Quotes about hope
page 5

Abraham Lincoln photo

“I mean the powerful influence which the interesting scenes of the Revolution had upon the passions of the people as distinguished from their judgment. By this influence, the jealousy, envy, and avarice incident to our nature and so common to a state of peace, prosperity, and conscious strength, were for the time in a great measure smothered and rendered inactive, while the deep-rooted principles of hate, and the powerful motive of revenge, instead of being turned against each other, were directed exclusively against the British nation. And thus, from the force of circumstances, the basest principles of our nature, were either made to lie dormant, or to become the active agents in the advancement of the noblest cause — that of establishing and maintaining civil and religious liberty. But this state of feeling must fade, is fading, has faded, with the circumstances that produced it. I do not mean to say that the scenes of the Revolution are now or ever will be entirely forgotten, but that, like everything else, they must fade upon the memory of the world, and grow more and more dim by the lapse of time. In history, we hope, they will be read of, and recounted, so long as the Bible shall be read; but even granting that they will, their influence cannot be what it heretofore has been. Even then they cannot be so universally known nor so vividly felt as they were by the generation just gone to rest. At the close of that struggle, nearly every adult male had been a participator in some of its scenes. The consequence was that of those scenes, in the form of a husband, a father, a son, or a brother, a living history was to be found in every family — a history bearing the indubitable testimonies of its own authenticity, in the limbs mangled, in the scars of wounds received, in the midst of the very scenes related — a history, too, that could be read and understood alike by all, the wise and the ignorant, the learned and the unlearned. But those histories are gone. They can be read no more forever. They were a fortress of strength; but what invading foeman could never do, the silent artillery of time has done — the leveling of its walls. They are gone. They were a forest of giant oaks; but the all-restless hurricane has swept over them, and left only here and there a lonely trunk, despoiled of its verdure, shorn of its foliage, unshading and unshaded, to murmur in a few more gentle breezes, and to combat with its mutilated limbs a few more ruder storms, then to sink and be no more. They were pillars of the temple of liberty; and now that they have crumbled away that temple must fall unless we, their descendants, supply their places with other pillars, hewn from the solid quarry of sober reason.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1830s, The Lyceum Address (1838)

Michael Jackson photo
Chris Colfer photo

““I think I just want to leave my mark in some way. I hope I leave the world a better place than it was when I came, and I think the best way I can do that is through acting and writing, and hopefully it will make a difference someday.” —Chris Colfer, How would you like to be remembered?”

Chris Colfer (1990) actor, singer, book author

Interview Quotes, Random Quotes
Source: http://filmreviewonline.com/2012/09/08/glee-chris-colfer/, Online Film Review's journalist Judy Sloane pry's information from Chris Colfer at a party.

Anne Frank photo

“I trust to luck and do nothing but work, hoping that all will end well.”

Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary

3 February 1944
(1942 - 1944)

George Granville, 1st Baron Lansdowne photo
Albert Schweitzer photo

“Most men are scantily nourished on a modicum of happiness and a number of empty thoughts which life lays on their plates. They are kept in the road of life through stern necessity by elemental duties which they cannot avoid.
Again and again their will-to-live becomes, as it were, intoxicated: spring sunshine, opening flowers, moving clouds, waving fields of grain — all affect it. The manifold will-to-live, which is known to us in the splendid phenomena in which it clothes itself, grasps at their personal wills. They would fain join their shouts to the mighty symphony which is proceeding all around them. The world seem beauteous…but the intoxication passes. Dreadful discords only allow them to hear a confused noise, as before, where they had thought to catch the strains of glorious music. The beauty of nature is obscured by the suffering which they discover in every direction. And now they see again that they are driven about like shipwrecked persons on the waste of ocean, only that the boat is at one moment lifted high on the crest of the waves and a moment later sinks deep into the trough; and that now sunshine and now darkening clouds lie on the surface of the water.
And now they would fain persuade themselves that land lies on the horizon toward which they are driven. Their will-to-live befools their intellect so that it makes efforts to see the world as it would like to see it. It forces this intellect to show them a map which lends support to their hope of land. Once again they essay to reach the shore, until finally their arms sink exhausted for the last time and their eyes rove desperately from wave to wave. …
Thus it is with the will-to-live when it is unreflective.
But is there no way out of this dilemma? Must we either drift aimlessly through lack of reflection or sink in pessimism as the result of reflection? No. We must indeed attempt the limitless ocean, but we may set our sails and steer a determined course.”

Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher

Source: The Spiritual Life (1947), p. 256

Morrissey photo
James Tobin photo
James Tobin photo
J. J. Thomson photo
George Washington photo

“The General hopes and trusts that every officer and man will endeavor to live and act as becomes a Christian soldier defending the dearest rights and liberties of his country.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

General Order (9 July 1776) George Washington Papers http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gwhtml/gwhome.html at the Library of Congress, 1741-1799: Series 3g Varick Transcripts
1770s

Benjamin Disraeli photo

“I remember—the interruption of the hon. Gentleman reminds me of the words of a great writer, who said that "Grace was beauty in action." Sir, I say that justice is truth in action. Truth should animate an opposition, and I hope it does animate this opposition.;”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1851/feb/11/agricultural-distress in the House of Commons (2 February 1851).
1850s

George Washington photo

“Religious controversies are always productive of more acrimony and irreconcilable hatreds than those which spring from any other cause; and I was not without hopes that the enlightened and liberal policy of the present age would have put an effectual stop to contentions of this kind.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

Letter to Sir Edward Newenham (22 June 1792) http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=WasFi32.xml&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=69&division=div1 as published in The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources (1939) as edited by John Clement Fitzpatrick
1790s

Kenzaburō Ōe photo
Benjamin Disraeli photo

“Lord Salisbury and myself have brought you back peace, but a peace, I hope, with honour which may satisfy our Sovereign, and tend to the welfare of the country.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Source: From the window of 10 Downing Street, after arriving from Dover (16 July 1878), quoted in 'Return Of Lord Beaconsfield And Lord Salisbury', The Times (17 July 1878), p. 5.

Napoleon I of France photo

“I hope the time is not far off when I shall be able to unite all the wise and educated men of all the countries and establish a uniform regime based on the principles of the Quran which alone are true and which alone can lead men to happiness.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

Letter to Sheikh El-Messiri, (28 August 1798); published in Correspondance Napoleon edited by Henri Plon (1861), Vol.4, No. 3148, p. 420

H.P. Lovecraft photo

“It is just as ridiculous to get excited & hysterical over a coming cultural change as to get excited & hysterical over one's physical aging... There is legitimate pathos about both processes; but blame & rebellion are essentially cheap, because inappropriate, emotions... It is wholly appropriate to feel a deep sadness at the coming of unknown things & the departure of those around which all our symbolic associations are entwined. All life is fundamentally & inextricably sad, with the perpetual snatching away of all the chance combinations of image & vista & mood that we become attached to, & the perpetual encroachment of the shadow of decay upon illusions of expansion & liberation which buoyed us up & spurred us on in youth. That is why I consider all jauntiness, & many forms of carelessly generalised humour, as essentially cheap & mocking, & occasionally ghastly & corpselike. Jauntiness & non-ironic humour in this world of basic & inescapable sadness are like the hysterical dances that a madman might execute on the grave of all his hopes. But if, at one extreme, intellectual poses of spurious happiness be cheap & disgusting; so at the other extreme are all gestures & fist-clenchings of rebellion equally silly & inappropriate—if not quite so overtly repulsive. All these things are ridiculous & contemptible because they are not legitimately applicable... The sole sensible way to face the cosmos & its essential sadness (an adumbration of true tragedy which no destruction of values can touch) is with manly resignation—eyes open to the real facts of perpetual frustration, & mind & sense alert to catch what little pleasure there is to be caught during one's brief instant of existence. Once we know, as a matter of course, how nature inescapably sets our freedom-adventure-expansion desires, & our symbol-&-experience-affections, definitely beyond all zones of possible fulfilment, we are in a sense fortified in advance, & able to endure the ordeal of consciousness with considerable equanimity... Life, if well filled with distracting images & activities favourable to the ego's sense of expansion, freedom, & adventurous expectancy, can be very far from gloomy—& the best way to achieve this condition is to get rid of the unnatural conceptions which make conscious evils out of impersonal and inevitable limitations... get rid of these, & of those false & unattainable standards which breed misery & mockery through their beckoning emptiness.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Letter to Frank Belknap Long (27 February 1931), in Selected Letters III, 1929-1931 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, p. 291
Non-Fiction, Letters, to Frank Belknap Long

