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One's self-satisfaction is an untaxed kind of property which it is very unpleasant to find deprecated.
Sep 10, 2025
Working hard becomes a habit, a serious kind of fun. You get self-satisfaction from pushing your self to the limit, knowing that all the effort is going to pay off.
The forces of retribution are always listening. They never sleep.
However great the work that God may achieve by an individual, he must not indulge in self-satisfaction. He ought rather to be all the more humbled, seeing himself merely as a tool which God has made use of.
I used to care about how I looked. Now I don’t care as much. Maybe it’s because I’m so handsome.
Beware of people whose halos are on too tight.
You have to love what you do, and you have to need it like you need air. And there's nothing else that would give me the same degree of satisfaction as acting, which is why I can't walk away from it.
But self-satisfaction, if as buoyant as gas, has an ugly trick of collapsing when full blown, and facts are stony things that refuse to melt away in the sunshine of a smile.
San Franciscans have a bond of self-satisfaction bordering on smugness.
Many of us have a need to be right. We then set out to make ourselves right by making someone else wrong. We must get right with ourselves. Once we do, we will have so much to do, we will not have time to keep track of who is wrong.
Every man finds his limitations, Mr. Holmes, but at least it cures us of the weakness of self-satisfaction.
Domesticity is the enemy of art. I don't know if that's true. You can write good happy songs. So, I don't think it's necessarily happiness. But I think self-satisfaction is maybe the enemy. It's kind of better to think, "Tomorrow night I'm gonna sing it better." There is this forward effort. It feels to me right, it feels human.
A writer with her work needs to be like a dog with a bone all the time. She needs to know where she's hidden it. Where she's stored the good stuff. She needs to keep gnawing at it, even after all the meat seems to be gone. When a student of mine says (okay, whines) that she's impatient, or tired, or the worst: isn't it good enough? this may be harsh, but she loses just a little bit of my respect. Because there is no room for impatience, or exhaustion, or self-satisfaction, or laziness. All of these really mean, simply, that the inner censor has won the day.
If one wants another only for some self-satisfaction, usually in the form of sensual pleasure, that wrong desire takes the form of lust rather than love.
If I were a first rate writer, I wouldn't mind a bit. What does depress me is this: it is so desperately hard and so obsessive and so lonely to write that, in return for all this work, one would like a little self satisfaction. And that is never going to come, for the simple reason that I do not deserve it. I cannot be a good enough writer. You see? I call it grim. But the future looks awfully clear to me.
I was lying in bed this morning and saying to myself, 'the remarkable thing about Ethel is her stupendous self-satisfaction' when in came your letter to confirm this profound psychological observation. How delighted I was!
The whole business is built on ego, vanity, self-satisfaction, and it's total crap to pretend it's not.
Nothing ought in reason to mortify our self-satisfaction more that the considering that we condemn at one time what we highly approve and commend at another.
Humility was considered a great virtue in my family household. No show of complacency or self-satisfaction was ever tolerated. Patting yourself on the back was definitely not encouraged, and pleasure or pride would be punishable by death.
So long as we judge ourselves by human comparisons, there is plenty of room for self-satisfaction, and self-satisfaction kills faith, for faith is born of the sense of need. But when we compare ourselves with Jesus Christ, and through Him, with God, we are humbled to the dust, and then faith is born, for there is nothing left to do but to trust to the mercy of God.
Mountains are not stadiums where I satisfy my ambition to achieve, they are the cathedrals where I practice my religion.
We must live by the light of our own self-satisfaction, through that secret vital busy inwardness which is even more remarkable than our reason.
Men can starve from a lack of self-realization as much as they can from a lack of bread.
I'm the strongest bodybuilding who ever lived, I think.
If you do the best work you can, the reward is ultimately your self-satisfaction - the sense that you have done the best you can. And then there's that piece of how others respond.
When the satisfaction or the security of another person becomes as significant to one as one's own satisfaction or security, then the state of love exists. Under no other circumstances is a state of love present, regardless of the popular usage of the term.
