45 Quotes About Expectations That Put Life Into Perspective

Explore 45 quotes about expectations to help you think more clearly about the ones you set for yourself and the people around you.

Liputan6.com, Jakarta - Expectations are something everyone deals with every day. You set them for yourself, for other people, and for life in general. Sometimes they help you stay motivated. Other times, they lead to disappointment when things do not go as planned. Quotes about expectations capture these familiar feelings in words that are easy to relate to.

Expectations can be tricky. When they are too high, you may feel let down even when things go well. When they are too low, you may hold yourself back. Finding the right balance is not always easy, and quotes about expectations remind us that struggling with expectations is something many people share, no matter where they come from.

In this article, you will find quotes about expectations that may change the way you think about the ones you carry. Read through them and see which ones speak to you.

Powerful Quotes About Expectations

1. “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

2. "Winners make a habit of manufacturing their own positive expectations in advance of the event." - Brian Tracy

3. "If you accept the expectations of others, especially negative ones, then you never will change the outcome." - Michael Jordan

4. "The expectations of life depend upon diligence; the mechanic that would perfect his work must first sharpen his tools." - Confucius

5. "To free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves - there lies the great, singular power of self-respect." - Joan Didion

6. “Expectations were like fine pottery. The harder you held them, the more likely they were to crack.” - Brandon Sanderson

7. “Positive expectations are the mark of the superior personality.” - Brian Tracy

8. "Our limitations and success will be based, most often, on your own expectations for ourselves. What the mind dwells upon, the body acts upon." - Denis Waitley

9. "You can't base your life on other people's expectations." - Stevie Wonder

10. “Expectation wasn't just about what people expected of you. It was about what you expected of yourself.” - Brandon Sanderson

11. "If we're stuck with having expectations, there's a very good reason to embrace positive ones: It's that we often create what we anticipate." - Martha Beck

12. "Make each day count by setting specific goals to succeed, then putting forth every effort to exceed your own expectations." - Les Brown

13. "I'm not setting too many expectations for myself. I'm just trying to create opportunities for something interesting." Bowen Yang

14. "Don't live down to expectations. Go out there and do something remarkable." - Wendy Wasserstein

15. “Expect everything, I always say, and the unexpected never happens.” - Norton Juster

Quotes About High Expectations

1. "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

2. "High achievement always takes place in the framework of high expectation." - Charles Kettering

3. "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

4. "Perfectionism can definitely go both ways, that's for sure. Pursuing excellence is usually a pretty positive notion, and it's important to continue pushing to be better at what we do, but on the other hand, extreme perfectionism - in my case, at least - can easily change into frustration if I can't meet my own high expectations." - Iga Swiatek

5. “Expectations are dangerous when they are both too high and unformed.” - Lionel Shriver

6. "High expectations are the key to everything." - Sam Walton

7. "Don’t join an easy crowd; you won’t grow. Go where the expectations and the demands to perform are high." - Jim Rohn

8. "High expectations and belief in people leads to high performance so very often belief creates fact." - Paul Hersey

9. "When you have big dreams, you’re going to have big challenges. If you were an average person you would have average problems." - Joel Osteen

10. "I have high expectations for myself. I'm not out there playing the game just to be playing it. I want to win a championship." - Albert Belle

Quotes About Expectations and Disappointment

1. “Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.” - Alexander Pope

2. "Happiness is found in the absence of expectation and a continuous focus on appreciation." - Tony Robbins

3. "When you have expectations, you are setting yourself up for disappointment." - Ryan Reynolds

4. “Look. I have a strategy. Why expect anything? If you don’t expect anything, you don’t get disappointed.” - Patricia McCormick, Cut

5. “If you expect nothing, you can never be disappointed.” - Tonya Hurley

6. "Expectation is the mother of all frustration." - Antonio Banderas

7. "Anyone who loves in the expectation of being loved in return is wasting their time." - Paulo Coelho

8. "The joy of losing consists in this: Where there are no expectations, there is no disappointment." - Charles Krauthammer

9. "Unhappiness is best defined as the difference between our talents and our expectations." - Edward de Bono

10. "If you align expectations with reality, you will never be disappointed." - Terrell Owens

Quotes About Letting Go of Unrealistic Expectations

1. "My happiness grows in direct proportion to my acceptance, and in inverse proportion to my expectations." - Michael J. Fox

2. "Being in control of your life and having realistic expectations about your day-to-day challenges are the keys to stress management, which is perhaps the most important ingredient to living a happy, healthy and rewarding life." - Marilu Henner

3. "Low expectations is the key to happiness in life." - Christopher Miller

4. “I find my life is a lot easier the lower I keep my expectations.” - Bill Watterson

5. “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.” - Lisa Kleypas

6. "Lower your expectations of earth. This isn't heaven, so don't expect it to be." - Max Lucado

7. "Healing may not be so much about getting better, as about letting go of everything that isn’t you - all of the expectations, all of the beliefs - and becoming who you are." - Rachel Naomi Remen

8. "There are two ways to be happy: improve your reality, or lower your expectations." - Jodi Picoult

9. “Happiness is good management of expectations and good management means making order and assembling the contingent elements of the "do's'" and the "don'ts", the "maybe yes'" and the "maybe not's". When we really want to live in agreement with ourselves and find peace with the surrounding world, good management is liberating. ( " Expectations " )” - Erik Pevernagie

10. "When one's expectations are reduced to zero, one really appreciates everything one does have." - Stephen Hawking