Quotes & Sayings About High Expectations

GREAT SECRET Whenever I'm learning something difficult, I keep expectations low, and aspirations high. — James Marcus Bach

All of us can meet God's high expectations. — D. Todd Christofferson

I'm a junkie for exhaustion, and I'm a junkie for setting up my expectations too high and then trying to meet them. — Stephen Colbert

You want to know the secret to raising good kids?"
"What's that? asked Thomas.
"High expectations."
Thomas laughed. "Alright, well what's the secret to a happy marriage?"
Clyde smiled back, but his face started to fall, and he chose his words carefully. " ... Low expectations. — Chris Nicolaisen

Coach Morris wasn't too hard on me, not at all. Being drafted where I was at, there were high expectations for me. I still have high expectations for myself. — Gaines Adams

If I answer questions every time you ask one, expectations would be high. And as you know, I like to keep expectations low. — George W. Bush

It is always esteemed the greatest mischief a man can do to those whom he loves, to raise men's expectations of them too high by undue and impertinent commendations. — Thomas Sprat

If you have high expectations you're going to get resentments and all kinds of tension. — Anthony Hopkins

Katherine often teases me that I'm missing the need-a-boyfriend gene, but the truth is I just haven't met anyone who ... well, whom I'm attracted to, even though part of me longs for the fabled trembling knees, heart-in-my-mouth, butterflies-in-my-belly moments. Sometimes I wonder if there's something wrong with me. Perhaps I've spent too long in the company of my literary romantic heroes, and consequently my ideals and expectations are far too high. But in reality, nobody's ever made me feel like that. — E.L. James

They're like Generation X on steroids. They walk in with high expectations for themselves, their employer, their boss. If you thought you saw a clash when Generation X came into the workplace - that was the fake punch. The haymaker is coming now. — Paul Greenberg

Real leaders have to live a paradoxical life, where they must break the rules in order to maintain them. If your expectations are high, you're setting yourself up for disillusionment. The land of governance is paved with gray streets, not black or white ones. — Beau Willimon

As women, we do feel like we have to live up to an expectation, whether it's on camera or going to the market or whatever it is. And the truth of the matter is, that's not always the way it is. We don't always have our high heels on, we don't always have our makeup on. — Jennifer Aniston

I'm excited, happy, nervous, anxious, all those feelings about playing for the Jets again. If I didn't have high expectations, I wouldn't come back here. — Vinny Testaverde

The goals and expectations that people have for me are pretty high, but ... if I were to have to compare their expectations to mine, I would say mine are ten times higher. — Reggie Bush

That incredible bubble and high expectations built at festivals can work against a film. — Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

High expectations is the key to everything. — Sam Walton

When new technology in the classroom starts happening, some people get very excited and think of it as a panacea. It attracts very high amounts of money; it raises expectations, and those expectations aren't met. — Mitch Kapor

I don't think intimidated is the word. I definitely get excited by it. I don't want to let anybody down. I've always been the type of person to make everybody happy and get things done. I want everything to be 100 percent perfect. I do feel it when people hold me to high expectations. — Nicki Minaj

One of the biggest obstacles to high performance in organizations comes from unclear expectations and accountability. — Kenneth H. Blanchard

Your life will go only as high as the level of your expectations. — Joyce Meyer

Our thoughts about an event can have a dramatic effect on how we go through the event itself. When our expectations are low, it's easy to be pleasantly surprised. When they're not, we're vulnerable to painful disappointment. Because of this, many people spend a good deal of effort trying to avoid developing high hopes about anything. — Martha Beck

My expectations are incredibly high. — Paula Creamer

I knew her a long time. The truth was we both had certain expectations of each other. In the end, I suppose they were too high. — Kathleen Tessaro

It's better to not set your expectations high. And that's what happens when you have a long career - not every album is going to be record setting. — Scott Weiland

I had such high expectations of myself. I was going to be the best mother, the best housewife, the best entertainer, the best nurse, you know - what it was, I was going to be the best. And I could never live up to my expectations. — Ann Richards

