Optimism and hope provide choices. The opposite of hope is despair, and when we despair, it is because we feel there are no choices.
192
The brave don’t despair. They believe. They are not cynical, they care. They think there is stuff worth dying for – that good and evil exist.
047
Whatever we do, we cannot surrender to bitterness. We must reject the heresy of despair. We can’t give up on ourselves or on other people.
252
…the belief that what ultimately motivates human beings has always been… the pursuit of wealth, power, comforts and pleasure, has always and must always be complemented by a doctrine of work as self-sacrifice, as valuable precisely because it is the place of misery, sadism, emptiness, and despair.
