quotations about anticipation
There is no terror in a bang, only in the anticipation of it.
ALFRED HITCHCOCK
attributed, Halliwell's Filmgoer's Companion
Schedule something to look forward to. Anticipation is like 401K matching for happiness. Double the happiness.
ERIC BARKER
"The 7 Step Evening Ritual That Will Make You Happy", Observer, March 9, 2016
Happiness lies in the imagination, not the act. Pleasure is found first in anticipation, later in memory.
JULIAN BARNES
Flaubert's Parrot
In our pursuit of the things of this world, we usually prevent enjoyment, by expectation; we anticipate our own happiness, and eat out the heart and sweetness of worldly pleasures, by delightful forethoughts of them; so that when we come to possess them, they do not answer the expectation, nor satisfy the desires which were raised about them, and they vanish into nothing.
JOHN TILLOTSON
The Works of the Most Reverend Dr. John Tillotson
Our mere anticipations of life outrun its realities.
AESOP
"The Seaside Travelers", Aesop's Fables
Engage people with what they expect; it is what they are able to discern and confirms their projections. It settles them into predictable patterns of response, occupying their minds while you wait for the extraordinary moment -- that which they cannot anticipate.
SUN TZU
The Art of War
The pleasure isn't in doing the thing, the pleasure is in planning it.
JOHN GREEN
Paper Towns
There is nothing so wretched and foolish as to anticipate misfortunes. What madness to expect evil before it arrives.
SENECA
attributed, Day's Collacon
There is no such joy in the tavern as upon the road thereto.
CORMAC MCCARTHY
Blood Meridian
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.... 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.
LUCY MAUD MONTGOMERY
Anne of Avonlea
The task of the mind is to produce future, as the poet Paul Valery once put it. A mind is fundamentally an anticipator, an expectation-generator. It mines the present for clues, which it refines with the help of the materials it has saved from the past, turning them into anticipations of the future. And then it acts, rationally, on the basis of those hard-won anticipations.
DANIEL DENNETT
Kinds of Minds
Anticipating pain was like enduring it twice. Why not anticipate pleasure instead?
ROBIN HOBB
Renegade's Magic
That sanguine expectation of happiness which is happiness itself.
JANE AUSTEN
Sense and Sensibility
Anticipation of pleasure is, in itself, a very considerable pleasure.
DAVID HUME
A Treatise of Human Nature
Anticipation is a gift. Perhaps there is none greater. Anticipation is born of hope. Indeed it is hope's finest expression.
STEVEN L. PECK
A Short Stay in Hell
Such is the state of life, that none are happy but by the anticipation of change: the change itself is nothing; when we have made it, the next wish is to change again.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
The History of Rasselas
The greatest value of an object lies not in its possession, but anticipation; and the covetousness of all things far exceeds their true worth.
ANTHONY LISLE
The Westminster Review, Jan. 1914
Men spend their lives in anticipations, in determining to be vastly happy at some period or other, when they have time; but the present time has an advantage over every other--it is our own.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
Anticipation forward points the view.
ROBERT BURNS
"The Cotter's Saturday Night"
Never forget that anticipation is an important part of life. Work's important, family's important, but without excitement, you have nothing. You're cheating yourself if you refuse to enjoy what's coming.
NICHOLAS SPARKS
Three Weeks With My Brother