The hard thing about 'The Saint' was that my character was supposed to die, but then they reshot the ending based on tests and she lives. I created the character based on her dying - she would never have been as innocent otherwise. So I didn't have high expectations for that film. — Elisabeth Shue

America's lifestyle expectations are far too high and need to be adjusted so we have less things and a smaller, better existence. — Jeff Greene

I read THE WICKED + THE DIVINE last night, and no matter how high your expectations are for it, its better. — Scott Snyder

It really is a shame more movies aren't like real life. Maybe then we wouldn't have such high expectations and feel let down by our own existence so much. — Amber L. Johnson

Our children can achieve great things when we set high expectations for them. — Jeb Bush

I am extremely ecstatic about the presidency of Barack Obama. I think he is paving the way for young African-American men like myself. I have very high expectations for Obama, and I am extremely hopeful that he will bring great lasting change not just to America, but to the entire world. — Texas Battle

It didn't matter much what Dwayne said. It hadn't mattered much for years. It didn't matter much what most people in Midland City said out loud, except when they were talking about money or structures or travel or machinery - or other measurable thins. Every person had a clearly defined part to play - as a black person, a female high school drop-out, a Pontiac dealer, a gynecologist, a gas-conversion burner installer. If a person stopped living up to expectations, because of bad chemicals or one thing or another, everybody went on imagining that the person was living up to expectations anyway.
That was the main reason the people in Midland City were so slow to detect insanity in their associates. Their imaginations insisted that nobody changed much from day to day. Their imaginations were flywheels on the ramshackle machinery of awful truth. — Kurt Vonnegut

After that, a strange thing happened: Amy couldn't stop her expectations from rising. She imagined herself transformed and beautiful, like Molly Ringwald in Pretty in Pink, with her homemade dress and mysterious lace boots. She pictured her hair in an upsweep of loose curls. In the fantasy, her prom face looked like the one she only wore asleep, loose and relaxed. She imagined a photographer asking her to smile and, for the first time in her life, being able to do it. — Cammie McGovern

Debatable how long the seduction took. The smarter the girl, the swifter these things go. Physical forwardness as intellectual high-wire act: the pleasure not of pleasure but of performance and revenge against the retainer, the flute, the stack of expectations. — Lauren Groff

Fans have a constitutional right to expect success and have high expectations ... — Jim Harbaugh

Manson didn't 'kill the sixties', as some have suggested. They committed suicide, ODed on excess, high expectations, and a belief that in getting rid of all repression - what I've called 'giving way to strange forces' - some pure, natural soul would emerge. They were wrong. — Gary Lachman

Seeing Ed Belfour have expectations higher than anyone else of him shows the kind of competitor he is. I would love to incorporate a high level of professionalism into my game. — Marty Turco

The family is in flux, and signs of trouble are widespread. Expectations remain high. But realities are disturbing. — Robert Neelly Bellah

I hate high expectations because they're hard to beat. — Neal H. Moritz

The potential of any individual is based upon the opportunities presented to them. If appropriate (and) specific opportunities are presented, there will be greater outcomes...... Down syndrome is a label and you have to reach beyond the expectations of that label. I challenge you to look beyond those expectations and set your goals high. Use — Kristen Morrison

Hope reliably triumphs over experience. It's always very tempting to console ourselves with an apparently very reasonable thought: the reason it didn't work out this time was not that the expectations were too high, but that we directed them onto the wrong person. We — The School Of Life

I'm terrified of getting involved with someone who disappoints me or leaves me empty and alone. I'm terrified of rejection, so I set my expectations so high that they can never be met, and I dig around with a magnifying glass looking for flaws in very person I date. There's always a flaw to exploit, and I'll find it so I never have to get too close. — Rachel Machacek

With the MacArthur grant, I realized that people have high expectations of me, that they were placing me in this group of achievers. I compared what Id actually achieved in my life with what I would like to achieve and what other people have achieved, and I found that comparison depressing. — Jared Diamond

