Not Pleasing You Quotes & Sayings

You're not a gardener, are you? So perhaps you don't know that once a garden is established, much of good gardening is about removal rather than planting, honing what you have to produce a pleasing effect, sacrificing the particular for the good of the whole. Gardening is a creative pastime, but the result is always a work in progress; unlike a painting or a piece of music a garden is never fixed in time. ("In The Garden") — Rosalie Parker

You need a name. I heard some interesting ones today;perhaps you'll like one." He mentally ran through the list Brom had given him until he found tow names that stuck him as heroic, noble and pleasing to the ear. "What do you think of Vanilor or his successor, Eridor? Both were great dragons."
No, said the dragon. It sounded amused with his efforts. Eragon.
"That's my name; you can't have it," he siad, rubbing his chin.
"Well, if you don't like those, there are others." He continued through the list, but the dragon rejected every one he proposed. UT seemed to be laughing at something Eragon did not understand, but he ignored and kept suggesting names. "There was ingothold, he slew the ... " A revelation stopped him. Thats the problem! I've been choosing male names. You are a she! — Christopher Paolini

Even so; an't please your worship, Brakenbury,
You may partake of any thing we say:
We speak no treason, man; we say the King
Is wise and virtuous, and his noble queen
Well struck in years, fair, and not jealous;
We say that Shore's wife hath a pretty foot,
A cherry lip, a bonny eye, a passing pleasing tongue;
And that the Queen's kindred are made gentlefolks. — William Shakespeare

There is a huge trapdoor waiting to open under anyone who is critical of so-called 'popular culture' or (to redefine this subject) anyone who is uneasy about the systematic, massified cretinization of the major media. If you denounce the excess coverage, you are yourself adding to the excess. If you show even a slight knowledge of the topic, you betray an interest in something that you wish to denounce as unimportant or irrelevant. Some writers try to have this both ways, by making their columns both 'relevant' and 'contemporary' while still manifesting their self-evident superiority. Thus - I paraphrase only slightly - 'Even as we all obsess about Paris Hilton, the people of Darfur continue to die.' A pundit like (say) Bob Herbert would be utterly lost if he could not pull off such an apparently pleasing and brilliant 'irony. — Christopher Hitchens

The great difficulty is that you cannot be nice. If you want to take back the power, you have to behave in ways that are not conforming and will not be about pleasing other people. — Rachel Holmes

He raises his hand to my face again and I allow the touch. His fingers slide along my jawline and the warmth of his caresses radiates past my skin and into my bloodstream. Pleasing goose bumps rise on my neck.
"Do you think you'll come back sometime?" he asks. "And let me help you with your car?"
My ears ring with the staccato thrum, thrum, thrum of my heart. Holy crap, I can't believe this is happening to me.
"I'll make it work. I swear." The words tumble out of my mouth without thought. That's not true. Actually, they tumble out with a lot of thought of how my parents won't approve, of how my brothers will kill Isaiah, then possibly kill me. But in this moment, I don't care what any of them think. — Katie McGarry

TRUST ME ENOUGH to spend ample time with Me, pushing back the demands of the day. Refuse to feel guilty about something that is so pleasing to Me, the King of the universe. Because I am omnipotent, I am able to bend time and events in your favor. You will find that you can accomplish more in less time, after you have given yourself to Me in rich communion. Also, as you align yourself with My perspective, you can sort out what is important and what is not. — Sarah Young

Compliant children are very easily led when they are young, because they thrive on approval and pleasing adults. They are just aseasily led in their teen years, because they still seek the same two things: approval and the pleasing their peers. Strong-willed children are never easily led by anybody
not by you, but also not by their peers. So celebrate your child's strength of will throughout the early years ... and know that the independent thinking you are fostering will serve him well in the critical years to come. — Barbara Coloroso

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God
this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is
His good, pleasing, and perfect will. Romans 12:1-2) — Anonymous

[W]hat we also see in sex is a kind of submissiveness. But not a kind of submissiveness which is simply 'do what you like, I'm just here for you', but it ... is, or can be, very manipulative. It is a way of getting the other person to exercise all his or her efforts towards pleasing you, and in that way controlling what they're thinking, and in particular what they're thinking of you. — Robert C. Solomon

Two moral forces shaped how we think and live in this shining twentieth century: the Virgin, and the Dynamo. The Dynamo represents the desire to know; the Virgin represents the freedom not to know.

