“History says, Don’t hope 
on this side of the grave. 
But then, once in a lifetime the longed-for tidal wave 
of justice can rise up and hope and history rhyme.”
(Seamus Heaney, Irish poet)

About the future: “We need both a healthy sense of anxiety which keeps us from foolishness and carelessness. Hope, however, keeps one from being paralyzed by fears and enables the courage to act.”   (Joan Delaplane, O.P.)

“We are caught between two ages of human existence, between the past that was and the future that is not yet. We live in a condition of radical expectation and anticipation. Hope is central to our existence. Hope places a demand and an expectation upon us. The expectation lies in the yet, its demand derives from the not. We trust that God’s promises will be fulfilled.”        (Ernest Bloch, German philosopher)