This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"It may be that true happiness lies in the conviction that one has irremediably lost happiness. Then we can begin to move through life without hope or fear, capable of finally enlying all the small pleasures, which are the most lasting." - María-Luisa Bombal
"Music being the universal expression of the mysterious and supernatural, the best that man has ever attained to, is capable of uniting in common devotion minds that are only separated by creeds, and it comforts our hope with a brighter promise of unity than any logic offers." - Robert Bridges, fully Robert Seymour Bridges
"Most newspaper headlines are more effective examples of man’s sin writ large than any book on theology can ever hope to be." - Robert McAfee Brown
"Medieval churchmen… held that faith, hope and love are the fundamental Christian virtues and that the cardinal virtues (prudence, justice, temperance, fortitude) are needed to express faith, hope and love in all the varying circumstances of life in the world." - R. E. C. Browne, fully Robert Eric Charles Browne
"At first people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done, then they begin to hope it can't be done. They hope it can't be done because it means seeing the garden in a whole new way. Then they see it can be done. Then it is done and all the world wonders why it was not done centuries before." - Frances Hodgson Burnett, fully Frances Eliza Hodgson Burnett
"Hope without risk is not hope." - Hélder Câmara, fully Dom Hélder Pessoa Câmara
"Idolatry is the denial of all hope for the future. The idols of the past were worshipped by people who were afraid of change, who wanted things to remain the same, who did not want a future that was different, who found their security in the status quo. The same is true today." - Center of Concern NULL
"Love means to love that which is unlovable, or it is no virtue at all; forgiving means to pardon that which is unpardonable, or it is no virtue at all – and to hope means hoping when things are hopeless, or it is no virtue at all." - Gilbert Keith "G.K." Chesteron
"The goal of... life is not to save your soul but to transcend yourself, to vindicate the human struggle of which all of us are a part, to keep hope advancing." - William Sloane Coffin, Jr.
"Hope arouses, as nothing else can arouse, a passion for the possible." - William Sloane Coffin, Jr.
"We were never promised a life free from fear and struggle. We were offered the hope that by committing ourselves to the struggle for a righteous society in solidarity with the wretched of the earth we would discover the secret of life." - Sheila Collins
"Prayer is the turning of the mind and heart to God. To pray is to stand in awareness before God, to see him constantly and to talk with him in hope and fear." - Saint Demetrius of Rostov, aka Dimitry, Dmitri Rostovsky NULL
"The hope that technology will save us or will miraculously effect our moral improvement is a kind of modern idolatry." - Rudolf Diesel, fully Rudolf Christian Karl Diesel
"A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death." - Albert Einstein
"The main hope of a nation lies in the proper education of its youth." - Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus, sometimes known as Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam
"The men who build the future are those who know that greater things are yet to come, and that they themselves will help bring them about. Their minds are illuminated by the blazing sun of hope. They never stop to doubt. They haven't time." - Melvin James Evans
"Religious faith must link us to communities of shared memory and shared hope with which we can join in symbolizing our human condition and in enacting the visions that can animate give new life. Religious faith cannot be reduced to the ethical or to the merely utilitarian. But, as part of this larger and indispensable contribution that religious faith can provide to making and keeping life human, it needs also to be held accountable for the renewal and extension of a universal covenant with being. It needs to be held accountable for its broader contribution to good faith on earth." - James W. Fowler III
"In our loss of the perception of the Void and our conviction that particular things are finally real, we come to believe in the separate, isolated reality of some enduring self within us for which we a plan and hope great things. Alas, we are frustrated in our hoping because all through our lives our hopes are incompletely attained or, if fulfilled, strangely unsatisfying after all." - Douglas A. Fox
"He that lives upon hope will die fasting." - Benjamin Franklin
"Is not hope of being one day able to purchase and enjoy luxuries a great spur to labor and industry? May not luxury, therefore, produce more than it consumes, if without such a spur people would be, as they are naturally enough inclined to be, lazy and indolent?" - Benjamin Franklin
"My austerities, fastings, and prayers, are, I know, of no value if I rely upon them for reforming me. But they have an inestimable value if they represent, as I hope they do, the yearnings of a soul striving to lay his weary head in the lap of his maker." - Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu
"Prayer revives the hope of the heart." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"The purpose of the past: to give us pleasant memories, wisdom and lessons to learn, not endless regrets. The purpose of the future: to give us hope and motivation and a place for our dreams. To warn us of possible risks, not for needless worry. The purpose of the present: to help us grow by applying the lessons from our past. To enjoy and appreciate the gift and beauty of life. To do what is necessary to make our dreams come true. To heed the warnings coming from our future." - Tom Gregory
