
“Scratch any cynic and you will find a disappointed idealist.”
Variant: Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist.
A collection of quotes on the topic of disappointment, life, doing, people.
“Scratch any cynic and you will find a disappointed idealist.”
Variant: Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist.
“Enlightenment is ego's ultimate disappointment.”
“no expectations, no disappointments!”
Sleeping with Strangers
“Reality is the name we give to our disappointments.”
City Aphorisms, Ninth Selection (1992)
“We are deceived by promises and time disappoints us…”
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.
“Plant an expectation; reap a disappointment.”
Variant: Plant an expectation; reap a disappointment." (Quoting an old adage)
Source: Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage
“Most things disappoint till you look deeper.”
“Don't let what your parents do disappoint you.”
“Don't feel bad when you meet disappointment, it prepares you for an extraordinary ending”
“If you expect nothing from somebody you are never disappointed.”
Source: The Bell Jar (1963), Ch. 5
“Disappointment can come only to those who make appointments with the future.”
Quotations from Gurudev’s teachings, Chinmya Mission Chicago
Variant: Disappointment can come only to those who make appointments with the future.
“I just didn’t want to see myself fall back. I don’t want to disappoint my coaches or my parents.”
"You Can’t Stop Suni Lee" in Elle (29 July 2021) https://www.elle.com/culture/a36503849/suni-lee-olympics-gymnastics-tokyo/
“Progress is not an illusion; it happens, but it is slow and invariably disappointing.”
“If we magnified blessings as much as we magnify disappointments, we would all be much happier.”
Source: Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections On and Off the Court
From a PBS interview with Amos Oz. The entire interview http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/jan-june02/oz_1-23.html
This quote has been attributed to Mark Twain, but the attribution cannot be verified. The quote should not be regarded as authentic. — Twainquotes http://www.twainquotes.com/Discovery.html
Actually from the 1990 book P. S. I Love You' https://books.google.com/books?id=5OORXU6rlGIC&q=bowlines#v=onepage&q=bowlines&f=false' by H. Jackson Brown.
Misattributed
In his letter to Theo, The Hague, 11 March 1883, http://www.webexhibits.org/vangogh/letter/12/274.htm?qp=art.material,as translated by Johanna van Gogh-Bonger, edited by Robert Harrison, in The Complete Letters of Vincent van Gogh (1991)
1880s, 1883
Context: It constantly remains a source of disappointment to me that my drawings are not yet what I want them to be. The difficulties are indeed numerous and great, and cannot be overcome at once. To make progress is a kind of miner’s work; it doesn’t advance as quickly as one would like, and as others also expect, but as one stands before such a task, the basic necessities are patience and faithfulness. In fact, I do not think much about the difficulties, because if one thought of them too much one would get stunned or disturbed.
A weaver who has to direct and to interweave a great many little threads has no time to philosophize about it, but rather he is so absorbed in his work that he doesn’t think but acts, and he feels how things must go more than he can explain it. Even though neither you nor I, in talking together, would come to any definite plans, etc., perhaps we might mutually strengthen that feeling that something is ripening within us. And that is what I should like.
Source: Pop Chronicles, Show 7 – The All American Boy: Enter Elvis and the rock-a-billies. Part 1 http://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc19754/m1/; C. Robert Jennings, " Elvis Lives! http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/doc/155809300.html?FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:AI&type=historic&date=Feb+18%2C+1968&author=Jennings%2C+C+Robert&pub=Los+Angeles+Times+%281923-Current+File%29&edition=&startpage=M28&desc=ELVIS+LIVES%21", 1968-Feb-18, L.A. Times Magazine, p. M28.
“You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try.”
As quoted in Incredible Quotations : 230 Thought-Provoking Quotes with Prompts to Spark Students' Writing, Thinking, and Discussion (1997) by Jacqueline Sweeney
Source: Secret Life of Water
“Disappointment leads to clarity, which leads to conviction and true originality.”
“If we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find compensation in every disappointment.”
Source: I to Myself: An Annotated Selection from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau
“Expectations destroy our peace of mind. They are future disappointments, planned out in advance.”
“There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.”
1960s, (1963)
“Being disappointed is one thing and being discouraged is something else.”
Variant: Being disappointed is one thing and being discouraged is something else. I am disappointed but I am not discouraged.
