quotations about hope
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
Hope is the most universal of human possessions.
THALES
fragment
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
It all depends whether hope is in front or behind you.
WILLIAM JOHN LOCKE
The Usurper
Glittering hope is immemorial and beckons many men to their undoing.
EURIPEDES, Iphigenia in Tauris
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
A poor man with nothing in his belly needs hope, illusion, more than bread.
GEORGES BERNANOS
The Diary of a Country Priest
Our noblest hopes grow teeth and pursue us like tigers.
JOHN GARDNER
In the Suicide Mountains
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
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
Take hope from the heart of man, and you make him a beast of prey.
OUIDA
A Village Commune
We all hope. It's what keeps us alive.
DAVID MAMET
Speed-the-Plow
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
Once you lost all hope, time began to go faster and the senseless days deadened your soul.
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
The Prisoner of Heaven
Where there is no hope there can be no endeavour.
ELIZA COOK
Diamond Dust
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"
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
Hope is the elevating feeling we experience when we see--in the mind's eye--a path to a better future.
JEROME GROOPMAN
The Anatomy of Hope
Though Hope be a small child, she can carry a great anchor!
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
The Last of the Barons
Those who hope for no other life are dead even for this.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
Conversations with Goethe