Aug. 20, 2024, 6:45 p.m.
In our fast-paced world, finding moments of genuine satisfaction can often seem like a rare treasure. Whether it's through personal achievements, simple joys, or the fulfillment of helping others, satisfaction plays a crucial role in our overall sense of well-being and happiness. To inspire and motivate you on your journey towards a more fulfilled life, we’ve curated a collection of the top 70 satisfaction quotes that capture the essence of contentment and joy. Let these words of wisdom serve as a gentle reminder to cherish life's small pleasures and celebrate the milestones, big or small.
1. “Yes, there is a Nirvanah; it is leading your sheep to a green pasture, and in putting your child to sleep, and in writing the last line of your poem” - Kahlil Gibran
2. “He who is not satisfied with a little is satisfied with nothing.” - Epicurus
3. “More generally, as I shall repeat in Chapter 8, one of the truly bad effects of religion is that it teaches us that it is a virtue to be satisfied with not understanding.” - Richard Dawkins
4. “Formerly...when he tried to do anything for the good of everybody, for humanity...for the whole village, he had noticed that the thoughts of it were agreeable, but the activity itself was always unsatisfactory; there was no full assurance that the work was really necessary, and the activity itself, which at first seemed so great, ever lessened and lessened till it vanished. But now...when he began to confine himself more and more to living for himself, though he no longer felt any joy at the thought of his activity, he felt confident that his work was necessary, saw that it progressed far better than formerly, and that it was always growing more and more.” - Leo Tolstoy
5. “It is indisputable that the being whose capacities of enjoyment are low, has the greatest chance of having them fully satisfied; and a highly endowed being will always feel that any happiness which he can look for, as the world is constituted, is imperfect. But he can learn to bear its imperfections, if they are at all bearable; and they will not make him envy the being who is indeed unconscious of the imperfections, but only because he feels not at all the good which those imperfections qualify. It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, is of a different opinion, it is only because they only know their own side of the question.” - John Stuart Mill
6. “You are a real find and you keep me satisfied, up to a point. After all, I'm a malcontent and you can't change that.” - Charles Baxter
7. “The sky darkened, the air grew colder, but he didn't mind. It didn't occur to him to move. This was the right place. This was where he had wanted to be.” - Pat Barker
8. “How can one explain this trend towards a more colorless and shallow life? Well, the work was easier, if less healthy, and it brought in more money, more leisure, and perhaps more entertainment. A day in the country is long and hard. And yet the fruits of their present life were worthless compared to a single coin of their former life: a rest in the evening and a rural festivity. That they no longer knew the old kind of happiness was obvious from the discontentment which spread over their features. Soon dissatisfaction, prevailing over all their other moods, became their religion.” - Ernst Jünger
9. “Happiness is not a goal...it's a by-product of a life well lived.” - Eleanor Roosevelt
10. “Infidelity is an opium of unfaithfulness.” - Toba Beta
11. “It [money] doesn't have anything have anything to do with the magnificence of a person. It doesn't. What matters is what you make. Whether it's a cake for bingo night or a costume for a saint or a wall of water--whatever you pour into this life is what makes you rich.” - Adriana Trigiani
12. “True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing. The greatest blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach. A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not.” - seneca
13. “There are disappointments in all men's lives, even those who have achieved their ambition, and there are compensations.” - John Christopher
14. “[F]or just one second, look at your life and see how perfect it is. Stop looking for the next secret door that is going to lead you to your real life. Stop waiting. This is it: there's nothing else. It's here, and you'd better decide to enjoy it or you're going to be miserable wherever you go, for the rest of your life, forever.” - Lev Grossman
15. “As long as I have a want, I have a reason for living. Satisfaction is death. ” - George Bernard Shaw
16. “What give all that is tragic, whatever its form, the characteristic of the sublime, is the first inkling of the knowledge that the world and life can give no satisfaction, and are not worth our investment in them. The tragic spirit consists in this. Accordingly it leads to resignation.” - Arthur Schopenhauer
17. “For me, Art is the restoration of order. It may discuss all sort of terrible things, but there must be satisfaction at the end. A little bit of hunger, but also satisfaction.” - Toni Morrison
18. “He is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.” - John Piper
19. “I enjoy writing, I enjoy my house, my family and, more than anything I enjoy the feeling of seeing each day used to the full to actually produce something. The end.” - Michael Palin
20. “Royal summoned mourners. They came from the village, from the neighboring hills and, wailing like dogs at midnight, laid siege to the house. Old women beat their heads against the walls, moaning men prostrated themselves: it was the art of sorrow, and those who best mimicked grief were much admired. After the funeral everyone went away, satisfied that they'd done a good job.” - Truman Capote
21. “They luxuriated in the feeling of deep and all pervading satisfaction, a feeling of knowing absolutely that all was well with the world and them and that the world was not only their oyster it was also their linguine with clam sauce. Not only were all things possible, but all things were theirs. ” - Hubert Selby Jr.
