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Quotations about satisfaction
Note that not all quotations have been tagged, so the Search function may find additional quotations on this topic.
Most people, when they are left free to fill their own time according to their own choice, are at a loss to think of anything sufficiently pleasant to be worth doing. And whatever they decide on, they are troubled by the feeling that something else would have been pleasanter. To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization, and at present very few people have reached this level.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
The Conquest of Happiness, ch. 14 (1930)
(Source)
Maybe happiness is this: not feeling like you should be elsewhere, doing something else, being someone else.
Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) Russian-American author, polymath, biochemist
(Attributed)
Wise is he who instead of grieving over what he lacks delights in what he has.
[Εὐγνώμων ὁ μὴ λυπεόμενος ἐφ’ οἷσιν οὐκ ἔχει, ἀλλὰ χαίρων ἐφ’ οἷσιν ἔχει.]
Democritus (c. 460 BC - c. 370 BC) Greek philosopher
Frag. 231 (Diels) [tr. @sententiq (2016)]
(Source)
Original Greek. Diels citation "231 (61 N.)"; collected in Joannes Stobaeus (Stobaios) Anthologium III, 17, 25. Bakewell lists this under "The Golden Sayings of Democritus." Freeman notes this as one of the Gnômae, from a collection called "Maxims of Democratês," but because Stobaeus quotes many of these as "Maxims of Democritus," they are generally attributed to the latter. Alternate translations:
- "A sensible man takes pleasure in what he has instead of pining for what he has not." [tr. Bakewell (1907)]
- "The right-minded man is he who is not grieved by what he has not, but enjoys what he has." [tr. Freeman (1948)]
- "A man of sound judgement is not grieved by what he does not possess but rejoices in what he does possess." [tr. Barnes (1987)]
- "A sensible man does not grieve for what he has not, but enjoys what he has." [Source]
Happiness does not come from doing easy work but from the afterglow of satisfaction that comes after the achievement of a difficult task that demanded our best.
Theodore Isaac Rubin (b. 1923) American psychiatrist and author
Love Me, Love My Fool: Thoughts from a Psychoanalyst’s Notebook (1976)
The best is the enemy of the good.
[Il meglio, e l’inimico del bene]
Voltaire (1694-1778) French writer [pseud. of Francois-Marie Arouet]
Letter to the Duc de Richelieu (18 Jun 1743)
(Source)
A signature phrase of Voltaire's, attributed (by him) to a wise or sage Italian. His French translation is "Le mieux est l’ennemi du bien." Other mentions include an entry on "Art Dramatique" in his Philosophical Dictionary (1764), and the poem "La Bégueule" (1772).
It is of the nature of desire not to be satisfied, and most men live only for the gratification of it.
[ἄπειρος γὰρ ἡ τῆς ἐπιθυμίας φύσις, ἧς πρὸς τὴν ἀναπλήρωσιν οἱ πολλοὶ]
Aristotle (384-322 BC) Greek philosopher
Politics [Πολιτικά], Book 2, ch. 7, sec. 19 / 1267b.4 [tr. Jowett (1885)]
(Source)
Original Greek. Alt. trans.:
- "For it is the nature of our desires to be boundless, and many live only to gratify them." [tr. Ellis (1912)]
- "For appetite is in its nature unlimited, and the majority of mankind live for the satisfaction of appetite." [tr. Rackham (1924)]
- "For the nature of desire is without limit, and it is with a view to satisfying this that the many live. [tr. Lord (1984)]
He’d noticed that sex bore some resemblance to cookery: it fascinated people, they sometimes bought books full of complicated recipes and interesting pictures, and sometimes when they were really hungry they created vast banquets in their imagination — but at the end of the day they’d settle quite happily for egg and chips. If it was well done and maybe had a slice of tomato.
Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
The Fifth Elephant (1999)
I give it as my firmest conviction that service to a just cause rewards the worker with more real happiness and satisfaction than any other venture of life.
Carrie Chapman Catt (1859-1947) American women's suffrage activist
“The Making of A Pioneer Suffragette,” in The American Scrap Book (1928)
(Source)
I hate to be a kicker,
I always long for peace,
But the wheel that does the squeaking,
Is the one that gets the grease.Josh Billings (1818-1885) American humorist [pseud. of Henry Wheeler Shaw]
“The Kicker” (c. 1870)
A "kicker" was idiom in the era for a complainer. This is a common citation for the origin of "the squeaky wheel gets the grease," but the existence of such a poem has never been verified. The earliest documented version of the phrase is in the Wall Street Journal (20 May 1910): "The wheel that squeaks the loudest / Is the wheel that gets the grease." The metaphor itself can be found in various versions back to at least the 15th Century.
