107 Quotes about Disappointment + 5 Poems

Jacqueline Eisenbraun (Senior Editor)

Are you looking for sayings about disappointment? These short, wise and thought-provoking quotes will allow you to express your grief and offer consolation by showing that, although disappointment is a part of life, you can always overcome it.

We’ve all experienced disappointment in our lives at one point or another. Having too high hopes and expectations often leads to being disappointed.

Whether it is those around you who fail to meet your expectations or whether you yourself are the source in times when you have taken on too much and cannot meet your commitments – disappointment has an impact and unfortunately, it can’t always be controlled.

You can become particularly disappointed when the cause of your disappointment comes from your own family or close circle of friends. This situation can give you pause for thought and makes you question or overthink your existing relationships.

107 Deep Quotes about Disappointment to Think About

107 Deep Quotes about Disappointment to Think About

If you are currently facing disappointment and are looking for quotes that reflect your emotional state, you’re in the right place.

We have gathered a selection of quotes about being disappointed and about what it’s like to disappoint yourself or others.

Here you will find quotes about saying goodbye.

Quotes about Broken Trust and Dashed Hopes

Quotes about Broken Trust and Dashed Hopes

The quotes in this category address shattered dreams, the feeling of anger and the consequences that follow an instance of disappointment.

These focus on broken trust and the relationship between hope and disappointment.

1. To avoid the pain and disappointment caused by one’s neighbors is to shun life.
   (Hans Pförtner, German writer, 1877-1943)
2. Trust is like glass: once broken, it will never be the same again.
   (Unknown)
3. Envious fate too often avenges premature hopes with disappointment! Like a seed in the dark, happiness must also germinate in silence before it sees the light of day.
   (Albert Emil Brachvogel, German writer, 1824-1878)
4. Dreams? Inspiring, but nothing more than empty thoughts void of reality, permeating the darkness, crossing my path – the feeling of hope brings light to my shadow world, past the hope, to love the fear? Trust? The only thing that really counts. But what remains of all this?? Tears, disappointment and lies? – only a dream!?
   (Unknown)
5. Many of our disappointments and much of our unhappiness arise from our forming false notions of things and persons. 
   (Abigail Adams, American First Lady, 1744-1818)
6. There can be no fairer cause for pain among men than suffering injury and harm at the hands of someone from whom they have a right to expect gratitude and benevolence.
   (Joseph Pulitzer, Hungarian-American journalist, 1847-1911)
7. He who lives by hope, dies by despair.
   (Italian proverb)
8. Irony is the last stage of disappointment.
   (Anatole France, French storyteller and critic, 1844-1924)

Quotes about Betrayal, Broken Friendships and Disappointment

Quotes about Betrayal, Broken Friendships and Disappointment

When someone you considered a friend betrays you, it can be one of the most painful experiences you can have. After all, we put the most trust in those closest to us; we tell them our secrets and share our fears. So when they betray your trust, the disappointment you feel will naturally be heart-wrenching.

It can be hard to put this feeling into words. Luckily, many other writers have attempted it over the years, so we’ve gathered some quotes on friendship betrayals to help you express yourself.

1. It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend. 
   (William Blake, English poet, 1757-1827)
2. Better to have an enemy that slaps you in the face than a friend who stabs you in the back.
   (Unknown)
3. Breaking someone’s trust is like crumpling up a perfect piece of paper. You can smooth it over but it’s never going to be the same again.
   (Unknown)
4. It’s funny how sometimes the people you’d take a bullet for are the ones behind the trigger.
   (Unknown)
5. Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.
   (Proverbs 27:6)
6. An open enemy is better than a false friend.
   (Greek Proverb)
7. He who throws away a friend is as bad as he who throws away his life.
   (Sophocles, Greek poet, 496-406 B.C.)
8. Only trust thyself, and another shall not betray thee.
   (William Penn, English theologian, 1644-1718)
9. Betray a friend and you’ll often find you have ruined yourself.
   (Aesop, Greek author, 620-564 B.C.)
10. It is more shameful to distrust our friends than to be deceived by them.
    (Confucius, Chinese philosopher, 551 B.C.-479 B.C.)
11. A false friend and a shadow attend only while the sun shines.
    (Benjamin Franklin, American politician, 1706-1790)
12. True friends are like diamonds,
    Precious and rare,
    Fake friends are like autumn leaves,
    Found everywhere.
    (Unknown)
13. Forgive yourself for the blindness that put you in the path of those who betrayed you. Sometimes a good heart doesn’t see the bad.
    (Unknown)
14. Yet each man kills the thing he loves
    By each let this be heard
    Some do it with a bitter look
    Some with a flattering word
    The coward does it with a kiss
    The brave man with a sword.
    (Oscar Wilde, Irish poet, 1854-1900)

Here you will find quotes about true friendship.

