Dissatisfaction Quotes

• To cure jealousy is to see it for what it is, a dissatisfaction with self.

  Joan Didion

  Jealousy, Self, Cures

  FaceBook post by Joan Didion from Jul 17, 2011

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• The weight of the world is love. Under the burden of solitude, under the burden of dissatisfaction.

  Allen Ginsberg

  Solitude, Literature, World

  Allen Ginsberg, Lewis Hyde (1984). “On the Poetry of Allen Ginsberg”, p.31, University of Michigan Press

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• We are all more blind to what we have than to what we have not.

  Audre Lorde

  Gratitude, Blind

  Audre Lorde (2012). “Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches”, p.31, Crossing Press

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• Until you get dissatisfied, you won't do anything to really move your life to another level. Dissatisfaction is a gem. If you're totally satisfied, you're going to get comfortable. And then your life begins to deteriorate.

  Tony Robbins

  Moving, Levels, Discontent

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• No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a strange, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.

  Martha Graham

  Dance, Blessed, Artist

  "The Life and Work of Martha Graham". Book by Agnes de Mille, p. 264, 1991.

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• Change occurs in direct proportion to dissatisfaction, but dissatisfaction never changes.

  Douglas Horton

  Never Change, Proportion, Direct

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• The world is nothing but a great desire to live and a great dissatisfaction with living.

  Heraclitus

  Desire, World, Desire To Live

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• The little dissatisfaction which every artist feels at the completion of a work forms the germ of a new work.

  Berthold Auerbach

  Artist, New Work, Littles

  Berthold Auerbach (1874). “On the heights: a novel”, p.187

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• Less is even less, and more is still not quite enough.

  Faith Ringgold

  Enough, Stills

  Faith Ringgold (2005). “We Flew Over the Bridge: The Memoirs of Faith Ringgold”

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• I learned long ago to accept the fact that not everything I create will see the light of day.

  Joseph Barbera

  Light, Long Ago, Facts

  Joseph Barbera (1994). “My Life in 'Toons: From Flatbush to Bedrock in Under a Century”, Turner Pub

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• How can we eliminate the deepest source of all unsatisfactory experience? Only by cultivating certain qualities within our mindstream.

  Dalai Lama

  Quality, Source, Certain

  Dalai Lama (1994). “The Path to Enlightenment”, p.129, Shambhala

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• If there is dissatisfaction with the status quo, good. If there is ferment, so much the better. If there is restlessness, I am pleased. Then let there be ideas, and hard thought, and hard work. If man feels small, let man make himself bigger.

  Hubert H. Humphrey

  Hard Work, Men, Ideas

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• We will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Justice, Water, I Have A Dream Speech

  I Have a Dream, delivered 28 August 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C.

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• Change is the end result of all true learning. Change involves three things: First, a dissatisfaction with self - a felt void or need; second, a decision to change to fill the void or need; and third, a conscious dedication to the process of growth and change - the willful act of making the change, doing something.

  Leo Buscaglia

  Change, Dedication, Self

  Leo F. Buscaglia (1972). “Love”, Fawcett

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• You're not going to be different ... you're going to be the same as you've always been; with doubts, everlasting dissatisfaction with yourself, vain efforts to amend, and falls, and everlasting expectation, of a happiness which you won't get, and which isn't possible for you.

  Leo Tolstoy

  Fall, Expectations, Effort

  Leo Tolstoy (2016). “Anna Karenina (World Classics, Unabridged)”, p.82, Vij Books India Pvt Ltd

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• The world's not what I want it to be. But then no one ever said I had the right to design the world.

  Norman Mailer

  Design, World, Want

  "His Punch Is Better Than Ever". Interview with Bonnie Angelo, content.time.com. September 30, 1991.

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• I think I have made just one picture that I really like.

  Ingmar Bergman

  Thinking, Made, Just One

  Ingmar Bergman, Raphael Shargel (2007). “Ingmar Bergman: Interviews”, p.75, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• Art is basically made by dissatisfied people who are willing to find some means to relieve the dissatisfaction.

  John Chamberlain

  Art, Mean, People

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• Paradoxically, I have found peace because I have always been dissatisfied. My moments of depression and despair turn out to be renewals, new beginnings. If I were once to settle down and be satisfied with the surface of life, with its divisions and its cliches, it would be time to call in the undertaker... So, then, this dissatisfaction which sometimes used to worry me and has certainly, I know, worried others, has helped me in fact to move freely and even gaily with the stream of life.

  Thomas Merton

  Moving, New Beginnings, Worry

  Thomas Merton (2008). “Choosing to Love the World: On Contemplation: Easyread Large Bold Edition”, p.90, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• I am a person who believes in asking questions, in not conforming for the sake of conforming. I am deeply dissatisfied - about so many things, about injustice, about the way the world works - and in some ways, my dissatisfaction drives my storytelling.

  Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

  Believe, Asking Questions, Sake

  "Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Continental Divides". Interview with Joseph Klarl, www.interviewmagazine.com. May 14, 2013.

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• The people who do better and better work are people who are never satisfied. Cezanne would say, 'I think I've accomplished something,' but then he would immediately add, 'But it's not enough.

  David Galenson

  Thinking, People, Add

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• I find that as I get into a painting I have high hopes, then little by little I begin to see that it is not going to be the masterpiece I thought it would be, and I start putting my hopes into the next work.

  Robert Genn

  Littles, Next, Would Be

  Robert Genn (1996). “The Painter's Keys: A Seminar with Robert Genn”, p.39, Studio Beckett Publications

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• We would worry less if we praised more. Thanksgiving is the enemy of discontent and dissatisfaction.

  Henry Allen Ironside

  Motivational, Thanksgiving, Kids

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• If the wine is not good, then throw it out!

  Michelangelo

  Wine, Ifs

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• Much of what we called "depression" was really dissatisfaction, a result of setting a bar impossibly high or expecting treasures we weren't willing to work for.

  Mitch Albom

  Happiness, Bars, Treasure

  Mitch Albom (2009). “Have a Little Faith: A True Story”, Hyperion

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