I got rhythm, I got music,
I got my man
Who could ask for anything more?Ira Gershwin (1896-1983) American lyricist [b. Israel Gershowitz]
“I Got Rhythm”, Girl Crazy, Act 1 (1930)
(Source)
I never saw an author in my life — saving perhaps one — that did not purr as audibly as a full-grown domestic cat on having his fur smoothed the right way by a skillful hand.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809-1894) American poet, essayist, scholar
The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, ch. 3 (1858)
(Source)
Yet I think that to all living things there is a pleasure in the exercise of their energies, and that even beasts rejoice in being lithe and swift and strong. But a man at work, making something which he feels will exist because he is working at it and wills it, is exercising the energies of his mind and soul as well as of his body. Memory and imagination help him as he works. Not only his own thoughts, but the thoughts of the men of past ages guide his hands; and, as a part of the human race, he creates. If we work thus we shall be men, and our days will be happy and eventful.
William Morris (1834-1896) British textile designer, writer, socialist activist
“Useful Work versus Useless Toil,” lecture (1884)
(Source)
Printed in Signs of Change (1888).
Maturity begins when we’re content to feel we’re right about something without feeling the necessity to prove someone else wrong.
Sydney J. Harris (1917-1986) Anglo-American columnist, journalist, author
(Attributed)
Frequently attributed to Harris, but the original source has not been found. Earliest citation I could find was in Reader's Digest (1973), where it is further credited to the Publishers-Hall Syndicate.
Yet there is still this difference between man and all other animals — he is the only animal whose desires increase as they are fed; the only animal that is never satisfied.
Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety; other women cloy
The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry
Where most she satisfies.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Antony and Cleopatra, Act 2, sc. 2, l. 271 [Enobarbus] (1607)
(Source)
Leave well — even “pretty well” — alone: that is what I learn as I get old.
Edward FitzGerald (1809-1883) English writer, poet, translator
Letter to W. F. Pollock (7 Dec 1869)
(Source)
Ambition has its disappointments to sour us, but never the good fortune to satisfy us. Its appetite grows keener by indulgence and all we can gratify it with at present serves but the more to inflame its insatiable desires.
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) American statesman, scientist, philosopher
“On True Happiness,” The Pennsylvania Gazette (20 Nov 1735)
(Source)
I have a simple philosophy. Fill what’s empty, empty what’s full, and scratch where it itches.
Alice Roosevelt Longworth (1884-1980) American writer and socialite
(Attributed)
Quoted in Peter Passell & Leonard Ross, The Best (1974). When asked her opinion of the sexual revolution. Also attributed to Wallis Simpson.
Dreadful will be the day when the world becomes contented, when one great universal satisfaction spreads itself over the world. Sad will be the day for every man when he becomes absolutely contented with the life that he is living, with the thoughts that he is thinking, with the deeds that he is doing, when there is not forever beating at the doors of his soul some great desire to do something larger which he knows that he was meant and made to do because he is a child of God.
Phillips Brooks (1835-1893) American clergyman, hymnist
Daily Thoughts from Phillips Brooks (1893)
Unless each day can be looked back upon by an individual as one in which he has had some fun, some joy, some real satisfaction, that day is a loss. It is un-Christian and wicked, in my opinion, to allow such a thing to occur.
Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969) American general, US President (1953-61)
Speech, Commencement, Dartmouth College (14 Jun 1953)
(Source)
Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.
Oprah Winfrey (b. 1954) American TV personality, actress
(Attributed)
When we are pleased with ourselves, we are pleased with others.
Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915) American writer, businessman, philosopher
The Philosophy of Elbert Hubbard [ed. Edward Hubbard II] (1930)
The last pleasure in life is the sense of discharging our duty.
William Hazlitt (1778-1830) English writer
Table Talk, “On Novelty and Familiarity” (1822)
Look at a day when you are supremely satisfied at the end. It is not a day when you lounge around doing nothing: it’s when you’ve had everything to do, and you’ve done it.
Margaret Thatcher (1925-2013) British Prime Minister (1979-90), research chemist, barrister, politician
(Attributed)
Most people would succeed in small things if they were not troubled with great ambitions.
Why do men delight in work? Fundamentally, I suppose, because there is a sense of relief and pleasure in getting something done — a kind of satisfaction not unlike that which a hen enjoys on laying an egg.
H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
Minority Report: H.L. Mencken’s Notebooks, #34 (1956)
(Source)
Better one byrde in hand than ten in the wood.