What's the Virgin made of? Things that we think are silly, mostly. The peculiar logic of dreams, or the inexplicable stirring we feel when we look on someone that's beautiful not in a way that we all agree is beautiful, but the unique way in which a single person is. The Virgin is faith and mysticism; miracle and instinct; art and randomness.

On the other hand, you have the Dynamo: the unstoppable engine. It finds the logic behind a seeming miracle and explains that miracle away; it finds the order in randomness to which we're blind; it takes the caliper to a young woman's head and quantifies her beauty in terms of pleasing mathematical ratios; it accounts for the secret stirring you felt by discoursing at length on the nervous systems of animals. — Dexter Palmer

Love is different and more difficult. It has nothing to do with sex.
This is what I tried to make my voices understand. QUietly does love
happen. You're not even thinking about romance, then she smiles and
you notice for the first time that she's not all that plain, her face is
really quite sweet. You watch for her smile and notice that it pushes her
cheeks up into two mango shapes, why should this shape be so
pleaSing, I don't know. Then one evening she puts kajal round her eyes
and brushes her hair, looks quite transformed, and suddenly Sonali
Bendre is not so desirable as this one who's been under your nose for
so long, who's all dolled up to go somewhere you're not going, can
never go. — Indra Sinha

Winter apple," Kestrel said. "Arin, you have been bribing my horse!"
"Me? No."
"You have! No wonder he likes you so much."
"Are you sure it's not because of my good looks and pleasing manners?" This was said lightly--not quite sarcastically, yet in a voice that nevertheless told Kestrel that he doubted he possessed either of these things.
But he was pleasing. He pleased her. And she could never forget his beauty. She had learned it all too well.
She blushed. "It's not fair," she said.
He took in her rising color. His mouth curved. — Marie Rutkoski

The misery that oppresses you lies not in your profession but in yourself! What man in the world would not find his situation intolerable if he chooses a craft, an art, indeed any form of life, without experiencing an inner calling? Whoever is born with a talent, or to a talent, must surely find in that the most pleasing of occupations! Everything on this earth has its difficult sides! Only some inner drive - pleasure, love - can help us overcome obstacles, prepare a path, and lift us out of the narrow circle in which others tread out their anguished, miserable existences! — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Wherefore do ye toil; is it not that ye may live and be happy? And if ye toil only that ye my toil more, when shall happiness find you? Ye toil to live, but is not life made of beauty and song? And if ye suffer no singers among you, where shall be the fruits of your toil? Toil without song is like a weary journey without an end. Were not death more pleasing? — H.P. Lovecraft

Everybody is not going to like you. It's not about pleasing people all the time — Timi Nadela

This is the tattoo of life decisions."
"Tattoo of life decisions?"
"Yes. Tattoo. Marriage is the forever and permanent branding of one person to another. Sure, you can get it removed - but it's expensive, it's a process, and you're never the same after. You're scarred. It's always a part of you, visible or not. You get a tattoo with the intention of a life-long commitment. You have to defend its existence and take ownership of it in front of others for the rest of your life regardless of how it sags or droops or changes shape and color - because it will! It will change and fade, and not in an aesthetically pleasing way. — Penny Reid

People don't tend to employ me. I'm the wrong personality type. Or rather, people do tend to employ me for a short time and then they sack me. A film broker once told me, as she terminated my contract, that I have a misleading sort of face.
"You're pretty", she complained. "Your features are symmetrical and there was an article in Grazia that says human beings are programmed to find those with symmetrical features more pleasing to they eye. So this isn't my fault, I was simply responding to a biological imperative. You've even teeth, so when you smile, you look ... sweet, I suppose. But you're not, are you?"
"I hope not," I said.
"You see, there you go again. You're a smart-arse and you've no ability to filter your thoughts
"
"And my thoughts are often abrasive."
"Exactly."
"I'll just get my brushes and sponges and leave."
"If you would. — Marian Keyes

I think that the special thing about radio is the off switch. If something's not pleasing you, turn it off. — Kenneth Goldsmith

