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2531315 It takes three to make love, not two: you, your spouse, and God. Without God people only succeed in bringing out the worst in one another. Lovers who have nothing else to do but love each other soon find there is nothing else. Without a central loyalty life is unfinished. lovers marriage relationships christianity spirituality religion god happiness philosophy relationship-with-god unhappy-marriage church expectations Fulton J. Sheen
dcf9753 Treat a man as he is and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he can and should be and he will become as he can and should be. proactivity self-development expectations Stephen R. Covey
826a155 Look. I have a strategy. Why expect anything? If you don't expect anything, you don't get disappointed. hope life disappointment expectations strategy Patricia McCormick
f6308aa "My expectations were reduced to zero when I was 21. Everything since then has been a bonus." [ gratitude spirit strength life unbreakable-spirit carpe-diem misfortunes expectations Stephen W. Hawking
5737023 If men could see us as we really are, they would be a little amazed; but the cleverest, the acutest men are often under an illusion about women: they do not read them in a true light: they misapprehend them, both for good and evil: their good woman is a queer thing, half doll, half angel; their bad woman almost always a fiend. stereotypes feminism women empowerment false-belief misconceptions illusions misogyny hypocrisy double-standards gender expectations Charlotte Brontë
dccb800 Positive expectations are the mark of the superior personality. personality positive life wisdom educational expectation teaching expectations Brian Tracy
d96ae8b To wish was to hope, and to hope was to expect hope love wish expectations Jane Austen
e086f60 You are your own worst enemy. If you can learn to stop expecting impossible perfection, in yourself and others, you may find the happiness that has always eluded you. expectations Lisa Kleypas
c2fcf8b He was swimming in a sea of other people's expectations. Men had drowned in seas like that. lan new-spring wot robert overwhelmed jordan wheel-of-time expectations Robert Jordan
cbb56dd Fathers never have exactly the daughters they want because they invent a notion a them that the daughters have to conform to. fathers daughters ideals perception expectations Simone de Beauvoir
17d61bf "There are certain phrases potent to make my blood boil -- improper influence! What old woman's cackle is that?" "Are you a young lady?" "I am a thousand times better: I am an honest woman, and as such I will be treated." integrity marriage influence self-determination independence women honesty love uprightness propriety matrimony respect gender self-respect expectations Charlotte Brontë
0a8cf8c I wasn't disappointed. My expectations had been met. expectations John Green
3f35e2f "..."Oh, Marilla, looking forward to things is half the pleasure of them," exclaimed Anne. "You mayn't get the things themselves; but nothing can prevent you from having the fun of looking forward to them. Mrs. Lynde says, 'Blessed are they who expect nothing for they shall not be disappointed.' But I think it would be worse to expect nothing than to be disappointed."..." expectations L.M. Montgomery
7184d37 Few people ask from books what books can give us. Most commonly we come to books with blurred and divided minds, asking of fiction that it shall be true, of poetry that it shall be false, of biography that it shall be flattering, of history that it shall enforce our own prejudices. If we could banish all such preconceptions when we read, that would be an admirable beginning. reading preconceptions open-mindedness expectations Virginia Woolf
f20b855 You don't seem mad at all,' she said. But I am, although I'm undergoing a cure, because my problem is that I lack a particular chemical. However, while I hope that the chemical gets rid of my chronic depression, I want to continue being mad, living life the way I dream it, and not the way other people want it to be. Do you know what exists out there, beyond the walls of Villete? madness thoughts life philosophy expectations Paulo Coelho
2b38ece Your god, sir, is the World. In my eyes, you, too, if not an infidel, are an idolater. I conceive that you ignorantly worship: in all things you appear to me too superstitious. Sir, your god, your great Bel, your fish-tailed Dagon, rises before me as a demon. You, and such as you, have raised him to a throne, put on him a crown, given him a sceptre. Behold how hideously he governs! See him busied at the work he likes best -- making marriages. He binds the young to the old, the strong to the imbecile. He stretches out the arm of Mezentius and fetters the dead to the living. In his realm there is hatred -- secret hatred: there is disgust -- unspoken disgust: there is treachery -- family treachery: there is vice -- deep, deadly, domestic vice. In his dominions, children grow unloving between parents who have never loved: infants are nursed on deception from their very birth: they are reared in an atmosphere corrupt with lies ... All that surrounds him hastens to decay: all declines and degenerates under his sceptre. god is a masked Death. family-relationships hatred unhappiness injustice marriage women death disparity domestic-life false-belief lovelessness scorn unfreedom disharmony families preconceptions discord married-life worldliness idolatry decay demons matrimony force social-norms society hypocrisy disgust contempt vice expectations Charlotte Brontë
d597606 Maybe that's why he had started to fear suffocation. It wasn't so much drowning in the earth or sea but the feeling that he was sinking into too many expectations, literally getting in over his head. Wow...when he started having thoughts like that, he knew he'd been spending too much time with Annabeth. suffocation percy-jackson expectations Rick Riordan
