Hope

Strong hope is a much greater stimulant of life than any single realized joy could be.

- Friedrich Nietzsche

Philosophical Banksy

From Banksy.com

The Fourteenth Book of Bokonon

"And I remembered The Fourteenth Book of Bokonon, which I had read in its entirety the night before. The Fourteenth Book is entitled, 'What Can a Thoughtful Man Hope for Mankind on Earth, Given the Experience of the Past Million Years?'
It doesn't take long to read The fourteenth Book. It consists of one word and a period.
This is it:
'Nothing.'"

- Cat's Cradle: A Novel by Kurt Vonnegut

The Brothers Karamazov - The Elder Zosima

"A man who lies to himself, and believes his own lies, becomes unable to recognize truth, either in himself or in anyone else, and he ends up losing respect for himself as well as for others. When he has no respect for anyone, he can no longer love and, in order to divert himself, having no love in him, he yields to his impulses, indulges in the lowest forms of pleasure, and behaves in the end like an animal, in satisfying his vices. And it all comes from lying-lying to others and to yourself. A man who lies to himself, for instance, can take offense whenever he wishes, for there are times when it is rather pleasant to feel wronged-don't you agree? So a man may know very well that no one has offended him, and may invent an offense, lie just for the beauty of it, or exaggerate what someone said to create a situation, making a mountain out of a molehill. And although he is well aware of it himself, he nevertheless does feel offended because he enjoys doing so, derives great pleasure from it, and so he comes to feel real hostility toward the imaginary offender"

- Zosima from The Brothers Karamazov (Bantam Classics) by Fyodor Dostoevsky