Discontentment Quotes & Sayings

Discontent comes from two sources alone: Not having dreams, or not pursuing the ones you have. No one has ever died sorry who tried to turn a wish into a memory. — John Kramer

I preyed on this sort of thing, discontentment, a clash of passions among the rivals, and the zealots. Open sores opened secrets. That's how I roll."
Jackson Guild, The Trinity Conspiracy, Betrayal at Black Mesa — Jeff Shear

Ambition is torment enough for an enemy; for it affords as much discontentment in enjoying as in want, making men like poisoned rats, which, when they have tasted of their bane, cannot rest till they drink, and then can much less rest till they die — Joseph Hall

We have to use our discontentment to engage rather than disengage - our hope has to be more powerful than our cynicism. — Shane Claiborne

A grateful person is rich in contentment. An ungrateful person suffers in the poverty of endless discontentment. — David A. Bednar

What contentment brings is greater than what discontentment takes away. — Matshona Dhliwayo

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 Junger

Way back when I was four, I became increasingly sickly and spiritless. My mother took me to the doctor, who poked and prodded and deliberated. In the end, he pronounced, "She's depressed." Depressed at four years old. Why? No one had an answer....I have long evaded the real reasons for my discontentment. I still can't tell what they are, precisely, but I feel their presence most acutely in moments like this one with my grandmother, imagining a day in a big-box store that had replaced an old farm. — Alisa Smith

WEEDS AND NETTLES, BRIARS AND THORNS, HAVE THRIVEN UNDER YOUR SHADOW, DISSETTLEMENT AND DIVISION, DISCONTENTMENT AND DISSATISFACTION, TOGETHER WITH REAL DANGERS TO THE WHOLE. — Oliver Cromwell

I'll give you some life advice," I said. "The first piece is: Listen and listen intently when you're being spoken to about something. The second: Take the high road. When presented with frustration or anger or discontentment with a situation or a person, don't reduce yourself to that level. Don't get into a conflict in that moment. You'll feel better about yourself for it." Well, to my surprise, this created a near frenzy in the room. The students were aghast. I was surprised by the reaction, so I said: "Tell me more about why that seems like bad advice to you." "I believe I should stand up for myself!" said one student. "I'm not saying you shouldn't stand up for yourself," I said. "I'm just saying, in the heat of the moment, walk away from it. — Tim Gunn

Because we are self-focused, we tend to be scorekeepers, constantly comparing our piles of stuff to the piles of others. It's a life of discontentment and envy. Envy is always selfish. — Paul David Tripp

Drifting away from faith tends to start with the small things, the unintentional things, the seemingly insignificant moments of discontentment. — Kasey Van Norman

Holy discontentment produces a lot of restless energy that seeks rest in Christ and His gospel. — Matt Chandler

Humans are forever discontent - always thinking there are better alternatives to their present circumstances. — Richelle E. Goodrich

Eseldorf was a paradise for us boys. We were not overmuch pestered with schooling. Mainly we were trained to be good Christians; to revere the Virgin, the Church, and the saints above everything. Beyond these matters we were not required to know much; and, in fact, not allowed to. Knowledge was not good for the common people, and could make them discontented with the lot which God had appointed for them, and God would not endure discontentment with His plans. — Mark Twain

Discontentment is a gift. It's the stuff that changes the world. — Shane Claiborne

The romance of travel wasn't always terribly evident to those who were actually experiencing it. — Bill Bryson

Contentment leads to having more.
Discontentment leads to wanting more.
The contented man is rich, even if poor.
The discontented man is poor, even if rich. — Matshona Dhliwayo

Contentment is the door to god. If one is contented, one has already arrived. And the meaning of contentment is absolute acceptance as you are. Contentment means acceptance, discontentment means non-acceptance. A wants to become B - that is discontent. A is perfectly happy in being A, there is no desire to become B - that is contentment. — Rajneesh

A Sense Of Outrage Is Essential For The Entrepreneurial Spirit. I Think Discontentment Drives You To Want To Do Something About It. And My Outrage Came Very Early On. — Anita Roddick

Most men either compromise or drop their greatest talents and start running after, what they perceive to be, a more reasonable success, and somewhere in between they end up with a discontented settlement. Safety is indeed stability, but it is not progression. — Criss Jami

The feeling "I'll be happy when X happens" will never bring you anything but discontentment. — Thomas M. Sterner

There is no calamity greater than lavish desires.There is no greater guilt than discontentment.And there is no greater disaster than greed. — Lao-Tzu

Discontentment shows up when we focus on what we can't have rather than what we do have. — Emily P. Freeman

