# Quotes about hope - Quotes: 15 - Authors: 9 - Topic page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/hope ## Quotes > Keeping a journal implies hope. [Erica Jong](https://www.leafyquotes.com/erica-jong.md) · [How to Save Your Own Life](https://www.leafyquotes.com/erica-jong/how-to-save-your-own-life.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/erica-jong/how-to-save-your-own-life/keeping-a-journal.md) Topics: [hope](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/hope.md) > Human nature simply cannot subsist without a hope and aim of some kind; as the sanity of the Old Testament truly said, where there is no vision the people perisheth. But it is precisely because an ideal is necessary to man that the man without ideals is in permanent danger of fanaticism. [G. Chesterton](https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton.md) · [Heretics](https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton/heretics.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton/heretics/human-nature-simply.md) Topics: [meaning of life](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/meaning-of-life.md), [hope](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/hope.md) > As long as matters are really hopeful, hope is a mere flattery or platitude; it is only when everything is hopeless that hope begins to be a strength at all. Like all the Christian virtues, it is as unreasonable as it is indispensable. [G. Chesterton](https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton.md) · [Heretics](https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton/heretics.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton/heretics/as-long-as-matters.md) Topics: [hope](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/hope.md) > My general meaning touching the three virtues of which I have spoken will now, I hope, be sufficiently clear. They are all three paradoxical, they are all three practical, and they are all three paradoxical because they are practical. it is the stress of ultimate need, and a terrible knowledge of things as they are, which led men to set up these riddles, and to die for them. Whatever may be the meaning of the contradiction, it is the fact that the only kind of hope that is of any use in a battle is a hope that denies arithmetic. Whatever may be the meaning of the contradiction, it is the fact that the only kind of charity which any weak spirit wants, or which any generous spirit feels, is the charity which forgives the sins that are like scarlet. Whatever may be the meaning of faith, it must always mean a certainty about something we cannot prove. Thus, for instance, we believe by faith in the existence of other people. [G. Chesterton](https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton.md) · [Heretics](https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton/heretics.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton/heretics/my-general-meaning.md) Topics: [faith](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/faith.md), [hope](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/hope.md) > Justice consists in finding out a certain thing due to a certain man and giving it to him. Temperance consists in finding out the proper limit of a particular indulgence and adhering to that. But charity means pardoning what is unpardonable, or it is no virtue at all. Hope means hoping when things are hopeless, or it is no virtue at all. And faith means believing the incredible, or it is no virtue at all. [G. Chesterton](https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton.md) · [Heretics](https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton/heretics.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton/heretics/justice-consists-in-finding.md) Topics: [faith](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/faith.md), [hope](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/hope.md) > Charity is a fashionable virtue in our time; it is lit up by the gigantic firelight of Dickens. Hope is a fashionable virtue to-day; our attention has been arrested for it by the sudden and silver trumpet of Stevenson. But faith is unfashionable, and it is customary on every side to cast against it the fact that it is a paradox. Everybody mockingly repeats the famous childish definition that faith is "the power of believing that which we know to be untrue." Yet it is not one atom more paradoxical than hope or charity. Charity is the power of defending that which we know to be indefensible. Hope is the power of being cheerful in circumstances which we know to be desperate. It is true that there is a state of hope which belongs to bright prospects and the morning; but that is not the virtue of hope. The virtue of hope exists only in earthquake and, eclipse. It is true that there is a thing crudely called charity, which means charity to the deserving poor; but charity to the deserving is not charity at all, but justice. It is the undeserving who require it, and the ideal either does not exist at all, or exists wholly for them. For practical purposes it is at the hopeless moment that we require the hopeful man, and the virtue either does not exist at all, or begins to exist at that moment. Exactly at the instant when hope ceases to be reasonable it begins to be useful. Now the old pagan world went perfectly straightforward until it discovered that going straightforward is an enormous mistake. It was nobly and beautifully reasonable, and discovered in its death-pang this lasting and valuable truth, a heritage for the ages, that reasonableness will not do. The pagan age was truly an Eden or golden age, in this essential sense, that it is not to be recovered. [G. Chesterton](https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton.md) · [Heretics](https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton/heretics.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton/heretics/charity-is-a-fashionable.md) Topics: [faith](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/faith.md), [hope](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/hope.md) > The pagan, or rational, virtues are such things as justice and temperance, and Christianity has adopted them. The three mystical virtues which Christianity has not adopted, but invented, are faith, hope, and charity. [G. Chesterton](https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton.md) · [Heretics](https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton/heretics.