Robert South Quotes

The pleasure of expecting enjoyment is often greater than that of obtaining it, and the completion of almost every wish is found a disappointment.

In all worldly things that a man pursues with the greatest eagerness he finds not half the pleasure in the possession that he proposed to himself in the expectation.

to diminish expectation is to increase enjoyment.

After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing after all as wanting. It is not logical, but is often true.

Expectation ... quickens desire, while possession deadens it.

It doesn't matter what you're chasing, when you get there you're gonna be like, "Oh, is this all? It kind of sucks."

Fun... human nature... does no one any harm... Regular as clockwork the old excuses came back into the alert, sad and dissatisfied brain--nothing ever matched the deep excitement of the regular desire. Men always failed you when it came to the act. She might just as well have been to the pictures.

In all pleasures hope is a considerable part.

Pleasure is often spoiled by describing it.

It's not the having, it's the getting.

It's so much better to desire than to have.

The hours we pass with happy prospects in view are more pleasing than those crowded with fruition.

I'm actually not a particularly negative person, but I feel like most things are better when they're not actualized. The motivation that comes from wanting something is so much more driving of people than actually getting it.

Americans are good at pursuing happiness. And the Americans who pursue happiness most diligently show that we're also good at running it down and killing it.

There are perhaps only one or two things in the world which are not far more charming in desire than they are in possession.

Anticipation makes pleasure more intense

Pleasure is found first in anticipation, later in memory.

Possession, it is true, crowns exertion with rest; but it is only in the illusions of fancy that it has power to charm us.

He soon felt that the fulfillment of his desires gave him only one grain of the mountain of happiness he had expected. This fulfillment showed him the eternal error men make in imagining that their happiness depends on the realization of their desires.

The happiness at getting what you want is not usually commensurate with the worry leading up to it.

Desire is happiness: satisfaction as happiness is merely the ultimate moment of desire. To be wish and wish alone is happiness, and a new wish over and over again.

Anticipation was the soul of enjoyment.

While we desire, we do not enjoy; and with enjoyment desire ceases.

Anticipation! It occurred to him that his anticipation was more pleasant to him than the experiencing.