Quotes on Anticipation

I live in constant anticipation of good stuff. It's not being 'Pollyanna' about things, but most stories don't have the ending we would give them right away. The better endings come later.

Security is when everything is settled, when nothing can happen to you; security is the denial of life.

We may lay in a stock of pleasures, as we would lay in a stock of wine, but if defer tasting them too long, we shall find that both are soured by age.

Then he reflected that reality does not usually coincide with our anticipation of it; with a logic of his own he inferred that to forsee a circumstantial detail is to prevent its happening. Trusting in this weak magic, he invented, so that they would not happen, the most gruesome details.

We anticipate a time when the love of truth shall have come up to our love of liberty, and men shall be cordially tolerant and earnest believers both at once.

Fear has its use, but cowardice has none. I may not put my finger into the jaws of a snake, but the very sight of the snake need not strike terror into me.

Invest in the "process" rather than the product. Process living neutralizes the depleting and impoverishing effects of chronically living in anticipation. Even when impossible goals occasionally are reached, satisfactions derived from them are invariably disappointing unless the process has given ample satisfaction along the way.

There is an authentic biology of hope. Belief and expectation - the key elements of hope - can block pain by releasing the brain's endorphins and enkephalins, mimicking the effects of morphine.

There is nothing permanent except change.

To expect defeat is nine-tenths of defeat itself. [It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is best to plan for all eventualities then believe in success, and only cross the failure bridge if you come to it!]

Hope is the only good that is common to all men; those who have nothing else possess hope still.

When I think something nice is going to happen I seem to fly right up on the wings of anticipation; and then the first thing I realize I drop down to earth with a thud. But really, Marilla, the flying part is glorious as long as it lasts. . . it's like soaring through a sunset. I think it almost pays for the thud.

People don't realize that now is all there ever is; there is no past or future except as memory or anticipation in your mind.

There is no present or future-only the past, happening over and over again-now.

Uncertainty and expectation are the joys of life. Security is an insipid thing.

Even if you walk exactly the same route each time - as with a sonnet - the events along the route cannot be imagined to be the same from day to day, as the poet's health, sight, his anticipations, moods, fears, thoughts cannot be the same.

[Once plans for each eventuality are resolved, further] Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, but only saps today of its strength.

Is anything, in all respects, so influential as consideration? Does it not, by a kindly anticipation, create the divisions of the active life itself, in a manner rehearsing and arranging beforehand what has to be done?

Well," said Pooh, "what I like best," and then he had to stop and think. Because although Eating Honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than when you were, but he didn't know what it was called.

Conscience in most men, is but the anticipation of the opinions of others.

I never think of the future - it comes soon enough.