Expectations

Expectations are, in the case of uncertainty, things that are considered the most likely to happen. An expectation, which is a belief that is centered on the future, may or may not be realistic. A less advantageous result gives rise to the emotion of disappointment. If something happens that is not at all expected it is a surprise. An expectation about the behavior or performance of another person, expressed to that person, may have the nature of a strong request, or an order.

Quotes

• "Yet doth he live!" exclaims th' impatient heir,
  And sighs for sables which he must not wear.
  • Lord Byron, Lara, A Tale (1814), Canto I, Stanza 3.

• I have known him [Micawber] come home to supper with a flood of tears, and a declaration that nothing was now left but a jail; and go to bed making a calculation of the expense of putting bow-windows to the house, "in case anything turned up," which was his favorite expression.
  • Charles Dickens, David Copperfield (1849-1850), Chapter XI.

• I suppose, to use our national motto, something will turn up. [Motto of Vraibleusia.]
  • Benjamin Disraeli, Popanilla (1827), Chapter VII.

• He was fash and full of faith that "something would turn up."
  • Benjamin Disraeli, Tancred (1847), Book III, Chapter VI.

• Everything comes if a man will only wait.
  • Benjamin Disraeli, Tancred (1847), Book IV, Chapter VIII.

• Since yesterday I have been in Alcalá.
  Erelong the time will come, sweet Preciosa,
  When that dull distance shall no more divide us;
  And I no more shall scale thy wall by night
  To steal a kiss from thee, as I do now.
  • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Spanish Student (1843), Act I, scene 3.

• Oft expectation fails and most oft there
  Where most it promises, and oft it hits
  Where hope is coldest and despair most fits.
  • William Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well (1600s), Act II, scene 1, line 145.

• There have sat
  The live-long day, with patient expectation,
  To see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome.
  • William Shakespeare, Julius Cæsar (1599), Act I, scene 1, line 45.

• He hath indeed better bettered expectation than you must expect of me to tell you how.
  • William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing (1598-99), Act I, scene 1, line 15.

• Promising is the very air o' the time; it opens the eyes of expectation: performance is ever the duller for his act; and, but in the plainer and simpler kind of people, the deed of saying is quite out of use.
  • William Shakespeare, Timon of Athens (date uncertain, published 1623), Act V, scene 1, line 24.

• Expectation whirls me round.
  The imaginary relish is so sweet
  That it enchants my sense.
  • William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida (c. 1602), Act III, scene 2, line 19.

• 'Tis silence all,
  And pleasing expectation.
  • James Thomson, The Seasons, Spring (1728), line 160.

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 243-44.

• Serene I fold my hands and wait,
  Nor care for wind or tide nor sea;
  I rave no more 'gainst time or fate,
  For lo! my own shall come to me.
  • John Burroughs, Waiting.

• What else remains for me?
  Youth, hope and love;
  To build a new life on a ruined life.
  • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Masque of Pandora, In the Garden, Part VIII.

• Blessed is he who expects nothing for he shall never be disappointed.
  • Alexander Pope, letter to Gay (Oct. 6, 1727). Called by Pope and Gay "The Eighth Beatitude." Bishop Heber refers to it as "Swift's Eighth Beatitude." Also called "The Ninth Beatitude".

• 'Tis expectation makes a blessing dear;
  Heaven were not Heaven, if we knew what it were.
  • Sir John Suckling, Against Fruition.

• Although I enter not,
  Yet round about the spot
  Ofttimes I hover;
  And near the sacred gate,
  With longing eyes I wait,
  Expectant of her.
  • William Makepeace Thackeray, Pendennis, At the Church Gate.

• Blessed are those that nought expect,
  For they shall not be disappointed.
  • John Walcot, Ode to Pitt.

• It is folly to expect men to do all that they may reasonably be expected to do.
  • Richard Whately, Apophthegms.