Quotes about hope
page 56

Fidel Castro photo
Yuval Noah Harari photo
Poul Anderson photo

“Do you actually hope to convert the whole of mankind?”

“Belay that! Anyhow, if you mean, Do we hope to make everybody into copies of us? The answer is, No. Mind, I’m not in Parliament or Admiralty, but I follow debates and I read the philosophers. One trouble with the old machine culture was that, by its nature, it did force people to become more and more alike. Not only did this fail in the end—disastrously—but to the extent it succeeded, it was a worse disaster.” Lohannaso smote the rail with a mighty fist. “Damnation, Thomas! We need all the diversity, all the assorted ways of living and looking and thinking, we can get!”
Source: There Will Be Time (1972), Chapter 11 (p. 119)

Poul Anderson photo
Marilyn Ferguson photo
John F. Kennedy photo
Frederick Douglass photo
Donald Tusk photo

“We (Ministry of Transportation and Communication) hope that the airline (China Airlines) will quickly and thoroughly investigate the incident (cigarette smuggling scandal), and disclose the results to the public.”

Wang Kwo-tsai politician

Wang Kwo-tsai (2019) cited in " NSB officials used Presidential Office trucks: lawmaker http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2019/07/25/2003719283" on Taipei Times, 25 July 2019

Teng Chia-chi photo

“We hope to accomplish sustainable progress through positive competition (between Taiwan and Mainland China) based on mutual understanding, respect and cooperation, despite the differences caused by long-term separation.”

Teng Chia-chi (1956) Taiwanese politician

Teng Chia-chi (2018) cited in " Taipei-Shanghai Twin-City Forum opens in Taipei http://focustaiwan.tw/news/acs/201812200006.aspx" on Focus Taiwan, 20 December 2018

Yang Cheng-wu photo
Narendra Modi photo
Eugene V. Debs photo
Northrop Frye photo

“The soul is an immaculate virgin…Then it goes out and gets fucked by the world all day long & staggers back a baggy-eyed old whore, still hoping that after a sleep the Moment of purification will come again.”

Northrop Frye (1912–1991) Canadian literary critic and literary theorist

Source: "Quotes", Notebooks and Lectures on the Bible and Other Religious Texts (2003), p. 27

Vasyl Slipak photo

“I am proud to be a brother of such a person. Now all I can is hope that Ukrainians will make right conclusions and will move on, as my brother wished they should have done.”

Vasyl Slipak (1974–2016) Ukrainian opera singer

Orest Slipak,brother of killed Vasyl Slipak Ukrainians bid their last farewells to opera singer Vasyl Slipak, laid to rest in Lviv // UT.Ukraine Today. - 2016. - July 1. http://uatoday.tv/society/ukrainians-bid-their-last-farewells-to-opera-singer-vasyl-slipak-laid-to-rest-in-lviv-684674.html

Hendrik Verwoerd photo
Ta-Nehisi Coates photo
Mark Kirk photo

“I have spent my life building bridges and tearing down barriers — not building walls. That’s why I find Donald Trump’s belief that an American-born judge of Mexican descent is incapable of fairly presiding over his case is not only dead wrong, it is un-American. As the Presidential campaign progressed, I was hoping the rhetoric would tone down and reflect a campaign that was inclusive, thoughtful and principled. While I oppose the Democratic nominee, Donald Trump’s latest statements, in context with past attacks on Hispanics, women and the disabled like me, make it certain that I cannot and will not support my party’s nominee for President regardless of the political impact on my candidacy or the Republican Party. It is absolutely essential that we are guided by a commander-in-chief with a responsible and proper temperament, discretion and judgment. Our President must be fit to command the most powerful military the world has ever seen, including an arsenal of thousands of nuclear weapons. After much consideration, I have concluded that Donald Trump has not demonstrated the temperament necessary to assume the greatest office in the world.”

Mark Kirk (1959) former U.S. junior senator from Illinois

As quoted in Sen. Mark Kirk withdraws support for Trump https://web.archive.org/web/20160608015204/http://chicago.suntimes.com/news/sen-mark-kirk-withdraws-support-for-trump/ by Lynn Sweet, 7 June 2016, Chicago Sun-Times.

Leanne Wood photo
Nicola Sturgeon photo

“While I do not agree with the decision on the EU reached by people in England and Wales, I do respect it. I hope the new PM will show the same respect for the decision reached by the Scottish people.”

