“Every hope is, in itself, a good deed.”

Original: Jede Hoffnung ist eigentlich eine gute Tat. — Hope is presented not merely as an emotion but as something that can itself have a positive moral effect. · Conversation with Friedrich von Müller, 26 January 1825 (German)

• Action
• Goodness
• Hope

“The men whom I have seen succeed best in life have always been cheerful and hopeful men.”

Associating practical success with hopefulness and a resilient spirit · Sermons for the Times

• Happiness
• Hope
• Strength

“Pure chance holds sway everywhere; keep your hook in the water, for a fish will appear where you least expect it.”

Original: Casus ubique valet; semper tibi pendeat hamus: quo minime credas gurgite, piscis erit. — Encourages constant readiness and open engagement with opportunity. · Ars Amatoria (Latin)

• Action
• Hope
• Opportunity

“In total darkness, even a tiny spark becomes a sun.”

Original: In völliger Dunkelheit wird selbst ein winziger Funke zur Sonne. — Captures the disproportionate impact of hope in dark times · Notebook entry, c. 1913 (German)

• Consolation
• Hope
• Light

“There are hours when even hope feels like a burden.”

Original: Es gibt Stunden, in denen selbst die Hoffnung wie eine Last erscheint. — Describes the overwhelming weight of futile optimism · Letter to Erhard Buschbeck, 1913 (German)

• Despair
• Endurance
• Hope

“Lift your head, brave lad! Though a hope or two was broken, a new one blinks in your eye.”

Original: Løft dit hode, du raske gut! Om et håp eller to blev brutt, blinker et nyt i dit øje. — An encouraging call to resilience and renewed optimism after disappointment · Address to youth (Norwegian)

• Courage
• Hope
• Youth

“Life is a gift, and every morning brings a new promise.”

Original: Livet er en gave, og hver morgen bringer et nytt løfte. — Celebrates the daily renewal and gratitude inherent in living · Diary entry (Norwegian)

• Gratitude
• Hope
• Life

“Hope is the light that guides us through the darkest nights.”

Original: Håpet er lyset som reileder oss gjennom de mørkeste netter. — Describes hope as an indispensable beacon during adversity · Address (Norwegian)

• Hope
• Light

“We must be confident that life is fundamentally good, that even after frightening disasters, the earth is bathed in a flood of strength whose sources are eternal.”

Original: Vi må tro på at livet dypest sett er godt, at jorden selv etter de forferdeligste katastrofer skylles av en strøm av kraft hvis kilder er evige. — A stirring expression of ultimate optimism and resilience in the face of hardship · Nobel Banquet speech, 1903 (Norwegian)

• Hope
• Life
• Strength

“I don't know anything has been gained by hoping, but I do know nothing has been lost by waiting.”

A weary but steady philosophy of patience · Letter to his wife, Glasgow, July 31, 1884

• Hope
• Patience

“The rainbow is elusive, and its colors but the illumination of tears.”

Finding beauty and hope intertwined with sorrow · Essay or column (commonly attributed)

• Beauty
• Hope
• Sorrow

“A titanic dedication to the hope of uplifting the human race.”

Describes the moral and humanistic force Masters found in ancient Greek literature · Critical writing on Aeschylus

• Hope
• Humanity
• Literature

“Poems in my Spoon River books about faithful and loving hearts, about kind and generous and hopeful people.”

Highlights the compassionate and hopeful dimension of his work often overshadowed by its darker reputation · Letter to August Derleth, 1939

• Hope
• Kindness
• Love

“I have stood for that side of man which hopes and toils in spite of the biting insects that infest this bank and shoal of time.”

Affirms his sympathy with human perseverance despite the irritations and hardships of life · Letter to August Derleth, 1939

• Hope
• Humanity
• Perseverance

“£10 is a chimerical sum to me; but let us prepare our garland for the day, surely it must come, when this impecunious tyranny is overworn.”

Balancing financial hardship with optimism about eventually publishing their poetry together · Letter to Victor Plarr, c. 1891

• Hope
• Perseverance
• Poetry

“The home is not yet completed. We still cherish our dreams of what it is to be.”

Treating home and family life as continuing works shaped by hope and change · Prose memoir, Making the House a Home, 1922

• Dreams
• Home
• Hope

“everything I've ever wanted has been given me—so naturally I'm optimistic.”

Explaining the personal experience behind his famously hopeful outlook · Interview quoted in Time, 1951

• Experience
• Gratitude
• Hope

“Maybe this last terrible bout of most personal and intimate view of suffering will cleanse the human psyche.”

Hoping that profound suffering might lead humanity towards psychological renewal · Letter to May Sarton, 3 February 1945

• Hope
• Humanity
• Suffering

“My best is not in it. That has to come yet. I feel something great struggling in my soul but it can’t come until I return; if I don’t return it will never come.”

His confidence in future achievement is shadowed by wartime uncertainty · Letter to Lord Dunsany, 31 October 1915

• Creativity
• Hope
• Mortality

“I am sorry that party politics should ever divide our own tents, but am not without hope that a new Ireland will arise from her ashes in the ruins of Dublin, like the Phoenix, with one purpose, one aim, and one ambition.”

Expresses hope for national renewal beyond political division · Autobiographical letter to Lewis Chase, 6 June 1917

• Community
• Hope
• Politics

“My best is not yet written. I mean to do something really great if I am spared, but out here one may at any moment be hurled beyond Life.”

Literary ambition is inseparable from awareness of imminent death · Autobiographical letter to Lewis Chase, 6 June 1917

• Hope
• Mortality
• Writing

“Indeed, the Negro novel is one of the great potentialities of American literature.”

Expressing confidence in the future importance of Black American fiction · Essay, The Negro in American Literature

• Culture
• Hope
• Literature

“I am not desponding by nature, and after a course of bitter mental discipline and long bodily seclusion, I come out with two learnt lessons—the wisdom of cheerfulness—and the duty of social intercourse.”

Drawing lessons of cheerfulness and human connection from prolonged adversity · Letter to Robert Browning, 5 March 1845

• Community
• Hope
• Wisdom

“What a miserable world would this be, were there no spiritual interpretation to its darkest problems!”

Affirming the human need to seek meaning beyond visible circumstances · Essay, Society’s Looking-glass, 1862

• Belief
• Hope
• Mystery