Beware how you take away hope from another human being.

“Beware how you take away hope from another human being.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Thus spoke Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., the great American jurist and philosopher of law, whose words carried not only the wisdom of justice, but the tenderness of humanity. In this solemn warning, Holmes reminds us of the sacredness of hope, that fragile light which sustains the human soul amid darkness. For to strip another person of hope is not merely to wound them — it is to extinguish the fire that keeps them alive. Hope is the invisible breath that carries mankind forward through suffering, through struggle, through despair. Without it, the heart grows cold, the mind falls silent, and the will to endure begins to fade.

Holmes spoke these words in an age scarred by war, when men had seen the cruelty of nations and the frailty of human life. As a soldier in the American Civil War, he had witnessed death not as an abstraction, but as a daily companion. Yet from the horrors of the battlefield, he drew not cynicism but compassion. He understood that beyond the laws of courts and constitutions, there was a deeper law — the law of the human heart, which demands that we treat each other not as objects to command, but as souls to uplift. Thus, his warning — “Beware how you take away hope” — is not addressed only to rulers or judges, but to all who hold influence over another’s spirit.

For in every age, there are those who wield words like weapons — the cynic who mocks belief, the tyrant who crushes faith, the parent who scorns a child’s dream. Such acts, Holmes tells us, are not small cruelties, but spiritual crimes. To take away hope is to deny another the right to imagine a future, to close the door on the possibility of redemption or joy. The soul, deprived of hope, becomes a prisoner within its own despair. And so he counsels us — beware. For it is easy to destroy and hard to restore, easy to wound but difficult to heal. The power to extinguish hope is within every tongue, and thus must every tongue learn restraint.

Consider the story of Abraham Lincoln, who, in the darkest hour of the Union, refused to surrender hope. Surrounded by voices of defeat and vengeance, he chose instead to speak of reconciliation, of “malice toward none, with charity for all.” In so doing, he preserved the nation’s moral soul. Lincoln understood what Holmes would later articulate — that leadership is not the domination of the body, but the nourishment of the spirit. He gave the people back their hope, and through that hope, America rose again from its divisions. His life stands as a testament to the power of preserving hope — and the ruin that follows when hope is taken away.

Holmes’s words also carry meaning for our private lives. Every human being, however strong they may appear, carries secret battles within. A word of kindness can lift them; a word of scorn can break them. The teacher who encourages a struggling student, the friend who reminds another of their worth, the healer who whispers, “You can recover” — these are the quiet heroes who preserve hope in the world. Yet the one who mocks, who belittles, who crushes another’s dream — that one wounds not just a person, but the very fabric of humanity. Hope is the thread that binds us all; to tear it from another’s hands is to unravel the whole.

Therefore, my children, learn this wisdom and keep it close to your hearts: Be gentle with the hopes of others. Even when the world seems harsh, let your words be merciful, your actions considerate. If you cannot give hope, do not take it away. Speak not as one who judges, but as one who remembers how easily one’s own faith can falter. For hope is the sacred flame entrusted to each of us — it is not ours to extinguish, but to protect.

And so, let Holmes’s warning echo through all your dealings: “Beware how you take away hope from another human being.” For in preserving hope, you preserve humanity itself. Every time you kindle it — with encouragement, with empathy, with belief in another’s worth — you become a bearer of light in a world too often dimmed by despair. And though the years may pass and your deeds be forgotten, the hope you preserve in another will endure, rippling outward like a flame that refuses to die.