Expectations Quotes

It occurred to him that his scarcely perceptible attempts to struggle against what was considered good by the most highly placed people, those scarcely noticeable impulses which he had immediately suppressed, might have been the real thing, and all the rest false. ~ Leo Tolstoy

I've made a number of independent films that didn't receive theatrical distribution, that a lot of people haven't heard of, and as a result, I've conditioned myself to go into small independent films with the expectation that they will not, and therefore, I have to find my reward elsewhere. ~ William Mapother

The highest form of morality is not to feel at home in ones own home. Most great works of the imagination were meant to make you feel like a stranger in your own home. The best fiction always forced us to question what we took for granted. It questioned traditions and expectations when they seemed too immutable. I told my students I wanted them in their readings to consider in what ways these works unsettled them, made them a little uneasy, made them look around and consider the world, like Alice in Wonderland, through different eyes. ~ Azar Nafisi

When people who are not black are interested in what I do, frankly, I'm always surprised. I don't know if it's my low expectations for white people or what. ~ Ta-Nehisi Coates

As much as possible, connect your offer to the direct benefits customers will receive. Like the Alaska coupon books, a compelling offer pays for itself by making a clear value proposition. What people want and what they say they want are not always the same thing; your job is to figure out the difference. When developing an offer, think carefully about the objections and then respond to them in advance. Provide a nudge to customers by getting them to make a decision. The difference between a good offer and a great offer is urgency (also known as timeliness): Why should people act now? Offer reassurance and acknowledgment immediately after someone buys something or hires you. Then find a small but meaningful way to go above and beyond their expectations. ~ Anonymous

It makes me sad to hear girls constantly putting themselves down. We have these unbelievably high expectations of ourselves, when actually we're human beings and our bodies have a function. ~ Emma Watson

People's expectations of us are almost always who we become. ~ Stefan Molyneux

I do my thing and you do your thing. I am not in this world to live up to your expectations, and you are not in this world to live up to mine. You are you, and I am I. And if by chance we find each other, it's beautiful. ~ Frederick Salomon Perls

My dad has always been very proud of me but I think I have exceeded his expectations. When I told him I wanted to be an actor and moved to New York City, I think he assumed I would be playing the guitar on the subway and collecting spare change in my guitar case. The fact that I'm not doing that means that I'm a huge success. ~ Jesse Tyler Ferguson

The case for trade is not just monetary, but moral. Economic freedom creates habits of liberty. And habits of liberty create expectations of democracy. ~ George W. Bush

There is the expectation that a younger generation has the opportunity to redeem the crimes and failings of their elders and would have the strength and idealism to do so. ~ Joyce Carol Oates

It's almost like the better I do, the more my feeling of inadequacy actually increases, because I'm just going, 'Any moment, someone's going to find out I'm a total fraud, and that I don't deserve any of what I've achieved.' I can't possibly live up to what everyone thinks I am and what everyone's expectations of me are. ~ Emma Watson

That prayer which does not succeed in moderating our wishes
in changing the passionate desire into still submission, the anxious, tumultuous expectation into silent surrender
is no true prayer, and proves that we have not the spirit of true prayer. ~ Frederick William Robertson

Becoming is the action that births our womanhood, rather than passive act of being born (an act none of us has a choice in). This short, powerful statement assured me that I have the freedom, in spite of and because of my birth, body, race, gender expectations, and economic resources, to define myself for myself and for others. ~ Janet Mock

People should not expect to reap if they have not sown. ~ Sunday Adelaja

Hollywood has a history of raising expectations beyond Washington's reach, of appealing to the very American desire to mythologize political leaders, particularly the president. ~ Ron Fournier

I believe we must do things in our lives for the right reasons, because we enjoy doing them, with no expectation of getting something back in return. Otherwise, we are constantly being disappointed." She moved her turquoise bracelet back and forth on her wrist. "So I had two sons, John and Richard, because I wanted to, not because I thought they would rescue me in old age. I got out of all social organizations and clubs in my fifties so I could spend time with my grandchildren, not because they would give something back to Jack and me later on, but because that was what I wanted to do
and I have loved doing it. Believe me, these have been selfish decisions. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

Despite all expectations, the time of my last campaign and of my passing is near. I wish to die at home. Let not my end disarm you, and on no account weep for me, lest the enemy be warned of my death. ~ Genghis Khan

I'm a sports junkie, and I am interested in athletic will - how you exceed the expectations of your own performance when it counts to deliver something beyond yourself so that you can win. ~ Alex Gibney