Quotes about Disappointing Relationship Priorities

Quotes about Disappointing Relationship Priorities

A crucial aspect of any relationship is having similar priorities – “each other” being one of the main ones, hopefully. So when you start to see priorities change, or you feel like you’re no longer your partner’s priority, it can cause deep disappointment and hurt.

If you’ve started to notice some disappointing priorities in your relationship, perhaps the quotes below will make you feel you’re not alone.

1. Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least. 
   (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German poet, 1749-1832)
2. Being alone is scary, but not as scary as feeling alone in a relationship.
   (Amelia Earhart, American aviator, 1897-1939)
3. Don’t ever let a bad end to a relationship make you feel like you’ll have a bad life.
   (Unknown)
4. Never allow someone to be your priority while allowing yourself to be their option.
   (Mark Twain)
5. Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love.
   (Jane Austen, British writer, 1775-1817)
6. Never love anybody that treats you like you’re ordinary. 
   (Oscar Wilde, Irish poet, 1854-1900)
7. As I was fighting for you, I realized I was fighting to be lied to, fighting to be taken for granted, fighting to be disappointed, and fighting to be hurt again, so I started fighting to let go.
   (Unknown)
8. I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you. 
   (Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher, 1844-1900)
9. Never marry at all, Dorian. Men marry because they are tired, women, because they are curious: both are disappointed.
   (Oscar Wilde)
10. If you’re constantly having to wonder where you stand with someone, maybe it’s time to stop standing and start walking.
    (Unknown)
11. No one gets tired of loving, they just get tired of waiting, apologizing, getting disappointed and being hurt.
    (Unknown)
12. Make yourself a priority. At the end of the day, you’re your longest commitment.
    (Unknown)
13. A relationship gap starts and then widens between two people, when priorities change.
    (Unknown)

Quotes about Disappointing Friendships and Family

Quotes about Disappointing Friendships and Family

When friends or family disappoint you, the pain runs deep. A lack of communication is one of the most common causes of disappointment among friendships.

Below are quotes about being disappointed with friends or family, or having disappointed them.

1. It is a bitter disappointment when you have sown benefits to reap injuries.
   (Plautus, Roman poet, 254-184 B.C.)
2. Recognizing future enemies in present friends – and doing so in a timely manner: that is the key. In life and in love. He who doesn’t understand that will pull his way through life – and love – by a chain of disappointments.
   (Carl Hagemann, German scientist, 1867-1940)
3. We always speak only of disappointment we have experienced, and never of those we have caused others.
   (Unknown)
4. We call it friendship, claiming someone else, and since this never quite succeeds, we are always hurt and disappointed. We can never bear the fact that the other is always different, just as we can never bear reality at all, because we don’t recognize its uniform.
   (Hermann Bahr, Austrian writer, 1863-1934)
5. Everything I know about disappointment I’ve learned from people who were important to me.
   (Unknown)
6. Fine words and an insinuating appearance are seldom associated with true virtue.
   (Confucius, Chinese philosopher, 551 B.C.-479 B.C.)
7. The common denominator of family and disappointment is mutual expectations.
   (Unknown)
8. If family is the source of your unhappiness, then you have already experienced disappointment.
   (Unknown)
9. If you are constantly facing disappointment every day, the cause is your family.
   (Unknown)
10. If family comes with disappointment, it’s not the right one.
    (Unknown)

Quotes about Disappointment and Hurt

Quotes about Disappointment and Hurt

Being hurt goes hand in hand with feeling disappointment. And as unpleasant as it is, it is an unavoidable experience we all must go through.

