Hope Quotes to Lift Your Spirits

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Hope is “a feeling of expectation and desire for something to come.” These hope quotes will leave you with both and help you feel hopeful again.

When we are hopeful, we are optimistic and believe positive things happen to us and world.

So whether you want to know what hope really is, or just want to read hopeful words to renew your mindset, we’ve got the perfect hope quote for you.

Top 10 Hope Quotes

Hope is the only bee that makes honey without flowers.

Robert Ingersoll

May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears.

Nelson Mandela
Matthew Prior quote "Hope is but the dream of those who wake"
“Hope is but the dream of those who wake.” – Matthew Prior

Hope is one of the principal springs that keep mankind in motion.

Thomas Fuller

We need hope, or else we cannot endure.

Sara J. Maas

Everything that is done in this world is done by hope.

Martin Luther

We promise according to our hopes and perform according to our fears.

François de la Rochefoucauld
Collette hope quote "Hope costs nothing"
“Hope costs nothing.” – Colette

Hope springs eternal in the human breast.

Alexander Pope

Let your hopes, not your hurts, shape your future.

Robert H. Schuller

Quotes about Hope

Oft hope is born when all is forlorn.

J.R.R. Tolkien

Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops at all.

Emily Dickinson

Hope is a verb with its shirtsleeves rolled up.

David Orr
Napoleon quote "A leader is a dealer in hope"
“A leader is a dealer in hope.” – Napoleon Bonaparte

Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.

Dale Carnegie

As long as we have hope, we have direction, the energy to move, and the map to move by.

Lao Tzu

Hope and change are hard-fought things.

Michelle Obama

Hope is the only universal liar who never loses his reputation for veracity.

Robert Ingersoll

Hope has a cost. Hope is not comfortable or easy. Hope requires personal risk. It is not about the right attitude. Hope is not about peace of mind. Hope is action. Hope is doing something.

Chris Hedges

Hope itself is like a star – not to be seen in the sunshine of prosperity, and only to be discovered in the night of adversity.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Hope is the companion of power, and mother of success; for who so hopes strongly has within him the gift of miracles.

Samuel Smiles

Hope is medicine for a soul that’s sick and tired.

Eric Swensson

This new day is too dear, with its hopes and invitations, to waste a moment on the yesterdays.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Søren Kierkegaard quote "Hope is a passion for the possible"
“Hope is a passion for the possible.” – Søren Kierkegaard

Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper.

Sir Francis Bacon

Hope is not an emotion; it’s a way of thinking or a cognitive process.

Brené Brown,
The Gifts of Imperfection

Of all ills that one endures, hope is a cheap and universal cure.

Abraham Cowley

Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today.

Thich Nhat Hanh

Hope is like a road in the country; there was never a road, but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence.

Lin Yutang

Hope is that thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us if we have the courage to reach for it and to work for it and to fight for it.

Barack Obama

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

Hope arouses, as nothing else can arouse, a passion for the possible.

William Sloane Coffin

All human wisdom is summed up in two words; wait and hope.

Alexandre Dumas,
The Count of Monte Cristo
Aristotle quote "Hope is a waking dream"
“Hope is a waking dream.” – Aristotle

Once you choose hope, anything’s possible.

Christopher Reeve

However bad life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at. Where there’s life, there’s hope.

Stephen Hawking

I am prepared for the worst, but hope for the best.

Benjamin Disraeli

The miserable have no other medicine, but only hope.

William Shakespeare

Carve a tunnel of hope through the dark mountain of disappointment.

Martin Luther King Jr.

Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today.

Thich Nhat Hanh

Walk on with hope in your heart, and you’ll never walk alone.

Shah Ruhk Khan

In the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.

Barack Obama

He who has health has hope, and he who has hope has everything.

Thomas Carlyle
"He who has never hoped can never despair"
“He who has never hoped can never despair.” – George Bernard Shaw

Hope is a renewable option: If you run out of it at the end of the day, you get to start over in the morning.

Barbara Kingsolver

Hope is the power of being cheerful in circumstances that we know to be desperate.

G.K. Chesterton

Hope never abandons you, you abandon it.

George Weinberg

Where there is no hope, it is incumbent on us to invent it.

Albert Camus

Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.

Desmond Tutu

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.