There were a dozen reasons why she might refuse him. But they were all someone else's reasons. Her mother's, her peers', society's. She'd already left all those expectations behind. ~ Tessa Dare

When I was young, I believed that life might unfold in an orderly way, according to my hopes and expectations. But now I understand that the Way winds like a river, always changing, ever onward.. My journeys revealed that the Way itself creates the warrior; that every path leads to peace, every choice to wisdom. And that life has always been, and will always be, arising in Mystery. ~ Socrates

Call it 'supper'. When you start calling it 'dinner' you raise people's expectations. They'll think there's going to be salad and cloth napkins. If you call it supper no one will bat an eye if you just put out a casserole. Remember the nice one I used to make you kids with the noodles and the tunafish?" -- Celeste Haxton, Thea Gallas's mother ~ Kristen Panzer

Keep your expectations tiny you'll go through life not so whiney. ~ Matt Groening

I'll see the sprouts in the morning when you wake up from sleep, and with glee look at the way the bright sun, I'll see it ... And then I have no more desire for others the whole day. Everything, everything is covered with these expectations. ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Yes, if we care enough and dare enough, we will experience disappointment. But in those moments when disappointment is washing over us and we're desperately trying to get our heads and hearts around what is or is not going to be, the death of our expectations can be painful beyond measure. ~ Brene Brown

You can NEVER rise higher than your expectations of yourself. Expect the BEST! ~ Brian Tracy

My momma always said the best way to get what you want from people is to give them what they think they want. They expected me to be stupid, so I used that to our advantage. ~ Justina Ireland

Frequently avoidance of the present leads to idealization of the future ... When an event does not live up to your expectations you can get out of the depression by idealizing again. Do not let this vicious circle become your life-style. Interrupt it now with some strategic present-moment fulfillment. ~ Wayne W. Dyer

With a sacred expectation, I look for God in ALL of the circumstances of my day. ~ Aiden Wilson Tozer

Show people how to have success and then you can push their expectations up. ~ Lenny Wilkens

Life will fulfill your expectations. ~ Debasish Mridha

Psychoanalysis is essentially a theory of unconscious strivings, of resistance, of falsification of reality according to one's subjective needs and expectations. ~ Erich Fromm

If you want a safe compass to guide you through life, and to banish all doubt as to the right way of looking at it, you cannot do better than accustom yourself to regard this world as a penitentiary... •If you accustom yourself to this view of life you will regulate your expectations accordingly, and cease to look upon all its disagreeable incidents, great and small, its sufferings, its worries, its misery, as anything unusual or irregular; nay, you will find that everything is as it should be, in a world where each of us pays the penalty of existence in his own peculiar way. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

My life belongs only to me.
I let go of all the expectations
that others have of me.
My life doesn't belong
to anybody, except to me
and to Life itself. ~ Human Angels

Where once I'd felt the need to live up to his expectations, I now felt as if I had to make up for all his mistakes. ~ Barack Obama

Cathy, don't look so defeated. She was only trying to put us down
again.
Maybe nothing did work out right for her, but that doesn't mean we are
doomed. Let's go forth tomorrow with no great expectations of finding
perfection. Then, expecting only a small share of happiness, we won't
be disappointed. ~ V.C. Andrews

I like you so much, Marianne said. Connell felt a pleasurable sorrow come over him, which brought him close to tears. Moments of emotional pain arrived like this, meaningless or at least indecipherable. Marianne lived a drastically free life, he could see that. He was trapped by various considerations. He cared what people thought of him. He even cared what Marianne thought, that was obvious now. ~ Sally Rooney

Sometimes it can feel awkward going into the neighbors his houses. I mean, we really take over their world, not just a room is being read decorated. Participants give up so much control when you're on Trading Spaces. They have to let go of expectations they have for their own room, they have to let go of doing things their way and if seen their house is a home. To some degree, their houses become TV sets. We leave runners on the floor, we keep up with the trash, and we're careful, but there is only so much you can do when every room is filled with TV equipment or catering or make up or supplies, not to mention 20 to 30 people running in and out. And let's not forget the tablesaws, hammers, compressors, and a construction madness going on outside. ~ Paige Davis

I believed that work would save me, make me happy, solve my problems; that if I absolutely wore myself out, happiness would be waiting for me on the other side of all that work. But it wasn't. On the other side was just more work. More expectations, more responsibility. I'd trained a whole group of people to know that I would never say no, I would never say "this is too much". I would never ask for more time or space, I would never bow out. And so they kept asking, and I was everyone's responsible girl. ~ Shauna Niequist

