Present, n. That part of eternity dividing the domain of disappointment from the realm of hope. Ambrose Bierce
There is no despair so absolute as that which comes with the first moments of our first great sorrow, when we have not yet known what it is to have suffered and be healed, to have despaired and have recovered hope. George Eliot
Religion. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable. Ambrose Bierce
People crushed by laws, have no hope but to evade power. If the laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to the law and those who have most to hope and nothing to lose will always be dangerous. Edmund Burke
Why are we so full of restraint? Why do we not give in all directions? Is it fear of losing ourselves? Until we do lose ourselves there is no hope of finding ourselves. Henry Miller
The most insignificant people are the most apt to sneer at others. They are safe from reprisals. And have no hope of rising in their own self esteem but by lowering their neighbors. William Hazlitt
I'm a romantic a sentimental person thinks things will last, a romantic person hopes against hope that they won't. F. Scott Fitzgerald
Neither should a ship rely on one small anchor, nor should life rest on a single hope. Epictetus
I knew I was a winner back in the late sixties. I knew I was destined for great things. People will say that kind of thinking is totally immodest. I agree. Modesty is not a word that applies to me in any way - I hope it never will. Arnold Schwarzenegger
It is in the admission of ignorance and the admission of uncertainty that there is a hope for the continuous motion of human beings in some direction that doesn't get confined, permanently blocked, as it has so many times before in various periods in the history of man. Richard P. Feynman
Man is, properly speaking, based upon hope, he has no other possession but hope this world of his is emphatically the place of hope. Thomas Carlyle
Solitude is not something you must hope for in the future. Rather, it is a deepening of the present, and unless you look for it in the present you will never find it. Thomas Merton
Be prepared, work hard, and hope for a little luck. Recognize that the harder you work and the better prepared you are, the more luck you might have. Ed Bradley
Man needs, for his happiness, not only the enjoyment of this or that, but hope and enterprise and change. Bertrand Russell
Conservatism is not about leaving people behind. Conservatism is about empowering people to catch up, to give them the tools at their disposable that make it possible for them to access all the hope, all the promise, all the opportunity that America offers. And our programs to help them should reflect that. Marco Rubio
Confidence is that feeling by which the mind embarks in great and honorable courses with a sure hope and trust in itself. Marcus Tullius Cicero
I hope that posterity will judge me kindly, not only as to the things which I have explained, but also to those which I have intentionally omitted so as to leave to others the pleasure of discovery. Rene Descartes
But what we call our despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope. George Eliot