Discontent Quotes - Page 12

• . . . Moon-Watcher felt the first faint twinges of a new and potent emotion. It was a vague and diffuse sense of envy--of dissatisfaction with his life. He had no idea of its cause, still less of its cure; but discontent had come into his soul, and he had taken one small step toward humanity.

  Arthur C. Clarke

  Taken, Moon, Ideas

  Arthur C. Clarke (2012). “2001: A Space Odyssey”, p.34, RosettaBooks

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• A lot of the book [The Yoga of Max's Discontent] is about karma and rebirth. Things like that are very attuned to my life as an Indian, but when I approach it from a perspective of a Westerner, then I have a skeptical, yet kind of novice view on it. I think that choice really liberated the story to be its own story. A lot of the conclusions that Max reaches on his own are not mine at all. So, I think that allowed the story to take on its own momentum, to have its own propulsive force.

  Karan Bajaj

  Karma, Yoga, Book

  Source: www.edgemagazine.net

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• What is this I hear of sorrow and weariness, Anger, discontent and drooping hopes? Degenerate sons and daughters, Life is too strong for you— It takes life to love Life.

  Edgar Lee Masters

  Daughter, Strong, Love Life

  Edgar Lee Masters (2012). “Spoon River Anthology”, p.107, Courier Corporation

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• And which I take notice of here, to put those discontented people in mind of it, who cannot enjoy comfortably what God has given them, because they see and covet something that he has not given them. All our discontents about what we want appeared to me to spring from the want of thankfulness for what we have.

  Daniel Defoe

  Spring, People, Thankfulness

  "The life and adventures of Robinson Crusoe".

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• The mind is a machine that is constantly asking: What would I prefer? Close your eyes, refuse to move, and watch what your mind does. What it does is become discontent with that-which-is. A desire arises, you satisfy that desire, and another arises in its place.

  George Saunders

  Moving, Eye, Mind

  George Saunders (2012). “The Brain-Dead Megaphone”, p.214, A&C Black

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• There is no greater offence than harbouring desires. There is no greater disaster than discontent. There is no greater misfortune than wanting more.

  Laozi

  Inspirational, Desire, Wanting More

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• What moved me, in the first instance, to attempt a work like this, was the discomfort and suffering which I had seen brought upon men and women by household mismanagement. I have always thought that there is no more fruitful source of family discontent than a housewife's badly-cooked dinners and untidy ways.

  Isabella Beeton

  Men, Suffering, Dinner

  1861 The Book of Household Management, preface.

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• It would much conduce to the settlement of your hearts, to consider, That by fretting and discontent, you do yourselves more injury thart till the afsltilions you lie under could do; your own discontent is that which arms your troubles with a sting; it is you that make your burden heavy, by struggling under it. Could you but lie quiet under the hand of God, your condition would be much easier and sweeter than it is.

  John Flavel

  Lying, Struggle, Heart

  "Whole Works of the Rev. Mr. John Flavel".

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• It is not the high summer alone that is God's. The winter also is His. And into His winter He came to visit us. And all man's winters are His - the winter of our poverty, the winter of our sorrow, the winter of our unhappiness - even 'the winter of our discontent.

  George MacDonald

  Summer, Winter, Men

  George MacDonald (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of George MacDonald (Illustrated)”, p.636, Delphi Classics

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• Mr. President, the cause of this great discontent in the country, the cause of the evils which we now suffer and which we now fear, originates chiefly from questions growing out of the respective rights of the different States and the unfortunate subject of slavery.

  John J. Crittenden

  Country, War, Rights

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• The last thing the consumer index wants men and women to do is to figure out how to love one another: The $1.5 trillion retail-sales industry depends on sexual estrangement between men and women, and is fueled by sexual dissatisfaction. Ads do not sell sex--that would be counterproductive, if it meant that heterosexual women and men turned to one another and were gratified. What they sell is sexual discontent.

  Naomi Wolf

  Sex, Men, Would Be

  Naomi Wolf (1990). “The Beauty Myth”, Vintage

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• If it had not been for the discontent of a few fellows who had not been satisfied with their conditions, you would still be living in caves. Intelligent discontent is the mainspring of civilization. Progress is born of agitation. It is agitation or stagnation.

  Eugene V. Debs

  Life, Intelligent, Civilization

  "The Issue". Eugene V. Debs' speech in Girard, Kansas, May 23, 1908.

