sweet-minded and sweet-eyed. It draws pictures; it weaves fancies; it fills the future with delight.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Cut the Wings of your Hens and Hopes, lest they lead you a weary Dance after them.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Poor Richard's Almanack, 1754
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?
Without a minimum of hope, we cannot so much as start the struggle.
PAULO FREIRE
Pedagogy of Hope
That which obstructs hope often increases it.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
In hopelessness there is always hope.
DAN SIMMONS
Hyperion
What we call our despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope.
GEORGE ELIOT
Middlemarch
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
Work without hope draws nectar in a sieve,
And hope without an object cannot live.
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
Work Without Hope
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
The quality of our expectations determines the quality of our actions.
ANDRÉ GODIN
In Thought
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
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
Hope is delicate suffering.
AMIRI BARAKA
Cold
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
Hope joined us in the cradle, and will be with us at the last.
T. AUGUSTUS FORBES LEITH
"On Hope", Short Essays
Shame on the man who goes to his grave escorted by the miserable hopes that have kept him alive.
EMIL CIORAN
The Temptation to Exist
Hope is the only method of recapturing hope.
HIROKAZU MIYAZAKI
The Method of 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