22. “If curiosity killed the cat, it was satisfaction that brought it back.” - Holly Black
23. “Any accomplishment is not fulfilled without true realization of satisfaction in heart and soul.” - Santosh Kalwar
24. “No aacomplishments are important than self realization of self satisfaction.” - Santosh Kalwar
25. “Best way to describe life could be suffering from your past or could just be a moment spend with heart full of satisfaction.” - Santosh Kalwar
26. “The will has no overall purpose, aims at no highest good, and can never be satisfied. Although it is our essence, it strikes us as an alien agency within, striving for life and procreation blindly, mediated only secondarily by consciousness. Instinctive sexuality is at our core, interfering constantly with the life of the intellect. To be an individual expression of this will is to lead a life of continual desire, deficiency, and suffering. Pleasure or satisfaction exists only relative to a felt lack; it is negative, merely the cessation of an episode of striving or suffering, and has no value of itself. Nothing we can achieve by conscious act of will alters the will to life within us. There is no free will. Human actions, as part of the natural order, are determined [....] As individual parts of the empirical world we are ineluctably pushed through life by a force inside us which is not of our choosing, which gives rise to needs and desires we can never fully satisfy, and is without ultimate purpose. Schopenhauer concludes that it would have been better not to exist—and that the world itself is something whose existence we should deplore rather than celebrate.” - Christopher Janaway
27. “Study, along the lines which the theologies have mapped, will never lead us to discovery of the fundamental facts of our existence. That goal must be attained by means of exact science and can only be achieved by such means. The fact that man, for ages, has superstitiously believed in what he calls a God does not prove at all that his theory has been right. There have been many gods – all makeshifts, born of inability to fathom the deep fundamental truth. There must be something at the bottom of existence, and man, in ignorance, being unable to discover what it is through reason, because his reason has been so imperfect, undeveloped, has used, instead, imagination, and created figments, of one kind or another, which, according to the country he was born in, the suggestions of his environment, satisfied him for the time being. Not one of all the gods of all the various theologies has ever really been proved. We accept no ordinary scientific fact without the final proof; why should we, then, be satisfied in this most mighty of all matters, with a mere theory?Destruction of false theories will not decrease the sum of human happiness in future, any more than it has in the past... The days of miracles have passed. I do not believe, of course, that there was ever any day of actual miracles. I cannot understand that there were ever any miracles at all. My guide must be my reason, and at thought of miracles my reason is rebellious. Personally, I do not believe that Christ laid claim to doing miracles, or asserted that he had miraculous power...Our intelligence is the aggregate intelligence of the cells which make us up. There is no soul, distinct from mind, and what we speak of as the mind is just the aggregate intelligence of cells. It is fallacious to declare that we have souls apart from animal intelligence, apart from brains. It is the brain that keeps us going. There is nothing beyond that.Life goes on endlessly, but no more in human beings than in other animals, or, for that matter, than in vegetables. Life, collectively, must be immortal, human beings, individually, cannot be, as I see it, for they are not the individuals – they are mere aggregates of cells.There is no supernatural. We are continually learning new things. There are powers within us which have not yet been developed and they will develop. We shall learn things of ourselves, which will be full of wonders, but none of them will be beyond the natural.[Columbian Magazine interview]” - Thomas A. Edison
28. “It is in your hands to make life miserable or happy. No religion, spiritual leaders or knowledge will ever make you fully satisfied.” - Santosh Kalwar
29. “A general air of surprise and genuine satisfaction fell upon everyone as they saw the pianist enter.” - Kate Chopin
30. “You say, 'If I had a little more, I should be very satisfied.' You make a mistake. If you are not content with what you have, you would not be satisfied if it were doubled.” - Charles Spurgeon
