Quotes about expectation
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John McCain photo
Pat Condell photo
Alex Jones photo

“The least you can do is investigate. The minimum that is expected of you as a sentient being is to question your reality.”

Alex Jones (1974) American radio host, author, conspiracy theorist and filmmaker

Question Your Reality, 11 February 2008.-->

Neville Chamberlain photo

“The result was that when war did break out German preparations were far ahead of our own, and it was natural then to expect that the enemy would take advantage of his initial superiority to make an endeavour to overwhelm us and France before we had time to make good our deficiencies. Is it not a very extraordinary thing that no such attempt was made? Whatever may be the reason—whether it was that Hitler thought he might get away with what he had got without fighting for it, or whether it was that after all the preparations were not sufficiently complete—however, one thing is certain: he missed the bus.”

Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech to the Central Council of the National Union of Conservative and Unionist Associations at Central Hall, Westminster (4 April 1940), quoted in "Confident of Victory," The Times (5 April 1940), p. 8.
Hitler began the 'Westfeldzug' five weeks later and entered France at the beginning of june. June 10th, Paris was declared to be an 'open town.
Prime Minister

Auguste Rodin photo

“I admit, of course, that the artist does not see nature as the vulgar do. His emotion reveals to him the inner truths that underlie appearance. But the only principle In art is to copy what one sees. Every other method is ruinous. No one can embellish Nature. It is simply and solely a question of seeing. Doubtless a mediocre man, when he copies will never produce a work of art. He looks without seeing. No matter how minutely he observes, the result will be flat and without character. But the artist's trade is not for mediocre men, and no amount of training can supply them with talent. The artist sees - he sees with his heart. He sees deep into the heart of Nature. To the artist everything in Nature is beautiful.
The vulgarian imagines that what looks to him ugly In Nature is not material for the artist. He would forbid us to represent what displeases and offends him. He makes a grave mistake. What is commonly called ugliness in Nature may become a great beauty in art.
In the realm of realities, people regard as ugly everything that is deformed and diseased and that suggests sickness, weakness and suffering. They regard as ugly everything that defies regularity, which is to them the symbol and condition of health and strength. A hump is ugly, bow-legs are ugly, misery in rags is ugly. Ugly, again, are the soul and conduct of the immoral, the vicious, the criminal man, the abnormal man who is an enemy of society; ugly is the soul of the parricide, the traitor, the unscrupulous slave of ambition. And it is right that the lives and the of which we can expect only evil should be given an odious epithet.”

Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) French sculptor

Rodin on realism, 1910

Margaret Atwood photo
Kurt Student photo
Jane Roberts photo
Lyndon B. Johnson photo

“What did you expect? I don't know why we're so surprised. When you put your foot on a man's neck and hold him down for three hundred years, and then you let him up, what's he going to do? He's going to knock your block off.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

Regarding rioting (1968), as quoted in Judgment days: Lyndon Baines Johnson, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the laws that changed America (2005), by Nick Kotz, Boston: Houghton Mifflin. p. 417.
1960s

Orson Scott Card photo
J.M.W. Turner photo

“My dear Sir, [Mr. Trimmer] - I lament that all hope of the pleasure of seeing you, or getting to Heston, must for the present probably vanish. My father told me.... that you and Mrs. Trimmer would leave Heston for Suffolk as tomorrow, Wednesday.... In looking forward to a Continental excursion, and poor Daddy seems as much plagued with weeds as I am with disappointment - that if Miss … would but waive bashfulness, or, in other words, make an offer instead of expecting one, the same might change occupiers; but not to trouble you further, allow me, with most sincere respect to Mrs. Trimmer and family, to consider myself - Yours most truly obliged, 'J. M. W. Turner.”

J.M.W. Turner (1775–1851) British Romantic landscape painter, water-colourist, and printmaker

Quote from Turner's letter to Mr. Trimmer; as cited in The Life of J. M. W. Turner R.A., George Walter Thornbury - A new Edition, Revised https://ia601807.us.archive.org/24/items/gri_33125004491185/gri_33125004491185.pdf; London Chatto & Windus, 1897, pp. 225-26
Turner asked assistance about a woman he liked, but not dared to approach; which he met at Trimmer's place at Heston
1795 - 1820

Geoffrey Moore photo
Walker Percy photo
Karl Kraus photo
Lucian photo
David Hume photo
Arsène Wenger photo
Bernard Cornwell photo
Nycole Turmel photo