With success comes expectation and I know the expectation on me is going to be pretty high. — Rory McIlroy

I think expectations of 'Doctor Who' should always be high, because it's a show that must always progress and get better and better. — Matt Smith

We've come a long way from the time when the crowning achievement in a woman's life was her youthful marriage. And many would agree that this represents progress for women. But when did the search for someone to marry become self-absorbed and pathetic? This absence of social sympathy for women's ambitions to marry is all the more striking because the social world has cared so deeply about virtually every other aspect of these privileged young women's inner and outer lives. ( ... ) The achievement of a good marriage is the one area of life where the most privileged, accomplished, and high achieving young women in society face a loss of support and sympathy for their ambitions and where the social expectations are for disappointment and failure, not success. — Barbara Dafoe Whitehead

Thus, after finishing high school, I started with high expectations and enthusiasm to study chemistry at the famous Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. — Richard Ernst

I have a lot of what you might call creative self-loathing - I have pretty high expectations, and they seem to consistently be higher than what I'm able to accomplish. — Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

Keep your expectations high,
Not because you are better than anyone else, but because you have experienced enough pain; to realise, you won't settle anymore. — Nikki Rowe

You've got to have high expectations to achieve top results. — S.A. Tawks

The key is to really have tremendously high expectations and to teach kids how to be self sufficient and confident and give them the skills that they need to succeed. — Erik Weihenmayer

They were all looking at Mary, and she felt more than ever like the new pupil at a school where they had high expectations of her. She also felt a strange flattery: the idea of herself as swift and darting and birdlike was new and pleasant, because she had always thought of herself as dogged and plodding. But along with that came the feeling that they'd got it terribly wrong, if they saw her like that; they didn't understand at all; she couldn't possibly fulfill this desperate hope of theirs. — Philip Pullman

I don't have high expectations anymore. Maybe they've just been beaten out of me. — Elisabeth Shue

I've always got such high expectations for myself. I'm aware of them, but I can't relax them. — Mary Decker

There are many that enter into friendships and relationships with unrealistic expectations. God has taught me how to stop having high expectations in people, and instead put expectations in Him. He gives humans choices. No matter how "good", strong, or well-meaning a person may be, it's unrealistic to think that he or she can fulfill our every expectation. We live in a world where humans want power; as you can see, everything requires power from the intangible things to the tangible things. Be careful of who you trust because who they truly are, may not be who you thought they were even if you've known them for years. Sometimes the greatest backstabbers are the ones you trusted after many years and then they eventually show their true colors. Such is life. — Krystal Volney

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

I have great confidence in Rene and high expectations for our squad to respond. — Shahid Khan

Comrades, we are going to try to cheer you up, and our sense of humor will help us in this endeavor, although the phrase gallows humor has never seemed so logical and appropriate. The external circumstances are exactly in our favor. We need only to take a look at the barbed wire fences, so high and full of electricity. Just like your expectations.
And then there are the watchtowers that monitor our every move. The guards have machine guns. But machine guns won't intimidate us, comrades. They just have barrels of guns, whereas we are going to have barrels of laughs.
You may be surprised at how upbeat and cheerful we are. Well, comrades, there are goods reasons for this. It's been a long time since we were in Berlin. But every time we appeared there, we felt very uneasy. We were afraid we'd get sent to the concentration camps. Now that fear is gone. We're already here. — Rudolph Herzog

I don't have expectations with people, but I have very high standards for myself. The only time I get disappointed in life is when I disappoint myself. — Chronixx

I was raised, myself, by extremely strict but also extremely loving Chinese immigrant parents. To this day, I believe that their having high expectations for me, coupled with love, was the greatest gift that anyone's ever given me. And so that's why, even though my husband is not Chinese, I try to raise my own two daughters the same way. — Amy Chua

Copywriting basically consists of taking something dreadful, putting it in a box with a shiny ribbon, and presenting it to someone. Any disappointment the recipient has upon opening the box is entirely due to their own high expectations and therefore their fault. — David Thorne

You can accomplish anything with students if you set high expectations for behavior and performance by which you yourself abide. — Harry K. Wong

Education is a shared commitment between dedicated teachers, motivated students and enthusiastic parents with high expectations. — Bob Beauprez

I like myself.

