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I've always said that people have unrealistic expectations.
Sep 11, 2025
I warn young people that I interact with about this - you get into unrealistic expectations where you think that, "Oh, we're gonna eliminate racism like that. After Obama's elected how could there be any racism?".
Some people have an unrealistic expectation when it comes to getting published; the fact is most publishers will turn down your work which is why you need to be persistent.
As you get older, you tend to be a little less patient with people - people who are not prepared, people who have unrealistic expectations, people who make unrealistic demands, people who think they're more special than other people.
I've always found it sort of hilarious, and occasionally horrifying, how these images [in mass media] impact us, and especially when it comes to love and sex and relationships, I think we sometimes develop unrealistic expectations.
It's better to look strong and healthy.
If you do not expect the unexpected, you will not recognize it when it arrives.
[...] He didn't want his wife to read historical romances because it might give her unrealistic expectations. [...] If I had been him, I would have been reading your books every time you laid them down to see how I could improve my skills and please you. Second warning of the night. I bought a couple." You bought a couple of what?" Historical romances. I'm three-quarters through the first one." He flashed her a slow grin. "All I can say is, I like the way your mind works." ~Jake Coulter and Molly Wells
I had these kind of unrealistic expectations that were fueled by romantic comedies, and it has both helped me and hurt me in many ways. It helped me because, in general, they've made me hopeful. I just figure things will eventually work out for me. But nobody is like any Tom Hanks character. Nobody is Hugh Grant. No one is Meg Ryan!
There's strong data that, within companies, the No. 1 reason for ethical violations is the pressure to meet expectations, sometimes unrealistic expectations.
The more invested I am in my own ideas about reality, the more those experiences will feel like victimizations rather than the ups and downs of relating. Actually, I believe that the less I conceptualize things that way, the more likely it is that people will want to stay by me, because they will not feel burdened, consciously or unconsciously, by my projections, judgments, entitlements, or unrealistic expectations.
Holidays in general breed unrealistic expectations. The minute you start wondering, 'is it going to be wonderful enough?,' it never will be.
Halfway through Numbers, I got really jaded, and I had these unrealistic expectations about what Numbers could be. I thought it should be Emmy-nominated. I was in my mid-20s, so I was kind of shortsighted and silly.
What makes earth feel like hell is our expectation that it should feel like heaven.
In media, there's a distance and an unrealistic expectation of knowledge about a person that's created.
I know that some poor immigrants from that era had unrealistic expectations and were disappointed, but I don't think my grandparents were disappointed at all, even though they experienced some very hard times during the Great Depression.
It’s your own expectations that hurt you. Not the world you live in. Whatever happens in the world is real. What you think should happen is unreal. So people are hurt by their expectations. You know , you’re not disappointed by the world, you are disappointed by your own projections.
Emphasize reconciliation, not resolution. It is unrealistic to expect everyone to agree about everything. Reconciliation focuses on the relationship, while resolution focuses on the problem. When we focus on reconciliation, the problem loses significance and often becomes irrelevant.
Most change initiatives either fail or fall far short of original (perhaps unrealistic) expectations. More often than not, resistance is cultural in nature, the result of what James O'Toole so aptly characterizes as "the ideology of comfort and the tyranny of custom."
While testimonies can come as dramatic manifestations, they usually do not. Sometimes people think they need to have an experience like Joseph Smith's vision before they gain testimonies. If we have unrealistic expectations of how, when, or where answers come, we risk missing the answers which come as quiet, reassuring feelings and thoughts that most often come after our prayers, while we are doing something else. These answers can be equally convincing and powerful.
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...
We [need to] stop treating each other like that, stop calling each other fat and stop with these unrealistic expectations for women. It’s disappointing that the media keeps it alive and fuels that fire.
Don't expect to build up the weak by pulling down the strong.
I would like my car to fly and make me breakfast, but that's an unrealistic expectation.
Girls see enough of this body that we can't imitate, that we'll never be able to obtain, these unrealistic expectations...it's better to look strong and healthy...
RIE emphasizes the benefits of infants spending peaceful, uninterrupted time following their biological rhythms of falling asleep when sleepy and eating when hungry, rather than their having to adjust too soon to external schedules and unrealistic expectations. First, we have to let the child develop his own rhythm; and then later he can adjust more into adult life.
There are two ways to be happy: improve your reality, or lower your expectations.
Men marry women with the hope they will never change. Women marry men with the hope they will change. Invariably they are both disappointed.
It is a statement to the obvious, however, that [Barack] Obama - of Obamacare - is the President of the United States, so I don't want people to have [unrealistic] expectations about what may actually become law with Obama - of Obamacare - in the White House. But we intend to keep our commitment to the American people.
And then there are encouragements to use heterosexual pornography or heterosexual images to encourage heterosexual attraction. I find it a golden idol, honestly, where we have been hypocritical to ask people to resolve this issue in a way that we haven't encouraged other people with other struggles to resolve. I'm looking at offering biblical holiness, not an unrealistic expectation for people that will leave them disappointed.
For someone to promise a percentage type cure for this issue, for instance I had someone who said they had experienced a 90 percent permanent - in all caps PERMANENT - reduction of their same-sex attraction. How can we quantify that? How can you even know that that's what you have experienced? And what if at some point you fall to 85 percent or 70 percent? That, I think, sets people up for unrealistic expectations and is something that I'm not willing to offer when we're sharing these types of messages or presenting what was presented to me.
We cannot possibly take them all into this country [asylum seekers] - it is a completely unrealistic expectation.
Never idealize others. They will never live up to your expectations. Don't over-analyze your relationships. Stop playing games. A growing relationship can only be nurtured by genuineness.
Don't expect anyone to give you anything. If you really believe in something, then fight for it.
I'm not in this world to live up to your expectations and you're not in this world to live up to mine.
Relationships become rocky when men and women fail to acknowledge they are biologically different and when each expects the other to live up to their expectations. Much of the stress we experience in relationships comes from the false belief that men and women are now the same and have the same priorities, drives and desires
The idea that positive illusions are in the service of sef-esteem virtually requires that they stay in check. If one develops substantially unrealistic expectations regarding the future that greatly exceed what one is actually able to accomplish, then one is set up for failure and disappointment, leading to lower self-esteem.
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