quotations about expectations
Those who live on expectations are sure to be disappointed.
JOACHIM MURAT
attributed, Day's Collacon
Looking forward to things is half the pleasure of them. You mayn't get the things themselves; but nothing can prevent you from having the fun of looking forward to them.
L. M. MONTGOMERY
Anne of Green Gables
Expectations were like fine pottery. The harder you held them, the more likely they were to crack.
BRANDON SANDERSON
The Way of Kings
Oft expectation fails and most oft there
Where most it promises, and oft it hits
Where hope is coldest and despair most fits.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
All's Well That Ends Well
Expect no more from the world than it is able to afford; it promises more than it bestows.
JOSEPH GUY
Guy's British Spelling Book
You cannot fill your belly by painting pictures of bread.
CHINESE PROVERB
Promising is the very air o' the time; it opens the eyes of expectation.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Timon of Athens
He was swimming in a sea of other people’s expectations. Men had drowned in seas like that.
ROBERT JORDON
New Spring
Those who live in expectation of an inheritance, must expect to receive the evil as well as the good therewith.
LORD NORBURY
attributed, Day's Collacon
If it be now, 'tis not to come. If it be not to come, it will be now. If it be not now, yet it will come--the readiness is all.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Hamlet
If you expect to have it all, you will have nothing. Learn to be happy with nothing -- and you will have it all!
ERNIE J. ZELINSKI
The Lazy Person's Guide to Happiness
Expectations are dangerous when they are both too high and unformed.
LIONEL SHRIVER
We Need to Talk About Kevin
You get what you expect and you deserve what you tolerate.
MARK GRABAN
Lean Hospitals
Expectations are like organic sesame rice cakes--good in theory but seldom nourishing.
JASON PARHAM
"Depth of Field", Wired, May 23, 2019
The crane, hoping to eat dried fish when the sea dried up, wasted away in expectancy.
INDIAN PROVERB
We love to expect, and when expectation is disappointed or gratified, we want to be again expecting.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
"Butler", The Works of Samuel Johnson
It is great to be a blonde. With low expectations it's very easy to surprise people.
PAMELA ANDERSON
attributed, Women Know Everything!
Expectations are blossoms; few only mature in fruit.
EMPEROR YE-WANG
attributed, Day's Collacon
I think it would be worse to expect nothing than to be disappointed.
L. M. MONTGOMERY
Anne of Green Gables
There is abundant reason to believe that optimism – big, little, and in between – is useful to a person because positive expectations can be self-fulfilling.
CHRISTOPHER PETERSON
American Psychologist, Jan. 2000