Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Hope
Know then, whatever cheerful and serene
Supports the mind, supports the body too:
Hence, the most vital movement mortals feel
Is hope, the balm and lifeblood of the soul.
John Armstrong—Art of Preserving Health. Bk. IV. L. 310.
Our greatest good, and what we least can spare,
Is hope: the last of all our evils, fear.
John Armstrong—Art of Preserving Health. Bk. IV. L. 318.
It is to hope, though hope were lost.
Mrs. Barbauld—Come here, Fond Youth.
For the hopes of men have been justly called waking dreams.
Basil, Bishop of Cæsarea. (About 370). Letter to Gregory of Nazianzus. Found in A. Von Humboldt’s Cosmos.
Hope! thou nurse of young desire.
Bickerstaff—Love in a Village. Act I. Sc. 1. L. 1.
The heart bowed down by weight of woe
To weakest hope will cling.
Alfred Bunn—Bohemian Girl.
Hope springs exulting on triumphant wing.
Burns—Cotter’s Saturday Night. St. 16.
Hope, withering, fled—and Mercy sighed farewell.
Byron—Corsair. Canto I. St. 9.
Farewell!
For in that word that fatal word,—howe’er
We promise, hope, believe,—there breathes despair.
Byron—Corsair. St. 15.
Auspicious Hope! in thy sweet garden grow
Wreaths for each toil, a charm for every woe.
Campbell—Pleasures of Hope. Pt. I. L. 45.
Cease, every joy, to glimmer in my mind,
But leave,—oh! leave the light of Hope behind!
Campbell—Pleasures of Hope. Pt. II. L. 375.
Con la vida muchas cosas se remedian.
With life many things are remedied.
(While there’s life there’s hope.)
Cervantes—Don Quixote.
Hasta la muerte todo es vida.
Until death all is life.
(While there’s life there’s hope.)
Cervantes—Don Quixote.
I laugh, for hope hath happy place with me,
If my bark sinks, ’tis to another sea.
Wm. Ellery Channing—A Poet’s Hope. St. 13.
Ægroto dum anima est, spes est.
To the sick, while there is life there is hope.
Cicero—Epistolæ Ad Atticum. IX. 10.
Maxima illecebra est peccandi impunitatis spes.
The hope of impunity is the greatest inducement to do wrong.
Cicero—Oratio Pro Animo Milone. XVI.
Work without hope draws nectar in a sieve,
And hope without an object cannot live.
Coleridge—Work Without Hope. St. 2.
And Hope enchanted smiled, and waved her golden hair.
Collins—Ode on the Passions. L. 3.
But thou, O Hope, with eyes so fair,
What was thy delighted measure?
Still it whisper’d promised pleasure,
And bade the lovely scenes at distance hail!
Collins—Ode on the Passions. L. 29.
Hope! of all ills that men endure,
The only cheap and universal cure.
Abraham Cowley—The Mistress. For Hope.
Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch’entrate.
Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.
Dante—Inferno. III. 1. 9.
Senza speme vivemo in desio.
Still desiring, we live without hope.
Dante—Inferno. IV. 42.
You ask what hope is. He (Aristotle) says it is a waking dream.
Diogenes Laertius. Bk. V. 18. Ascribed to Pindar by Stobæus—Sermon CIX; to Plato by Ælian—Var. Hist. XIII. 29.
Hopes have precarious life.
They are oft blighted, withered, snapped sheer off
In vigorous growth and turned to rottenness.
George Eliot—The Spanish Gypsy. Bk. III.
While there is life there’s hope (he cried,)
Then why such haste?—so groan’d and died.
Gay—The Sick Man and The Angel.
Bei so grosser Gefahr kommt die leichteste Hoffnung in Anschlag.
In so great a danger the faintest hope should be considered.
Goethe—Egmont. II.
Wir hoffen immer, und in allen Dingen
Ist besser hoffen als verzweifeln.
We always hope, and in all things it is better to hope than to despair.
Goethe—Torquato Tasso. III. 4. 197.
Hope, like the gleaming taper’s light,
Adorns and cheers our way;
And still, as darker grows the night,
Emits a brighter ray.
Goldsmith—The Captivity. Act II. Sc. 1.
In all my wanderings round this world of care,
In all my griefs—and God has given my share—
I still had hopes my latest hours to crown,
Amidst these humble bowers to lay me down.
Goldsmith—The Deserted Village. L. 81.
The wretch condemn’d with life to part,
Still, still on hope relies;
And every pang that rends the heart
Bids expectation rise.