Nicola Sturgeon (1970) First Minister of Scotland and leader of the Scottish National Party

Said after Scotland voted strongly to 'remain' in the 2016 EU referendum while England and Wales voted to 'leave'. Quoted by the Guardian. Ruth Davidson pokes fun at Andrea Leadsom and Boris Johnson https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/12/ruth-davidson-pokes-fun-at-andrea-leadsom-and-boris-johnson (13 July 2016)
2016

David Cameron photo
Johann Most photo
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe photo

“The child’s desire to have distinctions made in his ideas grew stronger every day. Having learned that things had names, he wished to hear the name of every thing supposing that there could be nothing which his father did not know. He often teased him with his questions, and caused him to inquire concerning objects which, but for this, he would have passed without notice. Our innate tendency to pry into the origin and end of things was likewise soon developed in the boy. When he asked whence came the wind, and whither went the flame, his father for the first time truly felt the limitation of his own powers, and wished to understand how far man may venture with his thoughts, and what things he may hope ever to give account of to himself or others. The anger of the child, when he saw injustice done to any living thing, was extremely grateful to the father, as the symptom of a generous heart. Felix once struck fiercely at the cook for cutting up some pigeons. The fine impression this produced on Wilhelm was, indeed, erelong disturbed, when he found the boy unmercifully tearing sparrows in pieces and beating frogs to death. This trait reminded him of many men, who appear so scrupulously just when without passion, and witnessing the proceedings of other men. The pleasant feeling, that the boy was producing so fine and wholesome an influence on his being, was, in a short time, troubled for a moment, when our friend observed, that in truth the boy was educating him more than he the boy.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German writer, artist, and politician

Book VIII – Chapter 1
Wilhelm Meister's Wanderjahre (Journeyman Years) (1821–1829)

Baruch Spinoza photo
Giacomo Leopardi photo
Miguel de Unamuno photo
Nicolas Chamfort photo

“Poets, orators, even philosophes, say the same things about fame we were told as boys to encourage us to win prizes. What they tell children to make them prefer being praised to eating jam tarts is the same idea constantly drummed into us to encourage us to sacrifice our real interests in the hope of being praised by our contemporaries or by posterity.”

Nicolas Chamfort (1741–1794) French writer

Ce que les poètes, les orateurs, même quelques philosophes nous disent sur l'amour de la Gloire, on nous le disait au Collège, pour nous encourager à avoir les prix. Ce que l'on dit aux enfants pour les engager à préférer à une tartelette les louanges de leurs bonnes, c'est ce qu'on répète aux hommes pour leur faire préférer à un intérêt personnel les éloges de leurs contemporains ou de la postérité.
Maximes et Pensées, #85
Reflections

Herman Melville photo
Johann Gottlieb Fichte photo
Cheng Li-chun photo

“We hope people can set aside their fears and partisan biases and stop thinking that learning from the mistakes of the past means causing animosity.”

Cheng Li-chun (1969) Taiwanese politician

Cheng Li-chun (2019) cited in " Transitional justice not aimed at spurring animosity: culture minister http://focustaiwan.tw/news/aipl/201901310014.aspx" on Focus Taiwan, 31 January 2019.

Selahattin Demirtaş photo
Mark Hunt photo
Sania Mirza photo

“She proves that young Muslim girls can make a mark if they are given the right chances… Many Muslims in India are economically and educationally backward; she has given the community new hope.”

Sania Mirza (1986) Indian tennis player

Akhtarul Wasey, director of the Zakir Husain Institute for Islamic Studies in Delhi
India's most wanted

Sania Mirza photo
Anish Kapoor photo

“It looks stunning and it does exactly what we hoped.”

Anish Kapoor (1954) British contemporary artist of Indian birth

Israeli sky in Anish’s steel- India-born artist sculpts landmark symbol for museum

A. R. Rahman photo

“We didn’t know what kind of music we’d make, we didn’t know if it would be any good, but we hoped we’d have fun. He brings so much musical knowledge, amazing musicianship, melody and singing power from a different culture.”