Think not you are charitable if the love of Jesus and His brethren be not purely the motive of your gifts. Alas! you might not give your superfluities, but "bestow all your goods to feed the poor;" you might even "give your body to be burned" for them, and yet be utterly destitute of charity, if self-seeking, self-pleasing or self-ends guide you; and guide you they must, until the love of God be by the Holy Ghost shed abroad in your heart. — Hugh Reginald Haweis

I pray ... that you may discern your affairs in a manner pleasing to God and may so act and endeavor that you may find Christ, as He even now cooperates with you, and in time to come will bestow on you abundantly the enjoyment of the illumination that comes from Him. Do not follow the wolf instead of the shepherd (cf. Mt. 7:15), nor enter into a flock that is diseased (cf. Ezek. 34:4). Do not be alone by yourself? — Symeon The New Theologian

He does not ask much of us, merely a thought of Him from time to time, a little act of adoration, sometimes to ask for His grace, sometimes to offer Him your sufferings, at other times to thank Him for the graces, past and present, He has bestowed on you, in the midst of your troubles to take solace in Him as often as you can. Lift up your heart to Him during your meals and in company; the least little remembrance will always be the most pleasing to Him. One need not cry out very loudly; He is nearer to us than we think. — Brother Lawrence

So the next day I asked Dan how is it that Bubba can get killed, and what kind of half assed nature law would allow that. He thought about it for a while, and said, 'Well, I'll tell you, Forrest, all of these laws are not specially pleasing to us. But there is laws nonetheless. Like when a tiger pounce on a monkey in the jungle - bad for the money, but good for the tiger. That is just the way it is. — Winston Groom

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is - his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Romans 12:2) — Lysa TerKeurst

I know I'm not the person I used to be. I'm not better or worse but I am more awake, more conscious if you like. I'm more aware of the texture of my days, the light and the dark that shades them. I waste less time, in worry, in fear, in anger, in pleasing people I don't like and don't wish to like. I spend more time with people I love and doing the things that I love such as gardening, reading, hanging out with friends. Work now takes second place. I don't mean that I work any less hard but success or even failure have lost the importance they once had. If I mess up, I mess up. — Sally Brampton

The High Cost of Servanthood
Jesus warned, however, that this life of servanthood is not lived without cost. He said, "The servant is not greater than his Lord" (John 13:16) and, if the persecuted and hated Him, we can expect no better treatment.
In 2 Timothy 3:12 Paul wrote, " All that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persectution," so this is also the cost we as servants must be willing to pay.
This is so difficult for us to accept in our world of man-pleasing, "I'm OK, you're OK" Christianity. No one wants to be disliked, hated or misunderstood
especially by family, friends and loved ones. But this of often exactly the price to be paid by anyone seriously wanting to follow Jesus into a life of servanthood. — K.P. Yohannan

The gospel produces not just obedience, you see, but a new kind of obedience3 - an obedience that is powered by desire. An obedience that is both pleasing to God and delightful to you. — J.D. Greear

I hope, if you should live to grow up, you will endeavour to be very useful and not spend all your time in pleasing yourself. — Elizabeth Fry

Pretty' doesn't mean 'good,' you know, Geneva. Real life isn't like fairy tales. 'Pretty' simply means that by accident you've got things arranged on your outside in an extra-pleasing manner. It doesn't tell a thing about your inside. — Natalie Babbitt

But just then, as if to avoid a certain awkwardness, Seaman began to talk not about Newell but about Newell's mother, Anne Jordan Newell. He described her appearance (pleasing), her work (she had a job at a factory that made irrigation systems), her faith (she went to church every Sunday), her industriousness (she kept the house as neat as a pin), her kindness (she always had a smile for everyone), her common sense (she gave good advice, wise advice, without forcing it on anyone). A mother is a precious thing, concluded Seaman. Marius and I founded the Panthers. We worked whatever jobs we could get and we bought shotguns and handguns for the people's self-defense. But a mother is worth more than the Black Revolution. That I can promise you. In my long and eventful life, I've seen many things. I was in Algeria and I was in China and in several prisons in the United States. A mother is a precious thing. This I say here and I'll say anywhere, anytime, he said in a hoarse voice. — Roberto Bolano