Goldsmith—Captivity. Song.
Gay hope is theirs by fancy fed,
Less pleasing when possest;
The tear forgot as soon as shed,
The sunshine of the breast.
Gray—On a Distant Prospect of Eton College. St. 5.
Youth fades; love droops, the leaves of friendship fall;
A mother’s secret hope outlives them all.
Holmes—A Mother’s Secret.
In all the wedding cake, hope is the sweetest of the plums.
Douglas Jerrold—Jerrold’s Wit. The Cats-paw.
When there is no hope, there can be no endeavor.
Samuel Johnson—The Rambler. No. 110.
So, when dark thoughts my boding spirit shroud,
Sweet Hope! celestial influence round me shed
Waving thy silver pinions o’er my head.
Keats—Hope. St. 8.
L’espérance, toute trompeuse qu’elle est, sert au moins à nous mener à la fin de la vie par un chemin agréable.
Hope, deceitful as it is, serves at least to lead us to the end of life along an agreeable road.
La Rochefoucauld—Maximes. 168.
One only hope my heart can cheer,—
The hope to meet again.
Geo. Linley—Song.
Races, better than we, have leaned on her wavering promise,
Having naught else but Hope.
Longfellow—The Children of the Lord’s Supper. L. 230.
The setting of a great hope is like the setting of the sun. The brightness of our life is gone.
Longfellow—Hyperion. Bk. I. Ch. I.
Who bids me Hope, and in that charming word
Has peace and transport to my soul restor’d.
Lord Lyttleton—The Progress of Love. Hope. Eclogue II. L. 41.
Vita dum superest, bene est.
While life remains it is well.
Mæcenas, quoted by Seneca, Epist., 101.
Our dearest hopes in pangs are born,
The kingliest Kings are crown’d with thorn.
Gerald Massey—The Kingliest Kings.
Where peace
And rest can never dwell, hope never comes,
That comes to all.
Milton—Paradise Lost. Bk. I. L. 65.
What reinforcement we may gain from hope;
If not, what resolution from despair.
Milton—Paradise Lost. Bk. I. L. 190.
So farewell hope, and with hope farewell fear,
Farewell remorse: all good to me is lost;
Evil, be thou my good.
Milton—Paradise Lost. Bk. IV. L. 108.
Hope elevates, and joy
Brightens his crest.
Milton—Paradise Lost. Bk. IX. L. 633.
Toutes choses, disoit un mot ancien, sont esperables à un homme, pendant qu’il vit.
All things, said an ancient saw, may be hoped for by a man as long as he lives.
Montaigne—Essays. Bk. II. Ch. III.
Hope against hope, and ask till ye receive.
Montgomery—The World before the Flood. Canto V.
Oh! ever thus, from childhood’s hour,
I’ve seen my fondest hopes decay;
I never loved a tree or flower,
But ’twas the first to fade away.
Moore—Lalla Rookh. Fire Worshippers.
The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon
Turns Ashes—or it prospers; and anon,
Like Snow upon the Desert’s dusty Face,
Lighting a little hour or two—is gone.
Omar Khayyam—Rubaiyat. St. 16. FitzGerald’s trans.
Et res non semper, spes mihi semper adest.
My hopes are not always realized, but I always hope.
Ovid—Heroides. XVIII. 178.
Nam multa præter spem scio multis bona evenisse,
At ego etiam qui speraverint, spem decepisse multos.
For I know that many good things have happened to many, when least expected; and that many hopes have been disappointed.
Plautus—Rudens. II. 3. 69; Mostellaria. Act I. Sc. 3. L. 71.
Hope springs eternal in the human breast;
Man never is, but always to be blest.
Pope—Essay on Man. Ep. I. L. 95.
Hope travels through, nor quits us when we die.
Pope—Essay on Man. Ep. II. L. 273.
For hope is but the dream of those that wake!
Prior—Solomon on the Vanity of the World. Bk. III. L. 102.
Our hopes, like tow’ring falcons, aim
At objects in an airy height;
The little pleasure of the game
Is from afar to view the flight.
Prior—To Hon. Chas. Montague.
Hope deferred maketh the heart sick.
Proverbs. XIII. 12.
Et spes inanes, et velut somnia quædam, vigilantium.
Vain hopes are like certain dreams of those who wake.
Quintilian. VI. 2. 27.
Who against hope believed in hope.
Romans. IV. 18.
Hope dead lives nevermore,
No, not in heaven.
Christina G. Rossetti—Dead Hope.