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• God gave us minds to think with and hearts to thank with. Instead we use our hearts to think about the world as we would like it to have been, and we use our minds to come up with rationalizations for our ingratitude. We are a murmuring, discontented, unhappy, ungrateful people. And because we think we want salvation from our discontents.

  Douglas Wilson

  Ungrateful People, Heart, Thinking

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• One of Satan's greatest tools is pride: to cause a man or a woman to center so much attention on self that he or she becomes insensitive to his Creator or fellow beings. It is a cause for discontent, divorce, teenage rebellion, family indebtedness, and most other problems we face.

  Ezra Taft Benson

  Teenage, Women, Divorce

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• Reflect how you are to govern a people who think they ought to be free, and think they are not. Your scheme yields no revenue; it yields nothing but discontent, disorder, disobedience; and such is the state of America, that after wading through up to your eyes in blood, you could only end up where you begun; that is, to tax where no revenue is to be found... all is confusion beyond it.

  Edmund Burke

  Eye, Thinking, Blood

  Edmund Burke (1919). “Speech on Conciliation with America”

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• A man who goes into a restaurant and blatantly disrespects the servers shows a strong discontent with his own being. Deep down he knows that restaurant service is the closest thing he will ever experience to being served like a king.

  Criss Jami

  Strong, Kings, Food

  Criss Jami (2015). “Killosophy”, p.55, Criss Jami

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• There is no greater sin than desire, No greater curse than discontent, No greater misfortune than wanting something for oneself. Therefore he who knows that enough is enough will always have enough.

  Laozi

  Desire, Sin, Enough

  Laozi (1997). “道德经”, Vintage

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• Tis not my talent to conceal my thoughts, Or carry smiles and sunshine in my face, When discontent sits heavy at my heart.

  Joseph Addison

  Heart, Sunshine, Faces

  Joseph Addison (1808). “Cato. A Tragedy. London 1808”, p.17

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• Imagination is a flame that ignites the creative spirit. Imagination lights up your mind by stoking mental fires. It can be stimulated from the outside through the senses, or from the inside through the driving power of curiosity and discontent.

  Wilferd Peterson

  Art, Fire, Light

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• He said, Contented? I am the MOST discontented man in the world! Don't you know I am the wealthiest man in the world? That is my discontent. Now I know there is no more to wealth: all that is possible I have attained, and yet I am dying empty. My life has been just a wastage. Next time, if God gives me another opportunity, I am not going to try money any more - it has failed.

  Rajneesh

  Money, Opportunity, Men

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• How often do we use other people as screens upon which to project our obsessions? Our discontents, dreams, desires, and fears? Well, I always thought, often enough that its a wonder the whole waking world isn't simply viewed as an endless improvised film. One with as many screenwriters, producers, and directors as there are actors

  Bradford Morrow

  Dream, People, Desire

  Bradford Morrow (2011). “The Diviner's Tale”, p.150, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• I prefer the saddle to the streetcar and star-sprinkled sky to a roof, the obscure and difficult trail, leading into the unknown, to any paved highway, and the deep peace of the wild to the discontent bred by cities. Do you blame me then for staying here, where I feel that I belong and am one with the world around me? It is true that I miss intelligent companionship, but there are so few with whom I can share the things that mean so much to me that I have learned to contain myself. It is enough that I am surrounded with beauty

  Everett Ruess

  Stars, Mean, Intelligent

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• I have not tired of the wilderness; rather I enjoy its beauty and the vagrant life I lead, more keenly all the time. I prefer the saddle to the street car and the star sprinkled sky to a roof, the obscure and difficult trail, leading into the unknown, to any paved highway, and the deep peace of the wild to the discontent bred by cities.

  Everett Ruess

  Stars, Tired, Sky

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• ...and gradually his face assumed the expressions which are so often found among rich people - the expressions of discontent, of sickliness, of displeasure, of idleness, of lovelessness. Slowly the soul sickness of the rich crept over him.

  Hermann Hesse

  Expression, People, Soul

  Hermann Hesse (1980). “Six Novels: With Other Stories and Essays”

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• The reason is that nature has so created men that they are able to desire everything but are not able to attain everything: so that the desire being always greater than the acquisition, there results discontent with the possession and little satisfaction to themselves from it. From this arises the changes in their fortunes; for as men desire, some to have more, some in fear of losing their acquisition, there ensues enmity and war, from which results the ruin of that province and the elevation of another.

  Niccolo Machiavelli

  Art, War, Men

  "Discourses on Livy". Book by Niccolo Machiavelli, Book 1, Ch. 37, (as translated by LJ Walker and B Crick, 1517.

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