Charity isthepowerofdefending that whichwe know to be indefensible. Hope is the power of being cheerful in circumstances which we know to be desperate.

-Chesterton, G(ilbert) K(eith)
  Heretics, ch.12.

Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate. Abandon all hope ye who enter here.

-Dante Alighieri originally Durante
c.1320  Inscription above the gates of Hell. Divina Commedia, 'Inferno', canto 3, l.9.

They fought as they revelled, fast, fiery, and true, And, though victors, they left on the field not a few; And they who survived fought and drank as of yore, But the land of their heart's hope they never saw more, For in far, foreign fields, from Dunkirk to Belgrade Lie the soldiers and chiefs of the Irish Brigade.

-Davis,Thomas Osborne
  The Spirit of the Nation,'The Battle-Eve of the Brigade'.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way.

-Dickens, CharlesJohn Huffam
  A  Tale of  Two Cities, bk.1, ch.1.

'Hope' is the thing with feathersö That perches in the soulö And sings the tune without the wordsö And never stopsöat allö

-Dickinson, Emily Elizabeth
c.1860  Complete Poems, no.254 (first published1891).

I strongly wish for what I faintly hope: Like the day-dreams of melancholy men, I think and thinkon things impossible, Yet love to wander in that golden maze.

-Dryden,John
  The Rival Ladies, act 3, sc.1.

Because I do not hope to turn again Because I do not hope Because I do not hope to turn.

-Eliot,T(homas) S(tearns)
  'Ash Wednesday'.

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith But the faith and the hope and the love are all in the waiting. Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought, So the darkness shall be the light and the stillness the dancing.

-Eliot,T(homas) S(tearns)
  Four Quartets,'East Coker', pt.1.

A person seldom falls sick, but the bystanders are animated with a faint hope that he will die.

-Emerson, RalphWaldo
  The Conduct of Life,'Considerations by the Way'.

Il faut e¤  crire pour soi, avant tout. C'est la seule chance de faire beau. It isnecessary to write for oneself, above all.It isthe only hope of creating something beautiful.

-Flaubert, Gustave
  Letter to Mlle Leroyer de Chantepie,11  Jul.

One morning, as I was sitting by the fire, a great cloud came over me, and a temptation beset me, and I sate still† And as I sate still under it and let it alone, a living hope rose in me, and a true voice arose in me which cried:There is a living God who made all things. And immediately the cloud and temptation vanished away, and the life rose over it all, and my heart was glad, and I praised the living God.

-Fox, George
  Journal of George Fox.

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; Where there is injury, pardon; Where there is doubt, faith; Where there is despair, hope; Where there is darkness, light; Where there is sadness, joy. O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek To be consoled as to console; To be understood as to understand; To be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; It is in pardoning that we are pardoned; And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

-Franklin, Benjamin
Attributed prayer, traditionally known as the'Prayer of St Francis'.

The knowledge that you can have is inexhaustible, and what is inexhaustible is benevolent. The knowledge that you cannot have is of the riddles of birth and death, of our future destinyand the purposes of God. Here there is no knowledge, but illusions that restrict freedom and limit hope. Accept the mystery behind knowledge: It is not darkness but shadow.

-Frye, Northrop
   Address, Metropolitan United Church, Toronto,10  Apr, quoted by Alexandra  Johnston in Vic Report, spring1991.

Love without hope, as when the young bird-catcher Swept off his tall hat to the Squire's own daughter, So let the imprisoned larks escape and fly Singing about her head, as she rode by.

-Graves, Robert von Ranke
'Love without Hope'.

No farther seek his merits to disclose, Or draw his frailties from their dread abode, (There they alike in trembling hope repose) The bosom of his Father and his God.

-Gray,Thomas
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, l.125^8,'The Epitaph'.

An aged thrush, frail, gaunt and small, In blast-beruffled plume, Had chosen thus to fling his sail Upon the growing gloom. So little cause for carollings Of such ecstatic sound Was written on terrestrial things Afar or nigh around, That I could think there trembled through 382 His happy good-night air Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew And I was unaware.

-Hardy,Thomas
  'The Darkling Thrush'.

   Not, I'll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee; Not untwistöslack they may beöthese last strands of man In me or, most weary, cry I can no more. I can; Cansomething, hope, wish daycome, not choose not to be.

-Gerard Manley Hopkins
  'Carrion Comfort'.

The hope of science isthe perfection of the human race. The hope of theology is the salvation of a fewand the damnation of almost everybody.

-Ingersoll, Robert
  The Age of Reason, Mar.

The triumph of hope over experience.

-Johnson, Samuel known as Dr Johnson
 On a friend's second marriage shortly after the death of his first, troublesome, wife. Quoted in  James Boswell The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), vol.2.

We were a self-centred army without parade or gesture, devoted to freedom, the second of man's creeds, a purpose so ravenous that it devoured all our strength, a hope so transcendent that ourearlier ambitions faded in its glare.

-Arabia
  Seven Pillars of  Wisdom, ch.1.