quotations about hope
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
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
Our noblest hopes grow teeth and pursue us like tigers.
JOHN GARDNER
In the Suicide Mountains
With thee, sweet Hope! resides the heav'nly light,
That pours remotest rapture on the sight:
Thine is the charm of life's bewilder'd way,
That calls each slumb'ring passion into play:
Wak'd by thy touch, I see the sister band,
On tiptoe watching, start at thy command,
And fly where'er thy mandate bids them steer,
To Pleasure's path, or Glory's bright career.
THOMAS CAMPBELL
The Pleasures of Hope
Hope is like a northern hawthorn bush, late flowering but continuing long in bloom. There is an element of speculation in it which faith quite lacks. Thus, faith is for youth, hope for middle life, and charity, which only comes when faith and hope are dead, for age.
B. CUNNINGHAM GRAHAM
Hope
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
Those who hope for no other life are dead even for this.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
Conversations with Goethe
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
Hope never abandons you; you abandon it.
GEORGE WEINBERG
Self Creation
Glittering hope is immemorial and beckons many men to their undoing.
EURIPEDES, Iphigenia in Tauris
Where there is no hope there can be no endeavour.
ELIZA COOK
Diamond Dust
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
I think it's a mistake to ever look for hope outside of one's self.
ARTHUR MILLER
After the Fall
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
Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but when dreams come true, there is life and joy.
BIBLE
Proverbs 13:12
At home or abroad, on land, on sea, in prosperity or in adversity, hope's beaming star ever lights us, sometimes feeble, but oftener bright; sometimes weak, but oftener strong. Hope is the murderer's cell, and with the shipwrecked mariner on the desert isle; in the palace, and in the cot; it is shining with surpassing splendour by the dying bed of the Christian, and flickering round the couch of the infidel. Hope met our first parents in Eden, and will be with the last man on earth. Hope is part of our immortality; we hope on, and we hope ever.
T. AUGUSTUS FORBES LEITH
"On Hope", Short Essays
The deepest dark reveals the starriest hope.
GERALD MASSEY
"Long Expected"
Blind hope faces a blank wall waiting for a door in it to open. Doors might be nearby, but blind hope keeps you from locating them.
REBECCA SOLNIT
Hope in the Dark
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
What is hope but a feeling of optimism, a thought that says things will improve, it won't always be bleak, there's a way to rise above the present circumstances. Hope is an internal awareness that you do not have to suffer forever, and that somehow, somewhere there is a remedy for despair that you will come upon if you can only maintain this expectancy in your heart.
WAYNE W. DYER
There's a Spiritual Solution to Every Problem