Many a time and oft
Have you climbed up to walls and battlements,
To tow'rs and windows, read more

Many a time and oft
Have you climbed up to walls and battlements,
To tow'rs and windows, yea, to chimney tops,
Your infants in your arms, and there have sat
The livelong day, with patient expectation,
To see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome.

It is folly to expect men to do all that they may reasonably be
expected to do.

It is folly to expect men to do all that they may reasonably be
expected to do.

'Tis silence all,
And pleasing expectation.

'Tis silence all,
And pleasing expectation.

Ambition is the last refuge of failure.

Ambition is the last refuge of failure.

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

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

He was fash and full of faith that "something would turn up."

He was fash and full of faith that "something would turn up."

Anger always comes from frustrated expectations

Anger always comes from frustrated expectations

'Tis expectation makes a blessing dear;
Heaven were not Heaven, if we knew what it were.

'Tis expectation makes a blessing dear;
Heaven were not Heaven, if we knew what it were.

I have known him [Micawber] come home to supper with a flood of
tears, and a declaration that nothing read more

I have known him [Micawber] come home to supper with a flood of
tears, and a declaration that nothing was now left but a jail;
and go to bed making a calculation of the expense of putting
bow-windows to the house, "in case anything turned up," which was
his favorite expression.