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Quotations about hope
Note that not all quotations have been tagged, so the Search function may find additional quotations on this topic.
On another occasion the question was put to him, what hope is? and his answer was, “The dream of a waking man.”
[ἐρωτηθεὶς τί ἐστιν ἐλπίς, “ἐγρηγορότος,” εἶπεν, “ἐνύπνιον.”]
Aristotle (384-322 BC) Greek philosopher
Attributed in Diogenes Laërtius, Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers [Vitae Philosophorum], Book 5, sec. 11 [tr. Yonge (1853)]
(Source)
(Source (Greek)). Alternate translations:
He was asked to define hope, and he replied, "It is a waking dream."
[tr. Hicks (1925), sec. 18]
When asked what hope is, he said “It is dreaming while awake.”
[tr. @sentantiq (2016), 5.21]
When asked to define hope, he said, "It is a waking dream."
[tr. Mensch (2018)]
“Supposing a tree fell down, Pooh, when we were underneath it?”
“Supposing it didn’t,” said Pooh after careful thought.
Piglet was comforted by this.
A. A. Milne (1882-1956) English poet and playwright [Alan Alexander Milne]
The House at Pooh Corner, ch. 8 “In Which Piglet Does A Very Grand Thing” (1928)
(Source)
If you wish to succeed in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother, and hope your guardian genius.
Joseph Addison (1672-1719) English essayist, poet, statesman
(Attributed)
Broadly attributed to Addison, but possibly a 19th Century creation. The earliest found appearance is in 1854, and the earliest attribution to Addison in in 1862.
We should take comfort that while we may have more still to endure, better days will return: we will be with our friends again; we will be with our families again; we will meet again.
Elizabeth II (b. 1926) Queen of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth realms
Address to the Nation (5 Apr 2020)
(Source)
On the COVID-19 Pandemic. The last line is an allusion to the famous WWII song.
And however dark the skies may appear,
And however souls may blunder,
I tell you it all will work out clear,
For good lies over and under.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850-1919) American author and poet.
“Insight,” An Erring Woman’s Love (1892)
(Source)
He’d been wrong, there was a light at the end of the tunnel, and it was a flamethrower.
Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Mort (1987)
Never grow a wishbone, daughter, where your backbone ought to be.
Clementine Paddleford (1898-1967) American food writer
A Flower for My Mother (1958)
(Source)
Quoting her mother.
There is said to be hope for a sick man, as long as there is life.
[Aegroto dum anima est, spes esse dicitur.]
Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) Roman orator, statesman, philosopher
Epistulae ad Atticum [Letters to Atticus], Book 9, Letter 10, sec. 3, l. 19 (18 Mar BC 49) [tr. Shackleton Bailey (1968)]
(Source)
Alt. trans.: "A sick man is said to have hope, so long as he has breath." [tr. Winstedt (1913)]
Often paraphrased as: "While there is life there is hope" [Dum anima est, spes est.] See also Theocritus, "While there's life there’s hope, and only the dead have none" (Idyll #4, l. 42 [tr. Gow]).
Man is a victim of dope
In the incurable form of hope.
Ogden Nash (1902-1971) American poet
“Good-bye, Old Year, You Oaf, or Why Don’t They Pay the Bonus?” (1935)
(Source)
It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.
The people I respect most behave as if they were immortal and as if society was eternal. Both assumptions are false: both of them must be accepted as true if we are to go on eating and working and loving, and are to keep open a few breathing-holes for the human spirit. No millennium seems likely to descend upon humanity; no better and stronger League of Nations will be instituted; no form of Christianity and no alternative to Christianity will bring peace to the world or integrity to the individual; no “change of heart” will occur. And yet we need not despair, indeed, we cannot despair; the evidence of history shows us that men have always insisted on behaving creatively under the shadow of the sword; that they have done their artistic and scientific and domestic stuff for the sake of doing it, and that we had better follow their example under the shadow of the aeroplanes.
E. M. Forster (1879-1970) English novelist, essayist, critic, librettist [Edward Morgan Forster]
“What I Believe,” The Nation (16 Jul 1938)
(Source)
Every observation of history inspires a confidence that we shall not go far wrong; that things will mend.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“The Young American” (1844)
May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t forget to make some art — write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all.
Take hope from the heart of man and you make him a beast of prey.
Ouida (1839-1908) English novelist [pseud. of Maria Louise Ramé]
A Village Commune, ch. 20 (1881)
(Source)
Absence from whom we love is worse than death,
And frustrate hope severer than despair.
William Cowper (1731-1800) English poet
“Hope, like the short-lived ray that gleams awhile”
(Source)
The aims of life are the best defense against death.
Primo Levi (1919-1987) Italian Jewish chemist and writer
The Drowned and the Saved (1988)
To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.
What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places — and there are so many — where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.
And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.