Not once did I ever hate myself.

My basic, but high specs; my decent face; and my pessimistic, but realistic thinking; I didn't hate any single one of them.

But now, for the first time, I was on the verge of hating myself.

I arbitrarily placed my expectations on her, I arbitrarily forced my ideals on her, I arbitrarily acted as if I understood her, and I arbitrarily disappointed myself. Over and over again, I'd warn myself, yet I just wouldn't learn.

- - Even Yukinoshita Yukino tells lies.

For not being able to acknowledge something so obvious, I hate myself. — Wataru Watari

My mother has a very chic sense of style, but she also has high expectations for her clothes to be functional and practical. — Joseph Altuzarra

I like myself. I have never once hated myself.
My high specs, my half decent looks,
My pessimistic, realist point of view.
I don't hate any of it at all. But, for the first time,
I feel like I could hate myself.

The Yukino Yukinoshita
I've seen all this time was always beautiful, pure,
Never told a lie, and could stand on her own feet even-
With nobody to lean on.
I'm pretty sure I always admired her for that.
I forced my own expectations and ideals on her,
Let myself think I understood her, and let myself be dissapointed.

I cautioned myself against this time and time again,
But I still haven't gotten over it.
Even Yukino Yukinoshita tells lies.
I couldn't even accept such an obvious fact,
And for that...I...hate myself
- Hachiman Hikigaya — Wataru Watari

You get an idea what a manager has to go through every day. His is at a very high level. He has situations he has to deal with and the expectations he has to deal with, the personalities he has to deal with. It's a lot. — Joe Girardi

For patients who are rarely hospitalized, who have little understanding of how the human body works, who lack money, or simply don't read or speak English very well, our high expectations of them as outpatients may make any outcome but failure unlikely. All of us who work in health care put our shoulder to that huge rock every day trying to get the system to work. But sometimes shift after shift it feels like the same damn rock. I'm — Theresa Brown

But I think it is always difficult to have high expectations of yourself or anyone else. — Uma Thurman

After you free yourself from the incredible expectations of love through the media from the time you were so high, you realise that it's the spaces between the notes that make music. — Hector Elizondo

He seemed to think anyone was capable of anything, or at least he wouldn't exclude the possibility just because he thought he knew the person. And he insisted that this did not represent the worldview of an embittered pessimist. On the contrary, he had said. It would be much worse to expect good from other people, only to be disappointed when they didn't measure up to our high expectations. That would lead to resentment and contempt for humanity. — Jan-Philipp Sendker

Great teachers have high expectations for their students, but even higher expectations for themselves. — Todd Whitaker

No cause more frequently produces bashfulness than too high an opinion of our own importance. He that imagines an assembly filled with his merit, panting with expectation, and hushed with attention, easily terrifies himself with the dread of disappointing them, and strains his imagination in pursuit of something that may vindicate the veracity of fame, and show that his reputation was not gained by chance. — Samuel Johnson

I do have high expectations for Alex Riley. He seems athletic, articulate and intelligent. Only time will tell how far he goes, but Riley has bonafide potential. FCW did a nice job of preparing Alex for WWE. Alex's future success is largely up to Alex. — Jim Ross

I try not to have high expectations of people because it just sets you up for disappointment, but it's great to work with actors who are that talented and accomplished. — Famke Janssen

The good thing is that women have such high expectations of men that it inspires us to live up to them. That's what I learned about male-female relationships. — Neil Strauss

I have high expectations of myself. I always have, always will. That will never waver. I always believe in my talent - always have. — Russell Wilson

Any time you sign a big contract, you get in those later years, the expectations are high to play at a high level. — Johnathan Joseph