The teacher not only shapes the expectations and ambitions of her pupils, but she also influences their attitudes toward their future and themselves. If she is unskilled, she leaves scars on the lives of youth, cuts deeply into their self-esteem, and distorts their image of themselves as human beings. But if she loves her students and has high expectations of them, their self-confidence will grow, their capabilities will develop, and their future will be assured. ~ Thomas S. Monson

Frustration is a function of our expectations, and our expectations are often a reflection of the social mirror rather than our own values & priorities ~ Stephen R. Covey

Failed expectations ruin marriages and kills love in the process. You and your partner deserve to know what you're both getting into… and knowing now is better than later. . ~ Eeva Lancaster

But I think it is always difficult to have high expectations of yourself or anyone else. ~ Uma Thurman

When we pick up the newspaper at breakfast, we expect - we even demand - that it brings us momentous events since the night before ... We expect our two-week vacations to be romantic, exotic, cheap, and effortless..We expect anything and everything. We expect the contradictory and the impossible. We expect compact cars which are spacious; luxurious cars which are economical. We expect to be rich and charitable, powerful and merciful, active and reflective, kind and competitive. We expect to be inspired by mediocre appeals for excellence, to be made literate by illiterate appeals for literacy ... to go to 'a church of our choice' and yet feel its guiding power over us, to revere God and to be God. Never have people been more the masters of their environment. Yet never has a people felt more deceived and disappointed. For never has a people expected so much more than the world could offer. ~ Daniel J. Boorstin

Expectations hurt, be it sorry, be it thank you. ~ Vikrmn

We need to find ways to elevate the expectations, particularly of those individuals who may start off on a lower socioeconomic rung, who might be seen as disadvantaged. But, you know, the reason I say be seen as disadvantaged, it's because life is so short, and there's so much that can change. ~ Ben Carson

Today, there's an expectation that you get to know public people. In the past, it was much more what you did and how you presented yourself. ~ Theresa May

The time comes when each of us has to give up as illusions the expectations which, in his youth, he pinned upon his fellow-men, and when he may learn how much difficulty and pain has been added to his life by their ill-will. ~ Sigmund Freud

My guess is that the editor [Cincinnati Post] wanted his own Jeff MacNelly (a Pulitzer winner at 24), and I didn't live up to his expectations. My Cincinnati days were pretty Kafkaesque. ~ Bill Watterson

Those times, against all expectations, were turning out to be good times. Then he felt afraid, because he knew they couldn't last long and those stolen drops of happiness and peace would evaporate. ~ Carlos Ruiz Zafon

And so well was she able to answer her own expectations, that when she joined them at dinner only two hours after she had first suffered the extinction of all her dearest hopes, no one would have supposed from the appearance of the sisters, that Elinor was mourning in secret over obstacles which must divide her for ever from the object of her love ~ Jane Austen

Man, there's a lot of pressure when you put on that Kansas uniform with the high expectations everyone has. ~ Paul Pierce

I mean, I'm 48 years old and I've been through a lot in my life - you know, loss, whether it be death, illness, separation. I mean, the failed expectations ... We all have dreams. ~ Annie Lennox

The joy he brings to the millions of his countrymen, the grace with which he handles all the adulation and the expectations and his innate humility - all make for a one-in-a-billion individual. ~ Glenn McGrath

History lessons remind us that the states in which we live, their institutions, even their laws, have come to us through conflict, often of the most bloodthirsty sort. Our daily diet of news brings us reports of the shedding of blood, often in regions quite close to our homelands, in circumstances that deny our conception of cultural normality altogether. We succeed, all the same, in consigning the lessons both of history and of reportage to a special and separate category of "otherness" which invalidate our expectations of how our own world will be tomorrow and the day after not at all. Our institutions and our laws, we tell ourselves, have set the human potentiality for violence about with such restraints that violence in everyday life will be punished as criminal by our laws, while its use by our institutions of state will take the particular form of "civilised warfare. ~ Steven Pinker

Don't shrink to meet the expectations of others, grow to become the person you want to be. ~ Kris Carr

I do think once I get into expectations, I've just trained myself. I've just trained myself to just move on to the next. ~ Eva Mendes

I would like my car to fly and make me breakfast, but that's an unrealistic expectation. ~ Jack Tretton

