Hope

Charity is the power of defending that which we know to be indefensible. Hope is the power of being cheerful in circumstances which we know to be desperate. ~~ G. K. Chesterton

Having the world's best idea will do you no good unless you act on it. People who want milk shouldn't sit on a stool in the middle of a field in hopes that a cow will back up to them. ~~ Curtis Grant

[Prediction for the next millennium:] I keep remembering that after Pandora closed the box, after all the scourges had been loosed, the only thing that did not escape was hope. ~~ David Plowden

I believe that the most important thing that will happen in the new millennium (which, incidentally, starts January 1, 2001) will be the proof of extraterrestrial intelligence. While this will have many aspects of profound significance, nothing is more important in my estimation than the hope that this event will serve to bind together the peoples of planet earth and to emphasize the total futility of human conflict between groups and nations. ~~ Robert Hawke

You don't seem to realize that a poor person who is unhappy is in a better position than a rich person who is unhappy. Because the poor person has hope. He thinks money would help. ~~ Jean Kerr

What makes old age so sad is not that our joys but our hopes cease. ~~ Jean Paul Richter

Cynicism was okay, bitterness a pain in the neck. The hairline difference between the two was hope and humor. The cynic had both, the embittered, nothing. ~~ Nevada Barr [Blind Descent]

All human wisdom is summed up in two words -- wait and hope. ~~ Alexandre Dumas, pere

Yesterday is experience. Tomorrow is hope. Today is getting from one to the other as best we can. ~~ John M. Henry

At first people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done, then they begin to hope it can be done, then they see it can be done -- then it is done and all the world wonders why it was not done centuries ago. ~~ Frances Hodgson Burnett

We hope vaguely but dread precisely. ~~ Paul Valery

When somebody says, "I hope you won't mind me telling you this," it's a good bet you will. ~~ Joe Moore

Hope is like a road in the country; there was never a road, but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence. ~~ Lin Yutang

Youth fades; love droops, the leaves of friendship fall; a mother's secret hope outlives them all. ~~ Oliver Wendell Holmes

The mind is never satisfied with the objects immediately before it, but is always breaking away from the present moment, and losing itself in schemes of future felicity… The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope. ~~ Samuel Johnson

Man needs, for his happiness, not only the enjoyment of this or that, but hope and enterprise and change. ~~ Bertrand Russell

People wish to be settled: only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them. ~~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

The belief in immortality rests not very much on the hope of going on. Few of us want to do that, but we would like very much to begin again. ~~ Heywood Broun [Pieces of Hate]

One of the best safeguards of our hopes, I have suggested, is to be able to mark off the areas of hopelessness and to acknowledge them, to face them directly, not with despair but with the creative intent of keeping them from polluting all the areas of possibility. ~~ William F. Lynch

The greatest violence is when you attack somebody with the notion that they're hopeless; that they can't change. That is violence. ~~ Sean Penn

We part more easily with what we possess than with our expectations of what we hope for: expectation always goes beyond enjoyment. ~~ Henry Home

The surest way to get a thing in this life is to be prepared for doing without it, to the exclusion even of hope. ~~ Jane Welsh Carlyle

How often events, by chance, and unexpectedly, came to pass, which you had not dared even to hope for! ~~ Terence

The attitude that nature is chaotic and that the artist puts order into it is a very absurd point of view, I think. All that we can hope for is to put some order into ourselves. ~~ Willem de Kooning

I care not if God is on my side. My constant hope and prayer is that I may be found on God's side. ~~ Abraham Lincoln

A nation is a body of people who have done great things together in the past and who hope to do great things together in the future. ~~ F. H. Underhill

We have no hope of solving our problems without harnessing the diversity, the energy, and the creativity of all our people. ~~ Roger Wilkins

I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations of justice and liberality. ~~ George Washington

All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom; justice; honor; duty; mercy; hope. ~~ Sir Winston Churchill

Hope is itself a species of happiness and perhaps the chief happiness which this world affords. ~~ Samuel Johnson