Maybe my expectations for honesty are too high. — Kelley Armstrong

I understood why those who had lived through war or economic disasters, and who had built for themselves a good life and a high standard of living, were rightly proud to be able to provide for their children those things which they themselves had not had. And why their children, inevitably, took those things for granted. It meant that new values and new expectations had crept into our societies along with new standards of living. Hence the materialistic and often greedy and selfish lifestyle of so many young people in the Western world, especially in the United States. — Jane Goodall

You should have high expectations for yourself and others should come second. — Florence Welch

She had a reputation throughout the Clans for a sharp tongue and a short temper, as well as fearlessness in battle and deep pride in ShadowClan. She played a vital role in helping establish the new territory beside the lake when she took on the troublesome kittypets who lived in a Twoleg den amid the pine trees. Even as she got older and more frail, Russetfur remained the ShadowClan deputy, keeping younger warriors in line with her brisk words and high expectations. She was killed by Lionblaze in a battle over the clearing between ShadowClan and ThunderClan; her death was a shock to everyone, and there were suggestions that such an old cat should not have been allowed to fight. But it was the death Russetfur would have chosen for herself, bravely and in the midst of battle on behalf of her beloved ShadowClan. — Erin Hunter

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

I was grateful to have two weeks to shoot this one scene in Harry Potter. It's a big, big scene, but they have to deliver. And they have high expectations. — Ralph Fiennes

Creating a high-functioning education system requires all the strategies involved in building high-functioning organisations anywhere. It requires a deliberate and aggressive strategy to ensure extraordinary talent at every level of the system, from the superintendentcy to district offices to principalships to classrooms. It requires building systems for accountability; offering parents the ability to choose their public schools is the ultimate form of this. It requires building a strong culture at the system and school levels based on high expectations for student achievement. — Wendy Kopp

It's always better if you can keep the bar low, and then exceed the expectation. When it's high, that makes the job even tougher. But, I think we're up for the challenge. We're ready. — Will Packer

The satirical direction I have chosen is an indication of my disappointment in man, which is the opposite way of saying that I have high expectations for the human race. — Jack Levine

Summit meetings tend to be like panda matings. The expectations are always
high, and the results usually disappointing. — Robert Orben

PEOPLE NEED TO KNOW THAT YOU HAVE HIGH EXPECTATIONS OF THEM — John C. Maxwell

In England especially, poetry's woven into the background fabric of society. And in Ireland, it's in the foreground. The place of the poet in Irish society is enormous. If you say you're a poet in Ireland, you'd better know what you're doing, because the standard and the expectations are incredibly high. — David Whyte

People like to set the bar high. I like to put the bar on the ground and barely step over it. I like to keep the expectations really low. — Kevin Smith

My parents had very high expectations. They expected me to get straight A's from the time I was in kindergarten. — Amy Tan

One morning at home, Tik Tok had Tiger Lily try on her wedding dress. He seemed disappointed that it fit so well. Despite their expectations, it became her. Its simplicity and sleekness were subtle enough to highlight her strong, high cheeks, the shine in her hair. It was a dress made by someone who knew her. It was her freedom and her silence sewn into a dress.
She hated what it meant. But she loved the dress because it was from Tik Tok's hands and because it made her feel like herself. She took it off. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

The first discipline modernity's originators imposed upon themselves was that of self-restraint, learning to live with vulgarity. Their high expectations for effectiveness were made possible by low expectations of what was to be. — Allan Bloom

To me, crying is not a sign of weakness. She wants it that bad and she puts her whole heart into it. She had really high expectations, and that's why she's so good. She just had a bad game. — Kerri Walsh

I feel that 'Tokoyo Drift' blew people away because not many people had high expectations for it. — Nathalie Kelley

The expectation level is high at the University of Alabama and it should be. What's wrong with people expecting excellence? — Gene Stallings

I think sometimes you have high expectations for people because you have high expectations for yourself. — Gisele Bundchen

So to some extent he [Barack Obama] is a victim of the expectations and the high hopes that we experienced. — Michael Fullilove

Shadow always had high hopes for haircuts, but they never lived up to his expectations.
After every haircut he looked more or less the same, only with shorter hair. — Neil Gaiman