We're not really taught how to recreate constructively. We need to do more than find diversions; we need to restore and expand ourselves. Our idea of relaxing is all too often to plop down in front of the television set and let its pandering idiocy liquefy our brains. Shutting off the thought process is not rejuvenating; the mind is like a car battery
it recharges by running. You may be surprised to find how quickly daily routine and the demands of "just getting by" absorb your waking hours. You may be surprised to find how quickly you start to see your politics and religion become matters of habit rather than thought and inquiry. You may be surprised to find how quickly you start to see your life in terms of other people's expectations rather than issues. You may be surprised to find out how quickly reading a good book sounds like a luxury. ~ Bill Watterson

If you're playing a good guy, you show some darkness. If you're playing a dark guy, you show something different, like humor, that will mix it up and hopefully surpass the audience's expectations. What I'm battling all the time is complacency in the audience. I try to bring a little mystery to what might happen because that engages people more. ~ Campbell Scott

True happiness can only be found when you stop worrying about yourself and try to look out for those around you.Helping people can give your life meaning and joy. Don't expect anything in return spread happiness and get peace, there is nothing more valuable than peace.. ~ AribaZafar

Your expectations opens or closes the doors of your supply, If you expect grand things, and work honestly for them, they will come to you, your supply will correspond with your expectation. ~ Orison Swett Marden

Thus, after finishing high school, I started with high expectations and enthusiasm to study chemistry at the famous Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. ~ Richard Ernst

Meanwhile she's coldly interrogating me with her eyes. She's definitely in charge of this house and this moment. This must be Chloe.
She escorts me to a table full of people and presents me. She introduces them briefly. This one's from Morocco, that one from Italy, he's Persian
I'm not exactly sure what that means
this one's from "the UK." They're all in their twenties, poised and dismissive. They don't know or care who I'm supposed to be at home or where I went to school. They're measuring something else I can't see and don't understand.
They nod and turn back to each other. They seem to be waiting for a cue from Chloe to release them from having to feign interest. She introduces herself at substantially more length. Her father is Chinese and her mother is Swiss; she grew up in Hong Kong and "in Europe."
I grew up in Michigan and in Michigan. But she didn't ask. ~ Kenneth Cain

Pray, what's the nature of his trouble?" Prudence asked solicitously.
"Oh, cursed bad news, my boy. That old aunt of his from whom he has expectations has rallied, and they say she'll last another ten years. Poor old Devereux, y'know! Must try and raise his spirits. ~ Georgette Heyer

At MIT, I had the good fortune for seven years to teach network theory, which is basic to many disciplines, to one-third of the undergraduate student body. It was an experiment to see how high we could bring their level of understanding, and it exceeded all of my expectations. ~ Amar Bose

Hope is desire and expectation rolled into one. ~ Ambrose Bierce

Don't let expectations distort reality. You would be wasting a very precious time. ~ Muriel Maufroy

A complex is a cluster of energy in the unconscious, charged by historic events, reinforced through repitition, embodying a fragment of our personality, and generating a programmed response and an implicit set of expectations. ~ Carl Jung

My disadvantages will tire him as they would any reasonable man of small expectations." - Jane Adams ~ Noorilhuda

She will outstrip all praise and make it halt behind her. ~ William Shakespeare

Expectation is the source of all the worries - Bestow without aiming to receive anything in return. ~ Mwanandeke Kindembo

Susie: Okay, Calvin. But you know what? You can't say, youcan'texpectanythingfrommeI'mbroken! And turn around the next minute and say, ohwoeismeeverybodytreatsmelikeI'mbroken! Which one is it? I can treat you the way I really feel, or I can treat you careful.
Me: Real. Just be real. ~ Martine Leavitt

They [students] had two common, strongly held expectations: the college should exhibit the behavior it expected from students and hold true to its espoused values. ~ Gregory S. Prince, Jr.

