Quotes About Expectation

The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.

A man who has not been in Italy, is always conscious of an inferiority, from his not having seen what it is expected a man should see.

I have found the world kinder than I expected, but less just.

Every man is, or hopes to be, an idler

Such is the state of life, that none are happy but by the anticipation of change: the change itself is nothing; when we have made it, the next wish is to change again.

Pleasure is seldom found where it is sought. Our brightest blazes are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.

Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value only to its scarcity. It becomes cheap as it becomes vulgar, and will no longer raise expectation or animate enterprise.

He now found that it would be very difficult to effect that which it was very easy to suppose effected.

His wish still continued, but his hope grew less.

The expectation of ignorance is indefinite, and that of knowledge is often tyrannical.

He that lives today as he lived yesterday, and expects that, as the present day is, such will be the morrow, easily conceives time as running in a circle and returning to itself. The uncertainty of our duration is impressed commonly by dissimilitude of condition; it is only by finding life changeable that we are reminded of its shortness.

Of course not. People expect perfect health. It's a brand-spanking-new Madison Avenue expectation. It's our job to tell them that imperfect health is and always has been perfect health, and that most of the things that go wrong with their bodies we can't do much about. So maybe we do make diagnoses; big deal. We hardly ever cure.

La jeunesse contemple le Bonheur qui scintille loin devant elle – l'âge contemple le Bonheur qui scintille loin derrière lui. C'est le Bonheur de l'âge que de contempler a posteriori le Bonheur de la Jeunesse; et faute d'espérer, nous nous souvenons avec plaisir que nous avons espéré.

God, it's so stupid the way I see my life, see all my existence as if there's some magic out there waiting just for me.

His gut was stitched up good and tight, but that didn't prevent it from flopping. He wiped his damp palms on the legs of his jeans and stood up shakily, leaning heavily on his cane. He called himself a masochist for putting himself through this torture day after day. He braced himself for the disappointment of having to go home alone. He braced himself for happiness like he'd never known in his entire life. He watched the door they would come through.

Whatever else you were about to say, don't. Don't look at me all calf-eyed. Don't nurse any romantic options about me just because I told you that you're pretty or related a sob story about some old horse. - Lee Coburn

He braced himself for happiness like he'd never known in his entire life.

She expected people to accept her for who she was. But she never really accepted herself.

I expect you to get up in the morning, the rest is a surprise!

To want happiness for a child can be to want to straighten the child out.

The whole thing's illusion, Jacob, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's what people want from us. It's what they expect.

Sitting and waiting for something to happen was the worst kind of torture.

There are some things in this world you rely on, like a sure bet. And when they let you down, shifting from where you've carefully placed them, it shakes your faith, right where you stand.

If you expect the worst, you'll never be disappointed.