You are worried and bothered about so many things; but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her" (Luke 10:41-42)
Choosing to please God sounds right at first, but it so often leads to a performing life, a girl trying to become good, a lean-on-myself theology. If I am trying to please God, it is difficult trust God. But when I trust God, pleasing him is automatic.
Anything we do to get life and identity outside of Christ is an idol, even service to Christ. He doesn't want my service. He wants me. And from that life-giving relationship, "streams of living water will flow from within" (John 7:38 NIV) — Emily P. Freeman

Sometimes we let them treat us badly because we yearn to feel loved and accepted so much that we are willing to do anything to get it. It's very painful to realize that no matter how much you try, you feel like it, do not even want to accept you as you are. When they finally understand you, I regret all that time you've spent pleasing others and you wonder what that is so horrible in you that prevents them even pretend to want. — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Don't let the fear of not pleasing someone stop you from being creative. — Wil Wheaton

JAQUES: Rosalind is your love's name?
ORLANDO: Yes, just.
JAQUES: I do not like her name.
ORLANDO: There was no thought of pleasing you when she was christened. — William Shakespeare

It is the personalities back of a business which determine the measure of success the business will enjoy. Modify those personalities so they are more pleasing and more attractive to the patrons of the business and the business will thrive. In any of the great cities of the United States one may purchase merchandise of similar nature and price in scores of stores, yet you will find there is always one outstanding store which does more business than any of the others, and the reason for this is that back of that store is a man, or men, who has attended to the personalities of those who come in contact with the public. People buy personalities as much as merchandise, and it is a question if they are not influenced more by the personalities with which they come in contact than they are by the merchandise. Life — Napoleon Hill

Being a God-pleaser makes you a winner every time. When you switch your focus to being a God-pleaser instead of a people-pleaser, you win every time. You win because you are pleasing the only one who really matters. You win because living a God-pleasing life affects others in a positive way (whether they know it or not). You win because the joy and strength of the LORD are yours. You win because pleasing God gives you the hope that no matter what happens here on earth you are taken care of and loved by God Almighty. — Peter Cain

We are to celebrate what God has done for us (18; 106; 136).10 Prayer: Father God, give me insight into what form of worship is pleasing to You. I don't want to be negative in my church regarding how we come to You and worship. Amen. Action: Pray about this new division in our churches. Be willing to create harmony, not discord. Today's Wisdom: It is in the whole process of meeting and solving problems that life has meaning. Problems are the cutting edge that distinguishes between success and failure. Problems call forth our courage and our wisdom; indeed, they create our courage and our wisdom. It is only because of problems that we grow mentally and spiritually. It is through the pain of confronting and resolving problems that we learn. - M. SCOTT PECK — Emilie Barnes

Good-breeding is not confined to externals, much less to any particular dress or attitude of the body; it is the art of pleasing, or contributing as much as possible to the ease and happiness of those with whom you converse. — Henry Fielding

I think the sorts of people who honestly think that service workers should be more smiley and gracious just don't get it. They don't get it because they can take so much for granted in their own lives - things like respect, consideration, and basic fairness on the job. Benefits. Insurance. They're used to the luxury of choosing the most aesthetically pleasing item on the shelf, of caring what color their car is rather than simply whether it runs or not. They don't understand how depressing it is to be barely managing your life at any given moment of the day. So forgive me if I don't tell you to have a pleasant day with unfeigned enthusiasm when I hand you your fucking hamburger. You'll have to settle for the fake sort. — Linda Tirado

What good does it do to speak learnedly about the Trinity if, lacking humility, you displease
the Trinity? Indeed it is not learning that makes a man holy and just, but a virtuous life makes him pleasing to God. I would rather feel contrition than know how to define it. For what would it profit us to know the whole Bible by heart and the principles of all the philosophers if we live without grace and the love of God? Vanity of vanities and all is vanity, except to love God and serve Him alone. — Thomas A Kempis

Do you mind even a little that you are still addicted to people-pleasing, and are still putting everyone else's needs and laundry and career ahead of your creative, spiritual life? Giving all your life force away, to "help" and impress. Well, your help is not helpful, and falls short. — Anne Lamott

And when you learn, over the course of your life, that it's not about pleasing God, it's about learning how to trust God. That's a huge watershed, because trust is a whole different ballgame than appeasement or pleasing. — William P. Young

Do not let your peace depend on the words of men. Their thinking well or badly of you does not make you different from what you are. Where are true peace and glory? Are they not in Me? He who neither cares to please men nor fears to displease them will enjoy great peace, for all unrest and distraction of the senses arise out of disorderly love and vain fear. — Thomas A Kempis

