Hope is one of humanity's superpowers. The ability to hold onto belief in the possibility of a better outcome, even when presented with overwhelming evidence to the contrary, is truly phenomenal. So, it’s easy to understand why so many writers have featured hope in their works, and why hope continues to inspire us.
Struggling with feeling hopeful? We hope this collection of 50+ quotes on hope from some of our favorite listens will lift your spirits and restore your faith.
On hope in times of darkness
"When the sky falls, use it as a blanket." - Stephanie Foo, What My Bones Know
“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” - Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan
"Hope does not deny the evil, but is a response to it." - Jane Goodall, The Book of Hope
On hope in possibility
"She walked through another gate. What was a gate, anyway? A doorway, she thought. A portal. The possibility of a different world. The possibility that you might walk through the door and reinvent yourself as something better than you had been before." - Gabrielle Zevin, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
“When you throw everything up in the air anything becomes possible.” - Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses
"Now she knew there were a hundred ways to be lost and even more ways to be found." - Kristin Hannah, The Great Alone
"Whatever’s back there don’t matter. It’s what’s ahead of you that counts." - James McBride, The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
“It's the possibility that keeps me going, not the guarantee.” - Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook
"She was always doing that, telling him stories. Prying open cracks for magic to seep in, making the world a place of possibility." - Celeste Ng, Our Missing Hearts
“Still, if I don’t believe in the possibility, I might go mad from fear.” - Libbie Hawker, Daughter of Sand and Stone
"There's no harm in hoping for the best as long as you're prepared for the worst.” - Stephen King, Different Seasons
On hope through human connection
"That’s what sisters and girlfriends are all about. Sticking together even in the mud, ’specially in mud." - Delia Owens, Where the Crawdads Sing
"When someone shares their hopes and dreams with us, we are witnessing deep courage and vulnerability." - Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart
“It's really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.” - Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl
On putting hope into action
"Hope is often misunderstood. People tend to think that it is simply passive wishful thinking: I hope something will happen but I’m not going to do anything about it. This is indeed the opposite of real hope, which requires action and engagement." - Jane Goodall, The Book of Hope
"I don’t have hopes ... I have faith." - Bonnie Garmus, Lessons in Chemistry
"Hope is the pillar that holds up the world." - Anthony Doerr, Cloud Cuckoo Land
"How light and tall he almost felt walking along with this girl at his side and some fresh, new, unrecognisable joy in his heart. Was it possible that the best bit of him was shining forth, and surfacing?" - Claire Keegan, Small Things Like These
"Going high is about learning to keep the poison out and the power in." - Michelle Obama, The Light We Carry
"I got up every day thinking the sun was out there shining, and it could just as well shine on me as any other human person." - Barbara Kingsolver, Demon Copperhead
"The only thing surprising about any of this is that he’s alive to see it. That’s the real bet they all made, isn’t it? It will come. But not until we’re gone." - Lily Brooks-Dalton, The Light Pirate
"We can succeed or fail, get it right or get it wrong, love and lose the ones we love, and still the Summer Triangle will point south. And in that way, I know everything will be some type of okay—as impossible as that can seem sometimes." - Taylor Jenkins Reid, Atmosphere
“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, I Am Number Four
“Oft hope is born when all is forlorn.” - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
“Part of being optimistic is keeping one's head pointed toward the sun, one's feet moving forward.” - Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom: Autobiography of Nelson Mandela
“We need never be hopeless, because we can never be irreparably broken.” - John Green, Looking for Alaska
“You might think I lost all hope at that point. I did. And as a result I perked up and felt much better.” - Yann Martel, Life of Pi
“Then you must teach my daughter this same lesson. How to lose your innocence but not your hope. How to laugh forever.” - Amy Tan, The Joy Luck Club
"Be good, be young, be true! Evil is nothing but vanity, let us have the pride of good, and above all let us never despair." - Alexandre Dumas fils, Camille: The Lady of the Camellias
“Mature hope requires both a clear intention and a simultaneous letting go.” - Frank Ostaseski, The Five Invitations
“That was all a man needed: hope. It was lack of hope that discouraged a man.” - Charles Bukowski, Factotum
“Hope, in its stronger forms, is a great deal more powerful stimulant to life than any sort of realized joy can ever be.” - Friedrich Nietzsche, The Antichrist
“Hope can be a powerful force. Maybe there's no actual magic in it, but when you know what you hope for most and hold it like a light within you, you can make things happen, almost like magic.” - Laini Taylor, Daughter of Smoke & Bone
“We need hope, or else we cannot endure.” - Sarah J. Maas, A Court of Thorns and Roses
“Maybe everyone can live beyond what they’re capable of.” - Markus Zusak, I Am the Messenger
"You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them." - Maya Angelou, Letter to My Daughter
"Drive away and try to keep smiling. Get a little rock and roll on the radio and go toward all the life there is with all the courage you can find and all the belief you can muster. Be true, be brave, stand. All the rest is darkness." - Stephen King, It
"He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness. Live, then, and be happy, beloved children of my heart, and never forget, that until the day God will deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is contained in these two words, 'Wait and Hope.'" - Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo
“More than anything, it is that sense—that despite great differences in wealth, we rise and fall together—that we can't afford to lose.” - Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope
“No. Don't give up hope just yet. It's the last thing to go. 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, I Am Number Four
“To hope means to be ready at every moment for that which is not yet born, and yet not become desperate if there is no birth in our lifetime.” - Erich Fromm, The Revolution of Hope: Toward a Humanized Technology
“We dream to give ourselves hope. To stop dreaming—well, that’s like saying you can never change your fate.” - Amy Tan, The Hundred Secret Senses
“Deep grief sometimes is almost like a specific location, a coordinate on a map of time. When you are standing in that forest of sorrow, you cannot imagine that you could ever find your way to a better place. But if someone can assure you that they themselves have stood in that same place, and now have moved on, sometimes this will bring hope.” - Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love
“One child, one teacher, one book, one pen can change the world.” - Malala Yousafzai, I Am Malala
"I assign myself no rank or any limit, and such an attitude is very much against the trend of the times. But my world has become one of infinite possibilities." - Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man
"To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction." - Howard Zinn, You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train
“Since I was young, I have always known this: Life damages us, every one. We can’t escape that damage. But now, I am also learning this: We can be mended. We mend each other.” - Veronica Roth, Allegiant
“So everything lets us down, including curiosity and honesty and what we love best. ‘Yes,’ said the voice, ‘but cheer up, it's fun at the end.’” - Roberto Bolaño, 2666
“Nobody knows how things will turn out, that's why they go ahead and play the game...You give it your all and sometimes amazing things happen, but it's hardly ever what you expect.” - Gennifer Choldenko, Al Capone Does My Shirts
“The longest way must have its close—the gloomiest night will wear on to a morning.” - Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin
“When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.” - Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
“If you can love someone with your whole heart, even one person, then there's salvation in life. Even if you can't get together with that person.” - Haruki Murakami, 1Q84
“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.” - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
“We are all the pieces of what we remember. We hold in ourselves the hopes and fears of those who love us. As long as there is love and memory, there is no true loss.” - Cassandra Clare, City of Heavenly Fire
"My life is a perfect graveyard of buried hopes." - L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
“Hope is not about proving anything. It's about choosing to believe this one thing, that love is bigger than any grim, bleak shit anyone can throw at us.” - Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith
