I have a knack of hoping, which is as good as an estate in reversion, if
one can keep from the temptation of turning it into certainty, which may
spoil all.--_George Eliot._
Hope, folding her wings, looked backward and became regret.--_George
Eliot._
Hope is always liberal, and they that trust her promises make little
scruple of reveling to-day on the profits of to-morrow.--_Johnson._
It is necessary to hope, though hope should be always deluded; for hope
itself is happiness and its frustrations, however frequent, are yet less
dreadful than its extinction.--_Johnson._
Hope is a delusion; no hand can grasp a wave or a shadow.--_Victor
Hugo._
~Humanity.~--A man's nature runs either to herbs or weeds: therefore let
him seasonably water the one and destroy the other.--_Bacon._
I own that there is a haughtiness and fierceness in human nature which
will cause innumerable broils, place men in what situation you
please.--_Burke._
Human nature is not so much depraved as to hinder us from respecting
goodness in others, though we ourselves want it. This is the reason why
we are so much charmed with the pretty prattle of children, and even the
expressions of pleasure or uneasiness in some parts of the brute
creation. They are without artifice or malice; and we love truth too
well to resist the charms of sincerity.--_Steele._
I do not know what comfort other people find in considering the weakness
of great men, but 'tis always a mortification to me to observe that
there is no perfection in humanity.--_Montagu._
The true proof of the inherent nobleness of our common nature is in the
sympathy it betrays with what is noble wherever crowds are collected.
Never believe the world is base; if it were so, no society could hold
together for a day.--_Bulwer-Lytton._
~Humility.~--It is from out the depths of our humility that the height of
our destiny looks grandest. Let me truly feel that in myself I am
nothing, and at once, through every inlet of my soul, God comes in, and
is everything in me.--_Mountford._
Should any ask me, What is the first thing in religion? I would reply,
The first, second, and third thing therein, nay all, is humility.--_St.
Augustine._
Epaminondas, that heathen captain, finding himself lifted up in the day
of his public triumph, the next day went drooping and hanging down his
head; but being asked what was the reason of his so great dejection,
made answer: "Yesterday I felt myself transported with vainglory,
therefore I chastise myself for it to-day."--_Plutarch._