19．事前不要让人期望过高

事前不要让人期望过高。名人常见的不幸，便是盛名之下其实难副。事实永远无法满足想象，因为理想容易树立，实现则很难。想象与希望结合，将孕育出更多与事实相距甚远的东西。无论结果多么出色，都无法满足人们的期望。当过高的期望落空，失望随之而来，人们更易心生幻灭，而非佩服。人们心中的希望能极大地扭曲真相，你要有防备这一点的能力，确保所得成果超过希望。刚开始，少许的成功足以唤起人们的好奇心，不必再去信誓旦旦承诺达到什么成功的目标。要让实际超过预计，让结果好过预想。但这个法则不适用于糟糕的事情，夸大坏的程度对之反而起到很大的帮助——对坏处的夸张失实之后会让人们欢呼，因为起初看上去具有毁灭性的事物，到最后竟然变得完全能够承受。

19．Arouse no exaggerated expectations on entering

Arouse no exaggerated expectations on entering. It is the usual ill-luck of all celebrities not to fulfil afterwards the expectations beforehand formed of them. The real can never equal the imagined, for it is easy to form ideals but very difficult to realize them. Imagination weds Hope and gives birth to much more than things are in themselves. However great the excellences, they never suffice to fulfil expectations, and as men find themselves disappointed with their exorbitant expectations they are more ready to be disillusionized than to admire. Hope is a great falsifier of truth; let skill guard against this by ensuring that fruition exceeds desire. A few creditable attempts at the beginning are sufficient to arouse curiosity without pledging one to the final object. It is better that reality should surpass the design and is better than was thought. This rule does not apply to the wicked things, for the same exaggeration is a great aid to them; they are defeated amid general applause, and what seemed at first extreme ruin comes to be thought quite bearable.