But don’t worry: the hurt always passes. Here are some quotes about hurt and disappointment that will help you get through the feeling.

1. Disappointment hurts more than pain.
   (Unknown)
2. A man can sleep on every hurt but his own.
   (Gaelic Proverb)
3. You will never know the power of yourself until someone hurts you badly.
   (Unknown)
4. Being hurt by someone you truly care about leaves a hole in your heart that only love can fill.
   (George Bernard Shaw, Irish playwright, 1856-1950)
5. Nobody can hurt me without my permission.
   (Mahatma Gandhi, Indian revolutionary, 1869-1948)
6. It hurts if someone tells you they don’t want you, but it hurts more if they don’t tell you.
   (Unknown)
7. The meaning of good and bad, of better and worse, is simply helping or hurting.
   (Ralph Waldo Emerson, American philosopher, 1803-1882)
8. Nothing hurts more than being disappointed by the single person you thought would never hurt you.
   (Unknown)
9. I have never been hurt by what I have not said. 
   (Calvin Coolidge, 30th President of the United States, 1872-1933)
10. Don’t let the hurt torture you, speak it out, and the burden will be reduced.
    (Unknown)

Quotes that Say “I Am Disappointed”

Quotes that Say “I Am Disappointed”

If you want to express the disappointment you’re feeling at that very point in time, these quotes that say “I’m disappointed” are what you need.

These quotes put into words the hurt and disappointment you might be feeling at a given moment. Sharing them can let the cause of your disappointment know how you feel.

1. I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on, I can’t believe you.
   (Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher, 1844-1900)
2. Silly me, expecting too much from people again.
   (Unknown)
3. I couldn’t heal because I kept pretending I wasn’t hurt.
   (Unknown)
4. I feel like I’m waiting for something that isn’t going to happen
   . (Unknown)
5. “Disappointed, but not surprised” has been my biggest mood this year.
   (Unknown)
6. What screws us up most in life is the picture in our head of how it is supposed to be.
   (Unknown)
7. Stop asking me to trust you when I’m still coughing up water from the last time you let me drown.
   (Unknown)
8. It is better to know and be disappointed, than to not know and always wonder.
   (Oscar Wilde, Irish poet, 1854-1900)
9. I don’t hate you. I’m just disappointed you turned into everything you said you’d never be.
   (Unknown)
10. My biggest mistake is thinking that people care for me as much as I do for them.
    (Unknown)
11. I wish I could give you my pain just for one moment. Not to hurt you, but rather so you can finally understand how much you hurt me.
    (Unknown)

Short Quotes on Disappointment

Short Quotes on Disappointment

Here are a few short and concise quotes about shattered expectations and experiences with disappointment with which life so readily awaits.

1. I’m not mad, just disappointed.
   (Unknown)
2. A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
   (Oscar Wilde, Irish poet, 1854-1900)
3. Suspense is worse than disappointment.
   (Robert Burns, Scottish poet, 1759-1796)
4. Disappointment is the parent of despair. 
   (John Keats, British poet, 1795-1821)
5. As for disappointing them, I should not so much mind; but I can’t abide to disappoint myself.
   (Oliver Goldsmith, Irish writer, 1728-1774)
6. Unexpected money is a delight. The same sum is a bitterness when you expected more.
   (Mark Twain, American writer, 1835-1910)
7. Again and again, man will be met with disappointment in life, but he learns to deal with it better and better.
   (Donatien Alphonse Francois de Sade, French philosopher, 1740-1814)
8. Life is a great disappointment.
   (Oscar Wilde)
9. Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.
   (Alexander Hope, British general and politician, 1769-1837)
10. Never wonder about a person… and you will never be disappointed.
    (Wilhelm Vogel, German writer, 1772-1843)
11. He who only experiences disappointments longs for the happiness of inexperience.
    (Emanuel Wertheimer, German-austrian aphorist, 1846-1916)

Quotes about Disappointed Love and Breakups

Quotes about Disappointed Love and Breakups

Disappointments in love weigh on our minds for longer than others. After separating or during a fight, you may feel like your partner has become a stranger to you.

You can find suitable expressions for the feeling of disappointment in love in this category.