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton/heretics/the-pagan-or-rational.md) Topics: [religion](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/religion.md), [faith](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/faith.md), [hope](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/hope.md) > When, however, not more than half that duration of time had elapsed, a small ray of light broke in upon my gloom. I was reading, accidentally, Marmontel's "Mémoires," and came to the passage which relates his father's death, the distressed position of the family, and the sudden inspiration by which he, then a mere boy, felt and made them feel that he would be everything to them—would supply the place of all that they had lost. A vivid conception of the scene and its feelings came over me, and I was moved to tears. From this moment my been grew lighter. The oppression of the thought that all feeling was dead within me, was gone. I was no longer hopeless: I was not a stock or a stone. I had still, it seemed, some of the material out of which all worth of character, and all capacity for happiness, are made. ...Thus the cloud gradually drew off, and I again enjoyed life: and though I had several relapses, some of which lasted many months, I never again was as miserable as I had been. Autobiography · p. 140 Topics: [hope](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/hope.md) > There is never no hope left. Remember. [Larry Niven](https://www.leafyquotes.com/larry-niven.md) · [Ringworld Engineers](https://www.leafyquotes.com/larry-niven/ringworld-engineers.md) · p. 280 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/larry-niven/ringworld-engineers/there-is-never.md) Topics: [hope](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/hope.md) > To Mankind > > And the hope that the war against folly may someday be won, after all. [Isaac Asimov](https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov.md) · [The Gods Themselves](https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov/the-gods-themselves.md) · p. 5 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov/the-gods-themselves/to-mankind-and.md) Topics: [stupidity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/stupidity.md), [hope](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/hope.md) > If they destroy here, then somewhere else someone else is building. Surely there are still peaceful countries and men of good sense who know of God's love? If God had abandoned this unlucky town on the Drina, he had surely not abandoned the whole world that was beneath the skies? They would not do this for ever. But who knows? [Ivo Andric](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ivo-andric.md) · [The Bridge on the Drina](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ivo-andric/the-bridge-on-the-drina.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ivo-andric/the-bridge-on-the-drina/if-they-destroy.md) Topics: [hope](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/hope.md) > It rained. The procession of weary soldiers became a bedraggled train, despondent and muttering, marching with churning effort in a trough of liquid brown mud under a low, wretched sky. Yet the youth smiled, for he saw that the world was a world for him, though many discovered it to be made of oaths and walking sticks. He had rid himself of the red sickness of battle. The sultry nightmare was in the past. He had been an animal blistered and sweating in the heat and pain of war. He turned now with a lover's thirst to images of tranquil skies, fresh meadows, cool brooks — an existence of soft and eternal peace. > > Over the river a golden ray of sun came through the hosts of leaden rain clouds. [Stephen Crane](https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-crane.md) · [The Red Badge of Courage](https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-crane/the-red-badge-of-courage.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-crane/the-red-badge-of-courage/it-rained-the.md) Topics: [war](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/war.md), [hope](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/hope.md) > The papers were always talking about the debt owed to society. According to them, it had to be paid. But that doesn't speak to the imagination. What really counted was the possibility of escape, a leap to freedom, out of the implacable ritual, a wild run for it that would give whatever chance for hope there was. Of course, hope meant being cut down on some street corner, as you ran like mad, by a random bullet. But when I really thought it through, nothing was going to allow me such a luxury. Everything was against it; I would just be caught up in the machinery again. [Albert Camus](https://www.leafyquotes.com/albert-camus.md) · [The Stranger](https://www.leafyquotes.com/albert-camus/the-stranger.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/albert-camus/the-stranger/the-papers-were.md) Topics: [freedom](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/freedom.md), [hope](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/hope.md) > I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss, and, in their struggles to be truly free, in their triumphs and defeats, through long years to come, I see the evil of this time and of the previous time of which this is the natural birth, gradually making expiation for itself and wearing out. [Charles Dickens](https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-dickens.md) · [A Tale of Two Cities](https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-dickens/a-tale-of-two-cities.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-dickens/a-tale-of-two-cities/i-see-a-beautiful.md) Topics: [freedom](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/freedom.md), [hope](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/hope.md) > I see that child who lay upon her bosom and who bore my name, a man winning his way up in that path of life which once was mine. I see him winning it so well, that my name is made illustrious there by the light of his. I see the blots I threw upon it, faded away. I see him, foremost of just judges and honoured men, bringing a boy of my name, with a forehead that I know and golden hair, to this place— then fair to look upon, with not a trace of this day's disfigurement— and I hear him tell the child my story, with a tender and a faltering voice. [Charles Dickens](https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-dickens.md) · [A Tale of Two Cities](https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-dickens/a-tale-of-two-cities.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-dickens/a-tale-of-two-cities/i-see-that-child.md) Topics: [the future](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-future.md), [hope](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/hope.md)