A. R. Rahman (1966) Indian singer and composer

Mick Jagger’s views Superheavy, 16 December 2013, Official website of ARRahman http://www.arrahman.com/superheavy.aspx,

Premchand photo
Gopal Krishna Gokhale photo
C. V. Raman photo

“For the Chair of Physics created by Sir Palit, we have been fortunate enough to secure the services of Mr. Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman, who has greatly distinguished himself and acquired a European fame by his brilliant research in the domain of Physical Science, assiduously carried on under the most adverse circumstances amidst the distraction of pressing official duties. I rejoice to think that many of these valuable researches have been carried on in the laboratory of the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, founded by our late illustrious colleague, Dr. Mahandra Lal Sircar, who devoted a lifetime to the foundation of an institution for the cultivation and advancement of science in this country. I should fail in my duty if I were to restrain myself in my expression of genuine admiration I feel for the courage and spirit of self-sacrifice with which Mr. Raman had decided to exchange a lucrative official appointment with attractive prospects, for a University Professorship, which, I regret to say, does not carry even liberal emoluments. This one instance encourages me to entertain the hope that there will be no lack of seeker after truth in the Temple of Knowledge which it is our ambition to erect.”

C. V. Raman (1888–1970) Indian physicist

Quoted from Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman:A Legend of Modern Indian Science, 22 November 2013, Official Government of Indian website Vigyan Prasar http://www.vigyanprasar.gov.in/scientists/cvraman/raman1.htm,

Gottlob Frege photo

“I hope I may claim in the present work to have made it probable that the laws of arithmetic are analytic judgments and consequently a priori.”

Arithmetic thus becomes simply a development of logic, and every proposition of arithmetic a law of logic, albeit a derivative one. To apply arithmetic in the physical sciences is to bring logic to bear on observed facts; calculation becomes deduction.
Gottlob Frege (1950 [1884]). The Foundations of Arithmetic. p. 99.

James K. Morrow photo

“A golden age, Londa calls it. She hopes it will return.”

James K. Morrow (1947) (1947-) science fiction author

“Golden ages rarely return,” I said “especially if they never existed.”
Source: The Philosopher's Apprentice (2008), Chapter 16 (p. 366)

Piet Joubert photo
Roscoe Arbuckle photo
Jon Voight photo

“I’m still just reveling that someone from Hollywood made a speech like that. I hope you’re going to be able to find work after this. I really enjoyed that.”

Jon Voight (1938) American actor

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky congratulating Voight on his June 2009 speech at a Republican fundraiser. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=aFfk5skijH5s

James Bolivar Manson photo
Marina Silva photo

“I hope the next minister is not as radical as Marina. She was an obstacle to economic development in Brazil.”

Marina Silva (1958) Brazilian environmentalist and politician

Rui Prado, head of the agriculture federation of Mato Grosso, on Silva's resignation; quoted in " Brazil's Amazon minister resigns," http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7399715.stm BBC News (2008-05-14)

Peter Beckford photo
Ignatius Sancho photo

“Were I as rich in worldly commodity, as in hearty will, I would thank you most princely for your very welcome and agreeable letter;- but, were it so, I should not proportion my gratitude to your wants;- for, blessed be the God of thy hope!”

Ignatius Sancho (1729–1780) British composer, writer and grocer

thou wantest nothing- more than, what's in thy possession, or in thy power to possess:- I would neither give thee Money, nor Territory, Women, nor Horses, nor Camels, nor the height of Asiatic pride, Elephants;- I would give thee Books
(from vol 2, letter 60: 5 Jan 1780, to Mr J. W___e [still in India] ).

Ignatius Sancho photo

“We are in great hopes about poor Lydia.”

Ignatius Sancho (1729–1780) British composer, writer and grocer

An honest and ingenious motherly woman in our neighbourhood has undertaken the perfect cure of her, and we have every reason to think, with God's blessing, she will succeed- which is a blessing we shall owe entirely to the comfort of being poor, for had we been rich, the doctors would have had the honor of killing her a twelvemonth ago.
(from vol 1, letter 28: 4 Oct 1775, to Miss L___ ) [sadly, little Lydia Sancho died in 1776]

Tucker Max photo

“I have about half a second to make a crucial decision: I can either sprint and hope I make it there before I shit in my boxers, or I can stick my thumb up into my ass and shuffle the 60 yards to lavatory freedom.”

Tucker Max (1975) Internet personality; blogger; author

The Austin Road Trip http://www.tuckermax.com/archives/entries/date/the_austin_road_trip.phtml#281,
The Tucker Max Stories

Sam Kinison photo
Heath Ledger photo

“I had such great hope for him. He was just taking off and to lose his life at such a young age is a tragic loss. My thoughts and prayers are with him and his family.”

