Quotes about expectation
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George Orwell photo
Zig Ziglar photo

“Expect the best. Prepare for the worst. Capitalize on what comes.”

Zig Ziglar (1926–2012) American motivational speaker

As quoted in Trigger Events – How To Find Your Next Customer (2007) by Alen Majer, p. 22

Saul Bellow photo
Rick Riordan photo
Rainer Maria Rilke photo
Corrie ten Boom photo
Michael Connelly photo
Carol Gilligan photo
Stephen Hawking photo

“My expectations were reduced to zero when I was 21. Everything since then has been a bonus.”

Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author

As quoted in "The Science of Second-Guessing", The New York Times (12 December 2004)
Unsourced variant: "When one's expectations are reduced to zero, one really appreciates everything one does have."

Eckhart Tolle photo
Oscar Wilde photo
Terry Pratchett photo
Martin Luther King, Jr. photo
Bret Easton Ellis photo
Jimmy Carter photo
Richard Rohr photo

“Change is not what we expect from religious people. They tend to love the past more than the present or the future.”

Richard Rohr (1943) American spiritual writer, speaker, teacher, Catholic Franciscan priest

Source: Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

Tsitsi Dangarembga photo
Michael J. Fox photo
Orhan Pamuk photo
Theodore Roosevelt photo
Colette photo
Terry Pratchett photo
Tamora Pierce photo
William Shakespeare photo
Thomas Paine photo

“Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it.”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

The Crisis No. IV.
1770s, The American Crisis (1776–1783)

Benjamin Disraeli photo

“The expected always happens”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister
William Shakespeare photo
Ralph Ellison photo
George Carlin photo
Henri Matisse photo
Jean Paul Sartre photo
Peter M. Senge photo
Joseph Murphy photo
Muhammad Ali photo
Thomas Mann photo
Ovid photo

“Let your hook always be cast; in the pool where you least expect it, there will be fish.”
Casus ubique valet; semper tibi pendeat hamus Quo minime credas gurgite, piscis erit.

Ovid book Heroides

Book III, line 425
Ars Amatoria (The Art of Love)
Source: Heroides
Context: Chance is always powerful. Let your hook always be cast; in the pool where you least expect it, there will be fish.

Barack Obama photo

“Someone once said that every man is trying to live up to his father's expectations or make up for their father's mistakes….”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Source: The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream

Chi­ma­man­da Ngo­zi Adi­chie photo
Jodi Picoult photo
Lewis Carroll photo

“but Alice had got so much into the way of expecting nothing but out-of-the-way things to happen, that it seemed quite dull and stupid for life to go on in the common way.”

Variant: Alice had got so much into the way of expecting nothing but out-of-the-way things to happen, that it seemed quite dull and stupid for life to go on in the common way.
Source: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Albert Schweitzer photo

“Anyone who proposes to do good must not expect people to roll stones out of his way, but must accept his lot calmly if they even roll a few more upon it.”

Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher

Source: The Spiritual Life (1947), p. 164
Context: Anyone who proposes to do good must not expect people to roll stones out of his way, but must accept his lot calmly if they even roll a few more upon it. A strength which becomes clearer and stronger through its experience of such obstacles is the only strength that can conquer them. Resistance is only a waste of strength.

George Bernard Shaw photo

“Do not do unto others as you would expect they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

#1
1900s, Maxims for Revolutionists (1903)

Anthony Kiedis photo
Terry Pratchett photo
Cecelia Ahern photo
Kate Millett photo
Eric Hoffer photo
Orhan Pamuk photo
Ayn Rand photo
Stanisław Lem photo
Douglas Adams photo
Abraham Verghese photo
Leonardo Da Vinci photo

“Experience does not err; only your judgments err by expecting from her what is not in her power.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.
Context: Experience does not err; only your judgments err by expecting from her what is not in her power. Men wrongly complain of Experience; with great abuse they accuse her of leading them astray but they set Experience aside, turning from it with complaints as to our ignorance causing us to be carried away by vain and foolish desires to promise ourselves, in her name, things that are not in her power; saying that she is fallacious. Men are unjust in complaining of innocent Experience, constantly accusing her of error and of false evidence.

