Expectation Quotes

Most popular expectation quotes

Keep high aspirations, moderate expectations and small needs.

aim high how to live life

Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand. - George Eliot quote.
Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand.
One isn't born one's self. One is born with a mass of expectations, a mass of other people's ideas—and you have to work through it all. - V. S. Naipaul quote.
One isn't born one's self. One is born with a mass of expectations, a mass of other people's ideas—and you have to work through it all.

what others think identity

High expectations are the key to everything. - Sam Walton quote.
High expectations are the key to everything.
Imagine awaking from a torpor having forgotten how your friends and family see you. Perhaps, unchained from everyone's expectations for how you ought to behave, you could be whoever you liked.

be yourself

ANGEL FOOD

Though men are no angels,
they're better by far
so long as they think
that you think
that they are.
Expectations destroy our peace of mind, don't they?  They're future disappointments, planned out in advance.

disappointment

Elizabeth lived by the adage that expectations were disappointments under construction. - Anne Lamott quote.
Elizabeth lived by the adage that expectations were disappointments under construction.

disappointment

The curse of the romantic is a greed for dreams, an intensity of expectation that, in the end, diminishes the reality. - Marya Mannes quote.
The curse of the romantic is a greed for dreams, an intensity of expectation that, in the end, diminishes the reality.

dreams romance

In our pursuit of the things of this world, we usually prevent enjoyment by expectation; we anticipate our own happiness, and eat out the heart and sweetness and worldly pleasures by delightful forethoughts of them; so that when we come to possess them, they do not answer the expectation, nor satisfy the desires which were raised about them, and they vanish into nothing. - John Tillotson quote.
In our pursuit of the things of this world, we usually prevent enjoyment by expectation; we anticipate our own happiness, and eat out the heart and sweetness and worldly pleasures by delightful forethoughts of them; so that when we come to possess them, they do not answer the expectation, nor satisfy the desires which were raised about them, and they vanish into nothing.

enjoyment

A life that is burdened with expectations is a heavy life.  Its fruit is sorrow and disappointment. - Douglas Adams quote.
A life that is burdened with expectations is a heavy life.  Its fruit is sorrow and disappointment.
Expectations are disappointments under construction.
Expectations are premeditated resentments.
— Meditations for People Who Worry
It's expectation that differentiates you from the dead.  The dead, so low in their stone rows, making no demands, without desire.
For people who live on expectations, to face up to their realization is something of an ordeal.  Expectations are the most perilous form of dream, and when dreams do realize themselves it is in the waking world: the difference is subtly but often painfully felt. - Elizabeth Bowen quote.
For people who live on expectations, to face up to their realization is something of an ordeal.  Expectations are the most perilous form of dream, and when dreams do realize themselves it is in the waking world: the difference is subtly but often painfully felt.
Life is so constructed that the event does not, cannot, will not, meet the expectation. - Charlotte Brontë quote.
Life is so constructed that the event does not, cannot, will not, meet the expectation.
People are lucky and unlucky not according to what they get absolutely, but according to the ratio between what they get and what they have been led to expect. - Samuel Butler quote.
People are lucky and unlucky not according to what they get absolutely, but according to the ratio between what they get and what they have been led to expect.

luck

Blessed is he that expecteth nothing, for he shall be gloriously surprised. - G. K. Chesterton quote.
Blessed is he that expecteth nothing, for he shall be gloriously surprised.
How tedious is time, when his wings are loaded with expectation!
We should expect the best and the worst from mankind, as from the weather. - Marquis de Vauvenargues quote.
We should expect the best and the worst from mankind, as from the weather.
Nothing sets a person up more than having something turn out just the way its supposed to be, like falling into a Swiss snowdrift and seeing a big dog come up with a little cask of brandy around its neck.
Events never arrive as we fear they will, nor as we hope they will.
Keep expectation alive.  Keep stirring it up.  Let much promise more, and great deeds herald greater. - Baltasar Gracian quote.
Keep expectation alive.  Keep stirring it up.  Let much promise more, and great deeds herald greater.
There is one illusion that has much to do with most of our happiness, and still more to do with most of our unhappiness.  It may be told in a word.  We expect too much.
Expectation improperly indulged in must end in disappointment. - Samuel Johnson quote.
Expectation improperly indulged in must end in disappointment.
Expectations are resentments waiting to happen. - Anne Lamott quote.
Expectations are resentments waiting to happen.
Women run on expectations, the way a car is fueled by gas.
To release others from the expectations we have of them is to really love them. - Shirley MacLaine quote.
To release others from the expectations we have of them is to really love them.
Life's under no obligation to give us what we expected.  We take what we get and are thankful it's no worse than it is. - Margaret Mitchell quote.
Life's under no obligation to give us what we expected.  We take what we get and are thankful it's no worse than it is.
Expectation...quickens desire, while possession deadens it. - Hannah More quote.
Expectation...quickens desire, while possession deadens it.

possessions

Expectation is hope colored by fancy.

hope

To expect too much is to have a sentimental view of life and this is a softness that ends in bitterness. - Flannery O'Connor quote.
To expect too much is to have a sentimental view of life and this is a softness that ends in bitterness.
"Blessed is the man who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed" was the ninth beatitude which a man of wit...added to the eighth. - Alexander Pope quote.
"Blessed is the man who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed" was the ninth beatitude which a man of wit...added to the eighth.
The universe is energy, energy that responds to our expectations.

universe

I am giddy; expectation whirls me round.
The imaginary relish is so sweet
That it enchants my sense. - William Shakespeare quote.
I am giddy; expectation whirls me round.
The imaginary relish is so sweet
That it enchants my sense.
Oft expectation fails and most oft there
Where most it promises. - William Shakespeare quote.
Oft expectation fails and most oft there
Where most it promises.
Promising is the very air o' the time; it opens the eyes of expectation: performance is ever the duller for his act. - William Shakespeare quote.
Promising is the very air o' the time; it opens the eyes of expectation: performance is ever the duller for his act.
Unexpected money is a delight.  The same sum is a bitterness when you expected more. - Mark Twain quote.
Unexpected money is a delight.  The same sum is a bitterness when you expected more.
All expectation hath something of torment.
When I was a child people simply looked about them and were moderately happy; today they peer beyond the seven seas, bury themselves waist deep in tidings, and by and large what they see and hear makes them unutterably sad. - E. B. White quote.
When I was a child people simply looked about them and were moderately happy; today they peer beyond the seven seas, bury themselves waist deep in tidings, and by and large what they see and hear makes them unutterably sad.
High achievement always takes place in the framework of high expectation. - Charles F. Kettering quote.
High achievement always takes place in the framework of high expectation.