Forlorn Hope Quotes

• To use Newton's words, our efforts up till this moment have but turned over a pebble or shell here and there on the beach, with only a forlorn hope that under one of them was the gem we were seeking. Now we have the sieve, the minds, the hands, the time, and, particularly, the dedication to find those gems-no matter in which favorite hiding place the children of distant worlds have placed them.

  Frank Drake

  Beach, Time, Children

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• Oft hope is born when all is forlorn.

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  Inspirational, Life, Hope

  J.R.R. Tolkien (2012). “The Return of the King: Being the Third Part of the Lord of the Rings”, p.859, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• "Duty, Honor, Country" - those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be. They are your rallying point to build courage when courage seems to fail, to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith, to create hope when hope becomes forlorn.

  Douglas MacArthur

  Country, War, Rallying Point

  Sylvanus Thayer Award Acceptance Address, delivered 12 May 1962, West Point, NY

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• Pity the selfishness of lovers: it is brief, a forlorn hope; it is impossible.

  Elizabeth Bowen

  Love, Selfishness, Impossible

  Elizabeth Bowen (1938). “The death of the heart”, Viking Pr

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  Duty, Honor, Country. Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be.

  Douglas MacArthur

  Country, Rallying Point, Honor

  Sylvanus Thayer Award Acceptance Address, delivered 12 May 1962, West Point, NY

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• Apoplexie and lethargie,
  As forlorn hope, assault the enemy.

  Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas

  Enemy, Disease, Forlorn

  "La Seconde Semaine". Poem by Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas, 1584.

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• So, cutting the lashing of the waterproof match keg, after many failures Starbuck contrived to ignite the lamp in the lantern; then stretching it on a waif pole, handed it to Queequeg as the standard-bearer of this forlorn hope. There, then, he sat, holding up that imbecile candle in the heart of that almighty forlornness. There, then, he sat, the sign and symbol of a man without faith, hopelessly holding up hope in the midst of despair.

  Herman Melville

  Hope, Heart, Cutting

  Herman Melville, General Press (2016). “Moby Dick”, p.242, GENERAL PRESS

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• At first he was very discouraging, to my astonishment then, but now I fancy he did it as a forlorn hope to check me; he said the whole idea was so disgusting that he could not entertain it for a moment.

  Elizabeth Garrett Anderson

  Hope, Ideas, Astonishment

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• ..he continues to cling to the forlorn hope that I will turn into one of those swooning females...and fling myself squeeling at him whenever anything happens. Like all men, he clings to his illusions.

  Barbara Mertz

  Men, Swooning, Female

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• For his mind was full of forlorn hopes, death-or-glory charges, and last stands.

  C. S. Lewis

  Mind, Lasts, Glory

  C. S. Lewis (1997). “The voyage of the Dawn Treader”, HarperCollins Publishers

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• Cricket is a game full or forlorn hopes and sudden dramatic changes of fortune and its rules are so ill-defined that their interpretation is partly an ethical business.

  George Orwell

  Business, Games, Dramatic

  1944 Raffles and Miss Blandish.

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• The love of letters is the forlorn hope of the man of letters. His ruling passion is the love of fame.

  William Hazlitt

  Passion, Men, Letters

  William Hazlitt (1852). “Men and manners: sketches and essays”, p.237

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