31. “He that has satisfied his thirst turns his back on the well.” - Baltasar Gracian
32. “Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not.” - Ann Brashares
33. “The devil frequently fills our thoughts with great schemes, so that instead of putting our hands to what work we can do to serve our Lord, we may rest satisfied with wishing to perform impossibilities.” - Santa Teresa de Jesús
34. “The problem for us is not are our desires satisfied or not. The problem is how do we know what we desire.” - Slavoj Žižek
35. “Price ain't merely about numbers. It's a satisfying sacrifice.” - Toba Beta
36. “Tell the truth through whichever veil comes to hand – but tell it. Resign yourself to the lifelong sadness that comes from never being satisfied.” - zadie smith
37. “With thorns in the inner world there will always be roses in the outer world, in law-able compensation.” - G.I. Gurdjieff
38. “I feel like every project I work on is a dream project, so long as I am learning.” - Simeon Kondev
39. “But I do know we’re deficient in some way. We are too involved in materialistic things, and they don’t satisfy us. The loving relationships we have, the universe around us, we take these things for granted.” - Mitch Albom
40. “In a person's lifetime there may be not more than half a dozen occasions that he can look back to in the certain knowledge that right then, at that moment, there was room for nothing but happiness in his heart.” - Ernestine Gilbreth Carey
41. “There's a capacity for appetite... that a whole heaven and earth of cake can't satisfy” - John Steinbeck
42. “She was full of some strange energy that morning. Her every movement had purpose and life and she seemed to find satisfaction in every little thing.” - Anna Godbersen
43. “Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough,A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse - and ThouBeside me singing in the Wilderness -And Wilderness is Paradise enow.” - Omar Khayyám
44. “One bulb at a time. There was no other way to do it. No shortcuts--simply loving the slow process of planting. Loving the work as it unfolded. Loving an achievement that grew slowly and bloomed for only three weeks each year.” - Jaroldeen Asplund Edwards
45. “Experiences are the gifts from God, but we never seek those directly. You and I are to be seeking. You and I are to be hungering and thirsting after righteousness and then the experiences are the gifts.” - Brian Richardson
46. “You don't get to choose if you get hurt in this world...but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices.” - John Green
47. “They’re like chocolate-chip cookies, though. Can’t have just one.” - Steve Berry
48. “There are some men who are consoled by the idea that there are women less attractive than their wives; and others who are haunted by the knowledge that there are more attractive.” - John Fowles
49. “On the right side-panel of the verbose and somewhat tautological box of Cheerios, it is written,If you are not satisfied with the quality and/or performance of the Cheerios in this box, send name, address, and reason for dissatisfaction—along with entire boxtop and price paid—to: General Mills, Inc., Box 200-A, Minneapolis, Minn., 55460. Your purchase price will be returned.It isn’t enough that there is a defensive tone to those words, a slant of doubt, an unappetizing broach of the subject of money, but they leave the reader puzzling over exactly what might be meant by the “performance” of the Cheerios.Could the Cheerios be in bad voice? Might not they handle well on curves? Do they ejaculate too quickly? Has age affected their timing or are they merely in a mid-season slump? Afflicted with nervous exhaustion or broken hearts, are the Cheerios smiling bravely, insisting that the show must go on?” - Tom Robbins
50. “... each gratification points to the ultimate one, and that all happiness has some connection with eternal beatitude. Some connection, if only this: that every fulfillment this side of Heaven instantly reveals its inadequacy. It is immediately evident that such satisfactions are not enough; they are not what we have really sought; they cannot really satisfy us at all.” - Josef Pieper
51. “he who is greedy is always in want” - Horace
52. “God has called His creation to find satisfaction in a personal relationship with Him, and stop trying to manage the world by conforming it to our expectations, and to allow Him to govern His creation. He continues to say through an ancient Hebrew worship song, "Be still and know that I am God!” - Swindoll Charles R.