Sharon Creech photo
Rainer Maria Rilke photo

“weren’t you always
distracted by expectation, as if every event
announced a beloved? (Where can you find a place
to keep her, with all the huge strange thoughts inside you
going and coming and often staying all night.)…”

First Elegy (as translated by Stephen Mitchell)
Source: Duino Elegies (1922)
Context: Yes—the springtimes needed you. Often a star
was waiting for you to notice it. A wave rolled toward you
out of the distant past, or as you walked
under an open window, a violin
yielded itself to your hearing. All this was mission.
But could you accomplish it? Weren't you always
distracted by expectation, as if every event
announced a beloved? (Where can you find a place
to keep her, with all the huge strange thoughts inside you
going and coming and often staying all night.)

Douglas Adams photo
Paulo Coelho photo

“When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change; at such a moment, there is no point in pretending that nothing has happened or in saying that we are not ready.”

Source: The Devil and Miss Prym‎ [O Demônio e a srta Prym] (2000), p. x; this has also been misquoted as "A moment is more than enough time for us to decide whether or not to accept our destiny."
Context: When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change; at such a moment, there is no point in pretending that nothing has happened or in saying that we are not ready. The challenge will not wait. Life does not look back. A week is more than enough time for us to decide whether or not to accept our destiny.

Henry Miller photo
Bob Marley photo
André Breton photo
Sylvia Plath photo
Douglas Adams photo
Oscar Wilde photo
Gloria Estefan photo

“How can we expect something positive to come from all the negative that we put into this world?”

Gloria Estefan (1957) Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada

speech at Florida International University, "Live, Art and Spirituality" (October 14, 2006)
2007, 2008

Periyar E. V. Ramasamy photo
Barack Obama photo
Ludwig Wittgenstein photo
Mark Zuckerberg photo
Jules Verne photo

“It was all very well for an Englishman like Mr. Fogg to make the tour of the world with a carpet-bag; a lady could not be expected to travel comfortably under such conditions.”

Qu'un Anglais comme lui fît le tour du monde un sac à la main, passe encore; mais une femme ne pouvait entreprendre une pareille traversée dans ces conditions.
Source: Around the World in Eighty Days (1873), Ch. XX: In Which Fix Comes Face to Face with Phileas Fogg

Nikola Tesla photo
Theodore Roosevelt photo
Kanye West photo

“Ain't nobody expect Kanye to end up on top
They expected that College Dropout to drop and then flop”

Kanye West (1977) American rapper, singer and songwriter

Last Call
Lyrics, The College Dropout (2004)

Leonardo DiCaprio photo
Dick Gregory photo
H.P. Lovecraft photo
Nikola Tesla photo
Osamu Tezuka photo
Neil Strauss photo

“Unspoken expectations are premeditated resentments.”

The Truth: An Uncomfortable Book About Relationships (2015)

Golda Meir photo
Isaac Newton photo

“We must believe in one God that we may love & fear him. We must believe that he is the father Almighty, or first author of all things by the almighty power of his will, that we may thank & worship him & him alone for our being and for all the blessings of this life < insertion from f 43v > We must believe that this is the God of moses & the Jews who created heaven & earth & the sea & all things therein as is expressed in the ten commandments, that we may not take his name in vain nor worship images or visible resemblances nor have (in our worship) any other God then him. For he is without similitude he is the invisible God whom no eye hath seen nor can see, & therefore is not to be worshipped in any visible shape. He is the only invisible God & the only God whom we are to worship & therefore we are not to worship any visible image picture likeness or form. We are not forbidden to give the name of Gods to Angels & Kings but we are forbidden to worship them as Gods. For tho there be that are called Gods whether in heaven or in earth (as there are Gods many & Lords many) yet to us there is but one God the Father of whom are all things & we in him & our Lord Jesus Christ by whom are all things & we in him, that is, but one God & one Lord in our worship: One God & one mediator between God & man the man Christ Jesus. We are forbidden to worship two Gods but we are not forbidden to worship one God, & one Lord: one God for creating all things & one Lord for redeeming us with his blood. We must not pray to two Gods, but we may pray to one God in the name of one Lord. We must believe therefore in one Lord Jesus Christ that we may behave our selves obediently towards him as subjects & keep his laws, & give him that honour & glory & worship which is due to him as our Lord & King or else we are not his people. We must believe that this Lord Jesus is the Christ, or Messiah the Prince predicted by Daniel, & we must worship him as the Messiah or else we are no Christians. The Jews who were taught to have but one God were also taught to expect a king, & the Christians are taught in their Creed to have the same God & to believe that Jesus is that King.”

Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics

Drafts on the history of the Church (Section 3). Yahuda Ms. 15.3, National Library of Israel, Jerusalem, Israel. 2006 Online Version at Newton Project http://www.newtonproject.sussex.ac.uk/view/texts/normalized/THEM00220