Expectation

“ There are several special conditions, not to be overlooked. One of these is the influence of expectation. Whoever expects anything, sees, hears, and constructs, only in the suspense of this expectation, and neglects all competing events most astoundingly. ”

“ As is the ‘habit’ which determines the expectation, such must be the expectation itself; and as have been the sequences of feeling in each man’s past, such must be the habit which results from them. Now no one’s feelings have always occurred to him in the same relative order. ”

“ No eager expectation is seen on any face, but quietly, indifferently, without crushing, elbowing, they join the tail-end of the procession and stand silently waiting for the signal that tells them to move. ”

“ The frightful state of things in the land, unparalleled even in those evil times, joined with the feeling of expectation which always attends any marked note of time, be it a fresh week or a fresh millennium—​all worked together to bring about a looking for something to come, partly perhaps in fear, but far more largely in hope. ”

“ Expectation must have more than conjecture, more than mere probability, for a basis. I earnestly desire the Lord to come while I live, but I do not expect him to do so, for I have nothing on which to base such an expectation. ”

“ The state of expectation: “The intense objectivity of one’s looks when following a race, or a great surgical operation, is not, strictly speaking, unconsciousness, but a maximum of energy with a minimum of consciousness. It is rather a mode of indifference—more of an excitement than an affective state.” Here we may make the same comment; moreover, there is in expectation a feeling of effort which soon becomes fatigue, and, in most instances, expectation involves the anticipation of some event either desired or dreaded. ”

“ In other words, “expectation” stands here for a general attitude of mind, a mode of apperceptive readiness to assimilate any idea of a certain order, that is to say, standing in a recognisable relation to what is presented. It is the attitude in which we appreciate the evolution of a plot in fiction when this appears natural and does not give a shock to consciousness. ”

“ When an image accompanied by an expectation-belief is thus succeeded by a sensation which is the "meaning" of the image, we say that the expectation-belief has been verified. The experience of verification in this sense is exceedingly familiar; it happens every time that accustomed activities have results that are not surprising, in eating and walking and talking and all our daily pursuits. ”

“ It is the curse of my life that I was brought up with expectations. How many possibly useful, if not good, men have been wrecked on that same rock of expectations! Upon the strength of 'expectations' I was reared into an idle incapable. ”

“ Note, Our expectations from the creature are often most frustrated when they are most raised; and then, when we look for much, it comes to little, that our expectation may be from God only, in whom it will be outdone. ”

“ The art of will-making chiefly consists in baffling the importunity of expectation. ”

“ Therefore since it is a condition of future events that they cannot be grasped or comprehended by any efforts of anticipation, is it not more reasonable, out of two alternatives that are uncertain and that are hanging in doubtful expectation, to give credence to the one that gives some hope rather than to the one that offers none at all? ”

“ Whatever I promise to a patient in future I shall do, if I have to wear a notebook hanging on my belt.
"By which you will see that I am making discoveries!
"The quality of expectation in a person lying horizontally is wrought up to a high pitch. One is always expecting something. Generally it is food; three times a day it is the post; oftener it is the performance of some promise. ”

“ Obviously, no amount of past experience can warrant us in anything more than a correspondingly strong expectation for the present and future. We find, practically, that expectations, based upon careful observations of past events, are, as a rule, trustworthy. We should be foolish indeed not to follow the only guide we have through life. ”

“ The conjunctions of experience befall more or less invariably, variably, or never. The idea of one term will then engender a fixed, a wavering, or a negative expectation of another, giving affirmative, the hypothetical, disjunctive, interrogative, and negative judgments, and judgments of actuality and possibility about certain things. ”

“ The pleasures of expectation are the pleasures that result from the contemplation of any sort of pleasure, referred to time future, and accompanied with the sentiment of belief. These also may admit of the same distinctions. ”

“ Life is so constructed, that the event does not, cannot, will not, match the expectation. ”

“ He should encourage the earnest expectation of the good things to come, and move forward to the realization thereof. Much of life success depends upon the mental attitude of, and the confident expectation of, a successful outcome. Earnest Desire, Confident Expectation, and Resolute Action—this is the threefold key of attainment. Thought manifests itself in action, and we grow in accordance with the mental pattern or mould we create for ourselves. ”

“ Even supposing the expectation to have originated from some rational source, as from a conscious inference from past experience, or from the acceptance of somebody's statement, the very habit of cherishing the anticipation tends to invest it with an automatic self-sufficient character. To all intents and purposes the prevision becomes intuitive, by which I mean that the mind is at the time immediately certain that something is going to happen, without needing to fall back on memory or reflection. ”

“ If it be said that the expectation is perpetually renewed and perpetually disappointed, this is true, but does not account for more than a continual alternation between a pleasant idea and no idea at all. That an element of pain should enter into unsatisfied desire, is a fact not explained by the author’s theory; and it stands as evidence that there is in a desire something inherently distinct from either an idea or an expectation.—Ed. ”

“ The anticipations of the righteous, conducted by prudence, and regulated by piety, mislead him not from his duty, and afford him satisfaction in the end. While the expectation of the wicked, arising from fantastic imaginary prospects, delude him for a while and terminate in misery. Let us consider, what we may, and what we may not, reasonably expect from the world. I. We must not expect the uninterrupted continuance of any measure of health, prosperity, or comfort, which we now enjoy. II. We are not to expect, from our intercourse with others, all that satisfaction which we fondly wish. ”

