satisfaction

[A sheared hedge] . . . "signifies vision, persistence, and patience - qualities we crave in today's world. Yet many people do make the commitment. They create hedges, care for them eagerly, and gain much satisfaction from the process. Why? Perhaps it's because shaping a hedge is the closest most of us will ever come to doing sculpture or erecting a monument, but I think the real reward is more mundane. Shearing is very empowering - it gives you an exhilarating sense of control and achievement. You can stand back afterward and say, look what I've done.

There is a certain satisfaction in coming down to the lowest ground of politics, for we get rid of cant and hypocrisy.

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."

If the universal is the essential, then it is the basis of all life and art. Recognizing and uniting with universal therefore gives us the greatest aesthetic satisfaction, the greatest emotion of beauty. the more this union with the universal is felt, the more individual subjectivity declines.

We never enjoy perfect happiness; our most fortunate successes are mingled with sadness; some anxieties always perplex the reality of our satisfaction.

Much as we deplore our condition in life, nothing would make us more satisfied with it than the changing of places, for a few days, with our neighbors.

Sad is the day for any man when he becomes absolutely satisfied with the life he is living, the thoughts that he is thinking and the deeds that he is doing; when there ceases to be forever beating at the doors of his soul a desire to do something larger which he seeks and knows he was meant and intended to do.

Always leave enough time in your life to do something that makes you happy, satisfied, even joyous. That has more of an effect on economic well-being than any other single factor

I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.

People who have accomplished work worthwhile have had a very high sense of the way to do things. They have not been content with mediocrity. They have not confined themselves to the beaten tracks; they have never been satisfied to do things just as others so them, but always a little better. They always pushed things that came to their hands a little higher up, this little farther on, that counts in the quality of life's work. It is constant effort to be first-class in everything one attempts that conquers the heights of excellence.