Vaclav Havel

In reality, hope is the worst of all evils, because it prolongs man’s torments.

Friedrich Nietzsche

All the interests of my reason, speculative as well as practical, combine in the three following questions: 1. What can I know? 2. What ought I to do? 3. What may I hope?

Immanuel Kant

Hope is outreaching desire with expectancy of good. It is a characteristic of all living beings.

Edward Ame
Rebecca Solnit quote "Hope is a​n embrace of the unknown​"
“Hope is a​n embrace of the unknown​.” – Rebecca Solnit

To live without hope is to cease to live.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

When the world says ‘give up,’ hope whispers try it one more time.

Unknown

In an age of hope, men looked up at the night sky and saw ‘the heavens.’ In an age of hopelessness, they call it simply ‘space.’

Peter Kreeft

To wish was to hope, and to hope was to expect.

Jane Austen,
Sense and Sensibility

Hope sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible.

Helen Keller

A strong mind always hopes, and has always cause to hope.

Thomas Carlyle

There is no hope unmingled with fear, and no fear unmingled with hope.

Baruch Spinoza

Hope is the word which God has written on the brow of every man.

Victor Hugo

Hope is such a beautiful word, but it often seems very fragile. Life is still being needlessly hurt and destroyed.

Michael Jackson
“While there’s life, there’s hope. – Marcus Tullius Cicero

Hope is a force of nature. Don’t let anyone tell you different.

Jim Butcher

Hope, it is the quintessential human delusion, simultaneously the source of your greatest strength, and your greatest weakness.

The Architect,
The Matrix Reloaded

Not Losing Hope

Never lose hope. Never forget the power of intentions and desires.

Debasish Mridha

When you’re at the end of your rope, tie a knot and hold on.

Theodore Roosevelt

Keep a little fire burning; however small, however hidden.

Cormac McCarthy,
The Road

We dream to give ourselves hope. To stop dreaming – well, that’s like saying you can never change your fate.

Amy Tan

Never lose hope. Storms make people stronger and never last forever.

Roy T. Bennett

If you have made mistakes, there is always another chance for you. You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call “failure” is not the falling down, but the staying down.

Mary Pickford

Even in the mud and scum of things, something always, always sings.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Italian Proverb "Hope is the last thing ever lost"
“Hope is the last thing ever lost.” – Italian Proverb

None of us knows what might happen even the next minute, yet still we go forward. Because we trust. Because we have Faith.

Paulo Coelho

That was all a man needed: hope. It was lack of hope that discouraged a man.

Charles Bukowski,
Factotum

It’s the children the world almost breaks who grow up to save it.

Frank Warren

In a world filled with hate, we must still dare to hope. In a world filled with anger, we must still dare to comfort. In a world filled with despair, we must still dare to dream. And in a world filled with distrust, we must still dare to believe.

Michael Jackson

When you have lost hope, you have lost everything. And when you think all is lost, when all is dire and bleak, there is always hope.

Pittacus Lore

Two words will help you cope when you run low on hope: accept and trust.

Charles Swindoll

We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.

Martin Luther King Jr.

If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all. And so today I still have a dream.

Martin Luther King Jr.

It is not despair, for despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt. We do not.

J.R.R. Tolkien,
The Fellowship of the Ring
"You never know what tomorrow may bring"
“You never know what tomorrow may bring.” – Anonymous

My life is a perfect graveyard of buried hopes.

L.M. Montgomery,
Anne of Green Gables

Never talk defeat. Use words like hope, belief, faith, victory.

Norman Vincent Peale

In a time of destruction, create something.

Maxine Hong Kingston

But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars.

Martin Luther King Jr.

The road that is built in hope is more pleasant to the traveler than the road built in despair, even though they both lead to the same destination.

Marion Zimmer Bradley,
The Fall of Atlantis

Where hope would otherwise become hopelessness, it becomes faith.

Robert Brault

Just as despair can come to one another only from other human beings, hope, too, can be given to one only by other human beings.

Ellie Wiesel

Hopeful, we are halfway to where we want to go; hopeless, we are lost forever.

Lao Tzu

Hopeful Quotes

Hang on to your hat. Hang on to your hope. And wind the clock, for tomorrow is another day.

