Don’t lower your expectations to meet your performance. Raise your level of performance to meet your expectations. Expect the best of yourself, and then do what is necessary to make it a reality.
—Ralph Marston
We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aid, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
Life … tends to respond to our outlook, to shape itself to meet our expectations.
—Richard DeVos (1926–2018) American Businessman, Philanthropist
You begin by always expecting good things to happen.
—Tom Hopkins (b.1911) English Sportsperson
I stake to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.
—Wayne Gretzky (b.1961) Canadian Sportsperson
Letters are expectation packaged in an envelope.
—Shana Alexander (1925–2005) American Journalist, Editor, Author
Don’t cross the bridge till you come to it.
—Common Proverb
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 (1850–1924) American New Thought Writer, Physician, Entrepreneur
To expect defeat is nine-tenths of defeat itself.
—Francis Marion Crawford (1854–1909) Italian-born American Novelist, Writer
Expect nothing. Live frugally on surprise.
—Alice Walker
Hope is itself a species of happiness, and, perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
Uncertainty and expectation are the joys of life. Security is an insipid thing.
—William Congreve (1670–1729) English Playwright, Poet
Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744) English Poet
Now it is a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best you very often get it.
—W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) British Novelist, Short-Story Writer, Playwright
Uncertainty and expectation are the joys of life. Security is an insipid thing, through the overtaking and possessing of a wish discovers the folly of the chase.
—William Congreve (1670–1729) English Playwright, Poet
We find what we expect to find, and we receive what we ask for.
—Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American Writer, Publisher, Artist, Philosopher
The boy who expects every morning to open into a new world finds that today is like yesterday, but he believes tomorrow will be different
—Charles Dudley Warner (1829–1900) American Essayist, Novelist
When one’s expectations are reduced to zero, one really appreciates everything one does have.
—Stephen Hawking (b.1942) English Theoretical Physicist, Cosmologist, Academic
I saw that all beings are fated to happiness: action is not life, but a way of wasting some force, an enervation. Morality is the weakness of the brain.
—Arthur Rimbaud (1854–91) French Poet
If you don’t see yourself as a winner, then you cannot perform as a winner.
—Zig Ziglar (1926–2012) American Author
Satisfaction with an experience depends significantly on our expectations going into it.
—Ben Casnocha (b.1988) American Entrepreneur
People expect a certain reaction from a business and when you pleasantly exceed those expectations, you’ve somehow passed an important psychological threshold.
—Richard Thalheimer (b.1948) American Entrepreneur
If you expect nothing, you’re apt to be surprised. You’ll get it.
—Malcolm Forbes (1919–90) American Publisher
I’m not in this world to live up to your expectations and you’re not in this world to live up to mine.
—Bruce Lee (1940–73) Hong-Kong-born American Sportsperson, Actor, Philosopher, Film Director, Screenwriter
Don’t count your chickens before they are hatched.
—Aesop (620–564 BCE) Greek Fabulist
Whatever we expect with confidence becomes our own self-fulfilling prophecy.
—Brian Tracy (b.1944) American Author, Motivational Speaker
We expect everything and are prepared for nothing.
—Sophie Swetchine (1782–1857) Russian Christian Mystic
Life’s under no obligation to give us what we expect.
—Margaret Mitchell (1900–49) American Author, Novelist
What is destructive is impatience, haste, expecting too much too fast.
—May Sarton (1912–95) American Children’s Books Writer, Poet, Novelist
Man’s real life is happy, chiefly because he is ever expecting that it soon will be so.
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–49) American Poet