Note: It occurs to me that religious folk should leave this page at once if heretical thought offends you.
"Hope springs eternal". People always say that. And besides from the fact that, contextually, this is completely untrue(for more details check suicide rates)the context this phrase is used in is the opposite of it's original intent. The words come form Alexander Pope's essay on man, epistle one. The section reads:
'Hope springs eternal in the human breast:
Man never Is, but always To be blest:
The soul, uneasy and confin'd from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.'
As anyone who has watched Veronica Mars can tell you these lines are saying: "life's a bitch, until you die'. Or, people don't throw the towel in at every minor inconvenience because they believe in an afterlife with frolicking bunnies and kitties and ponies.
Or something like that, anyway. Although this is also clearly untrue since many people don't believe in a heavenly reward and still manage to survive day to day life. However, my point is that people use the phrase to say people will always have faith in life when Pope meant that people will always have faith in death. And although I disagree with both perspectives, I object to the mutilation of Pope's thoughts.
I also give him the credit of realising that life really sucks, even if he was optimistic enough to believe in paradise.
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