This book is not the memoir of a contented man. It's not the poignant reflections of a white-haired guru who has finally figured out the secret to contentment. It's more like sweaty, bloody, hastily scribbled notes from a battlefield. I'm still struggling to escape the sinister fingers on this conspiracy. I'm still waging war against the discontentment that rages in my life. I can see contentment in the distance, like a hazy oasis, but I have to pick my way through a minefield to get there. I'm not the contented man God wants me to be, but I'm fighting to get there. I'm writing this book the hope that you'll join me in the fight. — Stephen Altrogge

I will be able to love above all discontentment.
To give even when I am stripped of everything.
To dry tears even when I am still crying.
To believe even when I am discredited. — Paulo Coelho

If we are to say no to covetousness, we must learn to say yes to contentment. This involves learning to be content with what we have (Hebrews 13:5). Much of our discontentment may be traced to expectations that are essentially selfish and more often than not completely unrealistic. — Alistair Begg

Disquietude that springs from the fundamental nature of being a human being is vaster and more encompassing than depression, which has a cause and therefore a cure. — Kilroy J. Oldster

Instead of living our lives fighting discontentment, striving to gain contentment from things that were never meant to bring contentment ... What if we gave it all up for a grand adventure, for a worthy cause, for the Father? Why do we keep searching to find a hole to shove our hearts into when they were meant to be poured out and fill the entire world? — Katie Kiesler

Many openly show discontentment with their looks, but few with their intelligence. I, however, assure you there are many more plain minds than faces. — Bryant H. McGill

But I am all for love, and I am against marriage, particularly the arranged kind, because the arranged marriage gives you satisfaction. And love? - love can never satisfy you. It gives you more and more thirst for a better and better love, it makes you more and more long for it, it gives you tremendous discontentment. And that discontent is the beginning of the search for God. When love fails many times, you start looking for a new kind of lover, a new kind of love, a new quality of love. That love affair is prayer, meditation, sannyas. — Rajneesh

I've always been dissatisfied, I know that. But lately I find that I reek of discontentment. It fills my throat, and it floods my brain. And sometimes I fear there is no longer a dream, but only the discontentment. — David McCullough

Our greatest limitation isn't the leader of the lives; it is the spirit within us. — John F. MacArthur Jr.

People on the spiritual path are people of unquenchable discontent. It is being propagated that spirituality means contentment. Contentment means you have contented yourself with what you have. A spiritual person means he is unwilling to settle for anything less than the Ultimate. — Jaggi Vasudev

Long, I am woman who speaks but one language, the language of the fall
discontentment and self-condemnation, the critical eye and the never satisfied. — Ann Voskamp

Many or few alternatives can be at hand. A wise and skilful choice acts from a sincere effort. Solutions and results come from cooperation, hard work and efficiency. With high intention matched with a flexible, patient heart and proficient action gets best quality and value. As for the restless grumbles raving from unconsciousness of complexity of matters, best be brushed off ducking out wisely from discourtesies. — Angelica Hopes

Her face felt like it was scattered in pieces and she could not keep it straight. The feeling was a whole lot worse than being hungry for any dinner, yet it was like that. I want
I want
I want
was all that she could think about
but just what this real want was she did no know. — Carson McCullers

And I realize the unbearable anguish of insanity: how uninformed people can be thinking insane people are "happy," O God, in fact it was Irwin Garden once warned me not to think the madhouses are full of "happy nuts." (p. 200) — Jack Kerouac

This pen: this is nothing less than the driving of nails. Nails driving out my habits of discontent and driving in my habit of eucharisteo. I'm hammering in nails to pound out nails, ugly nails that Satan has pierced through the world, my heart. It starts to unfold, light in the dark, a door opening up, how all these years it's been utterly pointless to try to wrench out the spikes of discontent. Because that habit of discontentment can only be driven out by hammering in one iron sharper. The sleek pin of gratitude. I — Ann Voskamp

G. K. Chesterton once said that to be thankful is the highest form of thought and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder. Thanklessness, then,must be the lowest form of thought, and ingratitude is discontentment, bankrupted of wonder. — Ravi Zacharias

Millions upon millions will attain your ceremony, but don't think all of them are in a ceremonius mood. — Michael Bassey Johnson

I really am just as discontented, but I don't seem to notice it so much. — Dodie Smith

The same is true for those who do not work hard to find
a good and rewarding job, perform the kind of work they
like to do, and secure a good position in their chosen
career. Even if they achieve a good standard of living, no
amount of material wealth can relieve the emptiness in
their hearts. They experience the same anxious spiritual
state. They live a life of discontentment because they are
so passionately attached to this world, they remain ambitious
for wealth and possessions, and they regard everything
and everyone around them as simply another opportunity
for personal profit. — Harun Yahya

We can start by living by the Spirit while we stop following the heart of discontentment and doubt. — Candace Cameron

He cross-examined his very wine when he had nothing else at hand. — Charles Dickens

There had to be something wrong with my life. I should have been born a Yugoslavian shepherd who looked up at the Big Dipper every night. — Haruki Murakami