Other related topics at: All In Your Mind 53. Dog walking on his hind legs; Expecatations; Pioneers; Women preaching I told him I had been that morning at a meeting of the people called Quakers, where I had heard a woman preach. Johnson: "Sir, a woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all." Boswell: Life Link 668. Diligence; Expectation; Schedules "The distance is commonly very great between actual performances and speculative possibility. It is natural to suppose that as much as has been done to-day may be done to-morrow; but on the morrow some difficulty emerges, or some external impediment obstructs. Indolence, interruption, business, and pleasure, all take their turns of retardation; and every long work is lengthened by a thousand causes that can, and ten thousand that cannot, be recounted. Perhaps no extensive and multifarious performance was ever affected within the term originally fixed in the undertaker's mind. He that runs against Time has an antagonist not subject to casualties." Johnson: Pope (Lives of the Poets) Link 792. Expectation; Pleasure "The pleasure of expecting enjoyment is often greater than that of obtaining it, and the completion of almost every wish is found a disappointment." Johnson: Rambler #71 (November 20, 1750) Link 1,744. Expectations; Hope "It is seldom that we find either men or places such as we expect them. He that has pictured a prospect upon his fancy, will receive little pleasure from his eyes; he that has anticipated the conversation of a wit, will wonder to what prejudice he owes his reputation. Yet it is necessary to hope, though hope should always be deluded; for hope itself is happiness, and its frustration, however, frequent, are less dreadful than its extinction." Johnson: Idler #58 (May 26, 1759) Link 1,823. Disappointment; Evaluation; Expectations; Old Age; Satisfaction "He that in the latter part of his life too strictly inquires what he has done, can very seldom receive from his own heart such an account as will give him satisfaction." Johnson: Idler #88 (December 22, 1759) Link 1,824. Disappointment; Expectations "We do not indeed so often disappoint others as ourselves. We not only think more highly than others of our own abilities, but allow ourselves to form hopes which we never communicate, and please our thoughts with employments which none will ever allot us, and with elevations to which we are never expected to rise; and when our days and years have passed away in common business or common amusements, and we find at last that we have suffered our purposes to sleep till the time of action is past, we are reproached only by our own reflections; neither our friends nor our enemies wonder that we live and die like the rest of mankind; that we live without notice, and die without memorial; they know not what task we had proposed, and therefore cannot discern whether it is finished." Johnson: Idler #88 (December 22, 1759) Link