Loving the unlovable

To love means loving the unlovable. To forgive means pardoning the unpardonable. Faith means believing the unbelievable. Hope means hoping when everything seems hopeless.

~ Gilbert K. Chesterton 

I would still plant my apple tree

Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree. 

~ Martin Luther 

Happiness often sneaks in through a door you didn’t know you left open.

~ John Barrymore

Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.

~ Vaclav Havel

There is no hope without fear, and no fear without hope.

~ Baruch Spinoza

Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. Let us move forward with strong and active faith. 

~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

All human wisdom is summed up in two words; wait and hope.

~ Alexandre Dumas

Be what you are. This is the first step toward becoming better than you are.

~ Julius Charles Hare

You should never doubt what no one is sure about.

~ Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka, “Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory,” screenplay by Ronald Dahl

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. 

So it goes. 

Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.

~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

I heard a bird sing
in the dark of December.
A magical thing
and sweet to remember.

“We are nearer to Spring
than we were in September.”

~ Oliver Herford

Patience with others is Love. Patience with self is Hope. Patience with God is Faith.

~ Adel Bestavros

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.

~ Plato

You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it true. You may have to work for it, however. 

~ Richard Bach

Work a little, wait a little, hope a little. The world needs you. 

~ Anonymous