Source: The Glass Menagerie
Autobiographical Dictation (1906).
Variant: The only reason why God created man is because he was disappointed with the monkey.
Quotations from Gurudev’s teachings, Chinmya Mission Chicago
The character of Karna in Mahabharata influenced him deeply.
Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose in Vijayaprasara
“How many disappointments are conducive to bitterness? One or a thousand, depending on the subject.”
Anathemas and Admirations (1987)
"Socialism for the Uninformed" http://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/2016/05/31/socialism-for-the-uninformed-n2171042, 31 May 2016
2010s
From The Collected Poems of Amy Carmichael, CLC, Fort Washington, USA 1999, ISBN 0-87508-790-6.
Speech given during the 1928 gubernatorial election; quoted in Hugh Davis Graham, Huey Long (1970), p. 40.
"Information Loss in Black Holes" http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0507171 (July 2005)
it's just as important for you to do that as the President because I don't care how good the person, the leader you elect is, if the people want something different. In a democracy, at least, that's what's going to happen.
2016, Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative Town Hall (March 2016)
“Men disappoint me so, I disappoint myself so, yet courage, patience, shuffle the cards …”
Letter to Reverend William Henry Channing http://web.csustan.edu:80/english/reuben/pal/chap4/channing_henry.html (21 February 1841) quoted in Margaret Fuller Ossoli (1898) by Thomas Wentworth Higginson, p. 112.
2017, Final News Conference as President (January 2017)
Eugenics, academic and practical. Eugenics Review, 27, 95-100, 1935
1930s
“What the inner voice says
Will not disappoint the hoping soul.”
Hope, last stanza (1797)
Source: Ten Years of New Labour edited by Matt Beech and Simon Lee (2008), pp. xi.
Book VIII, Chapter 4.
Books, Coningsby (1844), Vivian Grey (1826)
Robert Burns Woodward, "Art and Science in the Synthesis of Organic Compounds: Retrospect and Prospect," in Pointers and Pathways in Research (Bombay:CIBA of India, 1963).
Homily during the Holy Mass on Boston Common in Boston, Massachusetts, on 1 October 1979, during the pope's first apostolic journey to the United States
Source: Libreria Editrice Vaticana http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/homilies/1979/documents/hf_jp-ii_hom_19791001_usa-boston_en.html
Interview with Elizabeth Gips http://www.tripzine.com/articles.asp?id=dmturnergips
Mr. Tesla Explains Why He Will Never Marry (1924)
2014, Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative Town Hall (April 2014)
The Daily Telegraph, 09/02/2004.
Et non seulement on ne retient pas tout de suite les œuvres vraiment rares, mais même au sein de chacune de ces œuvres-là, et cela m'arriva pour la Sonate de Vinteuil, ce sont les parties les moins précieuses qu'on perçoit d'abord... Moins décevants que la vie, ces grands chefs-d'œuvre ne commencent pas par nous donner ce qu'ils ont de meilleur.
Source: In Search of Lost Time, Remembrance of Things Past (1913-1927), Vol II: Within a Budding Grove (1919), Ch. I: "Madame Swann at Home"
1850s, Address before the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society (1859)
“Those, who expect more, will be disappointed, but no change will be effected by it.”
Letter to George William Fairfax (25 June 1786), published in The Writings Of George Washington (1835) by Jared Sparks, p. 175
1780s
Context: My manner of living is plain. I do not mean to be put out of it. A glass of wine and a bit of mutton are always ready; and such as will be content to partake of them are always welcome. Those, who expect more, will be disappointed, but no change will be effected by it.
"I want everything" in What I Want from Life (1934) edited by Edmund George Cousins, p. 108
Context: The cynic says "blessed is he who expecteth nothing, for he shall not be disappointed." I say "blessed is he who expecteth everything, for he can't always be disappointed."
Book Sometimes you win Sometimes you Learn
Instructions Given at the Conference (Fall 1950)
1950's
“People take chances every now and then, and you don't want to disappoint them.”
“The only reason why God created man is because he was disappointed with the monkey.”
Autobiographical Dictation (1906)
“Friendship is really the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love.”
Variant: Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love.
Source: Northanger Abbey
“Amazing how being bathed in arterial blood can wash out any lingering romantic disappointments.”
Source: Rampant
Source: The Snake, the Crocodile and the Dog