Discontent Quotes - Page 9

• Kennedy saw the insurgency as a anti-colonial, essentially nationalist movement, feeding on social discontent. So you don't shoot people.

  Roger Hilsman

  People, Movement, Saws

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• All that was required of them (i.e. the brain-washed masses) was a primitive patriotism which could be appealed to whenever it was necessary to make them accept longer working hours or shorter rations. And even when they became discontented, as they sometimes did, their discontent led nowhere, because, being without general ideas, they could only focus it on petty specific grievances. The larger evils invariably escaped their notice.

  George Orwell

  Memorial Day, Ideas, Evil

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• The gratification which affluence of wealth, extent of power, and eminence of reputation confer, must be always, by their own nature, confined to a very small number; and the life of the greater part of mankind must be lost in empty wishes and painful comparisons, were not the balm of philosophy shed upon us, and our discontent at the appearances of unequal distribution soothed and appeased.

  Samuel Johnson

  Philosophy, Small Numbers, Humanity

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1857). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With an Essay on His Life and Genius”, p.110

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• Three causes especially have excited the discontent of mankind; and, by impelling us to seek remedies for the irremediable, have bewildered us in a maze of madness and error. These are death, toil, and the ignorance of the future.

  Charles Mackay

  Ignorance, Errors, Mazes

  Charles Mackay (2017). “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds: Understanding the Forces Behind Group Mentality, Thoughts and Actions”, p.104, e-artnow

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• My ideas are a curse.
  They spring from a radical discontent
  with the awful order of things.
  I play clown. I play carpenter. I play nurse.
  I play witch.

  Anne Sexton

  Inspirational, Spring, Order

  Anne Sexton, Diane Wood Middlebrook, Diana Hume George (2000). “Selected Poems of Anne Sexton”, p.263, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Besides the progress of industry and technique, we see a growing discontent among the masses; we see, besides the expansion ("expansion,", Fr.) of instruction, distrust and hatred expanding among nations ("s'étendre la méfiance et la haine entre," Fr.), that vie with one another ("qui rivalisent à l'envi," Fr.), by the increase of their armies and the improvement of their engines of murder ("engins meurtriers", Fr).

  African Spir

  Army, Hatred, Progress

  "Paroles d'un sage: Choix de pensées d'African Spir" ("Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir") by Hélène Claparède-Spir, (p. 37), 1937.

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• I was trundling around with my inadequacies, and inner pain and loneliness. I yearned, desperately, to be something. I yearned to get out from where I was ... some deep discontent within myself, actually some deep dislike of myself.

  Anthony Hopkins

  Pain, Loneliness, Solitude

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• Human envy is certainly not one of the sources of discontent that a free society can eliminate. It is probably one of the essential conditions for the preservation of such a society that we do not countenance envy, not sanction its demands by camouflaging it as social justice, but treat it, in the words of John Stuart Mill, as 'the most anti-social and evil of all passions.'

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Passion, Evil, Envy

  "The Constitution of Liberty". Book by Friedrich Hayek (p. 93), 1960.

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• There is no calamity greater than lavish desires. There is no greater guilt than discontent. And there is no greater disaster than greed.

  Laozi

  Money, Greed, Guilt

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• We act empty and innocent but we are fueled by distortions of lives led in discontent trading misfortunes cause faith is one thing that is hard to deliver it feels funny being free.

  Amy Ray

  Being Free, Causes, Innocent

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• Affliction is a pill, which, being wrapt up in patience and quiet submission, may be easily swallowed; but discontent chews the pill, and so embitters the soul.

  John Flavel

  Soul, Suffering, Affliction

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• It is a curious truth - and yet a truth forced upon us by daily observation - that it is not the women who have suffered most who are the unhappy women. A state of permanent unhappiness - not the morbid, half-cherished melancholy of youth, which generally wears off with wiser years, but that settled, incurable discontent and dissatisfaction with all things and all people, which we see in some women, is, with very rare exceptions, at once the index and the exponent of a thoroughly selfish character.

