“There is no medicine like hope, no incentive so great, and no tonic so powerful as expectation of something better tomorrow.” Orison Swett Marden
“Hope is a waking dream.” Aristotle
Introduction: Over the years, I have used blog posts about a specific word, feeling, or emotion. A frequent word used a lot here is the word ‘hope’. To some, hope may detriment the thought or healing process because it may seem futile to just count on something based on hope. However, I believe hope is a foundational word, the feeling it gives one supports from the base up, the strength one could derive from hope is more of a benefit than it could ever be a detriment (in my opinion). Furthermore, with a chronic disorder like Parkinson’s, remaining hopeful is crucial to mental health. Hope also allows one to approach Parkinson’s with a positive attitude. In addition, one could use hope as a healing salve on a chronic wound of despair, all of which means to me that hope is excellent power to those of us who need support, something to rest on, and something that calls for higher strength.
Once again, we are amid yet another apparent COVID-19 upward spike worldwide. Additionally, we are starting to celebrate the Holiday Season. Furthermore, we are winding down a year of living with Parkinson’s. There is no doubt we could use some hope. Hope fuels an eternal fire of effort and never giving in; yet again, hope burns bright in those who believe in its optimistic power. May these quotes bolster your thoughts in dealing with your health, and remember, it is always a good thing to be hopeful that change will come to you and the disorder named Parkinson’s.
| Quote on or about hope | Author |
| In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer. And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better, pushing right back. ” | Albert Camus |
| “Learn from yesterday, Live for today and hope for tomorrow.” | Albert Einstein |
| “Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come, whispering ‘it will be happier’…” | Alfred Lord Tennyson |
| “While the heart beats, hope lingers.” | Alison Croggon |
| “We dream to give ourselves hope. To stop dreaming – well, that’s like saying you can never change your fate.” | Amy Tan, The Hundred Secret Senses |
| “Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work; you don’t give up.” | Anne Lamott |
| “Hope is a waking dream.” | Aristotle |
| “Hope is a renewable option: If you run out of it at the end of the day, you get to start over in the morning.” | Barbara Kingsolver |
| “The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof.” | Barbara Kingsolver |
| “Hope is a function of struggle.” | Brené Brown |
| “You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” | C.S. Lewis |
| “By far the strongest poison to the human spirit is the inability to forgive oneself or another person. Forgiveness is no longer an option but a necessity for healing.” | Caroline Myss |
| “If you keep hope alive, it will keep you alive.” | Cassandra Clare |
| ”It’s always something, to know you’ve done the most you could. But, don’t leave off hoping, or it’s of no use doing anything. Hope, hope to the last.” | Charles Dickens |
| “I have been bent and broken but – I hope – into a better shape.” | Charles Dickens |
| “A whole stack of memories never equal one little hope.” | Charles M. Schulz |
| “The place of true healing is a fierce place. It’s a giant place. It’s a place of monstrous beauty and endless dark and glimmering light. And you have to work really, really, really hard to get there, but you can do it.” | Cheryl Strayed |
| “Once you choose hope, anything’s possible.” | Christopher Reeve |
| “Healing requires from us to stop struggling, but to enjoy life more and endure it less.” | Darina Stoyanova |
| “The most beautiful people I’ve known are those who have known trials, have known struggles, have known loss, and have found their way out of the depths.” | Elisabeth Kübler-Ross |
| “What oxygen is to the lungs, such is hope to the meaning of life.” | Emil Brunner |
| “Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul And sings the tune without the words And never stops at all.” | Emily Dickinson |
| “I dwell in possibility.” | Emily Dickinson |
| ”In fact, hope is best gained after defeat and failure, because then inner strength and toughness is produced.” | Fritz Knapp |
| “To live without hope is to cease to live” | Fyodor Dostoevsky |
| “To love means loving the unlovable. To forgive means pardoning the unpardonable. Faith means believing the unbelievable. Hope means hoping when everything seems hopeless.” | G.K. Chesterton |
| “No matter how dark the moment, love and hope are always possible.” | George Chakiris |
| The first thing I read after being diagnosed on the internet was Parkinson’s attacks the mind, body and the spirit. There is one thing that treats all three and that’s hope. That’s very true, you have to live with hope.” | Gordon Adai |
| “I hope, or I could not live.” | H.G. Well’s The Island of Doctor Moreau |
| “Know that wherever you are in your life right now is both temporary, and exactly where you are supposed to be. You have arrived at this moment to learn what you must learn, so you can become the person you need to be to create the life you truly want. Even when life is difficult or challenging-especially when life is difficult and challenging-the present is always an opportunity for us to learn, grow, and become better than we’ve ever been before.” | Hal Elrod |
| “There is something beautiful about all scars of whatever nature. A scar means the hurt is over, the wound is closed and healed, done with.” | Harry Crews |
| “Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.” | Helen Keller |
| “A dream is the bearer of a new possibility, the enlarged horizon, the great hope.” | Howard Thurman |
| “The greatest healing therapy is friendship and love.” | Hubert H. Humphrey |
| “Everybody has losses – it’s unavoidable in life. Sharing our pain is very healing.” | Isabel Allende |