Xas put his face close to Sobran's and said, soft and succinct, "Listen, and take this in. The terms of the pact are this: 'Xas shall go freely. God shall have his pains and Lucifer his pleasures.' So, if you please yourself and me the way you want, Sobran, you will be pleasing the devil. And I will not give you to him. — Elizabeth Knox

PRAYER Lord, help me to put on the breastplate of righteousness that protects me from the enemy's attacks. I know it is Your righteousness in me that protects me, but I also know I must not neglect to put on Your righteousness like a bulletproof vest by doing what is right in Your eyes. Reveal to me thoughts, attitudes, and habits of my heart that are not pleasing to You. Show me what I have done, or am about to do, that does not glorify You. I want to see anything in me that violates Your high standards for my life so I can confess it, turn away from it, and be cleansed from all unrighteousness. In Jesus' name I pray. — Stormie O'martian

So far you've spent your life striving to please others," she heard him say. "With a rather poor rate of success. Why don't you try pleasing yourself for a change? Why not live by your own rules? What has obeying the conventions ever gotten you?" Evie pondered the questions, and her breath hissed in pleasure as he found a particularly sore spot. "I like the conventions," she said after a moment. "There is nothing wrong with being an ordinary person, is there?" "No. But you're not ordinary - or you never would have come to me instead of marrying cousin Eustace." "I was desperate." "That wasn't the entire reason." His low voice sounded like a purr. "You also had a taste for the devil. — Lisa Kleypas

Young white men in the eighteen-to-twenty-four-year-old range are often coming to grips with the fact that life isn't as easy as they were promised. I've been there myself. When you realize that life isn't going to hand you the job you want or the woman you want to fuck, you look around for someone to blame, and feminism becomes an easy target. If only women were subservient objects who stayed at home, there would be more jobs open to young white men and more women with no other option but to have sex with them for sustenance.
I realize that white-man utopia sounds really pleasing to these guys, but it's basically everyone else's worst nightmare It's not so great for them either, but they won't get that for a long time, if ever.
Suffice to say you won't convince them of this in an online comments section, either. — Kameron Hurley

I recommend to you, in my last, an innocent piece of art: that of flattering people behind their backs, in presence of those who, to make their own court, much more than for your sake, will not fail to repeat, and even amplify, the praise to the party concerned. This is of all flattery the most pleasing, and consequently the most effectual. — Doug Stanhope

If you do not smile, you are judged lacking in a 'pleasing personality' - and you need to have a pleasing personality if you want to sell your services, whether as a waitress, a salesman, or a physician. — Erich Fromm

Today I feel like pleasing you more than before
Today I know what I want to do but I don't know what for
To be living for you is all I want to do
To be loving you it'll all be there when my dreams come true
Today you'll make me say that I somehow have changed
Today you'll look into my eyes, I'm just not the same
To be anymore than all I am would be a lie
I'm so full of love I could burst apart and start to cry
Today everything you want, I swear it all will come true
Today I realize how much I'm in love with you
With you standing here I could tell the world what it means to love
To go on from here I can't use words, they don't say enough
Please, please listen to me
It's taken so long to come true
And it's all for you
all for you.... — Jefferson Airplane

Without rules you can't have anything, but you don't want to just be pedantic or obsessive. The painting is finished when it's working. The overall balance is right. Balance shouldn't be confused with design. There has to be restless jostle and aggression and a bit of dynamism, not just pat-ness or settled-ness or immediate pleasing-ness. — Matthew Collings

Pardon me also, and deal mercifully with me, as often as I think of anything besides You in prayer. For I confess truly that I am accustomed to be very much distracted. Very often I am not where bodily I stand or sit; rather, I am where my thoughts carry me. Where my thoughts are, there am I; and frequently my thoughts are where my love is. That which naturally delights, or is by habit pleasing, comes to me quickly. Hence You Who are Truth itself, have plainly said: 'For where your treasure is, there is your heart also.' If I love heaven, I think willingly of heavenly things. If I love the world, I rejoice at the happiness of the world and grieve at its troubles. If I love the flesh, I often imagine things that are carnal. If I love the spirit, I delight in thinking of spiritual matters. For whatever I love, I am willing to speak and hear about. — Thomas A Kempis

