Expecting something for nothing is the most popular form of hope.

Glasow’s aphorism treats “hope” ironically. Rather than hope as courageous perseverance, he points to a lazier, more pervasive substitute: the wish to receive benefits without paying costs—whether in labor, discipline, responsibility, or sacrifice. Calling it “the most popular form” suggests how widespread this self-serving optimism is, and how easily people rationalize it as a virtue. The line also critiques magical thinking: expecting outcomes detached from inputs. Its bite comes from the moral inversion—what sounds like an uplifting word (“hope”) is revealed as a euphemism for entitlement or avoidance of effort.