1. One never tires of disappointment in love affairs.
   (Emanuel Wertheimer, German-austrian aphorist, 1846-1916)
2. Love is a springtime plant that perfumes everything with its hope, even the ruins to which it clings. 
   (Gustave Flaubert, French novelist, 1821-1880)
3. For all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these, ‘It might have been.’ 
   (John Greenleaf Whittier, American poet, 1807-1892)
4. The love of nature is the only love that does not deceive human hopes.
   (Honoré de Balzac, French novelist, 1799-1850)
5. Don Juan teaches us not to let matters of the heart catch you by surprise: expect as little as possible and be prepared for everything. Only then is it possible to avoid disappointment. To still believe in love when things go wrong. 
   (Carl Hagemann, German scientist, 1867-1940)
6. People often only fall in love with certain parts of others, with their cheerfulness or melancholy. If this part then disappears, the fine special charm of that person has also disappeared. Hence, the many disappointments.
   (Christian Morgenstern, German poet, 1871-1914)

Here you will find more sad quotes for different occasions.

Quotes about Being Disappointed in Yourself

Quotes about Being Disappointed in Yourself

When we disappoint ourselves, we tend to be miserable and critical of ourselves. This is because we feel we are not meeting our own expectations.

In this category, you will find quotes that address self-judgment and self-criticism in the context of disappointment.

1. All disappointments are painless compared to those which we inflict upon ourselves.
   (Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, Moravian-Austrian writer, 1830-1916)
2. A lesson you will learn as a guest on earth
3. When the bitterly disappointed soul despises
   Joys and friends who have lied to you:
   Others have deceived you much more rarely
   then you have deceived yourself. 
   (Rudolf Presber, German writer, 1868-1935)
4. Comparison is the end of happiness and the beginning of discontent.
   (Søren Kierkegaard, Danish philosopher, theologian and writer, 1813-1855)
5. No one rebukes us so harshly as we often condemn ourselves.
   (Luc de Clapiers, French philosopher, 1715-1747)
6. Who is able to look back on his past life
   without losing one’s mind somewhat,
   as he will mostly find that his will has been right,
   his doing wrong, his desires blameworthy,
   yet their attainment longed for?
   (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German poet, 1749-1832)
7. Look not to the faults of others, nor to their omissions and commissions. But rather look to your own acts, to what you have done and left undone.
   (Buddha, founder of Buddhism, 560 B.C.-483 B.C.)
8. The problem with deceiving yourself is that the subsequent disappointment weighs heavier than the lies you told yourself.
   (Unknown)

Ambiguous Quotes about Disappointment

Ambiguous quotes about Disappointment

The following sayings have an ambiguous nature and they shine a light on the different facets of the feeling of disappointment.

They have a deeper level and address several topics at once.

1. If you have patience and pay attention, you will always find the trade-off for misled expectations, because life only misleads us as often as we want to impose our path on it. (Ernst Wiechert)
2. Disappointment about life, who else is destined for it than someone who has nothing to offer life?
   (Paul Richard Luck, German writer, 1880-1940)
3. My life is like a spinning top inhabited by a dizzy bird.
   (Joseph Joubert, French moralist, 1754-1824)
4. Disappointment is the nurse of wisdom.
   (Boyle Roche, Irish politician, 1736-1807)
5. Every time someone disappoints you again, smack yourself.
   (Greek Proverb)
6. Cynicism is the disappointed person’s way of expressing appreciation.
   (Unknown)
7. If you want to test a man’s character, give him power.
   (Abraham Lincoln, American president, 1809-1865)
8. Time may be a great healer, but it’s a lousy beautician. 
   (Mark Twain, American writer, 1835-1910)
9. One’s best success comes after their greatest disappointments.
   (Henry David Thoreau, American philosopher, 1817-1862)
10. Rich are those who possess a large capital of disappointments and truth.
    (Mariano José Pereira da Fonseca, Brazilian writer, 1773-1848)
11. Truth can only work if the recipient is ready for it. Therefore, it is not the fault of truth when people are full of unwisdom.
    (Christian Morgenstern, German poet, 1871-1914)

Quotes about Dealing with Disappointment

Quotes about Dealing with Disappointment

The quotes below illustrate how to deal with disappointment and which different strategies and ways exist for overcoming it.