“ Should your friend after all his trouble purchase something that does not to the full realize your fondest expectation, take the will for the deed, and bear in mind "oft expectation fails, and most oft there where most it promises." ”

“ At a still later period, as disappointment nevertheless not unfrequently happens notwithstanding a considerable amount of past experience on the side of the expectation, the mind is put upon making distinctions in the kind of past experiences, and finding out what qualities, besides mere frequency, experience must have, in order not to be followed by disappointment. ”

“ But whether explained sentimentally or scientifically, the result is the same: that expectation makes up so large a component part of pleasure that, when there is nothing new to expect, pleasure becomes so attenuated as to be scarcely visible. ”

“ In a word, the key to any important spiritual experience is intention, inward pre-perception, that holds the mind intently focussed in expectation, without which the "flash" of spiritual vision is not likely to come. ”

“ I love with all the accumulated power of the expectations, dreams, and impatient longings of a sterile life of eight-and-twenty years, passed in watching and not seeing, in seeking and not finding, what some presentiment taught me to expect, and you have revealed to me. ”

“ How far such expectations are rational, and with what degrees of confidence they should be entertained, are the questions for the Logic of Inference, but we may first note that we do as a matter of habit found expectations on repeated coincidence, and indeed guide our daily life in this way. If we meet a man repeatedly in the street at a certain hour, we go out expecting to meet him: it is a shock to our expectations, a surprise, when we do not. ”

“ Large.—With Hope large, one always views the future with bright anticipations. If Caution and Causality are large, he will never be carried away by his expectations, but will pursue generally a prudent course, and not allow his hopes to hurry him into imprudent measures. If Combativeness, Firmness, Self-esteem and Ideality are large, he will be bold, speculative and enterprising; and if Caution is small, will be excessively rash, precipitate and imprudent, often attempting undertakings which to the less sanguine appear impossible. ”

“ Earnest, sincere desire, sincere aspiration for higher and better conditions or means to realize them, the thought-forces actively sent out for their realization, these continually watered by firm expectation without allowing the contrary, neutralizing force of fear ever to enter in,—this, accompanied by rightly directed work and activity, will bring about the fullest realization of one's highest desires and aspirations with a certainty as absolute as that effect follows cause. ”

“ and, when expectation is disappointed or gratified, we want to be again expecting. ”

“ For in this we feel every earthly expectation, so far as it is real and well-grounded, will receive its final accomplishment, being realized to a degree surpassing all that we had ever ventured to look for. ”

“ Dear brethren, calm and confident expectation should be our attitude, and lowly repentance should rise to triumphant believing hope, because God is moving round about us in this day. Thanks be to His name, there is spread through us all an expectation of great things. ”

“ The preparation begets a great deal more expectation than it will satisfy; a man very often absurdly strips himself to his doublet to leap no further than he would have done in his gown.' [Perhaps the reflecting scholar will recollect to have seen an instance of this magnificent preparation for saying something to the purpose, attended with similarly lame conclusions; but, if he does not, the story which follows may tend to refresh his memory on this point.] ”

“ Many things are included under knowing, for example, which on this reconstruction of psychology would have to be counted as willing.* Expectation, usually described as a cognitive attitude, becomes a peculiar form of action, getting ready, namely, to receive certain kinds of stimuli rather than others. The opposite case is equally common. Hunger, a typical desire on the usual account, would become knowledge, giving us, when genuine hunger, obscure awareness of a lack of nourishment, when habit-hunger, awareness of a certain phase in a cyclic visceral process. ”

“ To exhort us, by all meanes to labour to bring forth good fruits, and so also that they may be answerable unto those meanes which God used towards us, to make us fruitfull, according to Gods expectation, and in that season wherein God expects them, and in that measure also which he expects, of some thirty, of some sixty, and of some an hundred fold. ”

“ He sees its approach from a distance, tries to be prepared, counts his expected means of being so, finds them short of even his not very sanguine expectations, counts again, but can make no more of them ”

“ The regularity to which metre tends acts through the definiteness of the anticipations which are thereby aroused. It is through these that it gets such a hold upon the mind. Once again, here too, the failure of our expectations is often more important than success. Verse in which we constantly get exactly what we are ready for and no more, instead of something which we can and must take up and incorporate as another stage in a total developing response is merely toilsome and tedious. ”

“ Such expectations may be very attractive, and yet they are altogether illusory! they will not bear the test of a few simple calculations; and these our friends have not troubled themselves to institute. ”

“ They whose hopes are set on God have a certain hope, a sufficient one, and one that fills all the future. All other expectations are fulfilled, or disappointed, as the case may be, but are left behind and outgrown. ”

“ So long as an object is unusual, our expectations are baffled; they are fully determined as soon as it becomes familiar. I therefore propose this as the first practical requisite which a philosophic conception must satisfy: It must, in a general way at least, banish uncertainty from the future. ”

“ If he undertakes this, surely he can do any thing, and will do every thing that is necessary in order to do it. Let our expectations be carried out towards a happiness reserved for the last day, when all the years of time shall be fully complete and ended. ”

“ The nearer, however, the day came which had been appointed for receiving applications, the more I had a secret consciousness, that the Lord might disappoint my natural expectations, and show me that I could not prosper in one single thing without Him. ”

“ “Now, I return to this young fellow. And the communication I have got to make is, that he has great expectations.” ”