“Hope against hope, and ask till ye receive.”

Source: Succubus Dreams

1770s, "Give me liberty, or give me death!" (1775)
Context: It is natural for man to indulge in the illusions of hope and pride. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it.

Source: American Psycho (1991), p. 3; the opening of the book.
Context: ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE is scrawled in blood red lettering on the side of the Chemical Bank near the corner of Eleventh and First and is in print large enough to be seen from the backseat of the cab as it lurches forward in the traffic leaving Wall Street and just as Timothy Price notices the words a bus pulls up, the advertisement for Les Miserables on its side blocking his view, but Price who is with Pierce & Pierce and twenty-six doesn't seem to care because he tells the driver he will give him five dollars to turn up the radio, "Be My Baby" on WYNN, and the driver, black, not American, does so.

Source: The Kite Runner

Source: This Side of Paradise

"Morality, Religion And Bullsh*T: An Interview With Penn Jillette" by Ryan Shaffer, at the American Humanist Association (December 2012) http://americanhumanist.org/HNN/details/2012-12-morality-religion-and-bullsht-an-interview-with-penn
2010s

Source: Abide with Me

Love is Enough (1872), Song IV: Draw Near and Behold Me
Context: Ye know not how void is your hope and your living:
Depart with your helping lest yet ye undo me!
Ye know not that at nightfall she draweth near to me,
There is soft speech between us and words of forgiving
Till in dead of the midnight her kisses thrill through me.
— Pass by me and harken, and waken me not!

Source: The Shoes of Happiness, and Other Poems (1913), The Crowning Hour, II
Context: p>We are caught in the coil of a God's romances —
We come from old worlds and we go afar:
I have missed you again in the Earth's wild chances —
Now to another star!Perhaps we are led and our loves are fated,
And our steps are counted one by one;
Perhaps we shall meet and our souls be mated,
After the burnt-out sun.For over the world a dim hope hovers,
The hope at the heart of all our songs —
That the banded stars are in league with lovers,
And fight against their wrongs.</p