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Fluch sei der Hoffnung!
(Faust I, P. 205. Studierzimmer.)
THE MEANING OF HOPE IS NOT exhausted by the distinction between hope as an activity affect (realistic hope) and as an embeddedness affect (magic hopes). There are all kinds of mixtures between these two. Hope, and probably Faith, cannot be fully described and their role in the individual not fully understood without at the same time describing their relation to acceptance (of reality, of the world, of one's situation, of others). The energizing (or slackening) function of hope cannot be fully described without at the same time describing the presence or absence and quality of disappointment in the case of frustrated hope.
Hope is always hope for improvement of one's own, somebody else's or mankind's condition. Thus it becomes particularly important as an affect which can give sustenance to the pursuit of goals. The more certain one needs to be that hope will not be disappointed, faith not proved vain, the more one is still functioning in some kind of embeddedness in which there is reward for effort and faith (loyalty). At the extreme of this aspect of (magic?) hope are