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Hope is both the earliest and the most indispensable virtue inherent in the state of being alive. Others have called this deepest quality confidence, and I have referred to trust as the earliest positive psychosocial attitude, but if life is to be sustained hope must remain, even where confidence is wounded, trust impaired.
Erik Erikson
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Interpretation

What this quote means

Hope is essential for life and well-being, even more so than confidence or trust.

In this quote, Erik Erikson emphasizes the significance of hope as a fundamental virtue necessary for existence. He suggests that hope must persist, especially during difficult times when confidence and trust may falter, highlighting its role as a vital psychosocial attitude that sustains life and promotes resilience.

Themes

HopeLifeConfidenceTrustVirtue

In practice

Example use cases

This quote can be used in a motivational speech to encourage those facing adversity.

More from Erik Erikson

Children love and want to be loved and they very much prefer the joy of accomplishment to the triumph of hateful failure. Do not mistake a child for his symptom.
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Men have always shown a dim knowledge of their better potentialities by paying homage to those purest leaders who taught the simplest and most inclusive rules for an undivided mankind.
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Nobody likes to be found out, not even one who has made ruthless confession a part of his profession. Any autobiographer, therefore, at least between the lines, spars with his reader and potential judge.
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You've got to learn to accept the law of life, and face the fact that we disintegrate slowly.
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You see a child play, and it is so close to seeing an artist paint, for in play a child says things without uttering a word. You can see how he solves his problems. You can also see what's wrong. Young children, especially, have enormous creativity, and whatever's in them rises to the surface in free play.
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In the social jungle of human existence, there is no feeling of being alive without a sense of identity.
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