“For their doctrine is this: That bodies are corruptible, and that the matter they are made of is not permanent; but that the souls are immortal, and continue forever; and that they come out of the most subtile air, and are united to their bodies as to prisons, into which they are drawn by a certain natural enticement; but that when they are set free from the bonds of the flesh, they then, as released from a long bondage, rejoice and mount upward. And this is like the opinions of the Greeks, that good souls have their habitations beyond the ocean, in a region that is neither oppressed with storms of rain or snow, or with intense heat, but that this place is such as is refreshed by the gentle breathing of a west wind, that is perpetually blowing from the ocean; while they allot to bad souls a dark and tempestuous den, full of never-ceasing punishments. And indeed the Greeks seem to me to have followed the same notion, when they allot the islands of the blessed to their brave men, whom they call heroes and demi-gods; and to the souls of the wicked, the region of the ungodly, in Hades, where their fables relate that certain persons, such as Sisyphus, and Tantalus, and Ixion, and Tityus, are punished; which is built on this first supposition, that souls are immortal; and thence are those exhortations to virtue and dehortations from wickedness collected; whereby good men are bettered in the conduct of their life by the hope they have of reward after their death; and whereby the vehement inclinations of bad men to vice are restrained, by the fear and expectation they are in, that although they should lie concealed in this life, they should suffer immortal punishment after their death. These are the Divine doctrines of the Essens about the soul, which lay an unavoidable bait for such as have once had a taste of their philosophy.”

Jewish War

Shreya Ghoshal photo

“The focus is only on singing. But a National Award is like a pat on the back as it's given to the best. Being awarded is also nerve-racking as the expectations and pressure rise. But it just motivates me to work harder.”

Shreya Ghoshal (1984) Indian playback singer

Opinion about getting first Nation award for regional language http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/hindi/music/news/Its-a-pat-on-the-back-Shreya/articleshow/5513392.cms

Maddox photo
Carl Van Doren photo
Arthur C. Clarke photo
Anthony Burgess photo
John Ogilby photo

“Live, and with Hope such happy Dayes expect.
This said, although opprest with weighty Care,
He shews glad Looks, and hides his deep Despair.”

John Ogilby (1600–1676) Scottish academic

The Works of Publius Virgilius Maro (2nd ed. 1654), Virgil's Æneis

Peter L. Berger photo
Stanisław Jerzy Lec photo

“Do not expect too much of the end of the world.”

Stanisław Jerzy Lec (1909–1966) Polish writer

As quoted in Foucault's Pendulum (1989) by Umberto Eco, Ch. 7, p. 49; cited to a 1977 Polish edition of Unkempt Thoughts.

Frank Chodorov photo
Elbert Hubbard photo

“Men who marry for gratification, propagation or the matter of buttons or socks, must expect to cope with and deal in a certain amount of quibble, subterfuge, concealments, and double, deep-dyed prevarication.”

Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher fue el escritor del jarron azul

Source: The Note Book of Elbert Hubbard (1927), p. 159.

Lavrentiy Beria photo
Alan Guth photo
Henryk Sienkiewicz photo
Rensis Likert photo
Morrissey photo
George W. Bush photo

“I fully understand it takes time for free societies, truly free societies to evolve. I don't expect instant success.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

Interview on Middle East Television Network, February 18, 2004 http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2004/02/20040218-10.html
2000s, 2004

Friedrich Hayek photo
Calvin Coolidge photo

“Anybody can reduce taxes, but it is not so easy to stand in the gap and resist the passage of increasing appropriation bills which would make tax reduction impossible. It will be very easy to measure the strength of the attachment to reduced taxation by the power with which increased appropriations are resisted. If at the close of the present session the Congress has kept within the budget which I propose to present, it will then be possible to have a moderate amount of tax reduction and all the tax reform that the Congress may wish for during the next fiscal year. The country is now feeling the direct stimulus which came from the passage of the last revenue bill, and under the assurance of a reasonable system of taxation there is every prospect of an era of prosperity of unprecedented proportions. But it would be idle to expect any such results unless business can continue free from excess profits taxation and be accorded a system of surtaxes at rates which have for their object not the punishment of success or the discouragement of business, but the production of the greatest amount of revenue from large incomes. I am convinced that the larger incomes of the country would actually yield more revenue to the Government if the basis of taxation were scientifically revised downward. Moreover the effect of the present method of this taxation is to increase the cost of interest. on productive enterprise and to increase the burden of rent. It is altogether likely that such reduction would so encourage and stimulate investment that it would firmly establish our country in the economic leadership of the world.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Second State of the Union Address (1924)

Nadine Gordimer photo

“A desert is a place without expectation.”

