When all else fails, men turn to reason - former Israeli foreign minister Abba Eban.
We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope - Martin Luther King, Jr.
We are at the second crucial stage in the development of human rights thinking. The first was gaining widespread international recognition for the very idea of human rights - that has been more or less successful. The third will be achieving enforcement of human rights provisions, by bringing every dictator and oppressor to trial and punishing every violation of human rights. The current second stage is expanding the thin minimum meaning we attach to ideas of rights into a rich understanding of what those ideas imply about the human good. We need to make a start in that direction - AC Grayling, http://comment.independent.co.uk/podium/article318823.ece
The lowest ebb is the turn of the tide - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The capacity for hope is the most significant fact of life. It provides human beings with a sense of destination and the energy to get started - Norman Cousins
Spring is sooner recognised by plants than by men- Chinese Proverb
Some blessed hope, whereof he knew, And I was unaware - from Thomas Hardy, The Darkling Thrush
Life begins on the other side of despair - Jean-Paul Sartre
Keep high aspirations, moderate expectations, and small needs - William Howard Stein (1911-80), American biochemist, shared Nobel: for studies of enzymes
It is in the power of everybody, with a little courage, to hold out a hand to someone different, to listen, and to attempt to increase, even by a tiny amount, the quantity of kindness and humanity in the world. But it is careless to do so without remembering how previous efforts have failed, and how it has never been possible to predict for certain how a human being will behave. History, with its endless procession of passers-by, most of whose encounters have been missed opportunities, has so far been largely a chronicle of ability gone to waste. But next time two people meet, the result could be different. That is the origin of anxiety, but also of hope, and hope is the origin of humanity - Theodore Zeldin