489a9c1 She sang, as requested. There was much about love in the ballad: faithful love that refused to abandon its object; love that disaster could not shake; love that, in calamity, waxed fonder, in poverty clung closer. The words were set to a fine old air -- in themselves they were simple and sweet: perhaps, when read, they wanted force; when sung, they wanted nothing. Shirley sang them well: she breathed into the feeling, softness, she poured round the passion, force: her voice was fine that evening; its expression dramatic: she impressed all, and charmed one. On leaving the instrument, she went to the fire, and sat down on a seat -- semi-stool, semi-cushion: the ladies were round her -- none of them spoke. The Misses Sympson and the Misses Nunnely looked upon her, as quiet poultry might look on an egret, an ibis, or any other strange fowl. What made her sing so? never sang so. Was it proper to sing with such expression, with such originality -- so unlike a school girl? Decidedly not: it was strange, it was unusual. What was must be ; what was must be . Shirley was judged. understanding prejudice jealousy passion women empathy morality music love musicality preconceptions feeling fidelity expression faithfulness propriety singing social-norms judgment society gift hypocrisy talent rejection gender expectations Charlotte Brontë
8771108 Today, I feel stronger, learning to live within the natural cycles of a day and to not expect too much of myself. As women, we hold the moon in our bellies. It is too much to ask to operate on full-moon energy three hundred and sixty-five days a year. I am in a crescent phase. expectations Terry Tempest Williams
1834a42 People who don't expect justice don't have to suffer disappointment. justice expectations Isaac Asimov
b4bdcd1 Thanks to our artists, we pretend well, living under canopies of painted clouds and painted gods, in halls of marble floors across which the sung Masses paint hope in deep impatsi of echo. We make of the hollow world a fuller, messier, prettier place, but all our inventions can't create the one thing we require: to deserve any fond attention we might accidentally receive, to receive any fond attention we don't in the course of things deserve. We are never enough to ourselves because we can never be enough to another. Any one of us walks into any room and reminds its occupant that we are not the one they most want to see. We are never the one. We are never enough. falling-below-expectations never-enough self-hate requirements expectations Gregory Maguire
2f05f76 "I can't make sense out of that girl," he said to the bard, "Can you?" "Never mind," Fflewddur said, "We aren't really expected to." men taran sense girls men-and-women expectations Lloyd Alexander
7c2b266 [T]he experience of mystery comes not from expecting it but through yielding all your programs, because your programs are based on fear and desire. Drop them and the radiance comes. (16) fear mystery desire expectations Joseph Campbell
13ce9e2 I, a product of the New Frontier and Great Society, honestly believed that the world pretty much owed me a living--all I had to do was wait around in order to live better than my parents. expectations Anthony Bourdain
f46b4c4 Eccentricity may be diverting, Mama, but it is out of place in a wife: certainly in my wife! wife expectations Georgette Heyer
1b4451e I shall expect my husband to have no pleasures but what he shares with me; and if his greatest pleasure of all is not the enjoyment of my company - why - it will be the worse for him - that's all.' 'If such are your expectations of matrimony, Esther, you must, indeed, be careful whom you marry - or rather, you must avoid it altogether. love wife matrimony husband expectations Anne Brontë
84ef879 There are the girls we love, the men we look up to, the tenderness, the friendships, the opportunities, the pleasures! But the fact remains that you must touch your reward with clean hands, lest it turn to dead leaves, to thorns, in your grasp. grief futility depression hope dark-history falling-short haunted-past smoke-in-the-eyes why-the-world-needs-jesus unrest pointlessness bittersweet-memories sins heartache vanity disappointment expectations despair regrets nostalgia Joseph Conrad
5524c6a You're not who he expected you to be; that doesn't mean you aren't somebody. Nor are you perfect. Stop using every mistake you make as an excuse to fail completely. excuse expect fail hard intervene intervention talk perfect mistake lesson failure expectations Robin Hobb
8d79680 "Cathy, don't look so defeated. She was only trying to put us down again. Maybe nothing did work out right for her, but that doesn't mean we are doomed. Let's go forth tomorrow with no great expectations of finding perfection. Then, expecting only a small share of happiness, we won't be disappointed." If a little hill of happiness would satisfy Chris, good for him. But after all these years of striving, hoping, dreaming, longing-I wanted a mountain high! A hill wasn't enough. From this day forward, I vowed to myself, I was in control of my life. Not fate, not God, not even Chris was ever again going to tell me what to do, or dominate me in any way. From this day forward, I was my own person, to take what I would, when I would, and I would answer only to myself. I'd been kept prisoner, held captive by greed. I'd been betrayed, deceived, tied to, used, poisoned ... but all that was over now." perfection fate defeat greed happiness decieved poisened used years-of-struggle towmorrow great-expectations defeated vow captive doomed wanting striving doom vows years dreaming wants put-downs expectations longing V.C. Andrews
