Dissatisfaction Quotes

• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• All of us experience the sad effects of blind submission to consumerism. In the first place it represents crass materialism. At the same time it represents a radical dissatisfaction because one quickly learns that the more one possesses, the more one wants, while deeper aspirations remain unsatisfied and perhaps even stifled.

  Pope John Paul II

  Want, Firsts, Materialism

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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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• Chronic dissatisfaction is how you sense that you are living a lie.

  David Deida

  Lying, Living A Lie

  David Deida (2009). “Blue Truth: A Spiritual Guide to Life and Death and Love and Sex”, p.17, ReadHowYouWant.com

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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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• The chemistry of dissatisfaction is as the chemistry of some marvelously potent tar. In it are the building stones of explosives, stimulants, poisons, opiates, perfumes and stenches.

  Eric Hoffer

  Feelings, Opiates, Poison

  Eric Hoffer (1982). “Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer”, HarperCollins Publishers

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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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• 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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• There are three wants which never can be satisfied: that of the rich, who wants something more; that of the sick, who wants something different; and that of the traveler, who says anywhere but here.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Want Something, Sick, Different

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2368, Delphi Classics

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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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• The superior man will watch over himself when he is alone. He examines his heart that there may be nothing wrong there, and that he may have no cause of dissatisfaction with himself.

  Confucius

  Heart, Character, Men

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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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• Were it not for this [dissatisfaction], the perfect painting might be painted, on the completion of which the painter could retire. It is this great insufficiency that drives him on. The process of creation becomes necessary to the painter perhaps more than it is in the picture. The process is in fact habit-forming.

  Lucian Freud

  Perfect, Might, Facts

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• Painting it was hard graft... in addition red, yellow, brown ochre, black, terra sienna, bistre, and the result is a red-brown that varies from bistre to deep wine-red and to pale, blond reddish.

  Vincent Van Gogh

  Wine, Yellow, Black

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