Howard Zinn (1922-2010) American historian, academic, author, social activist
“The Optimism of Uncertainty,” The Nation (2 Sep 2004)
(Source)
Adopted from Zinn's essay of the same name in Paul Loeb (ed.), The Impossible Will Take a Little While (2004). See also Zinn, "A Marvelous Victory" (23 Feb 2004).
I must confess, my friends, the road ahead will not always be smooth. There will be still rocky places of frustration and meandering points of bewilderment. There will be inevitable setbacks here and there. There will be those moments when the buoyancy of hope will be transformed into the fatigue of despair. Our dreams will sometimes be shattered and our ethereal hopes blasted. We may again with tear-drenched eyes have to stand before the bier of some courageous civil rights worker whose life will be snuffed out by the dastardly acts of bloodthirsty mobs. Difficult and painful as it is, we must walk on in the days ahead with an audacious faith in the future.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman, civil rights leader, orator
“Where Do We Go From Here?” Southern Christian Leadership Conference Presidential Address (16 Aug 1967)
(Source)
But I must submit all my Hopes and Fears, to an overruling Providence, in which, unfashionable as the Faith may be, I firmly believe.
John Adams (1735-1826) American lawyer, Founding Father, statesman, US President (1797-1801)
Letter to Abigail Adams (3 Jul 1776)
Maybe this is the chief thing the dog knows better than we do. There isn’t enough time in life to do anything but love and do our work with joy. We should sleep when we’re tired. Run with abandon. Always be happy to see each other. And never stop believing we will, someday, catch the squirrel.
Remember, Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.
Stephen King (b. 1947) American author
“Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption” (1982)
Hope for the best.
Expect the worst.
The world’s a stage.
We’re unrehearsed.
Mel Brooks (b. 1926) American comedic actor, writer, producer [b. Melvyn Kaminsky]
The Twelve Chairs, “Hope for the Best, Expect the Worst”, chorus (1970)
There is freedom waiting for you,
On the breezes of the sky,
And you ask “What if I fall?”
Oh but my darling,
What if you fly?
Hope
Smiles from the threshold of the year to come
Whispering ‘it will be happier’.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) English poet
“The Foresters or, Robin Hood and Maid Marian”, Act 1, sc. 3 (1892)
SYDNEY: 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 (1922-2003) American author and playwright [b. Bridget Jean Collins]
Poor Richard, Act 1 (1965)
Don’t wait for a light to appear at the end of the tunnel, stride down there … and light the bloody thing yourself.
Sara Henderson (1936-2005) Australian pastoralist and author
The Strength in Us All (1994)
I think perhaps we want a more conscious life. We’re tired of drudging and sleeping and dying. We’re tired of seeing just a few people able to be individualists. We’re tired of always deferring hope till the next generation. We’re tired of hearing politicians and priests and cautious reformers (and the husbands!) coax us, “Be calm! Be patient! Wait! We have the plans for a Utopia already made; just wiser than you.” For ten thousand years they’ve said that. We want our Utopia now — and we’re going to try our hands at it.
Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951) American novelist, playwright
Main Street, ch. 16 [Carol] (1920)
(Source)
ZOE: You sanguine about the kind of reception we’re apt to receive on an Alliance ship, Cap’n?
MAL: Absolutely. [Pause] What’s “sanguine” mean?
ZOE: “Sanguine”. Hopeful. Plus, point of interest: it also means “bloody”.
MAL: Well, that pretty much covers all the options, don’t it?
Drew Z. Greenberg (contemp.) TV producer and writer
Firefly, 1×05 “Safe” (8 Nov 2002)
The real reason for not committing suicide is because you always know how swell life gets again after hell is over.
Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) American writer
Letter (1926)
Surely, in the light of history, it is more intelligent to hope rather than to fear, to try rather than not to try. For one thing we know beyond all doubt: Nothing has ever been achieved by the person who says, “It can’t be done.”
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) First Lady of the US (1933-45), politician, diplomat, activist
You Learn By Living (1960)
When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers.
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) Irish poet, wit, dramatist
An Ideal Husband, Act 2 (1895)
Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement; nothing can be done without hope.
I believe that the present suffering is nothing compared to the coming glory that is going to be revealed to us. The whole creation waits breathless with anticipation for the revelation of God’s sons and daughters. Creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice — it was the choice of the one who subjected it — but in the hope that the creation itself will be set free from slavery to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of God’s children. We know that the whole creation is groaning together and suffering labor pains up until now. And it’s not only the creation. We ourselves who have the Spirit as the first crop of the harvest also groan inside as we wait to be adopted and for our bodies to be set free. We were saved in hope. If we see what we hope for, that isn’t hope. Who hopes for what they already see? But if we hope for what we don’t see, we wait for it with patience.
The Bible (14th C BC - 2nd C AD) Christian sacred scripture
Romans 8:18-25
Man cannot live without hope. If it is not engendered by his own convictions and desires, it can easily be fired from without, and by the most meretricious and empty of promises.