Nadine Gordimer (1923–2014) South african Nobel-winning writer

Yonder Mark (ed.), The Quotable Gordimer, 2014.

Steven Brust photo
Edwin van der Sar photo
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston photo

“I have read your speech and I must frankly say, with much regret as there is little in it that I can agree with, and much from which I differ. You lay down broadly the Doctrine of Universal Suffrage which I can never accept. I intirely deny that every sane and not disqualified man has a moral right to a vote—I use that Expression instead of “the Pale of the Constitution”, because I hold that all who enjoy the Security and civil Rights which the Constitution provides are within its Pale—What every Man and Woman too have a Right to, is to be well governed and under just Laws, and they who propose a change ought to shew that the present organization does not accomplish those objects…[Your speech] was more like the Sort of Speech with which Bright would have introduced the Reform Bill which he would like to propose than the Sort of Speech which might have been expected from the Treasury bench in the present State of Things. Your Speech may win Lancashire for you, though that is doubtful but I fear it will tend to lose England for you. It is to be regretted that you should, as you stated, have taken the opportunity of your receiving a Deputation of working men, to exhort them to set on Foot an Agitation for Parliamentary Reform—The Function of a Government is to calm rather than to excite Agitation.”

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) British politician

Letter to William Ewart Gladstone (12 May 1864), quoted in Philip Guedalla (ed.), Gladstone and Palmerston, being the Correspondence of Lord Palmerston with Mr. Gladstone 1851-1865 (London: Victor Gollancz, 1928), pp. 281-282.
1860s

“To think straight, it is advisable to expect all qualities and attributes, adjectives, and so on to refer to at least two sets of interactions in time.”

Gregory Bateson (1904–1980) English anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, visual anthropologist, semiotician and cyberneticist

Source: Mind and Nature, a necessary unity, 1988, p. 68

Mordehai Milgrom photo
Marilyn Monroe photo

“I'm a failure as a woman. My men expect so much of me, because of the image they've made of me — and that I've made of myself — as a sex symbol. They expect bells to ring and whistles to whistle, but my anatomy is the same as any other woman's and I can't live up to it.”

Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) American actress, model, and singer

Statement c. 1962, as quoted in Marilyn (1992) by Peter Harry Brown and Patte B. Barham, Ch. 30
Variant: I'm a failure as a woman. My men expect so much of me, because of the image they've made of me — and that I've made of myself — as a sex symbol. They expect bells to ring and whistles to whistle, but my anatomy is the same as any other woman's and I can't live up to it.

Marie de France photo

“But he who does not let his infirmity be known can scarcely expect to receive a cure. Love is an invisible wound within the body, and, since it has its source in nature, it is a long-lasting ill.”

Mes ki ne mustre s'enferté
A peine en peot aver santé:
Amur est plaie dedenz cors,
E si ne piert nïent defors.
Ceo est un mal que lunges tient,
Pur ceo que de nature vient.
"Guigemar", line 481; p. 49.
Lais

Bill McKibben photo

“The U. S. is occupying a country and one has not only to expect, but also to accept that the people there resist.”

Ahmed Sheikh (1949) Palestinian journalist

On the Iraqi insurgency.
Source: World Politics Watch http://www.worldpoliticswatch.com/article.aspx?id=395, 7 December 2006.

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley photo
Gillian Anderson photo
Max Brooks photo

“People say, "get us out of the UN, we don't need the UN", we invented the UN. This is us, we are the ones who founded the idea of nations working together, and I think that's something we need to do. And it's, it's messy, and it's really complicated, and there's going to be a lot of countries out there that expect us to clean up there mess, or just want to see us fall on (our) face. And they love that, which is what I think president Obama said brilliantly at the UN, when he basically said, "that ok". If I'm paraphrasing, I don't think he's ever said "ok" in his life, he's probably said "well". But basically he said, "look, for the last eight years you've been on our case about going it alone, you know, we're imperialists, we're hegemonic, we're going it alone, we're going it alone… Ok, we're not going it alone anymore, we're going to listen to you, but you better ante up and kick in. Because, you don't have the right to have an opinion, if you can't back it up. It's put up or shut up time". And I was so happy when he said that, and the way he handled the Latin (American) countries, when he was dealing with the crisis in Central America, the coups in Honduras. And he said, "the very same countries who accuse us of doing nothing, are also the same ones who accuse us of being imperialistic. You can't have it both ways."”