Heath Ledger (1979–2008) Australian actor

Mel Gibson, actor, whose on-screen eldest son, Gabriel Martin, was played by Heath Ledger in The Patriot. [In Quotes: Heath Ledger Tributes", http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7204267.stm, BBC News, Entertainment, bbc.co.uk (BBC), January 23, 2008, 2008-08-23]

Jane Roberts photo

“It is my contention that if a large body of strong healthy men do not exist as a pool of hope for the race, then the race has no chance to survive. If twenty million starved neurotics manage to live through the plague, does this mean that humanity survives?”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

He paused, throwing the question at them and waiting until they formed their own answer. Then he shouted, "No, it does not! What is humanity, a physical form only? I say it is more. It is intellect and reason and dignity. It is these qualities that must survive, not the mere number of twisted sickly bodies."
Source: The Rebellers (1963), p. 79

W. Mark Felt photo
Woodrow Wilson photo

“You are not here merely to prepare to make a living. You are here to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, and with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget this errand.”

Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) American politician, 28th president of the United States (in office from 1913 to 1921)

“Ideals of College” http://books.google.com/books?id=_VYEIml1cAkC&pg=PA15&dq=%22You+are+not+here+merely%22, Swarthmore (25 October 1913)
1910s

John Muir photo
John Muir photo
Prem Rawat photo
Prem Rawat photo
Prem Rawat photo
Prem Rawat photo
Prem Rawat photo
Prem Rawat photo
John Nash photo
Ray Bradbury photo
Chuck Palahniuk photo

“All I do is track a profane route to something (I hope) profound. Like swimming a river of shit for a kiss.”

Chuck Palahniuk (1962) American novelist, essayist

On what sets him apart from others in his genre.
Online chat transcript http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=599285, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (2007-05-01)

Emperor Norton photo
Jane Austen photo
John Stuart Mill photo

“In those days I had seen little further than the old school of political economists into the possibilities of fundamental improvement in social arrangements. Private property, as now understood, and inheritance, appeared to me, as to them, the dernier mot of legislation: and I looked no further than to mitigating the inequalities consequent on these institutions, by getting rid of primogeniture and entails. The notion that it was possible to go further than this in removing the injustice -- for injustice it is, whether admitting of a complete remedy or not -- involved in the fact that some are born to riches and the vast majority to poverty, I then reckoned chimerical, and only hoped that by universal education, leading to voluntary restraint on population, the portion of the poor might be made more tolerable. In short, I was a democrat, but not the least of a Socialist. We were now much less democrats than I had been, because so long as education continues to be so wretchedly imperfect, we dreaded the ignorance and especially the selfishness and brutality of the mass: but our ideal of ultimate improvement went far beyond Democracy, and would class us decidedly under the general designation of Socialists. While we repudiated with the greatest energy that tyranny of society over the individual which most Socialistic systems are supposed to involve, we yet looked forward to a time when society will no longer be divided into the idle and the industrious; when the rule that they who do not work shall not eat, will be applied not to paupers only, but impartially to all; when the division of the produce of labour, instead of depending, as in so great a degree it now does, on the accident of birth, will be made by concert on an acknowledged principle of justice; and when it will no longer either be, or be thought to be, impossible for human beings to exert themselves strenuously in procuring benefits which are not to be exclusively their own, but to be shared with the society they belong to. The social problem of the future we considered to be, how to unite the greatest individual liberty of action, with a common ownership in the raw material of the globe, and an equal participation of all in the benefits of combined labour. We had not the presumption to suppose that we could already foresee, by what precise form of institutions these objects could most effectually be attained, or at how near or how distant a period they would become practicable. We saw clearly that to render any such social transformation either possible or desirable, an equivalent change of character must take place both in the uncultivated herd who now compose the labouring masses, and in the immense majority of their employers. Both these classes must learn by practice to labour and combine for generous, or at all events for public and social purposes, and not, as hitherto, solely for narrowly interested ones. But the capacity to do this has always existed in mankind, and is not, nor is ever likely to be, extinct. Education, habit, and the cultivation of the sentiments, will make a common man dig or weave for his country, as readily as fight for his country. True enough, it is only by slow degrees, and a system of culture prolonged through successive generations, that men in general can be brought up to this point. But the hindrance is not in the essential constitution of human nature. Interest in the common good is at present so weak a motive in the generality not because it can never be otherwise, but because the mind is not accustomed to dwell on it as it dwells from morning till night on things which tend only to personal advantage. When called into activity, as only self-interest now is, by the daily course of life, and spurred from behind by the love of distinction and the fear of shame, it is capable of producing, even in common men, the most strenuous exertions as well as the most heroic sacrifices. The deep-rooted selfishness which forms the general character of the existing state of society, is so deeply rooted, only because the whole course of existing institutions tends to foster it; modern institutions in some respects more than ancient, since the occasions on which the individual is called on to do anything for the public without receiving its pay, are far less frequent in modern life, than the smaller commonwealths of antiquity.”