"It is the Christian hope that to life lived in the presence of God. Death is but the entrance into a larger life. It is the Christian hope that in the larger fellowship of God’s sons for time and eternity there is no final separation from those we love. It is the Christian hope that whether life comes early or late, no life is fruitless, no personality prized by God as an infinitely precious creation is snuffed out like a candle in the dark." - Georgia Harkness
"Bringing a child into the world is the greatest act of hope there is." - Louise Hart
"Hope is a state of mind, not of the world. Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously heading for success, but rather an ability to work for something because it is good… Either we have hope or we don't; it is a dimension of the soul, and it's not essentially dependent on some particular observation of the world or estimate of the situation. Hope is not prognostication. It is an orientation of the spirit, and orientation of the heart; it transcends the world that is immediately experienced, and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons… Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously heading for success, but rather and ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed. The more propitious the situation in which we demonstrate hope, the deeper the hope is. Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out." - Václav Havel
"Hope is an orientation of spirit, an orientation of the heart. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out." - Václav Havel
"The human world represents a purgatorial-like range of opportunities and choices, from the most grim to the exalted, from criminality to nobility, from fear to courage, from despair to hope, and from greed to charity. This if the purpose of the human experience is to evolve, then this world is perfect just as it is." - David R. Hawkins, fully David Ramon Hawkins
"Faith in God is synonymous with the brave hope that the universe is friendly to the ideals of man." - Albert Eustace Haydon
"Man’s responsibility to God is the scaffold on which he stands as daily he goes on building life. His every deed, every incident of mind, takes place on this scaffold, so that unremittingly man is at work either building up or tearing down his life, his home, his hope of God." - Abraham Joshua Heschel
"He must summon his people to be with him – yet stand above, not squat beside them. He must question his own wisdom and judgment – but not too severely. He must hear the opinions and heed the powers of others – but not too abjectly. He must appease the doubts of his critic and assuage the hurts of the adversary – sometimes. He must ignore their views and achieve their defeat – sometimes… He must respect action – without becoming intoxicated with his own. He must have a sense of purpose inspiring him to magnify the trivial event to serve his distant aim – and to grasp the thorniest crisis as if it were the merest nettle. He must be pragmatic, calculating, and earthbound – and still know when to spurn the arithmetic of expediency for the act of brave imagination, the sublime gamble with no hope other than the boldness of his vision" - Emmet John Hughes
"Confession heals, confession justifies, confession grants pardon of sin. All hope consists in confession. In confession there is a chance for mercy. Believe it firmly. Do not doubt, do not hesitate, never despair of the mercy of God. Hope and have confidence in confession." - Isidore of Seville, fully Saint Isidore of Seville NULL
"The man who refuses firmly to entertain the hope of immortality… is no more brave and realistic than a man who refuses to open the door of his dark room and come out into the sunshine." - Denys Gabriel Maurice "D.G.M." Jackson
"Let us not be uneasy that the different roads we may pursue, as believing them the shortest, to that of our last abode; but, following the guidance of the good conscience, let us be happy in the hope that by these different paths we shall all meet in the end." - Thomas Jefferson
"Hope is necessary in every condition. The miseries of poverty, sickness, of captivity, would, without this comfort, be insupportable." - Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
"Hope itself is a species of happiness, and, perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords; but, like all other pleasures immoderately enjoyed, the excesses of hope must be expiated by pain." - Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
"What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence." - Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
"Whatever enlarges hope will exalt courage." - Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
"Where there is no hope, there can be no endeavor." - Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
"Hope awakens courage. He who can implant courage in the human soul is the best physician." - Jack Klugman
"To bring forth and preserve, to produce without possessing, to act without hope of reward, and to expand without waste, this is the supreme virtue." - Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze
"Our country demands all our strength, all our energies. To resist the powerful combination now forming against us will require every man at his place. If victorious, we have everything to hope for in the future. If defeated, nothing will be left for us to live for. My whole trust is in God, and I am ready for whatever He may ordain." -