Dissatisfaction Quotes - Page 5

• The feelings that hurt most, the emotions that sting most, are those that are absurd - The longing for impossible things, precisely because they are impossible; nostalgia for what never was; the desire for what could have been; regret over not being someone else; dissatisfaction with the world’s existence. All these half-tones of the soul’s consciousness create in us a painful landscape, an eternal sunset of what we are.

  Fernando Pessoa

  Hope, Hurt, Regret

  Fernando Pessoa, Richard Zenith (1996). “Book of Disquietude”, Carcanet Press Limited

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• When a sense of dissatisfaction persists, that means it was placed there by God for one reason only: you need to change everything and move forward.

  Paulo Coelho

  Moving, Mean, Needs

  FaceBook post by Paulo Coelho from May 27, 2014

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• Is it not enough that we cannot make one another happy, must we also rob one another of the pleasures that any heart may permit itself now and then? And name me a person who in a bad mood will be decent enough to hide it, to bear it alone, without destroying the joy around him. Is it not rather an inner dissatisfaction with our own unworthiness, a dislike of ourselves that is always associated with envy aggravated by foolish conceit? We see people happy and not made happy by us, and that is unbearable.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Heart, Names, People

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• it is hard for anyone who is dissatisfied not to blame some one else, and especially the person nearest of all to him, for the ground of his dissatisfaction.

  Leo Tolstoy

  Blame, Persons, Hard

  Leo Tolstoy (2016). “ANNA KARENINA – Two Unabridged Translations in One Premium Edition (World Classics Series): The Greatest Romantic Tragedy of All Times from the Renowned Author of War and Peace & The Death of Ivan Ilyich (Including Biographies of the Author)”, p.1525, e-artnow

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• It was evident to him that the world composed and recomposed itself constantly in an endless process of dissatisfaction.

  E. L. Doctorow

  World, Process, Ragtime

  E.L. Doctorow (2010). “Ragtime: A Novel”, p.91, Random House

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• The achievement of excellence can only occur if the organization promotes a culture of creative dissatisfaction.

  Lawrence M. Miller

  Creativity, Organization, Achievement

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• Feelings of bitterness and dissatisfaction feed upon themselves and give place to thoughts and acts of unkindness, criticism, and eventually even hatred. Criticism is often motivated by a desire to rationalize one's own shortcomings and to justify termination of sacred marriage covenants.

  Richard G. Scott

  Giving, Hatred, Feelings

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• This is precisely the reason for the dissatisfaction of some, who end up sad - sad priests - in some sense becoming collectors of antiques or novelties, instead of being shepherds living with 'the odor of the sheep.' This I ask you: Be shepherds, with the 'odor of the sheep,' make it real, as shepherds among your flock, fishers of men.

  Pope Francis

  Real, Men, Sheep

  Pope Francis (2016). “Men of Mercy: Pope Francis Speaks to Priests”, p.12, BookBaby

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• Unhappiness on earth cultivates a hunger for heaven. By gracing us with a deep dissatisfaction, God holds our attention.

  Max Lucado

  Heaven, Attention, Earth

  Max Lucado (1999). “When God Whispers Your Name”, p.226, Thomas Nelson Inc

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• I still noticed that little streak of rebelliousness coming up in me again - the same sense of dissatisfaction I had felt earlier with the empty rituals and institutionalized values of all religious traditions.

  Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche

  Religious, Littles, Tradition

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• It seems to me that the chief thing about a woman - who is much of a woman - is that in the long run she is not to be had... She is not to be caught by any of the catch-words, love, beauty, honor, duty, worth, work, salvation - none of them - not in the long run. In the long run she only says Am I satisfied, or is there some beastly dissatisfaction gnawing and gnawing inside me. And if there is some dissatisfaction, it is physical, at least as much as psychic, sex as much as soul.

  D. H. Lawrence

  Love, Running, Sex

  "The Letters of D. H. Lawrence".

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• The organizers first job is to create the issues or problems, and organizations must be based on many issues. The organizer must first rub raw the resentments of the people of the community; fan the latent hostilities of many of the people to the point of overt expression. He must search out controversy and issues, rather than avoid them, for unless there is controversy people are not concerned enough to act. . . . An organizer must stir up dissatisfaction and discontent.

  Saul Alinsky

  Jobs, Expression, Organization

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• Structural dissatisfaction: Returning to circumstances that once pleased you, after having experienced a more thrilling or opulent way of life, and finding that you can no longer tolerate them.

