“Hope is better than fear”

My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.

The closing words of Jack Layton’s farewell letter to his fellow Canadians remind me of the words (in translation) from Marcel Proust in the OCA sidebar:

[O]ur worst fears, like our greatest hopes, are not outside our powers, and we can come in the end to triumph over the former and to achieve the latter.

There are any number of American politicians who could learn something from Jack Layton.