As long as there is breath, hope will not die, that is to say, as long as there is a possibility of career, hope of success will not die. Mom can use the eight-character idiom "One breath is still alive, and hope is not extinguished" to comfort her father who has failed in his career.
Idioms are stereotypes in Chinese vocabulary. Idioms, everyone says they have become words, and so do idioms. Idioms are mostly four-character, and some are three-character, five-character or even more than seven-character.