Hope quotes, explained

Said to a country in the depths of the Great Depression, days before he closed the banks. It was a plea to stop a panic that was making the crisis worse, not a general saying about bravery.

The song of the angels to the shepherds on the night Jesus was born. It praises God and announces peace and goodwill to people on earth.

Old age is not a decline to dread but the goal that youth was preparing for. Browning's speaker invites a listener to grow old with him because the later years complete the life.

Emerson means we become strong by harnessing forces greater than ourselves, like wind, water and great ideas, and letting them carry our work. Aim your effort in the direction those higher powers already move.

Dickinson pictures hope as a small bird that lives in the soul, sings without stopping through every storm, and never asks for anything in return.

Paul tells a young church facing hardship to keep giving thanks whatever happens. The point is gratitude in every situation, not pretending bad things are good.

An encouraging line that fits Mandela's life perfectly, but it has not been traced to anything he said or wrote. It spread online in the 2000s and especially after his death in 2013.

Dickens describes the years before the French Revolution as a time of extremes, then adds the sting: it was much like his own day, when people also insisted everything was either the best or the worst.

The poet asks the New Year's bells to ring away the old year's grief, quarrels and injustice and to ring in kindness, truth and peace.

A promise that justice wins in the long run, even when progress is slow. King's compact wording condenses a longer image from an abolitionist sermon of 1853.

Lysander comforts Hermia, whose father forbids their marriage, by saying true love has always faced obstacles. It is a promise that trouble does not mean love is false.

Lord Darlington, a society man in love, says that everyone is flawed, but some people still look up toward something higher. His friends tease him for being romantic.

A line about inner character mattering more than past or future. It was written in 1940 by Henry Stanley Haskins, not by Emerson, who died in 1882.

Spoken weeks before the Civil War ended and six weeks before Lincoln was killed. He asked the winning side to heal the nation without revenge.

Replying to an eight-year-old who asked if Santa was real, Church argued that love, generosity and wonder are real even though no one can see them, and that Santa Claus is real in the same way.