The only glory most of us have to hope for is the glory of being normal.
A man cannot have an idea of perfection in another, which he was never sensible of in himself.
It's always bitterly disappointing to people to see how normally one can live.
Nobody wants a prediction that the future will be more or less like the present, even if that is, statistically speaking, an excellent prediction.
We soon get through with nature. She excites an expectation which she cannot satisfy.
We never do what we wish when we wish it, and when we desire a thing earnestly, and it does arrive, that or we are changed, so that we slide from the summit of our wishes and find ourselves where we were.
The future is always a wholeness, a sameness. We're all tall and happy there,' she said. 'This is why the future fails. It always fails. It can never be the cruel happy place we want to make it.
Every interaction with another person involves a dance of expectation, even when you're just passing someone in the street. Inside those moments - however brief they may be - there is a kind of anticipatory silence.
For most human beings, if what they want happens, it is a success. If what they could not have imagined happens, it is luck. If what nobody could foresee happens, it is a miraculous existence.
God has given a great deal to man, but man would like something from man.
Men are impatient of the slow working of natural laws. The triumphs of physical science have enlarged their desires for comfort.