b7c6684 Sometimes it happens that the most insane thought, the most impossible conception, will become so fixed in one's head that at length one believes the thought or the conception to be reality. Moreover, if with the thought or the conception there is combined a strong, a passionate, desire, one will come to look upon the said thought or conception as something fated, inevitable, and foreordained--something bound to happen. Whether by this there is connoted something in the nature of a combination of presentiments, or a great effort of will, or a self-annulment of one's true expectations, and so on, I do not know; reality impossible desire expectations thought insane Fyodor Dostoyevsky
b079738 "Folks write down the name of someone who fills them with frustration, disappointment, and/or resentment, and then I propose that their person is doing the best he or she can. The responses have been wide-ranging...One woman said, "If this was true and my mother was doing the best she can, I would be grief-stricken. I'd rather be angry than sad, so it's easier to believe she's letting me down on purpose than grieve the fact that my mother is never going to be who I need her to be." grief good-intentions resentment expectations frustration Brené Brown
a1ba6f9 I took up space. I was a collection of cells and memories, awkward limbs and clumsy fashion crimes; I was the repository of my parents' expectations and evidence of their disappointments memories living life parents disappointment expectations memory Robin Wasserman
af4e341 "Those books made it crystal clear that giving honey to your baby before he was a year old made you a terrible mother. The moment a spoon of honey would touch his lips, the words "Awful Mother" would appear on your forehead, forever branding you as a parenting failure." parenting expectations Ilona Andrews
2319ccc Cathy, don't look so defeated. She was only trying to put us down again. Maybe nothing did work out right for her, but that doesn't mean we are doomed. Let's go forth tomorrow with no great expectations of finding perfection. Then, expecting only a small share of happiness, we won't be disappointed. perfection happiness disapointment facial-expressions put-down putting-people-down small-share towmorrow work-out doomed doom small put-downs expectations V.C. Andrews
0ee66d1 I have often noticed that we are inclined to endow our friends with the stability of type that literary characters acquire in the reader's mind. No matter how many times we reopen 'King Lear,' never shall we find the good king banging his tankard in high revelry, all woes forgotten, at a jolly reunion with all three daughters and their lapdogs. Never will Emma rally, revived by the sympathetic salts in Flaubert's father's timely tear. Whatever evolution this or that popular character has gone through between the book covers, his fate is fixed in our minds, and, similarly, we expect our friends to follow this or that logical and conventional pattern we have fixed for them. fate shakespeare literature friends literary-references lolita vladimir-nabokov emma-bovary madame-bovary gustave-flaubert king-lear expectations Vladimir Nabokov
9218da6 When I was in my teens, I made an appraisal of how comfortable my life could turn out when I became the age I am now. Because of a mechanical failure, the prediction was inexact. life expectations Arthur Nersesian
5aa6915 Don't you understand? You are Elder. When you take my role as Eldest, you must dedicate your whole life to this one idea: you are the caretaker of every single person on the ship. They are your responsibility. You can never show weakness in front of them: you are their strength. You can never let them see you in despair: you are their hope. You must always be everything to everyone on board. strength care hope elder weakness eldest decisions expectations Beth Revis
e003dda Everything is supposed to be something. But it never is. That's the nature of existence. reality perception expectations Don DeLillo
8532ab2 My heart broke not only for the daughter who already was forced to become her mother's alarmingly narrow ideal, but also for the middle daughter who knew that her in mother's mind she had already failed. parenting expectations Alexandra Robbins
0a14178 If there was an elephant in the supermarket, she'd either not see it at all, or call it Mrs Jones and talk about fishcakes. blinkered narrow-mindedness small-minded environment ignorance expectations Jeanette Winterson
8889660 This is going to seem bitter but I don't mean it that way, V., I'm just stating a fact here: you'll only ever call me if I call you first. Have you noticed that? If I call and leave a message you'll call me back, but you will never call me first. And I think that's kind of a horrible thing, V., when you're supposed to be someone's friend. I always come to you. You always say you're my friend but you'll never come to me and I think I have to stop listening to your words, V., and take stock instead of your actions. My friend C. thinks my expectations of friendship are too high but I don't think he's right. Take care, V. I'll miss you. friends expectations Emily St. John Mandel
da1e180 Don't you know there's another bubble as well? An expectations bubble. Bigger houses, private planes, yachts... stupid salaries and bonuses. People come to desire these things and expect them. But the expectations bubble will burst as well, as all bubbles do. economics-philosophy money-versus-happiness need-versus-want economics desire expectations Edward Rutherfurd
e0f64bd Here's a tip for new parents: Start lowering those expectations early, it's going to pay off later. parenting parents expectations Colson Whitehead