| “It’s going to be all right, sir,” Harry said over and over again, more worried by Dumbledore’s silence than he had been by his weakened voice. “We’re nearly there … I can Apparate us both back … don’t worry …” “I am not worried, Harry,” said Dumbledore, his voice a little stronger despite the freezing water. “I am with you.” | J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince |
| “At the end of the day, all you can hope for is to go on. The older I get, the more I realize that just keeping on keeping on is what life’s all about.” | Janis Ian |
| ”You will be secure, because there is hope; you will look about you and take your rest in safety. “ | Job 11:18-19 |
| “Hope lies in dreams, in imagination, and in the courage of those who dare to make dreams into reality.” | Jonas Salk |
| “Yesterday is but a dream, Tomorrow is only a vision. But today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness, and every tomorrow a vision of hope.” | Kālidāsa, The complete works of Kalidasa |
| “Hope is not a dream, it is a way of making dreams reality.” | L. J. Svenens |
| “Hope can be a powerful force. Maybe there’s no actual magic in it, but when you know what you hope for most and hold it like a light within you, you can make things happen, almost like magic.” | Laini Taylor |
| “As long as we have hope, we have direction, the energy to move, and the map to move by.” | Lao Tzu |
| “I’m touched by the idea that when we do things that are useful and helpful – collecting these shards of spirituality – that we may be helping to bring about a healing.” | Leonard Nimoy |
| “Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.” | Maya Angelou |
| “To me, hope is informed optimism.” | Michael J. Fox |
| “Courage is like love; it must have hope for nourishment.” | Napoleon Bonaparte |
| “The new dawn blooms as we free it. For there is always light if only we’re brave enough to see it, if only we’re brave enough to be it.” | National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman |
| “It’s the possibility that keeps me going, not the guarantee.” | Nicholas Sparks |
| “There is no medicine like hope, no incentive so great, and no tonic so powerful as expectation of something tomorrow,” | Orison Swett Marden |
| “Never lose faith in yourself, and never lose hope; remember, even when this world throws its worst and then turns its back, there is still always hope.” | Pittacus Lore |
| “Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential. Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what it is still possible for you to do” | Pope John XIII |
| “When I stand before thee at the day’s end, thou shalt see my scars and know that I had my wounds and also my healing.” | Rabindranath Tagore |
| “For me, singing sad songs often has a way of healing a situation. It gets the hurt out in the open into the light, out of the darkness.” | Reba McEntire |
| “Hope is the only bee that makes honey without flowers.” | Robert Green Ingersoll |
| “Let your hopes, not your hurts, shape your future.” | Robert H. Schuller |
| “A lot of people have their big dreams and get knocked down and don’t have things go their way. And you never give up hope, and you really just hold on to it. Hard work and perseverance. You just keep getting up and getting up, and then you get that breakthrough.” | Robert Kraft |
| “I loved you at your darkest” | Romans 5:8 |
| “Hope is the companion of power, and mother of success; for who so hopes strongly has within him the gift of miracles.” | Samuel Smiles |
| “Listen to the mustn’ts, child. Listen to the don’ts. Listen to the shouldn’ts, the impossibles, the won’ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me … Anything can happen, child. Anything can be.” | Shel Silverstein |
| “The past is a source of knowledge, and the future is a source of hope. Love of the past implies faith in the future.” | Stephen Ambrose |
| “There should be no boundaries to human endeavor. We are all different. However bad life may seem, there is always something you can do, and succeed at. While there’s life, there is hope.” | Stephen Hawking, The Theory of Everything |
| “The hope you feel when you are in love is not necessarily for anything in particular. Love brings something inside you to life. Perhaps it is just the full dimensionality of your own capacity to feel that returns.” | Susan Griffin |
| “To me, forgiveness is the cornerstone of healing.” | Sylvia Fraser |
| “Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today.” | Thich Nhat Hanh |
| “Every step taken in mindfulness brings us one step closer to healing ourselves and the planet.” | Thich Nhat Hanh |
| “You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope.” | Thomas Merton |
| “Perhaps I am stronger than I think.” | Thomas Merton |
| “Love without hope will not survive, love without faith changes nothing. Love gives power to hope and faith.” | Toba Beta |
| “I know what I have to do now, I’ve got to keep breathing because tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide could bring?” | Tom Hanks in Cast Away |
| “Hope like an optimist, Prepare like a pessimist, but Act like a realist.” | Unknown |
| “I am not an optimist, because I am not sure that everything ends well. Nor am I a pessimist, because I am not sure that everything ends badly. I just carry hope in my heart. Hope is the feeling that life and work have a meaning. You either have it or you don’t, regardless of the state of the world that surrounds you. Life without hope is an empty, boring, and useless life. I cannot imagine that I could strive for something if I did not carry hope in me. I am thankful to God for this gift. It is as big as life itself.” | Vaclav Havel |
| “Hope is the word which God has written on the brow of every man” | Victor Hugo |
| “Fight till the last gasp.” | William Shakespeare’s King Henry VI |
| “All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.” | Winston Churchill |
| “Healing yourself is connected with healing others.” | Yoko Ono |
Hopeful Words from the Blog, Journey with Parkinson’s: I .have included several quotes below on hope, which is a favorite subject of mine. It is always a good time to be hopeful. Enjoy!