Amy Carmichael photo
Napoleon I of France photo

“One can lead a nation only by helping it see a bright outlook. A leader is a dealer in hope.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

Bertil Ohlin photo
Aga Khan IV photo

“The right to hope is the most powerful human motivation I know.”

Aga Khan IV (1936) 49th and current Imam of Nizari Ismailism

Baccalaureate Address at Brown University Delivered by His Highness the Aga Khan, Providence, Rhode Island, United States of America (26 May 1996) http://www.brown.edu/Administration/News_Bureau/1995-96/95-147t.html

Malcolm X photo

“The young whites, and blacks, too, are the only hope that America has, the rest of us have always been living in a lie.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

Quoted by Alex Haley, after a college campus speech, in the epilogue to The Autobiography.
The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965)

Paul Claudel photo

“There is something sadder to lose than life – the reason for living;
Sadder than to lose one's possessions is to lose one's hope.”

Il y a une chose plus triste à perdre que la vie, c’est la raison de vivre,
Plus triste que de perdre ses biens, c’est de perdre son espérance.
L'otage (Paris: Édition de la Nouvelle revue française, 1911) p. 162; Pierre Chavannes (trans.) The Hostage (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1917) p. 130.

Periyar E. V. Ramasamy photo
Theodore Roosevelt photo
Ronald Reagan photo

“As a nation, we must choose between the sanctity of life ethic and the "quality of life" ethic. I have no trouble identifying the answer our nation has always given to this basic question, and the answer that I hope and pray it will give in the future.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

1980s, First term of office (1981–1985), Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation (1983)

Bob Marley photo

“Today, people struggle to find what's real. Everything has become so synthetic that a lot of people, all they want is to grasp onto hope.”

Bob Marley (1945–1981) Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician

As quoted in Rolling Stone's The Immortals (2004) "Bob"

Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon photo

“Thy soft-breathed hopes with magic might
Have chased from my soul the shades of night”

Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon (1829–1879) Canadian writer

from The Parting Soul and her Guardian Angel

Ferdinand Marcos photo
Jane Goodall photo
Quintilian photo

“Vain hopes are often like the dreams of those who wake.”

Quintilian (35–96) ancient Roman rhetor

Perhaps confusion of Book VI, Chapter II, 30
Similar to Matthew Prior: "For hope is but the dream of those that wake", Solomon on the Vanity of the World, book iii, line 102.
Misattributed

Jack Johnson (boxer) photo

“The search for the "white hope" not having been successful, prejudices were being piled up against me, and certain unfair persons, piqued because I was champion, decided if they could not get me one way they would another.”

Jack Johnson (boxer) (1878–1946) American boxer

As quoted in Introduction to "Knockout" at Unforgivable Blackness at PBS (2005) http://www.pbs.org/unforgivableblackness/knockout/

Tupac Shakur photo

“Currency means nothing if you still ain't free. Money breeds jealousy. Take the game from me; I hope for better days. Trouble comes naturally. Running from authorities. 'Til they capture me, and my aim is to spread more smiles than tears. Utilize lessons learned from my childhood years.”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

"Hold Ya Head" https://play.google.com/music/preview/Te5ppuyfquh4t6lnlla3zs6w33e?lyrics=1&utm_source=google&utm_medium=search&utm_campaign=lyrics&pcampaignid=kp-lyrics
1990s, The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory (1996)

Bertrand Russell photo
Hilaire Belloc photo
Frank Lloyd Wright photo

“The present is the ever moving shadow that divides yesterday from tomorrow. In that lies hope.”

Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) American architect (1867-1959)

Closing words, “Night is but a Shadow Cast by the Sun”
The Living City (1958)

Ruhollah Khomeini photo
Barack Obama photo
Adelaide Anne Procter photo

“Be strong to hope, O Heart!
Though day is bright,
The stars can only shine
In the dark night.
Be strong, O Heart of mine,
Look towards the light!”

Adelaide Anne Procter (1825–1864) English poet and songwriter

"Be Strong".
Legends and Lyrics: A Book of Verses (1858)

Benjamin Banneker photo

“Evil communication corrupts good manners. I hope to live to hear that good communication corrects bad manners.”

Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806) free African American scientist, surveyor, almanac author and farmer

As quoted in Friends' Intelligencer Vol. XI (1854), p. 821

W.B. Yeats photo
Reinhold Niebuhr photo
Charles Péguy photo

“The faith that I love the best, says God, is hope.”

Charles Péguy (1873–1914) French poet, essayist, and editor

Opening line.
The Portal of the Mystery of Hope (1912)

Abraham Lincoln photo

“We hope all danger may be overcome; but to conclude that no danger may ever arise would itself be extremely dangerous.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1830s, The Lyceum Address (1838)

Abraham Lincoln photo
Kurien Kunnumpuram photo
Ronald Reagan photo

“Thomas Jefferson dreamed of a land of small farmers, of shop owners and merchants. Abraham Lincoln signed into law the “Homestead Act” that ensured that the great western prairies of America would be the realm of independent, property-owning citizens-a mightier guarantee of freedom is difficult to imagine.
I know we have with us today employee-owners from La Perla Plantation in Guatemala. They have a stake in the place where they work and a stake in the freedom of their country. When Communist guerrillas came, these proud owners protected what belonged to them. They drove the Communists off their land and I know you join me in saluting their courage.
In this century, the United States has evolved into a great industrial power. Even though they are now, by and large, employees, our working people still benefit from property ownership. Most of our citizens own the homes in which they reside. In the marketplace, they benefit from direct and indirect business ownership. There are currently close to 10 million self-employed workers in the U. S.-nearly 9 percent of total civilian employment. And, millions more hope to own a business some day. Furthermore, over 47 million individuals reap the rewards of free enterprise through stock ownership in the vast number of companies listed on U. S. stock exchanges.
I can’t help but believe that in the future we will see in the United States and throughout the western world an increasing trend toward the next logical step, employee ownership. It is a path that befits a free people.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

Speech on Project Economic Justice http://www.cesj.org/about-cesj-in-brief/history-accomplishments/pres-reagans-speech-on-project-economic-justice/ (The White House, 3 August 1987)
1980s, Second term of office (1985–1989)

Karl Dönitz photo
Kurt Vonnegut photo
Friedrich Schiller photo

“What the inner voice says
Will not disappoint the hoping soul.”

Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805) German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright

Hope, last stanza (1797)

Jan Tinbergen photo
Bertrand Russell photo

“I am writing to you to tell you of my decision to return to your Government the Carl von Ossietzsky medal for peace. I do so reluctantly and after two years of private approaches on behalf of Heinz Brandt, whose continued imprisonment is a barrier to coexistence, relaxation of tension and understanding between East and West… I regret not to have heard from you on this subject. I hope that you will yet find it possible to release Brandt through an amnesty which would be a boon to the cause of peace and to your country.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Letter to Walter Ulbricht, January 7, 1964. Russell would later write, in his autobiography: "The abduction and imprisonment by the East Germans of Brandt, who had survived Hitler's concentration camps, seemed to me so inhuman that I was obliged to return to the East German Government the Carl von Ossietzky medal which it had awarded me. I was impressed by the speed with which Brandt was soon released".
1960s

