Hope is the result of confusing the desire that something should take place with the probability that it will. Perhaps no man is free from this folly of the heart, which deranges the intellect’s correct appreciation of probability to such an extent that, if the chances are a thousand to one against it, yet the event is thought a likely one. Still in spite of this, a sudden misfortune is like a death stroke, whilst a hope that is always disappointed and still never dies, is like death by prolonged torture.
He who has lost all hope has also lost all fear; this is the meaning of the expression “desperate.” It is natural to a man to believe what he wishes to be true, and to believe it because he wishes it, If this characteristic of our nature, at once beneficial and assuaging, is rooted out by many hard blows of fate, and a man comes, conversely, to a condition in which he believes a thing must happen because he does not wish it, and what he wishes to happen can never be, just because he wishes it, this is in reality the state described as “desperation.”
From Arthur Schopenhauer’s “Psychological Observations.” Translated by T. Bailey Saunders.
Biblioklept 
I’ve been thinking about ‘hope’ lately, that we do it because it feels good, ‘lifts our spirits,’ when, in reality, it is illogical. it’s like one of those pleasure synapses you can turn off and on. So how wonderful to find that Schopenhauer had a similiar thought and articulated it so brilliantly! thanks for posting.
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I don’t disagree, and yet to some degree I have no choice but to kindly argue. When everything you have worked for and all you thought you knew is lost; when you come to that place where your will is tested and you struggle to understand how you will carry on – hope can save your life. You don’t truly have nothing until you’ve lost that. It’s sometimes the only thing that keeps one fighting and surviving.
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Reblogged this on philosophyarts.
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