  Jennifer Egan

  Way, Circumstances, Tolerate

  Jennifer Egan (2010). “A Visit from the Goon Squad”, p.61, Anchor

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• He was marked out by his relentless ability to find fault with others' mediocrity - suggesting that a certain type of intelligence may be at heart nothing more or less than a superior capacity for dissatisfaction.

  Alain de Botton

  Heart, Mediocrity, May

  "The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work". Book by Alain de Botton, 2008.

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• For paradise we long. For perfection we were made...This longing is the source of the hunger and dissatisfaction that mark our lives...This longing makes our loves and friendships possible, and so very unsatisfactory. The hunger is for...nothing less than perfect communion with the...one in whom all the fragments of our scattered existence come together...we must not stifle this longing. It is a holy dissatisfaction. Such dissatisfaction is not a sickness to be healed, but the seed of a promise to be fulfilled...The only death to fear is the death of settling for something less.

  Richard John Neuhaus

  Perfect, Long, Promise

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• Our country is the best country in the world. We are swimming in prosperity and our President is the best president in the world. We have larger apples and better cotton and faster and more beautiful machines. This makes us the greatest country in the world. Unemployment is a myth. Dissatisfaction is a fable. In preparatory school America is beautiful. It is the gem of the ocean and it is too bad. It is bad because people believe it all. Because they become indifferent. Because they marry and reproduce and vote and they know nothing.

  John Cheever

  Beautiful, Country, Believe

  John Cheever, Blake Bailey (2009). “John Cheever: Collected Stories and Other Writings”

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• That said, deciding to avoid other people does not necessarily equate with having no desire whatsoever for company; it may simply reflect a dissatisfaction with what—or who—is available. Cynics are, in the end, only idealists with awkwardly high standards. In Chamfort's words, 'It is sometimes said of a man who lives alone that he does not like society. This is like saying of a man that he does not like going for walks because he is not fond of walking at night in the forêt de Bondy.

  Alain de Botton

  Night, Men, People

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• Is it the sea you hear in me? Its dissatisfactions? Or the voice of nothing, that was your madness? Love is a shadow. How you lie and cry after it.

  Sylvia Plath

  Lying, Love Is, Sea

  Sylvia Plath (2010). “Ariel”, p.18, Faber & Faber

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• Murray said, ´I don´t trust anybody´s nostalgia but my own. Nostalgia is a product of dissatisfaction and rage. It´s a settling of grievances between the present and the past. The more powerful the nostalgia, the closer you come to violence. War is the form nostalgia takes when men are hard-pressed to say something good about their country.´

  Don DeLillo

  Country, Powerful, War

  Don DeLillo (2011). “White Noise”, p.286, Pan Macmillan

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• I think the real reason so many youngsters are clamoring for freedom of some vague sort, is because of unrest and dissatisfaction with present conditions; I don't believe this machine age gives full satisfaction in a spiritual way, if the term may be allowed.

  Robert E. Howard

  Spiritual, Real, Believe

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• For education among all kinds of men always has had, and always will have, an element of danger and revolution, of dissatisfaction and discontent.

  W. E. B. Du Bois

  Men, Revolution, Kind

  W. E. B. Du Bois (2014). “The Souls of Black Folk: The Oxford W. E. B. Du Bois”, p.42, Oxford University Press

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• This sense of perfection has a built-in contradiction, one that Ram Dass once captured very succinctly by a statement he had heard from his Himalayan guru: "The world is absolutely perfect, including your own dissatisfaction with it, and everything you are trying to do to change it.

  Stanislav Grof

  Perfect, Trying, World

  Stanislav Grof, Hal Zina Bennett (1992). “The holotropic mind: the three levels of human consciousness and how they shape our lives”, Harpercollins

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• . . . 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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• So Bush certainly wasn't the greatest, and Obama has not done the job. And he's created a lot of disincentive. He's created a lot of great dissatisfaction. Regulations and regulatory is going through the roof. It's almost impossible to get anything done in the country.

  Donald Trump

  Country, Jobs, Done

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• He'd once told me that the art of getting ahead in New York was based on learning how to express dissatisfaction in an interesting way. The air was full of rage and complaint. People had no tolerance for your particular hardship unless you knew how to entertain them with it.

  Don DeLillo

  Art, New York, Air

  Don DeLillo (2011). “White Noise”, p.76, Pan Macmillan

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