A strong mind always hopes, and has always cause to hope.

Hope works here as a capacity rather than a forecast: the habit of continuing to look, noticing small openings, and not requiring the whole path to be visible before taking a step. Despair can be right about how hard the present is and still be wrong about what is possible next. When hope goes quiet, that is not proof of a weak mind, since grief, illness and exhaustion can all take it for a while.

If hoping feels beyond you at the moment, the smaller version is to withhold the final verdict. You do not have to believe things will improve, only decline to conclude that they cannot. Find one thing that is genuinely still unsettled, and let that be enough for today.