The French Jesuit scholar Claude Fraguier pursued a case at law for 20 years that his friends continued to tell him he had no chance of winning.  Finally and firmly a judgment was made against him.  With the decision his friends reminded him of their counsel with the admonishment that he could have spared himself much sorrow if he had listened to them earlier.  After such a long legal battle he was left with nothing.

He replied, "Every night before falling asleep I've managed to win this case. Do you call that nothing?" Fraguier is asking a central question, "Is hope nothing?" is persistence nothing? Even in the face of impossible odds. His answer of course is, "No." Hope is sometimes all we have.