For present joys are more to flesh and blood Than a dull prospect of a distant good.

-Dryden,John
  The Hind and the Panther, pt.3, l.364^5.

   [Prince Charles] is entitled to be as underwhelmed by the prospect of reigning overa fourth-class nation as the rest of us are by the prospect of living in it.

-Jay, Peter
  Of Prince Charles. In the London Illustrated News,  Apr.

I face the prospect of another campaign like an open- ended stay in a concentration camp.

-Johnson, Claudia AltaTaylor known as Lady Bird
  A White House Diary.

The noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees, is the high road that leads him to England!

-Johnson, Samuel known as Dr Johnson
  Remark,6  Jul. Quoted in James Boswell The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), vol.1.

Amid the wreck and the misery of nations it is our just exaltation that we have continued superior to all that ambition or despotism could effect; and our still higher exaltation ought to be that we provide not only for our own safety but hold out a prospect for nations now bending under the yoke of tyranny of what the exertions of a free people can effect.

-Pitt,William known as  theYounger
  Speech to the House of Commons, 25 Apr.

Now it istimethat we were going,Ito die and you to live, but which of us has the happier prospect is unknown to anyone but God.

-Plato
Apology, 42a (translated by H Tredennick).

I have never been able to decide whether, in mountain exploration, it is the prospect of tackling an unsolved problem, or the performance of the task itself, or the retrospective enjoyment of successful effort, which affords the greatest amount of pleasure.

-Shipton, Eric Earle
  Nanda Devi.

This is the prospect from the watershed, and when the traveller reaches it, it is a good thing to take an hour's leisure and lookout on the visible portions of the journey, since never in one's life can one seethe same view twice.

-Stark, Dame Freya Madeleine
  Perseus in theWind.

Before us lay a painful road, And guidance have I sought in duteous love From Wisdom's heavenly Father. Hence hath flowed Patience, with trust that, whatsoe'er the way Each takes in this high matter, all may move Cheered with the prospect of a brighter day.

-Wordsworth,William
^40  Sonnets upon the Punishment of Death, no.14,'Apology', l.9^14 (published in the Quarterly Review 1841).