Simone Weil Quotes

"Hope, you see, Wal'r," said the Captain, sagely, "Hope. It's that as animates you. Hope is a buoy, for which you overhaul your Little Warbler, sentimental diwision, but Lord, my lad, like any other buoy, it only floats; it can't be steered nowhere. Along with the figure-head of Hope,' said the Captain, 'there's a anchor; but what's the good of my having a anchor, if I can't find no bottom to let it go in?"

We need more pessimism that the future might be a lot worse, and we need more optimism that the future might be better.

Don't despair too much if you see beautiful things destroyed, if you see them perish. Because the best things are always growing in secret.

One thing we have lost, that we had in the past, is a sense of progress, that things are getting better. There is a sense of volatility, but not of progress.

Hope is tomorrow's veneer over today's disappointment.

You were supposed to have hope, right? You were supposed to respect its power and hold on. And so I did. I held, and held, and let hope fill me. But as the days went on, it seemed I could be holding for a long, long time. Hope could be the most powerful thing or the most useless

And ye, who have met with Adversity's blast, And been bow'd to the earth by its fury; To whom the Twelve Months, that have recently pass'd Were as harsh as a prejudiced jury - Still, fill to the Future! and join in our chime, The regrets of remembrance to cozen, And having obtained a New Trial of Time, Shout in hopes of a kindlier dozen.

Where you are now is not where you will always be. There are brighter days up ahead.

We are going to a new world... and no doubt it is there that everything is for the best; for it must be admitted that one might lament a little over the physical and moral happenings of our own world.

At sixty, I would like to give my future back its vistas of uncertainty.

to hope was to expect

Perhaps it's my natural pessimism, but it seems that an awfully large part of travel these days is to see things while you still can.

Just when you think it can't get any worse, it can. And just when you think it can't get any better, it can.

My friend, be not like him who sits by his fireside and watches the fire go out, then blows vainly upon the dead ashes. Do not give up hope or yield to despair because of that which is past, for to bewail the irretrievable is the worst of human frailties.

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

The manger dares us to believe the best is yet to be. And it could all begin today.

It is said that the darkest hour of the night comes just before the dawn.

If we lose our hope, that's our real disaster!

We always hope, and in all things it is better to hope than to despair.

I don’t know what’s ahead,” I say. “I don’t know nothing about nothing but whatever it is, it’s gotta be better than what’s behind. It’s gotta be.

The good old days were never that good, believe me. The good new days are today, and better days are coming tomorrow. Our greatest songs are still unsung.

When one door of hapiness closes, another opens.

I'm lost, but I'm hopeful.