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) First Lady of the US (1933-45), politician, diplomat, activist
“What Has Happened to the American Dream?” Atlantic Monthly (Apr 1961)
(Source)
Talking of the danger of being mortified by rejection, when making approaches to the acquaintance of the great, I observed, “I am, however, generally for trying, ‘Nothing venture, nothing have.'” JOHNSON. “Very true, sir; but I have always been more afraid of failing, than hopeful of success.”
I wouldn’t want to live in Tomorrowland, where the social patterns and infrastructure are all so spiff and modern and rational and well-designed that any remaining problems must needs be insoluble, and so a cause for despair.
For I can assure you that we love our country, not for what it was, though it has always been great — not for what it is, though of this we are deeply proud — but for what it someday can, and, through the efforts of us all, someday will be.
John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) US President (1961-63)
Speech, National Industrial Conference Board (13 Feb 1961)
(Source)
As long as we love we will hope to live, and when the one dies that we love we will say: “Oh, that we could meet again,” and whether we do or not it will not be the work of theology. It will be a fact in nature. I would not for my life destroy one star of human hope, but I want it so that when a poor woman rocks the cradle and sings a lullaby to the dimpled darling, she will not be compelled to believe that ninety-nine chances in a hundred she is raising kindling wood for hell.
Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer, agnostic, orator
“What Must We Do To Be Saved?” Sec. 11 (1880)
(Source)
Man partly is and wholly hopes to be.
Robert Browning (1812-1889) English poet
“A Death in the Desert,” l. 586, Dramatis Personae (1864)
To the question whether I am a pessimist or an optimist, I answer that my knowledge is pessimistic, but my willing and hoping are optimistic.
Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965) Alsatian theologian, philosopher, physician, philanthropist
Out of My Life and Thought, An Autobiography, Epilogue (1933) [tr. Campion]
See also Gramsci.
No condition so low but may have Hopes; none so high but may have Fears.
Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) English writer, physician
Gnomologia: Adages and Proverbs, #3555 (1732)
(Source)
Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626) English philosopher, scientist, author, statesman
Apothegms, # 36 (1624)
We are not a cynical people. The will to believe lingers on. We like to think that heroes can emerge from obscurity, as they sometimes do; that elections do matter, even though the process is at least part hokum; that through politics we can change our society and maybe even find a cause to believe in.
Ronald Steel (b. 1931) American writer, historian, and professor
“The Vanishing Campaign Biography,” New York Times (5 Aug 1984)
Pray for thy Enemy, for if thou beest a good Man thyself, thou canst not but rejoice to see thy worst Enemy become a good Man, too.
Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) English writer, physician
Introductio ad Prudentiam, # 878 (1725)
(Source)
As long as we love we will hope to live, and when the one dies that we love we will say: “Oh, that we could meet again,” and whether we do or not it will not be the work of theology. It will be a fact in nature. I would not for my life destroy one star of human hope, but I want it so that when a poor woman rocks the cradle and sings a lullaby to the dimpled darling, she will not be compelled to believe that ninety-nine chances in a hundred she is raising kindling wood for hell.
Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer, agnostic, orator
“What Must We Do to Be Saved?” Sec. 11 (1880)
(Source)
You can do very little with faith, but you can do nothing without it.
Samuel Butler (1835-1902) English novelist, satirist, scholar
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler, ch. 21 “Faith” (1912)
Full text.
Religion consists in a set of things which the average man thinks he believes and wishes he was certain of.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Mark Twain’s Notebook, 1879 [ed. Paine (1935)]
Why should we fear that which will come to all that is? We cannot tell, we do not know, which is the greater blessing — life or death. We do not know whether the grave is the end of this life, or the door of another, or whether the night here is not somewhere else at dawn. Neither can we tell which is the more fortunate — the child dying in its mother’s arms, before its lips have learned to form a word, or he who journeys all the length of life’s uneven road, painfully taking the last slow steps with staff and crutch.
Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer, agnostic, orator
“At a Child’s Grave” (8 Jan 1882)
(Source)
The dead do not suffer. And if they live again, their lives will surely be as good as ours. We have no fear. We are all children of the same mother, and the same fate awaits us all. We, too, have our religion, and it is this: Help for the living, hope for the dead.
Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer, agnostic, orator
“At a Child’s Grave” (8 Jan 1882)
(Source)
The miserable have no other medicine
But only hope.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Measure for Measure, Act 3, Scene 1 (1604)
Happiness is someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.
(Other Authors and Sources)
Chinese proverb
Also attributed to T. Bodett, S. Freud, A. Chalmers.
So we’re just in this maze for now, trying to figure out if that glint in the distance is daylight, or a Minotaur with an Uzi.
J. Michael (Joe) Straczynski (b. 1954) American screenwriter, producer, author [a/k/a "JMS"]
rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated, “ATTN JMS: Warner Bros” (8 Dec 1996)
(Source)
