Disappointment is a sort of bankruptcy - the bankruptcy of a soul that expends too much in hope and expectation.

The quote treats disappointment not as a mere external setback but as a self-inflicted collapse: the soul becomes “bankrupt” when it has spent too lavishly on imagined futures. Hope and expectation are framed as expenditures—useful in moderation, ruinous when they outpace reality. Hoffer implies that the pain of disappointment is proportional to the emotional credit we extend to outcomes we do not control. The aphorism therefore recommends a disciplined, unsentimental stance toward desire: invest in effort and present action rather than in guaranteed results. It also hints at an ethical dimension—overexpectation can be a form of spiritual imprudence that leaves one unable to meet life’s ordinary losses.