Max Brooks (1972) American author

Lecture of Opportunity | Max Brooks: World War Z https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nGG5E04cog

Paulo Coelho photo

“The weak are wicked. Goodness can only be expected from the strong.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

(15 July 2013) https://twitter.com/paulocoelho
Twitter

John Marshall photo

“No trace is to be found in the Constitution of an intention to create a dependence of the Government of the Union on those of the States, for the execution of the great powers assigned to it. Its means are adequate to its ends, and on those means alone was it expected to rely for the accomplishment of its ends. To impose on it the necessity of resorting to means which it cannot control, which another Government may furnish or withhold, would render its course precarious, the result of its measures uncertain, and create a dependence on other Governments which might disappoint its most important designs, and is incompatible with the language of the Constitution.”

John Marshall (1755–1835) fourth Chief Justice of the United States

17 U.S. (4 Wheaton) 316, 424
McCulloch v. Maryland (1819)
Context: [.. ] it can scarcely be necessary to say that the existence of State banks can have no possible influence on the question. No trace is to be found in the Constitution of an intention to create a dependence of the Government of the Union on those of the States, for the execution of the great powers assigned to it. Its means are adequate to its ends, and on those means alone was it expected to rely for the accomplishment of its ends. To impose on it the necessity of resorting to means which it cannot control, which another Government may furnish or withhold, would render its course precarious, the result of its measures uncertain, and create a dependence on other Governments which might disappoint its most important designs, and is incompatible with the language of the Constitution. But were it otherwise, the choice of means implies a right to choose a national bank in preference to State banks, and Congress alone can make the election. After the most deliberate consideration, it is the unanimous and decided opinion of this Court that the act to incorporate the Bank of the United States is a law made in pursuance of the Constitution, and is a part of the supreme law of the land.

William Penn photo

“I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good thing, therefore, that I can do or any kindness I can show to any fellow human being let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.”

William Penn (1644–1718) English real estate entrepreneur, philosopher, early Quaker and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania

This quote is often attributed to William Penn, but there are no records of it before the 19th century, and its actual source seems to have most likely been another prominent Quaker, Stephen Grellet.
Misattributed

Robert G. Ingersoll photo
Max Brooks photo
Alberto Manguel photo
Siân Berry photo
Francis Escudero photo

“It is, Mr. President, what propriety requires; it is, I believe, what our people expect from us all: delicadeza.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

2015, Letter to Senate President Franklin Drilon

Michael Grimm photo
Robert Sheckley photo
Herman Cain photo

“Lawrence O'Donnell: Mr. Cain, in fact, you were in college from 1963 to 1967, at the height of the civil rights movement, exactly when the most important demonstrations and protests were going on. You could easily, as a student at Morehouse, between 1963 and 1967, actively participated in the kinds of protests that got African Americans the rights they enjoy today. You watched from that perspective at Morehouse when you were not participating in those processes. You watch black college students from around the country and white college students from around the country come to the South and be murdered fighting for the right of African Americans. Do you regret sitting on those sidelines at that time?
Herman Cain: Lawrence, your attempt to say that I sat on the sidelines is an irrelevant comparison that you are trying to deduce from that—
Lawrence O'Donnell: It's in your book. It's in your book.
Herman Cain: Now, Lawrence, I know what's in my book. Now, let me ask you a question. Did you expect every black student and every black college in America to be out there, in the middle of every fight? The answer is no. So for you to say, why was I sitting on the sidelines, I think that that is an inaccurate deduction that you are trying to make. You didn't know, Lawrence, what I was doing with the rest of my life. You didn't know what my family situation may have been. Maybe, just maybe, I had a sick relative, which is why I might not have been sitting in, or doing the Freedom Rides. So what I'm saying, Lawrence, is, with all due respect my friend, your deduction is incorrect, and it's not logical, okay?”

Herman Cain (1945) American writer, businessman and activist

referring to "This is Herman Cain!" recounting that Herman read about sit-ins and Freedom Rides, and followed his father's advice to "stay out of trouble".

