Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Expectation
Serene I fold my hands and wait,
Nor care for wind or tide nor sea;
I rave no more ’gainst time or fate,
For lo! my own shall come to me.
John Burroughs—Waiting.
“Yet doth he live!” exclaims th’ impatient heir,
And sighs for sables which he must not wear.
Byron—Lara. Canto I. St. 3.
I have known him [Micawber] come home to supper with a flood of tears, and a declaration that nothing was now left but a jail; and go to bed making a calculation of the expense of putting bow-windows to the house, “in case anything turned up,” which was his favorite expression.
Dickens—David Copperfield. Ch. XI.
I suppose, to use our national motto, something will turn up. [Motto of Vraibleusia.]
Benj. Disraeli—Popanilla. Ch. VII.
He was fash and full of faith that “something would turn up.”
Benj. Disraeli—Tancred. Bk. III. Ch. VI.
Everything comes if a man will only wait.
Benj. Disraeli—Tancred. Bk. IV. Ch. VIII.
What else remains for me?
Youth, hope and love;
To build a new life on a ruined life.
Longfellow—Masque of Pandora. In the Garden. Pt. VIII.
Since yesterday I have been in Alcalá.
Erelong the time will come, sweet Preciosa,
When that dull distance shall no more divide us;
And I no more shall scale thy wall by night
To steal a kiss from thee, as I do now.
Longfellow—Spanish Student. Act I. Sc. 3.
Blessed is he who expects nothing for he shall never be disappointed.
Pope—Letter to Gay. Oct. 6, 1727. Called by Pope and Gay “The Eighth Beatitude.” Bishop Heber refers to it as “Swift’s Eighth Beatitude.” Also called “The Ninth Beatitude.”
Oft expectation fails and most oft there
Where most it promises, and oft it hits
Where hope is coldest and despair most fits.
All’s Well That Ends Well. Act II. Sc. 1. L. 145.
There have sat
The live-long day, with patient expectation,
To see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome.
Julius Cæsar. Act I. Sc. 1. L. 45.
He hath indeed better bettered expectation than you must expect of me to tell you how.
Much Ado About Nothing. Act I. Sc. 1. L. 15.
Promising is the very air o’ the time; it opens the eyes of expectation: performance is ever the duller for his act; and, but in the plainer and simpler kind of people, the deed of saying is quite out of use.
Timon of Athens. Act V. Sc. 1. L. 24.
Expectation whirls me round.
The imaginary relish is so sweet
That it enchants my sense.
Troilus and Cressida. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 19.
’Tis expectation makes a blessing dear;
Heaven were not Heaven, if we knew what it were.
Sir John Suckling—Against Fruition.
Although I enter not,
Yet round about the spot
Ofttimes I hover;
And near the sacred gate,
With longing eyes I wait,
Expectant of her.
Thackeray—Pendennis. At the Church Gate.
’Tis silence all,
And pleasing expectation.
Thomson—Seasons. Spring. L. 160.
Blessed are those that nought expect,
For they shall not be disappointed.
John Walcot—Ode to Pitt.
It is folly to expect men to do all that they may reasonably be expected to do.
Whately—Apophthegms.