“Hope is the only good that is common to all men; those who have nothing else possess hope still.”
Thales (-624–-547 BC) ancient Greek philosopher and mathematician
A Dictionary of Thoughts (1908) by Tryon Edwards, p. 234
“Hope is the best possession. None are completely wretched but those who are without hope; and few are reduced so low as that.”
No. 34
Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims (1823)
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William Hazlitt186
English writer 1778–1830Related quotes
“It is only for those without hope that hope is given.”
Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) German literary critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher
The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), X : Religion, the Mythology of the Beyond and the Apocatastasis
Context: May not the absolute and perfect eternal happiness be an eternal hope, which would die if it were realized? Is it possible to be happy without hope? And there is no place for hope once possession has been realized, for hope, desire, is killed by possession. May it not be, I say, that all souls grow without ceasing, some in a greater measure than others, but all having to pass some time through the same degree of growth, whatever that degree may be, and yet without ever arriving at the infinite, at God, to whom they continually approach? Is not eternal happiness an eternal hope, with its eternal nucleus of sorrow in order that happiness shall not be swallowed up in nothingness?
“None without hope e'er lov'd the brightest fair,
But love can hope where reason would despair.”
George Lyttelton, 1st Baron Lyttelton (1709–1773) British politician
Epigram; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
“Summits like those in Geneva promote hope. But hope without action is hopeless.”
Bernard Lown (1921–2021) American cardiologist developer of the DC defibrillator and the cardioverter, as well as a recipient of the…
Nobel Peace Prize acceptance (1985)
Context: Summits like those in Geneva promote hope. But hope without action is hopeless. Our enthusiasm for the positive spirit in these deliberations must not blind us to the absence of genuine progress toward disarmament. Twenty-four nuclear bombs are being added weekly to world arsenals.
“The most truly generous persons are those who give silently without hope of praise or reward.”
Carol Ryrie Brink book Magical Melons
Source: Caddie Woodlawn's Family
Aung San Suu Kyi (1945) State Counsellor of Myanmar and Leader of the National League for Democracy
Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought Acceptance Speech (2013)
“Vanquisht men's safety is to hope for none.”
John Ogilby (1600–1676) Scottish academic
The Works of Publius Virgilius Maro (2nd ed. 1654), Virgil's Æneis