James Fenimore Cooper photo

“I do not pretend to understand why such a sacrifice should be necessary, but I believe it, feel it; and believing and feeling it, I cannot but adore and worship the Son, who quitted heaven to come on earth, and suffered, that we might possess eternal life. It is all mystery to me, as is the creation itself, our existence, God himself, and all else that my mind is too limited to comprehend. But, Roswell, if I believe a part of the teachings of the Christian church, I must believe all. The apostles, who were called by Christ in person, who lived in his very presence, who knew nothing except as the Holy Spirit prompted, worshiped him as the Son of God, as one 'who thought it not robbery to be equal with God;' and shall I, ignorant and uninspired, pretend to set up my feeble means of reasoning, in opposition to their written instructions!"… I do not deny that we are to exercise our reason, but it is within the bounds set for its exercise. We may examine the evidence of Christianity, and determine for ourselves how far it is supported by reasonable and sufficient proofs; beyond this we cannot be expected to go, else might we be required to comprehend the mystery of our own existence, which just as much exceeds our understanding as any other. We are told that man was created in the image of his Creator, which means that there is an immortal and spiritual part of him that is entirely different from the material creature One perishes, temporarily at least--a limb can be severed from the body and perish, even while the body survives; but it is not so with that which has been created in the image of the deity. That is imperishable, immortal, spiritual, though doomed to dwell awhile in a tenement of clay. Now, why is it more difficult to believe that pure divinity may have entered into the person of one man, than to believe, nay to feel, that the image of God has entered into the persons of so many myriads of men?”

James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851) American author

Source: The Sea Lions or The Lost Sealers (1849), Ch. XII

Charles Krauthammer photo

“The joy of losing consists in this: Where there are no expectations, there is no disappointment.”

Charles Krauthammer (1950–2018) American journalist

2010s, 2010, The joys of losing (2010)

Derren Brown photo
John Stuart Mill photo
Gloria Estefan photo

“What do you expect for your $12,000?”

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

question at Zo's Summer Groove benefit concert (Miami, July 15, 2006) to winning bidder for Estefan to personally read her first children's book "The Magically Mysterious Adventures of Noelle the Bulldog" at their home
2007, 2008

Philip Morrison photo
Alex Salmond photo

“Our national story has its full share of grief and pain as well as triumph and expectation. But through it all, hope remains and dreams do not die.”

Alex Salmond (1954) Scottish National Party politician and former First Minister of Scotland

Third Session of Parliament (June 30, 2007)

John Ogilby photo

“Great Expectations oft to nothing come.”

John Ogilby (1600–1676) Scottish academic

Fab. VIII: Of the Mountain in Labour
The Fables of Aesop (2nd ed. 1668)

Rudolf Karl Bultmann photo
Pierre Monteux photo
Giovanni della Casa photo
Ernest King photo

“I expect the officers of the Atlantic Fleet to be the leaders of what may be called the pioneering spirit- to lead in the determination that the difficulties and discomforts- personnel, materiel, operations, waiting- shall be dealt with as "enemies" to be overcome by our own efforts.”

Ernest King (1878–1956) United States Navy admiral, Chief of Naval Operations

Excerpt from Atlantic Fleet Confidential Memorandum 2CM-41, sent on 24 March 1941. As quoted in History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Volume One: The Battle of the Atlantic, September 1939-May 1943 (1948) by Samuel Eliot Morison, p. 52

John Updike photo
Jay Samit photo

“If you don't know where you want to be in five years, how do you ever expect to get there?”

Jay Samit (1961) American businessman

Source: Disrupt You! (2015), p. 47

Isadora Duncan photo
Sam Harris photo

“If religion were the only durable foundation for morality you would suspect atheists to be really badly behaved. You would go to a group like the National Academy of Sciences. These are the most elite scientists, 93 percent of whom reject the idea of God. You would expect these guys to be raping and killing and stealing with abandon.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

Sam Harris, During speech, The New Atheists (January 5, 2007) http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2007/01/05/january-5-2007-the-new-atheists/3734/
2000s

William S. Burroughs photo
Jim Butcher photo

“Life, Tavi reflected, seldom makes a gift of what one expects or plans for.”

Codex Alera, First Lord's Fury (2009)

Nicolaus Copernicus photo
Tina Fey photo