William Wilberforce photo

“If then we would indeed be “filled with wisdom and spiritual understanding;” if we would “walk worthy of the Lord unto all well pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God;” here let us fix our eyes! “Laying aside every weight, and the sin that does so easily beset us; let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Here best we may learn the infinite importance of Christianity. How little it can deserve to be treated in that slight and superficial way, in which it is in these days regarded by the bulk of nominal Christians, who are apt to think it may be enough, and almost equally pleasing to God, to be religious in any way, and upon any system. What exquisite folly it must be to risk the soul on such a venture, in direct contradiction to the dictates of reason, and the express declaration of the word of God! “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?”
LOOKING UNTO JESUS!
Here we shall best learn the duty and reasonableness of an absolute and unconditional surrender of soul and body to the will and service of God.—“We are not our own; for we are bought with a price,” and must “therefore” make it our grand concern to “glorify God with our bodies and our spirits, which are God’s.” Should we be base enough, even if we could do it with safety, to make any reserves in our returns of service to that gracious Saviour, who “gave up himself for us?” If we have formerly talked of compounding by the performance of some commands for the breach of others; can we now bear the mention of a composition of duties, or of retaining to ourselves the right of practising little sins! The very suggestion of such an idea fills us with indignation and shame, if our hearts be not dead to every sense of gratitude.
LOOKING UNTO JESUS!
Here we find displayed, in the most lively colours, the guilt of sin, and how hateful it must be to the perfect holiness of that Being, “who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity.” When we see that, rather than sin should go unpunished, “God spared not his own Son,” but “was pleased[99], to bruise him and put him to grief” for our sakes; how vainly must impenitent sinners flatter themselves with the hope of escaping the vengeance of Heaven, and buoy themselves up with I know not what desperate dreams of the Divine benignity!
Here too we may anticipate the dreadful sufferings of that state, “where shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth;” when rather than that we should undergo them, “the Son of God” himself, who “thought it no robbery to be equal with God,” consented to take upon him our degraded nature with all its weaknesses and infirmities; to be “a man of sorrows,” “to hide not his face from shame and spitting,” “to be wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities,” and at length to endure the sharpness of death, “even the death of the Cross,” that he might “deliver us from the wrath to come,” and open the kingdom of Heaven to all believers.
LOOKING UNTO JESUS!
Here best we may learn to grow in the love of God! The certainty of his pity and love towards repenting sinners, thus irrefragably demonstrated, chases away the sense of tormenting fear, and best lays the ground in us of a reciprocal affection. And while we steadily contemplate this wonderful transaction, and consider in its several relations the amazing truth, that “God spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all;” if our minds be not utterly dead to every impulse of sensibility, the emotions of admiration, of preference, of hope, and trust, and joy, cannot but spring up within us, chastened with reverential fear, and softened and quickened by overflowing gratitude. Here we shall become animated by an abiding disposition to endeavour to please our great Benefactor; and by a humble persuasion, that the weakest endeavours of this nature will not be despised by a Being, who has already proved himself so kindly affected towards us. Here we cannot fail to imbibe an earnest desire of possessing his favour, and a conviction, founded on his own declarations thus unquestionably confirmed, that the desire shall not be disappointed. Whenever we are conscious that we have offended this gracious Being, a single thought of the great work of Redemption will be enough to fill us with compunction. We shall feel a deep concern, grief mingled with indignant shame, for having conducted ourselves so unworthily towards one who to us has been infinite in kindness: we shall not rest till we have reason to hope that he is reconciled to us; and we shall watch over our hearts and conduct in future with a renewed jealousy, [Pg 243] lest we should again offend him. To those who are ever so little acquainted with the nature of the human mind, it were superfluous to remark, that the affections and tempers which have been enumerated, are the infallible marks and the constituent properties of Love. Let him then who would abound and grow in this Christian principle, be much conversant with the great doctrines of the Gospel.
It is obvious, that the attentive and frequent consideration of these great doctrines, must have a still more direct tendency to produce and cherish in our minds the principle of the love of Christ.”

William Wilberforce (1759–1833) English politician

Source: Real Christianity (1797), p. 240-243.

Adrienne von Speyr photo

“Suffering without faith would be like love without hope.”

Adrienne von Speyr (1902–1967) Swiss doctor and mystic

Source: Lumina and New Lumina (1969), p. 45

Gerard Manley Hopkins photo

“Hope had grown grey hairs,
Hope had mourning on,
Trenched with tears, carved with cares,
Hope was twelve hours gone.”

