77 False Hope Quotes for Eye-Opening Truths

Hope can be uplifting, but when it’s built on illusions, it can lead to disappointment.

We’ve gathered the best false hope quotes for your next post to capture these emotions.

And if you’re looking for thoughtful sayings about misplaced expectations, we also have you covered.

Now go ahead and browse through to find your favorite.

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False Hope Quotes

“False hope is better than no hope at all.” – Lois Greiman

“It is a healthy approach not to expect persons to turn out precisely how you would have wished.” – Criss Jami

“Better to know the quick pain of truth than the ongoing pain of a long-held false hope.” – Trudi Canavan

“And as far as false hope, there is no such thing. There is only hope or the absence of hope – nothing else.” – Patti Davis

“False hope really makes you cynical.” – Bill Maher

“It is always the false that makes you suffer, the false desires and fears, the false values and ideas, the false relationships between people. Abandon the false and you are free of pain; truth makes you happy, truth liberates.” – Nisardagatta Maharaj

“Hope is a word that can kill as well as save. A double-sided knife onto whose handle we all cling. If hope is our dreams, it takes courage to strive for those dreams; to not abandon hope as one of folly. A person lost can have hope of being found, but false hope, a hope that can torture a soul with promises never delivered, that is a hope we can all live without.” – Paul Howsley

“False hope is clung to with all one’s might and main, till a day comes when it has sucked the heart dry and it forcibly breaks through its bonds and departs. After that comes the misery of awakening, and then once again, the longing to get back into the maze of the same mistakes.” – Rabindranath Tagore

“To keep false hopes is to prolong misery.” – Amy Tan

“Sugar coating things makes people feel better, but it also gives them false hope, and it keeps them holding onto the wrong people.” – Sonya Parker

“Because sometimes people who seem good end up being not as good as you might have hoped.” – Jonathan Safran Foer

“Hope itself is always genuine. It’s only what it’s placed in that can prove to be false.” – Karen Maitland

“That would be the death of anyone – to recognize false hopes with a certainty. One mustn’t know that. If it is offered, refuse!” – Jesse Ball

“What is false about hope?” – Mitch Albom

“False hope is sometimes much worse and sometimes much better than no hope.” – Mike Caro

“If you expect nothing, you can never be disappointed.” – Tonya Hurley

“Harsh reality is always better than false hope.” – Julian Fellowes

“A false hope gives only false comfort.” – Gene Brewer

“False hope is the bread-and-butter of my existence, the only thing that keeps me going.” – Rob Payne

“Hope is such a tenuous quality. To feel it and then to be denied what one most longs for. Better, surely, not to hope at all, than to open the heart to a hope that is impossible.” – Juliet Marillier

“There is something truly restorative, finally comforting, in coming to the end of an illusion – a false hope.” – Sue Miller

“False hopes are more dangerous than fears.” – J. R. R. Tolkien

“Expectations were like fine pottery. The harder you held them, the more likely they were to crack.” – Brandon Sanderson

“False hope is nicer than no hope at all.” – Edgar Allan Poe

“False hope is worse than despair.” – Jonathan Kozol

“A clear rejection is better than a fake promise.” – Leonardo DiCaprio

“If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway.” – Pravinee Hurbungs

“False hope kills more readily than bitter truth.” – Mexican Proverb

“Hope can animate challenge and invigorate a life and sometimes lead to false hopes or even delusions.” – Nick Lyons & Tony Lyons

“It should be noted that throughout time, hope has been seen by some as a double-edged sword—as something that could be ephemeral and even destructive, as in ‘false hope’ or ‘blind hope.'” – Maggie Oman Shannon

“Canadians want to see real hope restored, not false hopes raised.” – Kim Campbell

“False hope is nicer than no hope.” – Lawrence Dorfman

“First, you are broken, then it looks like they rebuild you. Then they manipulate you, then you get frustrated. Then you choose to live or die.” – Nadia McInnis

“When the ax came into the forest, the trees said, ‘The handle is one of us.'” – Russian Proverb

“Before you fall, / you’ve got to stand / Your voice once stalled, / fates reprimand / The paradigm floats, / on swamps that drain / Where praise cries out / —false hope again.” – Kurt Philip Behm

“False hope prolongs my ever certain grief, / Traitorous to me and faithful to my love; / A thousand times it promised me relief, / Yet never any true effect I prove.” – Samuel Daniel

