Expectations quotes
1.7K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside expectations — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"Honorable beginnings should serve to awaken curiosity, not to heighten people's expectations. We are much better off when reality surpasses our expectations, and something turns out better than we thought it would."
"Talent is its own expectation, Jim: you either live up to it or it waves a hankie, receding forever."
"Mr. Rochester, if ever I did a good deed in my life — if ever I thought a good thought—if ever I prayed a sincere and blameless prayer — if ever I wished a righteous wish — I am rewarded now. To be your wife is, for me, to be as happy as I can be on earth."
"That level of expectation that I'm going to be conservative is really disappointing, but it is how many people think about clergy and the church"
"Expectations are resentment waiting to happen."
"No Judgment = No Expectations: That's my motto."
"Although we deal with probabilities and expectations, the actual results can deviate substantially from such expectations, particularly on a short-term basis."
"It's the way the business works, you're not just an actor, you're a diplomat and a publicist and a politician, and there are certain expectations."
"A cunning fellow is man, inventive beyond all expectation, he reaches sometimes evil and sometimes good"
"My scholarly expectation is then that I may succeed in becoming clever in philosophy in spite of my stupidity."
"What is hope but futility for moments stood on end."
"I have high expectations of myself. I always have, always will. That will never waver. I always believe in my talent - always have."
"On the rare occasions when our dreams succeed and achieve perfection - most dreams are bungled - the are symbolic chains of scene and images in place of a narrative poetic language; they circumscribe our experiences or expectations or situations with such poetic boldness and decisiveness that in the morning we are always amazed when we remember our dreams."
"I don't know what my expectations are. It's like the word 'potential.' Those two words don't mean a whole lot to me. We can't please everybody. Certainly, we have to please ourselves first."
"I think expectations of Doctor Who should always be high, because it's a show that must always progress and get better and better."
"I have a very strong distinction between work and my life. They are not the same and I don't want to ever feel that on a day to day basis that I have to live up to people's expectations, because you never can do that so I don't want to put that pressure on myself."
"Humanists try to behave decently and honorably without any expectation of rewards or punishments in an afterlife. The creator of the universe has been unknown to us so far. We serve as well as we can to the highest abstraction of which we have some understanding, which is our community."
"(Because) the notion of absolute truth is difficult to sustain outside the context of religion, ethical conduct is not something we engage in because it is somehow right in itself but because, like ourselves, all others desire to be happy and to avoid suffering. Given that this is a natural disposition, shared by all, it follows that each individual has a right to pursue this goal. Accordingly, I suggest that one of the things which determines whether an act is ethical or not is its effect on others' experience or expectation of happiness."
"An ethical act is one which does not harm others' experience or expectation of happiness."
"Every day in a life fills the whole life with expectations and memory."