John Heywood (1497?-1580?) English playwright and epigrammist
Proverbes, Part 1, ch. 2 (1546)
I know, indeed, of nothing more subtly satisfying and cheering than a knowledge of the real good will and appreciation of others. Such happiness does not come with money, nor does it flow from a fine physical state. It cannot be brought. But it is the keenest joy, after all, and the toiler’s truest and best reward.
William Dean Howells (1837-1920) American author, literary critic, and playwright
Interview with Orison Swett Marden, Success Magazine
(Source)
Quoted in Marden, How They Succeeded: Life Stories of Successful Men Told by Themselves, ch. 11 (1901).
Like the greedy merchants of bazaars, if we get out of life what we ask for, we are unhappy for not having asked for more.
Paul Eldridge (1888-1982) American educator, novelist, poet
Maxims for a Modern Man, #1195 (1965)
It is a salutary discipline to consider the vast number of books that are written, the fair hopes with which their authors see them published, and the fate which awaits them. What chance is there that any book will make its way among that multitude? And the successful books are but the successes of a season. Heaven knows what pains the author has been at, what bitter experiences he has endured and what heartache suffered, to give some chance reader a few hours’ relaxation or to while away the tedium of a journey. And if I may judge from the reviews, many of these books are well and carefully written; much thought has gone into their composition; to some even has been given the anxious labour of a lifetime. The moral I draw is that the writer should seek his reward in the pleasure of his work and in release from the burden of his thoughts; and, indifferent to aught else, care nothing for praise or censure, failure or success.
W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) English novelist and playwright [William Somerset Maugham]
The Moon and Sixpence (1919)
Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean-favored and imperially slim.And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
“Good Morning!” and he glittered when he walked.And he was rich, yes, richer than a king,
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine — we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.So on we worked and waited for the light,
And went without the meat and cursed the bread,
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet in his head.Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869-1935) American poet
“Richard Corey” (1897)
Want is a growing giant whom the coat of Have was never large enough to cover.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
The Conduct of Life, ch. 3 “Wealth” (1860)
Riches rather enlarge than satisfy Appetites.
Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) English writer, physician
Gnomologia: Adages and Proverbs, #4048 (1732)
(Source)
There is no greater satisfaction for a just and well-meaning person than the knowledge that he has devoted his best energies to the service of a good cause.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955) German-American physicist
“A Message to My Adopted Country,” Pageant (Jan 1946)
(Source)
Later reprinted as "The Negro Question."
Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking. Don’t settle.
Steve Jobs (1955-2011) American computer inventor, entrepreneur
Commencement Address, Stanford University (2005)
(Source)
It’s really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.
Steve Jobs (1955-2011) American computer inventor, entrepreneur
In BusinessWeek (25 May 1998)
When you’re young, you look at television and think, There’s a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that’s not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want. That’s a far more depressing thought. Conspiracy is optimistic! You can shoot the bastards! We can have a revolution! But the networks are really in business to give people what they want. It’s the truth.
Steve Jobs (1955-2011) American computer inventor, entrepreneur
Interview, Wired (Feb 1996)
The better part of happiness is to wish to be what you are.
Desiderius Erasmus (1465-1536) Dutch humanist philosopher and scholar
The Praise of Folly, ch. 10 (1509) [tr. Hudson (1941)]
One of the pleasant things those of us who write or paint do is to have the daily miracle. It does come.
G. B. Stern (1890-1973) British writer [Gladys Bronwyn Stern]
Paris France, Part I (1940)
His was a life which lacked, perhaps, the sublimer emotions which raised Man to the level of the gods, but it was undeniably an extremely happy one. He never experienced the thrill of ambition fulfilled, but, on the other hand, he never knew the agony of ambition frustrated. His name, when he died, would not live for ever in England’s annals; he was spared the pain of worrying about this by the fact that he had no desire to live for ever in England’s annals. He was possibly as nearly contented a human being can be in this century of alarms and excursions.
P. G. Wodehouse (1881-1975) Anglo-American humorist, playwright and lyricist [Pelham Grenville Wodehouse]
Something Fresh (1915)
There are two things to aim at in life: first, to get what you want; and, after that, to enjoy it. Only the wisest of mankind achieve the second.
Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946) American-English essayist, editor, anthologist
Afterthoughts, “Life and Human Nature” (1931)
Some luck lies in not getting what you thought you wanted but getting what you have, which once you have got it you may be smart enough to see is what you would have wanted had you known.
Garrison Keillor (b. 1942) American entertainer, author
Lake Wobegon Days (1985)
