Quotes About Expectation

what people acquire with a ticket is more than a chance to win; it is the right to dream pleasantly of winning.

Die Menschen sind gutgläubig, sie erwarten keinen Betrug. Wer hört schon einem anderen zu, wer konzentriert sich aufs Gerede des Nächsten, alle sind doch mit den Gedanken anderswo.

Oscar Wilde: "In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it. The last is much the

The safest way of not being very miserable is not to expect to be very happy." You have to love those words "very miserable"; Schopenhauer could not be content with simply saying "unhappy" as Epicurus did.

regarding her desire to become a mum, bearing in

We expect the next car, the next house or the next promotion to make us happy even though the last ones didn't

Because we tend to remember the best of times and the worst of times instead of the most likely of times, the wealth of experience that young people admire does not always pay clear dividends.

But just as we tend to treat the details of future events that we do imagine as though they were actually going to happen, we have an equally troubling tendency to treat the details of future events that we don't imagine as though they were not going to happen. In other words, we fail to consider how much imagination fills in, but we also fail to consider how much it leaves out.

We insist on steering our boats because we think we have a pretty good idea of where we should go, but the truth is that much of our steering is in vain—not because the boat won't respond, and not because we can't find our destination, but because the future is fundamentally different than it appears through the prospectiscope. Just

We treat our future selves as though they were our children, spending most of the hours of most of our days constructing tomorrows that we hope will make them happy. Rather

Among life's cruellest truths is this one: wonderful things are especially wonderful the first time they happen, but their wonderfulness wanes with repetition.

On se prépare à la jouissance du siècle, et, le moment venu, elle a un goût de Fernet Branca. Sur ce point comme sur quelques autres, Julia a raison : ne jamais investir dans la promesse du plaisir. Tout de suite ou pas du tout.

Dica un po', Malaussène, non è che mi sta sfinendo solo perché sta per diventare papà?" "Sì." "Ecco. Cinquecento milioni di indù sono probabilmente nella sua stessa situazione.

one needed to be careful what one wished for.

I find it comforting to prepare myself for a calamity and to be pleasantly surprised if it turns out to be a garden-variety disaster instead.

awaiting a departure order.

The further we are from the last disaster, the closer we are to the next.

As one philosopher noted, the human brain is an "anticipation machine," and "making future" is the most important thing it does.

The brain and the eye may have a contractual relationship in which the brain has agreed to believe what the eye sees, but in return the eye has agreed to look for what the brain wants.

In the land of the dying, sentences go unfinished, you know how they're going to end.

It was possible that I could stop assuming that no one could handle the whole mess of me and give them a chance to surprise me instead.

Yet we can reasonably hope that our ideas, which wait up ahead, will make a clearing for desire.

Some things in life are worth waiting for.

Finally (Evangeline) whispered, "I wish that I had been more prepared." "We prepare all of our lives for such moments," Dr. Raphael said, crossing his arms and looking at me with a critical gaze. "When the time comes, we can only expect that we have learned enough to succeed.