Who in Life’s battle firm doth stand
Shall bear Hope’s tender blossoms
Into the Silent Land.
J. G. Van Salis—Song of the Silent Land.
Verzweifle keiner je, dem in der trübsten Nacht
Der Hoffnung letzte Sterne schwinden.
Let no one despair, even though in the darkest night the last star of hope may disappear.
Schiller—Oberon. I. 27.
The sickening pang of hope deferr’d.
Scott—Lady of the Lake. Canto III. St. 22.
Hope is brightest when it dawns from fears.
Scott—Lady of the Lake. Canto IV. St. 1.
Omnia homini, dum vivit, speranda sunt.
All things are to be hoped by a man as long as he is alive. (“A very effeminate saying.”)
Seneca—Epistles. 70.
Our hap is loss, our hope but sad despair.
Henry VI. Pt. III. Act II. Sc. 3. L. 9.
Farewell
The hopes of court! my hopes in heaven do dwell.
Henry VIII. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 458.
The miserable have no other medicine
But only hope:
I’ve hope to live, and am prepar’d to die.
Measure for Measure. Act III. Sc. 1. L. 2.
True hope is swift, and flies with swallow’s wings:
Kings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings.
Richard III. Act V. Sc. 2. L. 23.
Hope is a lover’s staff; walk hence with that
And manage it against despairing thoughts.
Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act III. Sc. 1. L. 246.
Worse than despair,
Worse than the bitterness of death, is hope.
Shelley—The Cenci. Act V. Sc. 4.
Through the sunset of hope,
Like the shapes of a dream,
What paradise islands of glory gleam!
Shelley—Hellas. Semi-chorus I.
To hope till hope creates
From its own wreck the thing it contemplates.
Shelley—Prometheus. Act IV. Last stanza.
But hope will make thee young, for Hope and Youth
Are children of one mother, even Love.
Shelley—Revolt of Islam. Canto VIII. St. 27.
It is never right to consider that a man has been made happy by fate, until his life is absolutely finished, and he has ended his existence.
Sophocles—Frag. Tyndarus.
We do not stray out of all words into the ever silent;
We do not raise our hands to the void for things beyond hope.
Rabindranath Tagore—Gardener. 16.
Behold, we know not anything;
I can but trust that good shall fall
At last—far off—at last, to all,
And every winter change to spring.
Tennyson—In Memoriam. LIV.
The mighty hopes that make us men.
Tennyson—In Memoriam. LXXXV.
Ego spem pretio non emo.
I do not buy hope with money.
Terence—Adelphi. II. 2. 12.
Væ misero mihi! quanta de spe decidi.
Woe to my wretched self! from what a height of hope have I fallen!
Terence—Heauton timorumenos. II. 3. 9.
For the living there is hope, for the dead there is none.
Theocritus—Idyl. IV. 42.
Spes fovet, et fore eras semper ait melius.
Hope ever urges on, and tells us to-morrow will be better.
Tibullus—Carmina. II. 6. 20.
Vestras spes uritis.
You burn your hopes.
Vergil—Æneid. V. 68.
Speravimus ista
Dum fortuna fuit.
Such hopes I had while fortune was kind.
Vergil—Æneid. X. 42.
Behind the cloud the starlight lurks,
Through showers the sunbeams fall;
For God, who loveth all his works,
Has left his Hope with all.
Whittier—Dream of Summer.
Hope told a flattering tale
That joy would soon return;
Ah, naught my sighs avail
For love is doomed to mourn.
John Wolcot. Song introduced into the Opera, Artaxerxes.
Is Man
A child of hope? Do generations press
On generations, without progress made?
Halts the individual, ere his hairs be gray,
Perforce?
Wordsworth—The Excursion. Bk. V.
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.
Wordsworth—Hopes, What are They?
Hope tells a flattering tale,
Delusive, vain and hollow.
Ah! let not hope prevail,
Lest disappointment follow.
Miss Wrother—In the Universal Songster. Vol. II. P. 86.
Hope of all passions, most befriends us here.
Young—Night Thoughts. Night VII. L. 1,470.
Hope, like a cordial, innocent, though strong,
Man’s heart, at once, inspirits, and serenes,
Nor makes him pay his wisdom for his joys.
Young—Night Thoughts. Night VII. L. 1,514.
Confiding, though confounded; hoping on,
Untaught by trial, unconvinced by proof,
And ever looking for the never-seen.
Young—Night Thoughts. Night VIII. L. 116.
Prisoners of hope.
Zachariah. IX. 12.