Jorge Luis Borges:
One of the schools of Tlön has reached the point of denying time.  It reasons that the present is undefined, that the future has no other reality than as present hope, that the past is no more than present memory.

Ernst Bloch:
Man is that which still has much before it.  He is repeatedly transformed in his work and by it.  He repeatedly stands ahead on frontiers which are no longer such because he perceives them, he ventures beyond them.  The authentic in man is outstanding, waiting, lives in fear of being frustrated, lives in hope of succeeding.  Because what is possible can equally well turn into Nothing as into Being: the Possible, as that which is not fully conditional, is that which is not settled.  Hence, from the outset, if man does not intervene, both fear and hope are equally appropriate when confronted with this real suspension, fear in hope, hope in fear.  This is why the stoics—wise or all too passively wise men—advised that man should not settle in the vicinity of circumstances over which he has no power.  But since in man active capacity particularly belongs to possibility, the display of this activity and bravery, as soon as and in so far as it takes place, tips the balance in favor of hope.

Ralph Waldo Emerson:
He who aims at progress, should aim at an infinite, not at a special benefit. . . . 
The soul can be appeased not by a deed but by a tendency.  It is in a hope that she feels her wings.  You shall love rectitude and not the disuse of money or the avoidance of trade: an unimpeded mind, and not a monkish diet; sympathy and usefulness, and not hoeing or coopering.  Tell me not how great your project is, the civil liberation of the world, . . . the establishment of public education, cleaner diet, a new division of labor and of land, laws of love for laws of property;—I say to you plainly there is no end to which your practical faculty can aim, so sacred or so large, that, if pursued for itself, will not at last become carrion and an offence to the nostril.  The imaginative faculty of the soul must be fed with objects immense and eternal.  Your end should be one inapprehensible to the senses: then it will be a good always approached,—never touched; always giving health.

Ernst Bloch:
Every dream remains one by virtue of the fact that too little has succeeded, become finished for it.  That is why it cannot forget what is missing, why it holds the door open in all things.  The door that is at least half-open, when it appears to open onto pleasant objects, is marked hope.  Though, as we have seen, there is no hope without anxiety and no anxiety without hope, they keep each other hovering in the balance, no matter how far hope outweighs for the brave man, through the brave man.  However, hope too, which can deceive with will-o’-the-wisp, must be of a knowing kind, one that is thought out in advance.

Marcel Proust:The specific remedy for an unfortunate event (and three events out of four are unfortunate) is a decision; for its effect is that, by a sudden reversal of our thoughts, it interrupts the flow of those that come from the past event and prolong its vibration, and breaks that flow with a contrary flow of contrary thoughts, come from without, from the future. But these new thoughts are most of all beneficial to us when (and this was the case with the thoughts that assailed me at this moment), from the heart of that future, it is a hope that they bring us.

See:
The Passionate Spectator: I suffer from a disease, a kind of mental illness, the groundless hope that springs eternal. 

A Topical Guide to the Complete Peter Leroy (so far) is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, dialogues, settings, and businesses portrayed in it are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. 

All rights reserved. No part of this guide may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author. 

Portions of A Topical Guide to the Complete Peter Leroy (so far) were first published by Voyager, Inc., as part of The Complete Peter Leroy (so far).

The illustration at the top of the page is an adaptation of an illustration by Stewart Rouse that first appeared on the cover of the August 1931 issue of Modern Mechanics and Inventions. The boy at the controls of the aerocycle doesn’t particularly resemble Peter Leroy—except, perhaps, for the smile.