53. “There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique, and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium; and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, not how it compares with other expression. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.” - Martha Graham
54. “The desire to do something because you find it deeply satisfying and personally challenging inspires the highest levels of creativity, whetherit's in the arts, sciences, or business.” - Teresa Amabile
55. “If you can concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man.” - Paulo Coelho
56. “On the job people feel skillful and challenged, and therefore feel more happy, strong, creative, and satisfied. In their free time people feel that there is generally not much to do and their skills are not being used, and therefore they tend to feel more sad, weak, dull, and dissatisfied. Yet they would like to work less and spend more time in leisure.What does this contradictory pattern mean? There are several possible explanations, but one conclusion seems inevitable: when it comes to work, people do not heed the evidence of their senses. They disregard the quality of immediate experience, and base their motivation instead on the strongly rooted cultural stereotype of what work is supposed to be like. They think of it as an imposition, a constraint, an infringement of their freedom, and therefore something to be avoided as much as possible.” - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
57. “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
58. “People says you are not going to take anything with you at the end but people, mind that you are going to leave a lot behind you.So be precise for your deeds n trail you left. :)” - Nikunj shukla
59. “For the person with creative potential there is no wholeness except in using it.” - Robert K. Greenleaf
60. “I love the ritual of drawing up lists, and there's something wonderfully satisfying about ticking tasks off.” - Shaida Kazie Ali
61. “I don't have money but I have something even money can't buy - Satisfaction. I'm satisfied with whatever little I have.” - Saru Singhal
62. “Have you ever considered what Adam and Eve were doing when they got into so much trouble? As I read the story, they were shopping. The forbidden fruit was not scattered throughout the garden, not in many places, not in multiple locations, but one place, one site, one location and one location only. Perhaps they just came upon it, “Oh, look, the forbidden fruit…” or, perhaps, they were looking for something, searching, shopping. Somewhere in their dissatisfaction they thought, “If only we had something more…” - David W. Jones
63. “Wealth is not an absolute. It is relative to desire. Every time we yearn for something we cannot afford, we grow poorer, whatever our resources. And every time we feel satisfied with what we have, we can be counted as rich, however little we may actually possess.” - Alain De Botton
64. “I think when you begin to think of yourself as having achieved something, then there's nothing left for you to work towards. I want to believe that there is a mountain so high that I will spend my entire life striving to reach the top of it.” - Cicely Tyson
65. “Our minds are susceptible to the influence of external voices telling us what we require to be satisfied, voices that may drown out the faint sounds emitted by our souls and distract us from the careful, arduous task of accurately naming our priorities.” - Alain De Botton
66. “There is nothing more satisfying than having plans.” - Lalita Tademy
67. “Through becoming aware of how the inner man and woman relates and communicates inside ourselves, it creates a joy and satisfaction in the three life areas that they influence: our meditation and inner growth, our relationships and our work and creativity.” - Swami Dhyan Giten
68. “Life turns, and returns death. Where death digs its claws into the grave only to pull out life, as a baby from a womb; and the recycle of air, the recycle of struggles that never achieve satisfaction, in a constant turning world, of an untuned universe.” - Anthony Liccione
69. “Somehow, we'll find it. The balance between whom we wish to be and whom we need to be. But for now, we simply have to be satisfied with who we are.” - Brandon Sanderson
70. “There are enough resources in the world for everyone.” - Bryant McGill