| Quote from Journey with Parkinson’s | Contributed by |
| , “We follow a path that favors happiness in the background of certain/uncertain Parkinson’s progression. We stay positive, we remain determined, and always with perseverance, we stand firm. Finally, combined with hope, we continue, we live, we continue to live, and we continue to live well and strong in the presence of Parkinson’s.” | Frank C. Church |
| “Always remember, your life matters now with Parkinson’s as much as it did before Parkinson’s. Stay hopeful as you navigate adversity, stay you in spite of your Parkinson’s.” | Frank C. Church |
| “Hope is in each of us. For those of us with Parkinson’s, we remain hopeful for new treatments, advances and one day ahead, a cure. But for now, we use courage and determination, mixed with a will to survive, and all held together by a glue we call hope. Stay strong, stay hopeful, stay you.” | Frank C. Church |
| “To me, hope is a source of clarity. If you remain hopeful, there’s a strong likelihood that you will succeed in your endeavors.” | Frank C. Church |
| “… combined together with hope, we continue, we live, we continue to live, and we continue to live well and strong in the presence of Parkinson’s.” | Frank C. Church |
| “We require hope to handle the routine-life adversities of Parkinson’s. There is time; stay hopeful.“ | Frank C. Church |
| “I liken hope to the spark that jump-starts your fireplace in the cold of winter.” | Frank C. Church |
| “Awake each morning: Each new day renews our life, our contract to keep living. Strive to live-forward, and always remember that we’re still in the driver’s seat of our world. Live decisively even as we accept the problems from Parkinson’s.” | Frank C. Church |
| “Each day, we wear a cape on our back labeled with the letters PD. Each day we bring a positive reaction to handle our symptoms; when we begin to fade those letters, we begin to gain control of our symptoms.” | Frank C. Church |
| “We require hope to handle the routine-life adversities of Parkinson’s. There is time, stay hopeful.“ | Frank C. Church |
| “Hope that bad moments you may be having will dissipate quickly and move on to better and happier moments.” | Frank C. Church |
| “Strength is found in each of us. For those of us with Parkinson’s, we use our personal strengths of character to bolster our hope, courage, mindfulness, contentment, gratitude, determination, and the will to survive. Stay strong. Stay hopeful. Stay educated. Stay determined. Stay persistent. Stay courageous. Stay positive. Stay wholehearted. Stay mindful. Stay happy. Stay you.” | Frank C. Church |
| “There’s time left to sing, live, love, work, and manage your disorder. There’s time left in your life to accomplish much if not all. Remain hopeful, mindful, positive, courageous, and persistent. Let our journey continue.” | Frank C. Church |
| “We balance our personal-rheostat between life and career, family and friends, and service and other activities. Living positively will certainly augment your meaningful life. No regrets. Remain hopeful. Stay strong. Live positively.” | Frank C. Church |
| “Hope is a keyword in your life with Parkinson’s. A heart that feels hope keeps the body strong. A person that stays hopeful sustains their life for better-healthier moments.” | |
| “Your jar-of-hope will be challenged daily by Parkinson’s; hopefully, you will keep the jar at least half-filled and not half-empty of hope.” | Frank C. Church |
| ”Living with Parkinson’s requires you to adapt to its subtle but progressive changes over a long period of time; you need to remain hopeful and live your life.” | Frank C. Church |
“Deep grief sometimes is almost like a specific location, a coordinate on a map of time. When you are standing in that forest of sorrow, you cannot imagine that you could ever find your way to a better place. But if someone can assure you that they themselves have stood in that same place, and now have moved on, sometimes this will bring hope.” Elizabeth Gilbert
Cover Image by Larry White from Pixabay
Journey with Parkinson's 
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