hope

Hope is the feeling you have that the
feeling you have isn't permanent.

Jean Kerr

    

Hope is both the earliest and the most indispensable virtue inherent in the state of being alive. . . . If life is to be sustained hope must remain, even where confidence is wounded, trust impaired.

Erik H. Erikson

      

Hope, like faith, is nothing if it is not courageous; it is nothing if it is not ridiculous.  The defeat of hope leads not to despair, but to resignation.  The resignation of those who have had a grasp of hope retains hope’s power.

Thornton Wilder
The Eighth Day

  

Hope is an adventure, a going forward, a confident search for a rewarding life.

Karl Menninger

  
  

Hope is like the sun which, as we journey towards it,  casts the shadow of our burden behind us.

Samuel Smiles

   

The human body experiences a powerful gravitational pull in the direction of hope.  That is why the patient's hopes are the physician's secret weapon.  They are the hidden ingredients of any prescription.

Norman Cousins

   

Refusal to hope is nothing more than a decision to die.

Bernie S. Siegel

   

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Hope saves a person in the midst of misfortunes.

Menander

   
Hope arouses, as nothing else can arouse, a passion
for the possible.

William Sloan Coffin, Jr.
  

If it were not for hopes, the heart would break.

Thomas Fuller

   

It is certainly wrong to despair; and if
despair is wrong, hope is right.

John Lubbock

  
Hope is itself a species of happiness, and perhaps the
chief happiness which this world affords.

Samuel Johnson
   

Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement.
Nothing can be done without hope or confidence.

Helen Keller

   

Strong hope is a much greater stimulant of life
than any single realized joy could be.

Friedrich Nietzsche

  

   

Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper.

Francis Bacon

  

hope

We all have hope.  Sometimes, oddly enough, we don't want to admit it--to others or to ourselves--but no matter how bad things get in our lives, we have hope.  It's one of the greatest gifts that we've been given, for out of hope come all of our scientific and medical advances -- why even start trying something new if there's no hope for a successful outcome?  Hope is what keeps us going on those dark, dark nights in our lives when it seems as if the sun never again will shine, but we have to give hope its due; we have to let its light shine in our lives if it's to do any good.  We have to tell ourselves that things will get better, that life will radiate its beauty in our lives once more, if we but let it.

Hope never dies in us, yet often we cover its light, or we cover our ears so that we won't hear it sing its song.  But that's like turning off a lamp when we most need its light, or shutting the door on a best friend when we most need company.  We were created to be hopeful creatures, to look at the possibilities in the world and in ourselves, yet many of us aren't willing to do so, and we deny that there's even hope in the world, and once we deny the existence of hope, we start living dull, lightless lives that serve no one -- ourselves or those who surround us.  To live is to hope, and to hope is to live.

Personally, I remember that even during my darkest depressions, I've always felt the flame of hope, no matter how tiny it seemed to be.  The problem was that all of the negative thoughts that were my depression kept arguing against the hope, calling it stupid, telling me that it was unrealistic and unjustified.  The hope inside of me was like the one person who is willing to stand up with a voice of reason against a mob, only to be attacked by that mob and left for dead.  Thankfully, it didn't die, or I might have.

When the voice of hope speaks inside of you, listen closely.  The voice of hope could be called the voice of God, the voice of all the wonderful people with whom we share this world, the voice of truth and reality.  It's those other voices inside of you, the voices of despair and condemnation and hopelessness, that are the liars.  Call them what they are, and give them no credence.  It's hope that springs eternal.  These other things are temporary parts of ourselves that we have to learn to reject, like someone renting our house who not only isn't paying their rent, but who's destroying the house.  To restore peace and equilibrium, we have to get rid of the renter and restore the hope of better days to come.

tom walsh
    

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Hope works in these ways: it looks for the good in people
instead of harping on the worst; it discovers what can be done
instead of grumbling about what cannot; it regards problems,
large or small, as opportunities; it pushes ahead when it would
be easy to quit; it "lights the candle" instead of "cursing the darkness."

unattributed
    

The important thing is not that we can live on hope alone,
but that life is not worth living without it.

Harvey Milk

    

   
We should not let our fears hold us back from pursuing our hopes.

John F. Kennedy
   

Hope never abandons you; you abandon it.

George Weinberg

    

There is no hope unmingled with fear,
and no fear unmingled with hope.

Baruch Spinoza

    

   

Sometimes our fate resembles a fruit tree in winter.
Who would think that those branches would turn green
again and blossom, but we hope it, we know it.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

    

We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

   

Hope, like the gleaming candle's light,
Adorns and cheers our way;
And still, as darker grows the night,
Emits a brighter ray.

Oliver Goldsmith

  

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The hopeful person sees success where others see failure,
sunshine where others see shadows and storm.

Orison Swett Marden

   

   
    

The capacity for hope is the most significant fact of life.
It gives human beings a sense of destination and the energy to get started.


Norman Cousins

   

Every blade of grass, each leaf, each separate floret
and petal, is an inscription speaking of hope.

Richard Jefferies

   

Hope is the pillar that holds up the world.
Hope is the dream of a waking person.

Pliny the Elder

   

Our greatest hope is for the experience of joy, and often we are
not as smart as we think we are when it comes to predicting what
would bring us that joy. . . Hope that is attached to a particular
outcome is looking for pleasure but fishing for pain, because
attachment itself is a source of pain.  It is best to hope for an
experience of life in all its fullness--a life that can embrace both
joy and sorrow, and will still be at peace.

Marianne Williamson

   

If you do not hope, you will not find out what is beyond your hopes.

Clement of Alexandra

hope

Hope is some extraordinary spiritual grace
that God gives us to control our fears, not to oust them.


Vincent McNabb

  
  
Hope is the parent of faith.

C.A. Bartol
  

Hope is faith holding out its hand in the dark.

George Iles

  

The word which God has written
on the brow of every person is hope.

Victor Hugo

   
Hope and new beginnings are fresh every morning.  It is not
necessary to wait for a circumstance to bring hope.  Hope,
real hope, comes when we lay down our own ideas and
plans. . . . our mind, will, and emotions. . .before God as a
hand of cards dealt and say to him, “How would YOU play them?”

Laura Lewis Lanier
   

         
   

When Walker first steps onto the road, he has no thoughts, no history, no memories, and no clothes. As he travels and meets people and learns from them, he comes to know more about life, living, and becoming the person he's meant to be. Walker is a parable for all of us who wonder what might be the purpose of life, why bad things happen with almost as much regularity as good things, and how we can learn from the bad examples and experiences in our lives as much as we can learn from the good things. Tom Walsh's parable is a story of the ages, a timeless exploration of ideas and thoughts that all of us wonder about, a sincere and heartfelt portrait of a man who has no past and no future, but who learns to make the most of each precious present moment as it comes.