What man is strong enough to reject the possibility of hope? ~~ Paul Auster

Do not … hope wholly to reason away your troubles; do not feed them with attention, and they will die imperceptibly away. Fix your thoughts upon your business, fill your intervals with company, and sunshine will again break in upon your mind. ~~ Samuel Johnson

Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for. ~~ Epicurus

There is no medicine like hope, no incentive so great, and no tonic so powerful as expectation of something better tomorrow. ~~ Orison Marden

Now the trumpet summons us again -- not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need; not as a call to battle, though embattled we are; but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out, "rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation," a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself. ~~ John F. Kennedy

It is hopeless to try to convert some borders into seams. ~~ Jane Jacobs

The slow compromise, or even surrender, of our fondest hopes is a regular feature of normal human life. ~~ Leston L. Havens

Despair is better treated with hope, not dope. ~~ Richard Asher

We are in a period of transition. We are opening a new page of the history of mankind. Nobody can predict the future. However it may be hoped that the next millennium will see the emergence of a multi-polar, multicultural world in which the men will have more opportunity to manifest their creativity. The past is full of violence. Our hope is in the future. Science and technology have to become instruments of cultural diffusion to make this hope a reality. ~~ Viscount Ilya Prigogine

Fear cannot be without hope nor hope without fear. ~~ Baruch Spinoza

It is a fact of life that we find ourselves in unpleasant demoralizing situations which we can neither escape nor control. We can keep our morale and spirits high by using both "coping" and "hoping" humor. Coping humor laughs at the hopelessness in our situation. It gives us the courage to hang in there, but it does not bring hope. The uniqueness of hoping humor lies in its acceptance of life with all its dichotomies, contradictions, and incongruities. It celebrates the hope in human life. From one comes courage, from the other comes inspiration. ~~ Cy Eberhart

We [USA] become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams. ~~ Jimmy Carter

Creativity comes from trust. Trust your instincts. And never hope more than you work. ~~ Rita Mae Brown [Starting from Scratch]

The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. ~~ Barbara Kingsolver

I worked hard and made my own way, just as my father had. And just, I'm sure, as he hoped I would. I learned, from observing him, the satisfaction that comes from striving and seeing a dream fulfilled. ~~ Sigourney Weaver

Journalists say a thing that they know isn't true, in the hope that if they keep on saying it long enough it will be true. ~~ Arnold Bennett

Hope is a pleasant acquaintance, but an unsafe friend. ~~ Thomas Chandler Haliburton

Honest Winter, snow-clad, and with the frosted beard, I can welcome not uncordially: But that long deferment of the calendar's promise, that weeping gloom of March and April, that bitter blast outraging the honor of May how often has it robbed me of heart and hope? ~~ George Gissing

If we seek the average level we cannot hope to achieve a high level of success. Our only hope is to avoid being a failure. ~~ A. Lou Vickery

The sweets I remember best were white and tubular, much thinner than any cigarette, filled with a dark chocolate filling. If I found one now I am sure it would have the taste of hope. ~~ Graham Greene

Gardening is an exercise in optimism. Sometimes, it is the triumph of hope over experience. ~~ Marina Schinz [Visions of Paradise]

Hopes are what your waking mind can imagine. Like prayers. Like bridges you can cross to a better place. And however wild these hopes may be, they are still basically thinkable things. But dreams… dreams are the unthinkable, the unsayable. ~~ Marsha Norman

Not actual suffering but the hope of better things incites people to revolt. ~~ Eric Hoffer

Compromise is but the sacrifice of one right or good in the hope of retaining another -- too often ending in the loss of both. ~~ Tryon Edwards

Faith is a kind of knowing; it is different from hope. My faith is that life is purposeful; of that I'm sure. There is a god, there is intelligence, there is consciousness. And behind all of this, there is incredible compassion. ~~ John Denver

The trouble with most people is that they think with their hopes or fears or wishes rather than with their minds. ~~ Will Durant

A problem is something you have hopes of changing. Anything else is a fact of life. ~~ C. R. Smith

How deceitful hope may be, yet she carries us on pleasantly to the end of life. ~~ Duc de La Rochefoucauld

We promise according to our hopes, and perform according to our fears. ~~ Francois de La Rochefoucauld

A cat can maintain a position of curled up somnolence on your knee until you are nearly upright. To the last minute she hopes your conscience will get the better of you and you will settle down again. ~~ Pam Brown

"Hope" is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul --

And sings the tune without words

And never stops -- at all. ~~ Emily Dickinson

The human body experiences a powerful gravitational pull in the direction of hope. That is why the patient's hopes are the physician's secret weapon. They are the hidden ingredients in any prescription. ~~ Norman Cousins

I hope that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant. ~~ Berry & Homer, Inc.

Expecting something for nothing is the most popular form of hope. ~~ Arnold Glasow

At the moment of death I hope to be surprised. ~~ Ivan Illich

Hope: tomorrow's veneer over today's disappointment. ~~ Even Esar

Don't give up. Don't lose hope. Don't sell out. ~~ Christopher Reeve

[A man] … can go on without wealth, and even without purpose, for a while. But he will not go on without hope. ~~ C. Neil Strait

Probably nothing in the world arouses more false hopes than the first 4 hours of a diet. ~~ Dan Bennett

A hope beyond the shadow of a dream. ~~ John Keats

He who despairs of the human condition is a coward, but he who has hope for it is a fool. ~~ Albert Camus (see Said Who?)

I will ignore all ideas for new works on engines of war, the invention of which has reached its limits and for whose improvements I see no further hope. ~~ Sextus Julius Frontinus [1st Century AD]

There is nothing that fear or hope does not make men believe. ~~ Vauvenargues

You can never hope to become a skilled conversationalist until you learn how to put your foot tactfully through the television set. ~~ M. Dale Baughman

Beware how you take away hope from any human being. ~~ Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes

Memory seldom fails when its office is to show us the tombs of our buried hopes. ~~ Lady Marguerite Blessington

Parenting is a negative thing. Keep your children from killing themselves, or anyone else, and hope for the best. ~~ Donald G. Smith

What is love? Perhaps we may find that love is the ability of someone to give us back to us. Maybe love is someone seeing and remembering and handing us back to ourselves just a trifle better than we had dared to hope or dream… ~~ Ray Bradbury [I Sing the Body Electric]

The virtue I like best, said God, is hope. ~~ Charles Peguy

Every parent is at some time the father of the unreturned prodigal, with nothing to do but keep his house open to hope. ~~ John Ciardi

One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils in this world are to be cured by legislation. ~~ Thomas B. Reed

If we were logical, the future would be bleak, indeed. But we are more than logical. We are human beings, and we have faith, and we have hope, and we can work. ~~ Jacques Cousteau

Whenever hope and illusion become the source of the will to live, all knowledge of reality becomes highly threatening, since at any time a new piece of information might remove the grounds for this hope. This is exactly the case now. When life is motivated by hope for improvement, denial of reality is necessarily renewed and fortified. ~~ Christina Thurmer-Rohr

[Duran Duran is] as good an example as anybody of what the early 80s were. Excessive, bright, and full of hope. And not realizing that you were gonna get the bill at the end of the decade. ~~ Nick Rhodes

You can always get the truth from a politician after he has turned seventy, or given up all hope of the Presidency. ~~ Joe Moore

Inasmuch as the future is not predicted, but rather invented, I hope that the creativity of individuals for invention -- scientific, artistic, industrial -- will be nurtured by future societies worldwide. No one can predict the outcome of human intelligence properly applied. ~~ Dr. Arthur Kornberg

What matters ultimately in the culture wars is what we do in our daily lives -- not the big statements that we broadcast to the world at large, but the small messages we send through our families and our neighborhoods and our communities… The future will depend not so much on the movers and shakers in the centers of power, but on the hopes that we generate in our own communities, our schools, our churches, synagogues, and families. ~~ Michael Medved [The Devaluing of America]

Hope is generally a wrong guide, though it is very good company by the way. ~~ Lord Halifax

Hope is the pillar that holds up the world. Hope is the dream of a waking man. ~~ Pliny the Elder

