Quotes on Expectations

If I fulfill YOUR expectations, how am I going to transform you? I have to DESTROY your expectations. I have to destroy the very mind that creates those expectations. If you come to me, never come with expectations, otherwise you will be disappointed - because I have no obligation to fulfill your expectations in any way. In fact, if I see that there are some expectations, I do things DELIBERATELY to destroy those expectations. That is the price you have to pay to be with me.

You listen to the mind, you become miserable - otherwise, this today is paradise! And there is no other paradise, this today is nirvana. If you had not listened to the mind... just don't listen to the mind, then you are not in misery; because misery cannot exist without expectations and without hopes. And when misery exists you need more hopes for it, to hide it, to live somehow. Live hopelessly - then you are a righteous man, then you are retired.

All expectations belong to the mind, all disciplines belong to the mind, all so-called saintliness and so-called sin belong to the mind. When there is no mind, there is no sinner and no saint, and the gift simply showers on you.

Do everything with a mind that lets go. Do not expect praise or reward.

Give me the old familiar world, post-office and all, with this ever new self, with this infinite expectation and faith, which does not know when it is beaten.

Except for their genitals, I don't know what immutable differences exist between men and women. Perhaps there are some other unchangeable differences; probably there are a number of irrelevant differences. But it is clear that until social expectations for men and women are equal, until we provide equal respect for both sexes, answers to this question will simply reflect our prejudices.

You have to take risks. We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen.

There's just this for consolation: an hour here or there when our lives seem, against all odds and expectations, to burst open and give us everything we've ever imagined.

I know not anything more pleasant, or more instructive, than to compare experience with expectation, or to register from time to time the difference between idea and reality. It is by this kind of observation that we grow daily less liable to be disappointed.

I am open to the guidance of synchronicity, and do not let expectations hinder my path.

As life becomes harder and more threatening, it also becomes richer, because the fewer expectations we have, the more good things of life become unexpected gifts that we accept with gratitude.

Regulators have not been able to achieve the level of future clarity required to act pre-emptively. The problem is not lack of regulation but unrealistic expectations. What we confront in reality is uncertainty, some of it frighteningly so...

Just because an employee does things differently doesn't mean he or she won't do the job right or as well. If you establish expectations of the goal and the standards to follow, then methodology shouldn't be an issue.

Plan for this world as if you expect to live forever; but plan for the hereafter as if you expect to die tomorrow.

So, the next time you're out working on your game and they pass you the rock, don't just take it to the hole. Take it to the next level. Don't just bend rims. Bend expectations. Let them see you and feel you and by the very virtue of your love, the truth in your game, they will hear you. Let your game speak.

The expectation that every neurotic phenomenon can be cured may, I suspect, be derived from the layman's belief that the neuroses are something quite unnecessary which have no right whatever to exist. Whereas in fact they are severe, constitutionally fixed illnesses, which rarely restrict themselves to only a few attacks but persist as a rule over long periods throughout life.

A woman's hopes are woven of sunbeams; a shadow annihilates them.

Without life there can be no action — no objects of pursuit — no restless desires — no tormenting passions. Hence it is that we fondly cling to it — that we dread its termination as the close, not of enjoyment, but of hope.

Unto him who is able to keep us from falling, and lift us from the dark to the bright mountain of hope, from the midnight of desperation to the daybreak of joy, to him be power and authority for ever and ever.

When fortune surprises us by giving us some great office without having gradually led us to expect it, or without having raised our hopes, it is well nigh impossible to occupy it well, and to appear worthy to fill it.

Avarice often produces opposite results: there are an infinite number of persons who sacrifice their property to doubtful and distant expectations; others mistake great future advantages for small present interests.