The sudden disappointment of a hope leaves a scar which the ultimate fulfilment of that hope never entirely removes. Thomas Hardy
So each had a private little sun for her soul to bask in; some dream, some affection, some hobby, or at least some remote and distant hope. Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Hope is the denial of reality. Margaret Weis
To wish was to hope, and to hope was to expect. Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility
I had a terrible dream. A nightmare. I dreamt there was a Church of Scotland minister sitting on my bed trying to give me hope. Rab C Nesbitt s6e4: Semmitry, BBC 1997
This is where Hope comes to get fucked in the ass. Boardwalk Empire: Devil You Know s5e6, bird in bar to Nucky, HBO 2014
Abandon all hope, you who enter! Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321, Divina Commedia Inferno canto 3
Fear cannot be without hope nor hope without fear. Baruch Spinoza
Hopeless hope hopes on and meets no end,
Wastes without springs and homes without a friend. John Clare, 1793-1864, Child Harold, 1841
A wonderful thing happens when you give up on hope, which is that you realize you never needed it in the first place. You realize that giving up on hope didn’t kill you. It didn’t even make you less effective. In fact it made you more effective, because you ceased relying on someone or something else to solve your problems – you ceased hoping your problems would somehow get solved through the magical assistance of God, the Great Mother, the Sierra Club, valiant tree-sitters, brave salmon, or even the Earth itself – and you just began doing whatever it takes to solve those problems yourself.
When you give up on hope, something even better happens than it not killing you, which is that in some sense it does kill you. You die. And there’s a wonderful thing about being dead, which is that they – those in power – cannot really touch you anymore. Not through promises, not through threats, not through violence itself. Once you’re dead in this way, you can still sing, you can still dance, you can still make love, you can still fight like hell – you can still live because you are still alive, more alive in fact than ever before. You come to realize that when hope died, the you who died with the hope was not you, but was the you who depended on those who exploit you, the you who believed that those who exploit you will somehow stop on their own, the you who believed in the mythologies propagated by those who exploit you in order to facilitate that exploitation. The socially constructed you died. The civilized you died. The manufactured, fabricated, stamped, molded you died. The victim died. Derrick Jenson, Beyond Hope, Orion Magazine June 2006
Society became my glittering bride,
And airy hopes my children. William Wordsworth, The Excursion
My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So it is now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Oh let me die!
The Child is the father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each by each by natural piety. William Wordsworth, My Heart Leaps Up
Hopes; what are they? — Beads of morning
Strung on slender blades of grass;
Or a spider's web adorning
In a straight and treacherous pass. William Wordsworth, Hopes, What Are They?
Life’s short span forbids us to enter on far-reaching hopes. Horace, Odes
76,306. All our hope is fallen, fallen, and the luck of our name lost with Hasdrubal. ibid.
The year and the hour which robs us of the fair day warn us not to hope for things to last for ever. ibid.
He that lives upon hope will die fasting. Benjamin Franklin
Hope springs eternal in the human breast:
Man never is, but always
To be blest. Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism, 1711
I can endure my own despair,
But not another’s hope. William Walsh, Song: Of All the Torments
I think when there’s hopelessness people revolt. Tupac Shakur, The Killuminati Theory
It takes real guts to see the hopelessness. Revolution Road, 2008 starring Leonardo DiCaprio & Kate Winslet & Dylan Baker & Zoe Kazan & Kathy Bates & Michael Shannon & Kathryn Hahn & David Harbour & Max Casella & Richard Easton & Jay O Sanders & Ryan Simpkins & Ty Simpkins et al, director Sam Mendes
A propensity to hope and joy is real riches; one to fear and sorrow real poverty. David Hume
If a person doesn’t have the capacity that we all want that person to have, I suspect hope is in the far distant future. If at all. George W Bush
Hope, hope, fallacious hope,
Where is thy market now? J M W Turner
Those who do not understand that a man may be brought to hope that which of all things is the most grievous to him, have not observed with sufficient closeness the perversity of the human mind. Anthony Trollope, He Knew He Was Right, 1869
What is my strength, that I should hope? And what is mine end, that I should prolong my life? Job 6:11
Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life. Proverbs 13:12
Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations. Romans 4:18
Hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. Romans 5:5
For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?
But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it. Romans 8:24&25
If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. I Corinthians 15:19
Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn. T S Eliot, 1888-1965, Ash Wednesday, 1930
Thus do the hopes we have in him touch ground
And dash themselves to pieces. William Shakespeare, II Henry IV IV i 17-18, Archbishop of York
Who shall hinder me?
I will despair, and be at enmity
With cozening hope. He is a flatterer,
A parasite, a keeper-back of death,
Who gently would dissolve the bonds of life,
Which false hope lingers in extremity. William Shakespeare, Richard II II ii 67-72, Queen to Bushy et al
Our hap is loss, our hope but sad despair. ibid. II iii 9, George
Till then fair hope must hinder life’s decay,
And I the rather wean me from despair. ibid. IV v 16-17, Lady Gray
The miserable have no other medicine
But only hope. William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure III i 2-3, Claudio
Things out of hope are compassed oft with vent’ring. William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis
That was all a man needed: hope. It was a lack of hope that discouraged a man. Charles Bukowski, Factotum
But what is Hope? Nothing but the paint on the face of Existence. The least touch of truth rubs it off, and then we see what a hollow-cheeked harlot we have got hold of. Lord Byron, letter to Thomas Moore 28 October 1815
Beware how you take away hope from any human being. Oliver Wendell Holmes
Hope, in its stronger forms, is a great deal more powerful stimulants to life than any sort of realized joy can ever be. Man must be sustained in suffering by a hope so high that no conflict with actuality can dash it – so high, indeed, that no fulfilment can satisfy it: a hope reaching out beyond this world. Friedrich Nietzsche, The Antichrist s23
Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man. Friedrich Nietzsche
Yet where an equal poise of hope and fear
Does arbitrate the event, my nature is
That I incline to hope, rather than fear,
And gladly banish squint suspicion. John Milton, Comus, 1637
Where peace
And rest can never dwell, hope never comes,
That comes to all. John Milton, Paradise Lost I:65
What reinforcement we may gain from hope;
If not, what resolution from despair. ibid. I:190
So farewell hope, and with hope farewell fear,
Farewell remorse: all good to me is lost;
Evil, be thou my good. ibid. IV:108
Hope elevates, and joy
Brightens his crest. ibid. IX:633
God knows there’s nothing like hope. Alan Bleasdale, Play for Today: The Black Stuff starring Bernard Hill (Yosser) & Michael Angelis (Chrissie Todd) & Alan Igbon (Loggo Logmond) & Peter Kerrigan (George Malone) & Tom Georgeson (Dixie Dean), George, BBC 1980
I told ya, you’re too good. You’re too soft to survive. And you’re always going to be friggin’ happy, aren’t ya? Aren’t ya? You’re gonna go through life being contented. And easy going. And above all happy. Eh, you don’t want nothing, do ya? You don’t want to be rich. You don’t want to be somebody. Eh all my life I’ve wanted that. I want to be noticed, Chrissie. I want to be somebody. I want to be seen. Eh I am a human being. I am alive. I’m here now. Look at me! ibid. Yosser to Chrissie