I honestly do not think about celebrity or image or sexual expectations on me. It only comes up when people have a list of questions. But what I am told is that there is a quality that I have onscreen, where it's a little bit of everything. ~ Richard Gere

When people starts to enjoy a writer's pen, he becomes a legend even if his stories are neither long nor publicly surrounded by expectations. ~ A. Saleh

I'd rather be pleasantly surprised than fatally disappointed. ~ Julia Glass

Let go of all expectations, and you shall never be disappointed. I find that rather disappointing to never be disappointed is very expected. Therefore let's only let go of those expectations we know will disappoint us and let's expect to be disappointed sometimes. Life is beautiful that way. ~ Nicole Haslam

I'm aware of how pop culture really infiltrates your expectations in a way that even if you think you're savvy about pop culture, it's so hard not to have these expectations of what a relationship should be. So I constantly feel like I have to bat those expectations down. ~ Kim Gordon

The ruins stood above the hissing traffic like some monument to doomed expectations. ~ Don DeLillo

It's my experience that people rise to the level of their own expectations and of the competition they seek out. ~ Pat Summitt

Uncertainty and expectation are the joys of life. Security is an insipid thing. ~ William Congreve

Studies show that girls - especially smarter ones - have severe problems in the area of self-confidence.
They consistently underestimate their own ability. When asked how they think they'll do on different tasks - whether the tasks are untried or ones they've encountered before - they give lower estimates than boys do, and in general underestimate their actual performance as well. One study even showed that the brighter the girl, the less expectations she has of being successful at intellectual tasks. (...)
Low self-confidence is the plague of many girls, and it leads to a host of related problems. Girls are highly suggestible and tend to change their minds about perceptual judgments if someone disagrees with them. They set lower standards for themselves. While boys are challenged by difficult tasks, girls try to avoid them. (...) Given her felt incompetence, it's not surprising that the little girl would hotfoot it to the nearest Other and cling for dear life. (...) As we can see, the problems of excessive dependence follow female children right into adulthood. ~ Colette Dowling

I'm shadowboxing in a match the shadow is always going to win. (as a young man battling his deceased brother's heroic legacy) ~ John F. Kennedy

Let us be adventurers for another world. It is at least a fair and noble chance; and there is nothing in this worth our thoughts or our passions. If we should be disappointed, we are still no worse than the rest of our fellow-mortals; and if we succeed in our expectations we are eternally happy. ~ Gilbert Burnet

Great marriages are made when husbands and wives don't allow cultural expectations to dictate their life decisions or their day-to-day interactions. A one-of-a-kind value system is forged, blended ~ Fawn Weaver

Confidence is the sweet spot between arrogance and despair-consisting of positive expectations for favorable outcomes. ~ Rosabeth Moss Kanter

Let us not hate or kill time, but embrace and escort it as a brother in arms, without nostalgia or strain. If we follow the beat of our heart and channel the timeliness of our expectations, we can detach ourselves from greed with its tempting voices whispering "more and more" all the time. ("Swim or sink") ~ Erik Pevernagie

There's no shortage of orphans in 19th-century literature, but it's hard to find a single happy, communicative, functional parental relationship in the whole of 'Great Expectations,' even among the minor characters. ~ David Nicholls

Polite, socially acceptable suppression of our rage is "inauthentic," insofar as we are not sharing our full selves. And that is part of trust, too. Part of being trustworthy is meeting expectations and staying in line, as if you were a well-behaved woman. ~ Emily Nagoski

A strong mind always hopes, and has always cause to hope. ~ Thomas Carlyle

Our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks. ~ Samuel Johnson

Putting our expectations on others is a habit that keeps us feeling frustrated. It diminishes the amount of love we feel. ~ Jude Bijou

The campaigns of Steve Forbes, Pat Buchanan, Ross Perot, and John McCain all outperformed expectations on their support from independent voters. They made no effort to shy away from ideology, but conveyed to voters that their policies were driven by principle, not party talking points. ~ John Sununu

For sex to be wholly satisfying, we must have at least as much concern for a partner as for self - a requirement that doesn't live comfortably alongside the exhortation to 'do your own thing.' In the end, we are left with an extraordinarily heightened set of expectations about the possibilities in human relationships that lives side by side with disillusion that, for many, borders on despair. ~ Lillian B. Rubin

With the MacArthur grant, I realized that people have high expectations of me, that they were placing me in this group of achievers. I compared what Id actually achieved in my life with what I would like to achieve and what other people have achieved, and I found that comparison depressing. ~ Jared Diamond

Frustration is out of expectation; expectation is our projection. All kinds of love frustrate unless love is based in meditation. ~ Rajneesh

Other people may not have had high expectations for me ... but I had high expectations for myself. ~ Shannon Miller

The most effective way to shake an economy out of a terrible downturn when we're at the zero lower bound is an aggressive change in policy that makes people wake up, say 'this is a new day' and change their expectations. ~ Christina Romer

We live in an era of revolution, the revolution of rising expectations. ~ Adlai Stevenson