Optimism is not an opinion about the present situation, but rather a life force, the strength of hope where others resign, the art of keeping one's head up when everything seems lost, the strength to endure setbacks, a power that never concedes the future to an opponent but reserves it for oneself.
Hoping for a better earthly future and preparing for it is considered by some people to be something trivial, and by some Christians to be something ungodly. They believe that the meaning of current events lies in chaos, in the breakdown of order, in catastrophe, and they retreat into resignation or pious seclusion instead of taking responsibility for further life, for future work, for the coming generations. It is possible that judgment day will come tomorrow; then we will gladly give up working for a better future, but not before.
(Dietrich Bonhoeffer /1906–1945/,
excerpt from the text Reflection on the Threshold of 1943, written for the tenth anniversary of Hitler's rise to power;
quoted from the book Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Resistance and Submission, Letters from Prison. Kalich 2023)