E.B. White
"In all things it is better to hope than to despair"
“In all things it is better to hope than to despair.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I find hope in the darkest of days, and focus in the brightest. I do not judge the universe.

Dalai Lama

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.

Albert Einstein

Faith goes up the stairs that love has built and looks out the windows which hope has opened.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Consult not your fears but your hopes and dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential. Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what is still possible for you to do.

Pope John XXIII

I don’t think of all the misery, but of the beauty that still remains.

Anne Frank

Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift of God, which is why we call it the present.

Bill Keane

What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise.

Oscar Wilde

Listen to the mustn’ts, child. Listen to the don’ts. Listen to the shouldn’ts, the impossibles, the won’ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me… Anything can happen, child. Anything can be.

Shel Silverstein

They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.

Tom Bodett
"Out of difficulties grow miracles"
“Out of difficulties grow miracles.” – Jean de la Bruyère

The best bridge between despair and hope is a good night’s sleep.

E. Joseph Cossman

No matter where you are on your journey, that’s exactly where you need to be. The next road is always ahead.

Oprah Winfrey

The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something. Don’t wait for good things to happen to you. If you go out and make some good things happen, you will fill the world with hope, you will fill yourself with hope.

Barack Obama

The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof.

Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams

You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep Spring from coming.

Pablo Neruda

Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries.

James A. Michener

It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.

Confucius

A baby is God’s opinion that the world should go on.

Carl Sandburg

Only in the darkness can you see the stars.

Martin Luther King Jr.
John Milson hopeful quote "Every cloud has a silver lining"
“Every cloud has a silver lining.” – John Milson

The darkest hours are just before dawn.

English Proverb

This is where it all begins. Everything starts here, today.

David Nicholls, One Day

Keep your face to the sun and you will never see the shadows.

Helen Keller

A sobering thought: what if, at this very moment, I am living up to my full potential?

Jane Wagner

Never give up on something that you can’t go a day without thinking about.

Winston Churchill

We are made to persist. That’s how we find out who we are.

Tobias Wolff

Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

J.K. Rowling

There are far, far better things ahead than anything we leave behind.

C.S. Lewis

Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.

Thomas Edison
Emily Dickinson hope quote "I dwell in possibility"
“I dwell in possibility.” – Emily Dickinson

You will face many defeats in your life, but never let yourself be defeated.

Maya Angelou

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.

Winston Churchill

You cannot swim for new horizons until you have courage to lose sight of the shore.

William Faulkner

You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.

Woodrow Wilson

In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.

Albert Camus

However long the night, the dawn will break.

African Proverb

Children are the world’s most valuable resource and its best hope for the future.

John F. Kennedy

I have learned to use the word impossible with the greatest caution.

Werner Von Braun

There is no medicine like hope, no incentive so great, and no tonic so powerful as expectation of something tomorrow.

O.S. Marden
Aliso Croggon quote "While the heart beats hope lingers"
“While the heart beats, hope lingers.” – Alison Croggon

We need never be hopeless because we can never be irreparably broken.

John Green

Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead.

Louisa May Alcott

The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

Winston Churchill

Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.

Norman Vincent Peale

The difference between hope and despair is a different way of telling stories from the same facts.

Alain de Botton

If winter comes, can spring be far behind?

Percy Bysshe Shelley

What we do now echoes in eternity.

Marcus Aurelius

To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.

Audrey Hepburn

The very existence of libraries affords the best evidence that we may yet have hope for the future of man.

T.S. Eliot
"A person can do incredible things if he or she has enough hope"
“A person can do incredible things if he or she has enough hope.” – Shannon K. Butcher

We hope you enjoyed these hope quotes and realize how important hope is for your outlook.

Psychologist Charles R. Snyder dedicated his life to the study of hope. He argued that having a hopeful attitude gives us a goal to work towards, and in turn we create a determined plan to achieve that goal.

Whether it is because they are goal-oriented or have a more positive outlook, hopeful people are more likely to experience happiness, joy, courage, and empowerment in their lives.

So embrace hope and change today and let us know about it in the comments.

Photo of author

Quincy Seale

Quincy is KIM's editor, and has collected and shared inspiring quotes and stories since 2005. Quincy holds an MBA from the University of Dundee and an MSc from the University of Edinburgh, and lives in San Antonio with his wife Natalie, son Alex, and his dog Oban.

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