HOPE QUOTES III
quotations about hope
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, Oct. 28, 1815
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
In reality, hope is the worst of all evils, because it prolongs the torments of man.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
Human
If it is hope that maintains and upholds faith and keeps it moving on, if it is hope that draws the believer into the life of love, then it will also be hope that is the mobilizing and driving force of faith's thinking, of its knowledge of, and reflections on, human nature, history and society. Faith hopes in order to know what it believes. Hence all its knowledge will be an anticipatory, fragmentary knowledge forming a prelude to the promised future, and as such is committed to hope. Hence also vice versa the hope which arises from faith in God's promise will become the ferment in our thinking, its mainspring, the source of its restlessness and torment.
JÜRGEN MOLTMANN
Theology of Hope
Hope is the most universal of human possessions.
THALES
fragment
Who turns away from gazing at the sun
Sees its dusk images fill all the air.
It is not otherwise when Hope is done:
Her darkling phantoms make the heaven of Despair.
EDITH MATILDA THOMAS
"When Hope Is Done"
The near cousin of optimism is hope: knowing the steps needed to get to a goal and having the energy to pursue those steps. It is a primal motivating force, and its absence is paralyzing.
DANIEL GOLEMAN
Working With Emotional Intelligence
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
Once you lost all hope, time began to go faster and the senseless days deadened your soul.
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
The Prisoner of Heaven
Those who hope for no other life are dead even for this.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
Conversations with Goethe
The most tragic form of loss isn't the loss of security; it's the loss of the capacity to imagine that things could be different.
ERNST BLOCH
The Principle of Hope
Take hope from the heart of man, and you make him a beast of prey.
OUIDA
A Village Commune
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
It all depends whether hope is in front or behind you.
WILLIAM JOHN LOCKE
The Usurper
Hope springs eternal in the human breast:
Man never is, but always To Be Blest.
ALEXANDER POPE
Essay on Man
Hope is the companion of power, and mother of success; for who so hopes strongly has within him the gift of miracles.
SAMUEL SMILES
Self-Help
Glittering hope is immemorial and beckons many men to their undoing.
EURIPEDES, Iphigenia in Tauris
We postpone the finality of heartbreak by clinging to hope. Though this might be acceptable during early or transitional stages of grief, ultimately it is no way to live. We need both hands free to embrace life and accept love, and that's impossible if one hand has a death grip on the past.
KRISTIN ARMSTRONG
O Magazine, Feb. 2007
The absence of hope can rot a society from within.
BARACK OBAMA
Nobel Lecture, Dec. 10, 2009
I think it's a mistake to ever look for hope outside of one's self.
ARTHUR MILLER
After the Fall