Source: Autobiography (1873)
Source: https://archive.org/details/autobiography01mill/page/230/mode/1up pp. 230-233

Arthur C. Clarke photo
Martin Luther King, Jr. photo
Max Eastman photo

“Stalinism is worse than fascism, more ruthless, barbarous, unjust, immoral, anti-democratic, unredeemed by any hope or scruple, ... better described as superfascist.”

Max Eastman (1883–1969) American activist

Source: Stalin's Russia and the Crisis in Socialism (1940), p. 82

Alfred, Lord Tennyson photo

“Then some one spake: "Behold! it was a crime
Of sense avenged by sense that wore with time."
Another said: "The crime of sense became
The crime of malice, and is equal blame."
And one: "He had not wholly quench'd his power;
A little grain of conscience made him sour."
At last I heard a voice upon the slope
Cry to the summit, "Is there any hope?"”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) British poet laureate

To which an answer peal'd from that high land,
But in a tongue no man could understand;
And on the glimmering limit far withdrawn
God made Himself an awful rose of dawn.
"The Vision of Sin", sec. 5 (1842)

Thurgood Marshall photo
Rudyard Kipling photo
Audre Lorde photo
William Wordsworth photo

“Through love, through hope, and faith's transcendent dower,
We feel that we are greater than we know.”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

The River Duddon, sonnet 34 - Afterthought, l. 13 (1820)

Huey P. Newton photo
William D. Leahy photo
Helen Keller photo

“Once I knew the depth where no hope was, and darkness lay on the face of all things. Then love came and set my soul free. Once I knew only darkness and stillness. Now I know hope and joy. Once I fretted and beat myself against the wall that shut me in. Now I rejoice in the consciousness that I can think, act and attain heaven. My life was without past or future; death, the pessimist would say, "a consummation devoutly to be wished."”

But a little word from the fingers of another fell into my hand that clutched at emptiness, and my heart leaped to the rapture of living. Night fled before the day of thought, and love and joy and hope came up in a passion of obedience to knowledge. Can anyone who has escaped such captivity, who has felt the thrill and glory of freedom, be a pessimist?
Optimism (1903)

Kim Il-sung photo
Joshua Wong photo

“I hope one day not only Hong Kong people, but also people in mainland China, can enjoy freedom and democracy.”

Joshua Wong (1996) Hong Kong activist, Secretary-general of Demosistō

Source: September 11, 2019 Hong Kong protesters pause to mark Sept. 11 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hongkong-protests/hong-kong-protesters-pause-to-mark-sept-11-idUSKCN1VW0DT?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2FtopNews+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Top+News%29

Uwem Akpan photo
N. K. Jemisin photo
Stephen King photo

“We're entering the most dangerous phase in the region in decades. I'm really not all that hopeful.”

Brian Reynolds Myers (1963) American professor of international studies

2010s, Interview with the Reuters War College (April 2017)

Paul Romer photo

“Many people think that dealing with protecting the environment will be so costly and so hard that they just want to ignore the problem. I hope the prize today could help everyone see that humans are capable of amazing accomplishments when we set about trying to do something.”

Paul Romer (1955) American economist

At a news conference following the 2018 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics announcement, as quoted in "2 Americans win econ Nobel for work on climate and growth" https://www.apnews.com/c3e7552c033748e683d502d890613b8b Associated Press. October 8, 2018.

Jason Reynolds photo
William Wordsworth photo
Prince William, Duke of Cambridge photo

“It made a real big difference with everyone not trying to sort of snap a picture every time I was walking around the streets. I hope it just continues for Harry as well when he is there.”

Prince William, Duke of Cambridge (1982) a member of the British royal family

(Comment of thanks to the media for respecting his privacy during his enrollment at Eton College) AP via CBS News https://web.archive.org/web/20150906180820/https://www.cbsnews.com/news/prince-faces-press/
Associated Press interview during his gap year (29 September 2000)

Pierce Brown photo
William Quan Judge photo
Victor Hugo photo