I think 'vegan' is a beautiful word. It is more than just a description for our diet. I see it as a visible template for an ethical, healthy, responsible, and rational life. Because it describes our character, it says we do not take the life of another living being to satisfy our wants.
It's surprising how many persons go through life without ever recognizing that their feelings toward other people are largely determined by their feelings toward themselves, and if you're not comfortable within yourself, you can't be comfortable with others.
Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best you are capable of becoming.
On any Tuesday morning, if asked, a good working scientist will tell you with some self-satisfaction that the affairs of his field are nicely in order, that things are finally looking clear and making sense, and all is well. But come back again on another Tuesday, and the roof may have just fallen in on his life's work.
It is attachment to creatures and to self-satisfaction that weakens the blessings of love in your heart. You must die to all that, if you wish the pure love of God to reign therein.
Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it.
The structure of the Swiss ruling class is rock-hard, and unchanged since the time of Napoleon. They sit on their mountains and lecture the world on democracy. It's an unbelievable show of self-satisfaction and arrogance.
Health, wealth, beauty, and genius are not created; they are only manifested by the arrangement of your mind-that is, by your concept of yourself, and your concept of yourself is all that you accept and consent to as true.
...boredom speaks the language of time, and it is to teach you the most valuable lesson in your life--...the lesson of your utter insignificance. It is valuable to you, as well as to those you are to rub shoulders with. 'You are finite,' time tells you in a voice of boredom, 'and whatever you do is, from my point of view, futile.' As music to your ears, this, of course, may not count; yet the sense of futility, of limited significance even of your best, most ardent actions is better than the illusion of their consequence and the attendant self-satisfaction.
You have to wonder at times what you're doing out there. Over the years, I've given myself a thousand reasons to keep running, but it always comes back to where it started. It comes down to self-satisfaction and a sense of achievement.
Complacency is the forerunner of mediocrity. You can never work too hard on attitudes, effort and technique.
When those who give charity do so without any sense of self-satisfaction and without any thought of reward, even a small gift is great. When those who aid others calculate their own sacrifice and demand gratitude and recompense, even a great gift is small.
In science, self-satisfaction is death. Personal self-satisfaction is the death of the scientist. Collective self-satisfaction is the death of the research. It is restlessness, anxiety, dissatisfaction, agony of mind that nourish science.
We obey people we don't trust, to buy things we don't need, to impress people we don't like, using money we don't have, for gratifications that don't last, killing animals we don't hate, for pleasures that don't satisfy, dreaming of a life we don't deserve, and praying for an afterlife that doesn't exist, we are a stupid species
I'm never satisfied with what I do. I always think I can do it a lot better.
There is no paycheck that can equal the feeling of contentment that comes from being the person you are meant to be.
There's gotta be more to life than chasing down every temporary high to satisfy me.
Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment, full effort is full victory.
Disciplining yourself to do what you know is right and important, although difficult, is the highroad to pride, self-esteem, and personal satisfaction.
I will only ever be drawn to people who suffer from that special and fertile anguish called self-doubt, or the thirst for the ideal, and desire for the soul's mystical fire. Self-satisfaction because of some material accomplishment will never be for me. The truly great are those who quest for better spiritual selves.
If I hadn't had the talent, the networks wouldn't have televised my fights. No one has made me; I made myself. I paid my dues
Nothing could be more absurd than moral lessons at such a moment! Oh, self-satisfied people: with what proud self-satisfaction such babblers are ready to utter their pronouncements! If they only knew to what degree I myself understand all the loathsomeness of my present condition, they wouldn't have the heart to teach me.
You can't come in smugly and with great self satisfaction and say 'Oh it's torture, and therefore it's no good.' Is it really so easy to determine that smacking someone in the face to determine where he has hidden the bomb that is about to blow up Los Angeles is prohibited in the constitution? It would be absurd to say you couldn't do that. And once you acknowledge that, we're into a different game.
Sympathy is in great degree a result of the mood we are in at the moment; anger forbids the emotion. On the other hand, it is easiest taken on when we are in a state of most absolute self-satisfaction.