There is not a more pleasing exercise of the mind than gratitude. It is accompanied with such an inward satisfaction that the duty is sufficiently rewarded by the performance — Joseph Addison

After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing after all as wanting. It is not logical, but is often true — Leonard Nimoy

So the fundamental question before the church is who is Lord? Is the church the lord of Jesus Christ, so that it has liberty to edit and manipulate, accepting what it likes and rejecting what it dislikes? Or is Jesus Christ our Teacher and our Lord, so that we believe and obey his teaching? He still says to us, 'Why do you call me, "Lord, Lord," and do not do what I say?' (Luke 6:46). To confess Jesus as Lord but not obey him is to build our lives on a foundation of sand. Again, 'Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me,' he said in the upper room (John 14:21). Here then are two cultures and two value systems, two standards and two lifestyles. On the one side there is the fashion of the world around us; on the other side is the revealed, good and pleasing will of God. Radical disciples have little difficulty in making their choice. — John R.W. Stott

Friendship is not by force but by choice.
You can never please everybody, he who aims to please everybody will end up pleasing nobody. — Stella Oladiran

Let your path be a mirror of yourself. Do not be influenced by the way in which others tend their paths. You have your own soul to listen to, and the birds to tell you what your soul is saying. May your soul's stories be beautiful and pleasing to everything around you. Above all, may the stories that your soul tells you along the way be reflected in every second of your journey. — Paulo Coelho

We respect your learning, Dr Einstein; but there is one thing you do not seem to have learned: that God is a spirit and cannot be found through the telescope or microscope, no more than human thought or emotion can be found by analyzing the brain. As everyone knows, religion is based on Faith, not knowledge. Every thinking person, perhaps, is assailed at times with religious doubt. My own faith has wavered many a time. But I never told anyone of my spiritual aberrations for two reasons: (1) I feared that I might, by mere suggestion, disturb and damage the life and hopes of some fellow being; (2) because I agree with the writer who said, 'There is a mean streak in anyone who will destroy another's faith.' . . . I hope, Dr Einstein, that you were misquoted and that you will yet say something more pleasing to the vast number of the American people who delight to do you honor. — Richard Dawkins

God often delays the conclusion of a holy endeavor so that those involved in it might merit its grace by the length of the work, their patience, and their prayers. This is why I beg you not to grow weary in yours. Although He may delay, He will reveal that it is pleasing to Him, if it is done, nevertheless, in a spirit of resignation regarding the outcome. — Vincent De Paul

It is impossible to keep spiritual peace if we do not take care of the mind, that is if we do not drive out thoughts that are displeasing to God and, on the contrary, keep thoughts which are pleasing to God. It is necessary to look into the heart with mind and see what is done there. Is it peaceful or not? If not, then find out in what you have sinned. — Silouan The Athonite

If you cannot give God glory for something, you should not do it. If a person is not fully persuaded that an activity is pleasing to God, then it is a sin: "whatsoever is not of faith is sin" (Romans 14:23) — Alan De Jager

My season of compromise is OVER. The reason I am misunderstood ... I am not stuck up, I am selective. You can't let everyone get close to you. Being pleasing and sacraficing parts or all yourself to the undeserving is self-sabaotage. You're not a victim, you made a choice. If it doesn't work, make a new one. Next. — C. Nzingha Smith

Not allow this world to mold you in its own image. Instead, be transformed from the inside out by renewing your mind. As a result, you will be able to discern what God wills and whatever God finds good, pleasing, and complete. — Anonymous

All too often, we are pleasing the enemy MORE than we are pleasing God by living defeated. Jesus did not die for us to walk around defeated. You have the POWER to turn any situation around that you want to. — Sandra M. Michelle

Moved by their selfish desires, people seek after fame and glory. But when they have acquired it, they are already stricken in years. If you hanker after worldly fame and practise not the Way, your labors are wrongfully applied and your energy is wasted. It is like unto burning an incense stick. However much its pleasing odor be admired, the fire that consumes is steadily burning up the stick. — Gautama Buddha

Above all sing spiritually. Have an eye to God in every word you sing. Aim at pleasing him more than yourself, or any other creature. In order to do this attend strictly to the sense of what you sing, and see that your heart is not carried away with the sound, but offered to God continually; so shall your singing be such as the Lord will approve here, and reward you when he comes in the clouds of heaven. — John Wesley

