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
To the last moment of his breath
On hope the wretch relies;
And e'en the pang preceding death
Bids expectation rise.
Hope, like the gleaming taper's light,
Adorns and cheers our way;
And still, as darker grows the night,
Emits a brighter ray.
OLIVER GOLDSMITH
The Captivity
Hope is the soul's best bower anchor let go in good holding ground. Through every trial, through every woe, in health, in sickness, in poverty, and in want, hope, like a bright fixed star of promise, shines aloft, and bids us not despair.
T. AUGUSTUS FORBES LEITH
"On Hope", Short Essays
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 a flatterer; but the most upright of parasites; for she frequents the poor man's hut, as well as the palace of his superior.
WILLIAM SHENSTONE
Essays on Men and Manners
Once you lost all hope, time began to go faster and the senseless days deadened your soul.
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
The Prisoner of Heaven
Any little thing can give hope, like a candle in the dark.
CHRISTIAAN MOSTERT
Hope: Challenging the Culture of Despair
We all hope. It's what keeps us alive.
DAVID MAMET
Speed-the-Plow
Glittering hope is immemorial and beckons many men to their undoing.
EURIPEDES, Iphigenia in Tauris
Hope, deceitful as it is, carries us through life agreeably enough.
FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
Moral Maxims
There is always hope...only because it's the one thing that no one has figured out how to kill yet.
GALEN
Crusade
He who has never hoped can never despair.
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
Caesar and Cleopatra
The deepest dark reveals the starriest hope.
GERALD MASSEY
"Long Expected"
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
How can hope be false when it is as much a part of the human experience as birth or death?
LORI HOPE
Help Me Live
Take hope from the heart of man, and you make him a beast of prey.
OUIDA
A Village Commune
We should expect hope's reciprocity as a natural flowering of the life of hope. Helping others and nurturing hope is expressive of hopefulness itself. It is an extension of the hopeful self to reach out to others, promoting the connection of agency and the enrichment of horizons of meaning. Hope's reciprocity grows out of the very social nature of hope; we thus frequently see it live in family relations, in intimacy, in love. And so hope spreads. This spreading should not surprise us; like love, it is freely given, fostered, and nurtured.
PATRIC SHADE
Habits of Hope
Hope is not like a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky.... hope is an ax you break down doors with in an emergency.
REBECCA SOLNIT
Hope in the Dark
It all depends whether hope is in front or behind you.
WILLIAM JOHN LOCKE
The Usurper
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