I liked this quote by Vaclav Havel from a recent Christian Century:

Hope is not prognostication.  It is an orientation of the spirit, and orientation of the heart; it transcends the world that is immediately experienced, and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons . . .  It is an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed. . . .  [Hope] is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.