  Dinah Maria Murlock Craik

  Selfish, Character, Years

  "A Woman's Thoughts About Women" by Dinah Maria Murlock Craik, (Ch. 10), 1858.

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• We are ourselves the stumbling-blocks in the way of our happiness. Place a common individual - by common, I mean with the common share of stupidity, custom, and discontent - place him in the garden of Eden, and he would not find it out unless he were told, and when told, he would not believe it.

  Letitia Elizabeth Landon

  Block, Believe, Mean

  Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1831). “Romance and reality, by L.E.L.”, p.176

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• We abandon the most important journey of our lives when we abandon desire. We leave our hearts by the side of the road and head off in the direction of fitting in, getting by, being productive, what have you. Whatever we might gain – money, position, the approval of others, or just absence of the discontent self – it’s not worth it.

  John Eldredge

  Country, Kings, Heart

  "The Journey of Desire: Searching for the Life You've Always Dreamed Of".

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• Poor in abundance, famish'd at a feast.

  Edward Young

  Abundance, Poor

  Edward Young, Charles Edward DE COETLOGON (1793). “Night thoughts on life death and immortality ... to which are added the life of the author and a paraphrase on part of the Book of Job”, p.161

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• Discontent is the catalyst for change.

  Mike Murdock

  Catalyst For Change, Catalyst

  Mike Murdock (2012). “1 Minute Businesswoman's Devotional”, p.199, Wisdom International Inc

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• Discontent arises from a knowledge of the possible, as contrasted with the actual.

  Aneurin Bevan

  Arise

  David A. Reisman, Aneurin Bevan (1996). “In Place of Fear”, Pickering & Chatto Publishers

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• There are, indeed, two forms of discontent: one laborious, the other indolent and complaining. We respect the man of laborious desire, but let us not suppose that his restlessness is peace, or his ambition meekness. It is because of the special connection of meekness with contentment that it is promised that the meek shall 'inherit the earth.' Neither covetous men, nor the grave, can inherit anything; they can but consume. Only contentment can possess.

  John Ruskin

  Ambition, Men, Two

  John Ruskin (1860). “Modern Painters: pt. 6. Of leaf beauty. pt. 7. Of Cloud beauty. pt. 8-9. Of ideas of relation”, p.343

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• It is our response to our circumstances rather than the degree of difficulty that determines whether or not we are discontent

  Jerry Bridges

  Degrees, Circumstances, Difficulty

  Jerry Bridges (2014). “Respectable Sins: Confronting the Sins We Tolerate”, p.38, Tyndale House

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• There are times when I worry that I've already lost myself. That is, that my self is so inseparable from being with you that if we were to separate, I would no longer be. I save this thought for when I feel the darkest discontent. I never meant to depend so much on someone else.

  David Levithan

  Self, Worry, Lost

  David Levithan (2011). “The Lover's Dictionary: A Novel”, p.160, Macmillan

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• Discontent is a good thing: discontented people can modify and improve their worlds, leave them better, leave them different.

  Neil Gaiman

  People, Different, World

  Neil Gaiman (2016). “The View from the Cheap Seats: Selected Nonfiction”, p.12, HarperCollins

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• We dishonor God if we proclaim a Savior who satisfies and then go around discontent

  J. I. Packer

  Dishonor, Savior, Ifs

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• I was comfortable in all, I admit, but at the same time, nothing satisfied me. Each joy made me seek another.

  Albert Camus

  Joy, Made, Satisfied

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• So long as the great majority of the poor in any country are inert and are laboring without any hope in this world, the whole associated life of that community rests on an equivocal foundation. Its moral and social order is tied to an economic system which starves and mutilates the great majority of the population, and under such conditions its religion necessarily becomes a spiritual drug, administered for the purpose of subduing the popular discontent and relieving the popular misery.

  Herbert Croly

  Spiritual, Country, Order

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• Let thy discontents be thy secrets; if the world knows them 'twill despise thee and increase them.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Secret, Contentment, World

  Benjamin Franklin (2004). “Poor Richard's Almanack”, p.87, Barnes & Noble Publishing

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