"The Wreck of the Deutschland", lines 115-118
Wessex Poems and Other Verses (1918)

Robert Browning photo

“Progress, man’s distinctive mark alone,
Not God’s, and not the beasts’: God is, they are,
Man partly is and wholly hopes to be.”

"De Gustibus", line 586.
Men and Women (1855)
Variant: Progress, man’s distinctive mark alone,
Not God’s, and not the beasts’: God is, they are,
Man partly is and wholly hopes to be.

Barack Obama photo
Bernard Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein photo
Bertrand Russell photo
Catherine of Genoa photo
Plato photo
Leonardo Da Vinci photo

“I am still hopeful. A falcon, Time. But the coincidence is probably accidental.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), X Studies and Sketches for Pictures and Decorations

Socrates photo
Jan Tinbergen photo
Benjamin Disraeli photo

“The disappointment of manhood succeeds to the delusion of youth: let us hope that the heritage of old age is not despair.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Book VIII, Chapter 4.
Books, Coningsby (1844), Vivian Grey (1826)

Abraham Lincoln photo
Robert Burns Woodward photo
Friedrich Schiller photo

“What are hopes, what are plans?”

Die Braut von Messina (The Bride of Messina), Act III, sc. v (1803)

Kurt Vonnegut photo
Barack Obama photo
Charlie Chaplin photo

“Schultz: You must speak.
Jewish barber: I can't.
Schultz: It's our only hope.”

Charlie Chaplin (1889–1977) British comic actor and filmmaker

The Great Dictator (1940)

Claude Monet photo

“I have at last found a suitable spot and settled her. I have already spend a few days working and started eight canvases, which I hope, if the weather favours me, will give an idea of Norway and the environs of Christiania... This morning I was painting under constant falling snow. You would have burst out laughing seeing me white all over, my beard overgrown with icicles.”

Claude Monet (1840–1926) French impressionist painter

in his letter from Sandviken to Gustave Geffroy, late January 1895; (Geoffrey, 1922, vol 2 pp. 87-88); as cited in: Nathalia Brodskaya, Claude Monet, 2011, p. 106
Similar translation:
One should live here for a year in order to accomplish something of value, and that is only after having seen and gotten to know the country. I painted today, a part of the day, in the snow, which falls endlessly. You would have laughed if you could have seen me completely white, with icicles hanging from my beard like stalactites.
1890 - 1900
Source: Claude Monet, ‎Charles F. Stuckey (1985) Monet: a retrospective, p. 169

John Lennon photo

“I've always considered my work one piece and I consider that my work won't be finished until I am dead and buried and I hope that's a long, long time.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

Interview with RKO Radio on the day of his murder (8 December 1980)

Rainer Maria Rilke photo
Adrienne von Speyr photo

“Only faith can keep what hope promises.”

Adrienne von Speyr (1902–1967) Swiss doctor and mystic

Source: Lumina and New Lumina (1969), p. 17

Friedrich Nietzsche photo
Jay-Z photo

“I’ve got demons in my past so I’ve got daughters on the way,
If the prophecy is correct then the child should have to pay,
For the sins of the father so I barter my tomorrows against my yesterday’s
In hopes that she’ll be okay”

Jay-Z (1969) American rapper, businessman, entrepreneur, record executive, songwriter, record producer and investor

"Beach Chair"
The Black Album (2003)

Dwight D. Eisenhower photo
Leon Trotsky photo

“In our eyes, individual terror is inadmissible precisely because it belittles the role of the masses in their own consciousness, reconciles them to their own powerlessness, and turns their eyes and hopes toward a great avenger and liberator who someday will come and accomplish his mission.”

Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) Marxist revolutionary from Russia

Why Marxists oppose Individual Terrorism http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1911/11/tia09.htm, article published in the Austrian Social Democratic paper Der Kampf (1909)

Caspar David Friedrich photo
George Linley photo

“Tho' lost to sight, to memory dear
Thou ever wilt remain;
One only hope my heart can cheer,—
The hope to meet again.