“And indeed it could be said that once the faintest stirring of hope became possible, the dominion of plague was ended.” – Albert Camus

“Don’t spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door.” – Coco Chanel

“Promises are worse than lies. You don’t just make them believe, you also make them hope.” – Marilyn Monroe

“False hope is a terrible thing, if it’s the only thing keeping you alive you’ll be dead by dawn.” – Charlie Rae

“Necessity, especially in politics, often occasions false hopes, false reasonings, and a system of measures, correspondingly erroneous.” – Alexander Hamilton

“Wishes are false. Hope is true. Hope makes its own magic.” – Laini Taylor

“Harshness to me is giving somebody false hopes and not following through. That’s harsh. Telling some guy or some girl who’ve got zero talent that they have zero talent actually is kindness.” – Simon Cowell

“In the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.” – Barack Obama

“Everyone has read about or knows someone who has gone through fertility treatments. It is an emotional nightmare, fueled by false hope and the promise of a treatment that will work.” – Ann Hood

“The unlimited power that many modern gurus offer is false hope. Their programs calling us to unlimited power have made them rich, not us. They touch our false selves and tap our toxic shame.” – John Bradshaw

“For faith, as well-intentioned as it may be, must be built on facts, not fiction – faith in fiction is a damnable false hope.” – Thomas A. Edison

“He, who had once been the declared optimist, had not once expressed hope. Now it was she who was offering it to him. And it might be false hope.” – Eudora Welty

“Hope is nothing but a deceitful flatterer accepted by reason only because it is often in need of palliatives.” – Giacomo Casanova

“There is no worse mistake in public leadership than to hold out false hope soon to be swept away.” – Winston Churchill

“Hope does not disappoint.” – Paul the Apostle

“Hope means hoping when everything seems hopeless.” – Gilbert K. Chesterton

“The person who lives by hope will die by despair.” – Italian Proverbs

“Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

“A hope beyond the shadow of a dream.” – John Keats

“Without hope we are lost.” – Mahmoud Darwish

“Without hope we live in desire.” – Dante Alighieri

“Hope is generally a wrong guide, though it is very good company by the way.” – E. F. L. Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax

“The sudden disappointment of a hope leaves a scar which the ultimate fulfillment of that hope never entirely removes.” – Thomas Hardy

“If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars.” – Arthur Hugh Clough

“Man is a victim of dope in the incurable form of hope.” – Ogden Nash

“Hope is the last to abandon the unhappy.” – Italian Proverbs

“Of all ills that one endures, hope is a cheap and universal cure.” – Abraham Cowley

“Hope is the feeling you have that the feeling you have isn’t permanent.” – Jean Kerr

“Success is as dangerous as failure. Hope is as hollow as fear.” – Lao Tzu

“Hope is the last thing to leave a human being.” – Swedish Proverbs

“There is no lasting hope in violence, only temporary relief from hopelessness.” – Kingman Brewster, Jr.

“For what it’s worth: it’s never too late to be whoever you want to be. I hope you live a life you’re proud of, and, if you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start over.” – Anonymous

“Poor leaders motivate those following them with false promises of promotions, success, and a great tomorrow but rarely deliver on those promises.” – Lewis Howes

“Your mind will always believe everything you tell it. Feed it hope. Feed it truth. Feed it with love.” – Anonymous

“Spring … made fair false promises which summer was called upon to keep.” – Edna Ferber

False Hope Quotes in Relationships

“False hope is sometimes mistaken for true love. Don’t rush into something until you’re sure it actually exists.” – Susan Gale

“Hope is not just a word, it includes trust, emotions, feelings, love, etc. So don’t give false hope to anyone who trusts you unconditionally. It may destroy a pure soul’s life.” – K. Alagumani

“False hope is clung to with all one’s might and main, till a day comes when it has sucked the heart dry and it forcibly breaks through its bonds and departs. After that comes the misery of awakening, and then once again the longing to get back into the maze of the same mistakes.” – Rabindranath Tagore

“Sugar coating things makes people feel better, but it also gives them false hope, and it keeps them holding onto the wrong people.” – Sonya Parker

“Better to know the quick pain of truth than the ongoing pain of a long-held false hope.” – Trudi Canavan

“False hope can lead to intemperate choices and flawed decision making. True hope takes into account the real threats that exist and seeks to navigate the best path around them.” – Jerome Groopman