1. Disappointment doesn’t kill, and hope lets you live.
   (Amantine Aurore Lucile Dupin de Francueil, French writer, 1804-1876)
2. You must give worries, disappointments and grief their share in life and humbly enjoy what is left after that. 
   (Marie de Vichy Chamrond, French salonnière, 1696-1780)
3. Life as we find it is too hard for us; it entails too much pain, too many disappointments, impossible tasks. We cannot do without palliative remedies. 
   (Sigmund Freud, Austrian psychologist, 1856-1939)
4. Not tiring of trusting means continuing to be disappointed – regardless, do not tire of trusting: it encompasses all of what it means to be human.
   (Friedrich Kayssler, German actor, 1874-1945)
5. Both shoot themselves in the foot: he who promises too much, and he who expects too much.
   (Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, German poet, 1729-1781)

Poems about Experiencing Disappointments

Poems about Experiencing Disappointments

If you want to express your disappointment in a more lasting way, perhaps a few more lines than in the quotes above are required.

So we’ve collected five poems below that capture your grief in words and comfort you at the same time.

1)

Disenchantment

It dropped so low in my regard
I heard it hit the ground,
And go to pieces on the stones
At bottom of my mind;
Yet blamed the fate that fractured, less
Than I reviled myself
For entertaining plated wares
Upon my silver shelf.

(Emily Dickinson, American poet, 1830-1886)

2)

Disappointed

An old man planted and dug and tended,
Toiling in joy from dew to dew;
The sun was kind, and the rain befriended;
Fine grew his orchard and fair to view.
Then he said: “I will quiet my thrifty fears,
For here is fruit for my failing years.”

But even then the storm–clouds gathered,
Swallowing up the azure sky;
The sweeping winds into white foam lathered
The placid breast of the bay, hard by;
Then the spirits that raged in the darkened air
Swept o’er his orchard and left it bare.

The old man stood in the rain, uncaring,
Viewing the place the storm had swept;
And then with a cry from his soul despairing,
He bowed him down to the earth and wept.
But a voice cried aloud from the driving rain;
“Arise, old man, and plant again!”

(Paul Laurence Dunbar, American writer, 1872-1906)

3)

That I May Soar

Great God, I ask thee for no meaner pelf
Than that I may not disappoint myself;
That in my action I may soar as high
As I can now discern with this clear eye.

And next in value which thy kindness lends.
That I may greatly disappoint my friends,
However they think or hope that it may be,
They may not dream how thou’st distinguished me.

That my weak hand may equal my firm faith.
And my life practice more than my tongue saith;
That my low conduct may not show,
Nor my relenting lines,
That I thy purpose did not know,
Or overrated thy designs.

(Henry David Thoreau, American philosopher, 1817-1862)

4)

Thou Art Indeed Just, Lord, if I contend

Thou Art Indeed Just, Lord, if I contend

Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend
With thee; but, sir, so what I plead is just.
Why do sinners’ ways prosper? and why must
Disappointment all I endeavour end?

Wert thou my enemy, O thou my friend,
How wouldst thou worse, I wonder, than thou dost
Defeat, thwart me? Oh, the sots and thralls of lust
Do in spare hours more thrive than I that spend,

Sir, life upon thy cause. See, banks and brakes
Now, leavèd how thick! lacèd they are again
With fretty chervil, look, and fresh wind shakes
Them; birds build – but not I build; no, but strain,

Time’s eunuch, and not breed one work that wakes.
Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain.

(Gerard Manley Hopkins, British writer, 1844-1889)

5)

A Broken Appointment

You did not come,
And marching Time drew on, and wore me numb,—
Yet less for loss of your dear presence there
Than that I thus found lacking in your make
That high compassion which can overbear
Reluctance for pure lovingkindness’ sake
Grieved I, when, as the hope-hour stroked its sum,
You did not come.

You love not me,
And love alone can lend you loyalty;
–I know and knew it. But, unto the store
Of human deeds divine in all but name,
Was it not worth a little hour or more
To add yet this: Once you, a woman, came
To soothe a time-torn man; even though it be
You love not me?

(Thomas Hardy, British writer, 1840-1928)

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