Hope. How many times have you used this four letter word in the past 24 hours? I hope you have a nice day, I hope I don’t fail; I hope it doesn't rain tomorrow, or the much heard around our house…I hope we’re having pizza for dinner!
The word is used many times a day for a multitude of reasons. However, what all of these statements have in common, is they are looking for the unknown. If you wanted to get technical-- hope, by definition, is a feeling that what is wanted will happen; or a desire accompanied by expectation. When it comes right down to it, you want something to happen, and you’re not entirely sure how you’re going to accomplish it!
Children are often thought to be more hopeful than adults. While I don’t have a scientific reason for that statement, if you think about it, children have not had life kick them around as much as we adults. Naïve? I tend to think so, but many times, I wish I had the hopeful wishes and dreams of little ones. They never seem to doubt that what they hope for will happen. I miss that. I have become the cynic. I’m sorry to say that I have the “We’ll see” attitude about EVERYTHING these days.
The word “hope” is bandied about fairly casually these days. This is a time when “hope’ is synonymous with need. We need many things to happen in our lives. We need jobs, we need money, we need…we need…we need. Not to trivialize the need of a job or the means to support a family--that is a basic need evading many today…but I think the hard times we have been going through GLOBALLY these days has led us to reexamine our hopes and needs. We are discovering that our “hope” has become a more primal need and expectation.
Imagine for a moment how Winston Churchill or Woodrow Wilson hoped for their countries. Heck, you don’t even have to stop there…imagine our founding fathers!! Talk about hoping in the unknown!
Historically, everyone knows that “hope” surpasses all time and space. Our need to “hope” in something is as old as man. We have no way of knowing our future, so we hope.
Here are some famous quotes about the concept of hope. Hopefully, you’ll find them inspirational!
“To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
“We judge a man's wisdom by his hope.”
Martin Luther King, Jr.
“We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope.”
Pearl S. Buck
“We must have hope or starve to death.”
Francois De La Rochefoucauld
“We promise according to our hopes and perform according to our fears.”
John F. Kennedy
“We should not let our fears hold us back from pursuing our hopes.”
Helen Keller
“When one door of happiness closes, another opens.”
“Indeed, man wishes to be happy even when he so lives as to make happiness impossible.”
Patrick Henry
“It is natural for a man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth and listen to the song of that siren, till she transforms into beasts.”
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