Oh, fondly on the past I dwell,
And oft recall those hours
When, wandering down the shady dell,
We gathered the wild-flowers.

Yes, life then seemed one pure delight,
Tho' now each spot looks drear;
Yet tho' thy smile be lost to sight,
To memory thou art dear.

Oft in the tranquil hour of night,
When stars illume the sky,
I gaze upon each orb of light,
And wish that thou wert by.

I think upon that happy time,
That time so fondly loved,
When last we heard the sweet bells chime,
As thro' the fields we roved.”

George Linley (1798–1865) British writer

Song, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). This song was written and composed by Linley for Mr. Augustus Braham, and sung by him. It is not known when it was written,—probably about 1830. Another song, entitled "Though lost to Sight, to Memory dear," was published in London in 1880, purporting to have been written by Ruthven Jenkyns in 1703 and published in the "Magazine for Mariners". That magazine, however, never existed, and the composer of the music acknowledged, in a private letter, that he copied the words from an American newspaper. The reputed author, Ruthven Jenkyns, was living, under another name, in California in 1882.

Barack Obama photo
Maurice Strong photo
Barack Obama photo

“Hope is the bedrock of this nation. The belief that our destiny will not be written for us, but by us, by all those men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is, who have the courage to remake the world as it should be.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Iowa Caucus Victory Speech, Delivered at the Iowa Democratic caucus on 3 January 2008 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNZaq-YKCnE
2008

Barack Obama photo
Kurt Vonnegut photo

“Every day begins with an act of courage and hope: getting out of bed.”

Mason Cooley (1927–2002) American academic

City Aphorisms (1984)

Niels Bohr photo

“How wonderful that we have met with a paradox. Now we have some hope of making progress.”

Niels Bohr (1885–1962) Danish physicist

As quoted in Niels Bohr : The Man, His Science, & the World They Changed (1966) by Ruth Moore, p. 196

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues photo

“Hope deceives more men than cunning does.”

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues (1715–1747) French writer, a moralist

L'espérance fait plus de dupes que l'habileté.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Ayrton Senna photo
Kurt Vonnegut photo
Friedrich Nietzsche photo
Barack Obama photo
Barack Obama photo
Abraham Lincoln photo
Leonardo Da Vinci photo

“That man is of supreme folly who always wants for fear of wanting; and his life flies away while he is still hoping to enjoy the good things which he has with extreme labour acquired.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.

Norman Cousins photo

“[The recovery] began, I said, when I decided that some experts don't really know enough to make a pronouncement of doom on a human being. And I said I hoped they would be careful about what they said to others; they might be believed and that could be the beginning of the end.”

Norman Cousins (1915–1990) American journalist

http://books.google.com/books?id=XFmDIpxyI_sC&q=%22It+all+began+I+said+when+I+decided+that+some+experts+don't+really+know+enough+to+make+a+pronouncement+of+doom+on+a+human+being+And+I+said+I+hoped+they+would+be+careful+about+what+they+said+to+others+they+might+be+believed+and+that+could+be+the+beginning+of+the+end%22&pg=PA160#v=onepage
Anatomy of an Illness (1979)

Karl Dönitz photo

“I think that I have now said enough about the war, which is past now for over twenty-five years. I bow in reverence before the memory of the men who lost their lives in this war on both sides, and I think that we all hope that we never shall have such a war again.”

Karl Dönitz (1891–1980) President of Germany; admiral in command of German submarine forces during World War II

The World at War: the Landmark Oral History from the Classic TV Series (2007) by Richard Holmes, Page 634.

Leon Trotsky photo

“As long as I breathe I hope. As long as I breathe I shall fight for the future, that radiant future, in which man, strong and beautiful, will become master of the drifting stream of his history and will direct it towards the boundless horizons of beauty, joy and happiness!”

Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) Marxist revolutionary from Russia

"On Optimism and Pessimism, on the Twentieth Century, and on Many Other Things" (1901), as quoted in The Prophet Armed : Trotsky, 1879-1921 (2003) by Isaac Deutscher , p. 45