"Even if the hopes you started out with are dashed, hope has to be maintained."

Hope

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Thematic Reflection

This quotation examines the core nature of Hope as articulated by Seamus Heaney. Within historical and literary traditions, reflections on Hope provide actionable mental models, challenging individuals to evaluate personal ethics, self-discipline, and daily actions.

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About Seamus Heaney

Seamus Justin Heaney was an Irish poet, playwright and translator. He received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature. Among his best-known works is Death of a Naturalist (1966), his first major published volume. American poet Robert Lowell described him as "the most important Irish poet since Yeats", and many others, including the academic John Sutherland, have said that he was "the greatest poet of our age". Robert Pinsky has stated that "with his wonderful gift of eye and ear Heaney has the gift of the story-teller." Upon his death in 2013, The Independent described him as "probably the best-known poet in the world".

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More by Seamus Heaney

"Poetry is always slightly mysterious, and you wonder what is your relationship to it."

— Seamus Heaney
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"At home in Ireland, there's a habit of avoidance, an ironical attitude towards the authority figure."

— Seamus Heaney
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"In fact, in lyric poetry, truthfulness becomes recognizable as a ring of truth within the medium itself."

— Seamus Heaney
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"The fact of the matter is that the most unexpected and miraculous thing in my life was the arrival in it of poetry itself - as a vocation and an elevation almost."

— Seamus Heaney
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More about Hope

"I never ask boys' opinions on clothes, ever. I really think, unless you think the guy has style, don't ask. So I only ask my girl friends. I don't trust guys' opinions on style!"

— Emma Roberts
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"There's no one I trust in show business more than Sabrina Wind. She's my eyes and ears when I can't be there. She weighs in on everything, from scripts to sets to advertising."

— Marc Cherry
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"That's a great feeling to know that I'm going into a project that I have no idea what will become of that movie, but I really trust Ang Lee. And I really trusted Ron. It's just really nice to work with people that you feel that way about."

— Jennifer Connelly
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"I do not at all have the mind of a bully... in my mind bullies are intolerant of contrary opinion, domineering and rather cowardly. I would hope that none of those terms could be fairly used in describing me."

— Conrad Black
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