We usually get what we anticipate.
~ Claude M. Bristol

If pleasures are greatest in anticipation, just remember that this is also true of trouble.
~ Elbert Hubbard

Few enterprises of great labor or hazard would be undertaken if we had not the power of magnifying the advantages we expect from them.
~ Samuel Johnson

We love to expect, and when expectation is either disappointed or gratified, we want to be again expecting.
~ Samuel Johnson

Our desires always disappoint us; for though we meet with something that gives us satisfaction, yet it never thoroughly answers our expectation.
~ Francois De La Rochefoucauld

A man's delight in looking forward to and hoping for some particular satisfaction is a part of the pleasure flowing out of it, enjoyed in advance. But this is afterward deducted, for the more we look forward to anything the less we enjoy it when it comes.
~ Arthur Schopenhauer

Nothing is so wretched or foolish as to anticipate misfortunes. What madness is it to be expecting evil before it comes.
~ Seneca