Hope is not primarily a sense of the future, but our sense of the possibility of good. This study analyzes the multifaceted phenomenon of hope from the various theoretical perspectives of European intellectual history in order to critically explore the possibilities and limits of hope and to distinguish between sustainable and questionable forms of hope. Arguments against hope are discussed alongside arguments for it. The concept of hope is examined as a virtue, as a passion, and as a pursuit of happiness (Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Descartes, Hobbes, Hume, Spinoza, Leibniz, Wolf). The question of the right to hope is discussed (Kant), as well as Kierkegaard's attempt to define hope as a mode of love. The philosophical endeavor to think of hope as a principle is reconstructed (Ernst Bloch).