Be careful to leave your sons well instructed rather than rich, for the hopes of the instructed are better than the wealth of the ignorant. ~~ Epictetus

A comforting acquaintance, hope, a contagious thing like spring, inebriating like lager. ~~ Sylvia Ashton-Warner

You don't have much hope of getting the truth, if you think you know in advance what the truth ought to be. ~~ Robert B. Parker

My hope for the future is that mankind shall evolve to a higher spiritual plane whereby we can accept responsibility for our actions -- release our need to dominate, control, and exploit one another -- and learn to live in true harmony and peace… ~~ Bob Kane

My hope for the next millennium is that the motto, "E Pluribus Unum" [of many, one] will become a reality for the people of the United States and of the world. ~~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg

I knew from the start if I left a woman I really loved -- the Great Society -- in order to fight that bitch of a war [in Vietnam] … then I would lose everything at home. My hopes … my dreams. ~~ Lyndon Baines Johnson

God grant me the courage not to give up what I think is right, even though I think it is hopeless. ~~ Admiral Chester W. Nimitz

I have decided to keep a full journal, in the hope that my life will perhaps seem more interesting when it is written down. ~~ Sue Townsend-

What we hope to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence. ~~ Samuel Johnson

Faith walks simply, childlike, between the darkness of human life and the hope of what is to come. ~~ Catherine de Hueck Doherty

Our hopes, often though they deceive us, lead us pleasantly along the path of life. ~~ Francois de La Rochefoucauld

A man can stand a lot as long as he can stand himself. He can live without hope, without friends, without books, even without music, as long as he can listen to his own thoughts. ~~ Axel Munthe

Forgiving means to pardon the unpardonable, faith means believing the unbelievable, and hoping means to hope when things are hopeless. ~~ G. K. Chesterton

Where there's life, there's hope. ~~ Terence

I make a film like I cook for friends. I hope they like it, but if they don't, I'm prepared to enjoy it all by myself. ~~ Melvin Van Peebles

Hope deferred maketh the heart sick. ~~ The Bible [Proverbs]

Acceptance doesn't mean that we do not motivate our children to do better. It doesn't mean that we don't hope they'll change in some ways. It means that we do not put on them the burden of trying to be somebody they cannot be. ~~ Rob Parsons [The Sixty Minute Father]

One need not hope in order to undertake; nor succeed in order to persevere. ~~ William the Silent

My life is a perfect graveyard of buried hopes. That's a sentence I read in a book once, and I say it over to comfort myself whenever I'm disappointed in anything. ~~ L. M. Montgomery [Anne of Green Gables]

Half of the American people have never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President. One hopes it is the same half. ~~ Gore Vidal

We are an arrogant species, full of terrible potential, but we also have a great capacity for love, friendship, generosity, kindness, faith, hope, and joy. ~~ Dean Koontz [Fear Nothing]

Hope is the only good thing that disillusion respects. ~~ Marquis de Vauvenargues

What makes people the world over stand in line for Van Gogh is not that they will see beautiful pictures [but] that in an indefinable way they will come away feeling better human beings. And that is exactly what Van Gogh hoped for. ~~ John Russell

The present is the ever-moving shadow that divides yesterday from tomorrow. In that lies hope. ~~ Frank Lloyd Wright

All that I am or hope to be I owe to my angel mother. I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life. ~~ Abraham Lincoln

The grief of a child is always terrible. It is bottomless, without hope. A child has no past and no future. It just lives in the present moment -- whole-heartedly. If the present moment spells disaster, the child suffers it with his whole heart, his whole soul, his whole strength, his whole little being. ~~ Maria von Trapp [Yesterday, Today, and Forever]

Youth is not entirely a time of life; it is a state of mind. Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old by deserting their ideals. You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear; as young as your hope, as old as your despair. ~~ Douglas MacArthur

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way. ~~ Charles Dickens [A Tale of Two Cities]

In the factory we make cosmetics; in the store we sell hope. ~~ Charles Revson

October's child is born for woe,

And life's vicissitudes must know'

But lay an Opal on her breast,

And hope will lull those woes to rest. ~~ Unattributed