When digital recording came in about '84, everything started to follow into digital. Now, you've got the best recording media in the world, but it's not very pleasing to the ear. — Peter Hook

Tis true my form is something odd But blaming me is blaming God Could I create myself anew I would not fail in pleasing you. If I could reach from pole to pole Or grasp the ocean with a span I would be measured by the soul The mind's the standard of the man. — Isaac Watts

Girls get competitive, as though there's only one spot in the world for everything _ but that's not true. We need to stick together and see there's more to life than pleasing men. It's important not to cut yourself off from female friendships. I think sometimes girls get scared of other girls, but you need each other. — Zooey Deschanel

I liked that young man, did not you? There was something particularly pleasing about his manners, which I thought very easy and frank. He has an air of honest manliness, too, which, in these days of fribbles and counter-coxcombs, I own I find refreshing! — Georgette Heyer

Do not give back to his master a servant who has gone in flight from his master and come to you: let him go on living among you in whatever place is most pleasing to him. — Moses

If to be venerated for benevolence, if to be admired for talents, if to be esteemed for patriotism, if to be beloved for philanthropy, can gratify the human mind, you must have the pleasing consolation to know that you have not lived in vain. And I flatter myself that it will not be ranked among the least grateful occurrences of your life to be assured that, so long as I retain my memory, you will be thought on with respect, veneration, and affection by your sincere friend. — George Washington

It is not enough to be abstinent with other people, you also have to be abstinent alone. The Bible says that lust in your heart is committing adultery. You can't masturbate without lust! ... You're going to be pleasing each other. And if he already knows what pleases him and he can please himself, then why am I in the picture? — Christine O'Donnell

What victims need are not self-produced positive statements but God's statements about his response to their pain. How can you be rid of these dysfunctional emotions and their effects? How can you be rid of your disgrace? God's grace to you dismantles the beliefs that give disgrace life. Grace re-creates what violence destroyed. Martin Luther writes that "the love of God does not find, but creates, that which is pleasing to it." One-way love is the change agent you need. Grace transforms and heals; and healing comes by hearing God's statements to you, not speaking your own statements to yourself. — Justin S. Holcomb

You can converge a toaster and a refrigerator, but those things are probably not going to be pleasing to the user. — Tim Cook

If you are busy pleasing everyone, you are not being true to yourself — Jocelyn Murray

I think it is no small attraction in a painter to be able to give a pleasing air to his figures, and whoever is not naturally possessed of this grace may acquire it by study, as opportunity offers in the following manner: be on the watch to take good parts of many beautiful faces of which the beautiful parts are established by general repute rather than by your own judgement, for you may deceive yourself by selecting faces that resemble your own, since it often seems that such similarities please us; ... so therefore choose the beautiful ones as I tell you and fix them in your mind. — Leonardo Da Vinci

In the end it had to do with stroking my own ego, not pleasing you, Sir. — Red Phoenix

I do not like your name, sir," she answered.
"There was no thought of pleasing you when I was christened." he quoted lazily. — Georgette Heyer

Pierce made a calculating noise, accidentally brushing my knee as he shifted. "As Jenks would say, you snore nice."
I smiled back unconvincingly. I snore nice. Not "I opine that your auditory nasal exhalations are most pleasing. — Kim Harrison

I am a wicked man ... But do you know, gentlemen, what was the main point about my wickedness? The whole thing, precisely was, the greatest nastiness precisely lay in my being shamefully conscious every moment, even in moments of the greatest bile, that I was not only not a wicked man but was not even an embittered man, that I was simply frightening sparrows in vain, and pleasing myself with it. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Find thoughts that feel good, because it is inevitable that you are going to always be moving toward something. So why not be moving toward something that is pleasing? You can't cease to vibrate, and Law of Attraction will not stop responding to the vibration that you are offering. So, expansion is inevitable. You provide it, whether you know you do, or not. The only question is, what is the standard of joy that you are demanding for yourself? From your Nonphysical perspective, it's a high, high standard. — Esther Hicks

Weaned from all passing fancies, let my soul praise You, O God, Creator of all. You did not allow my soul to remain attached to corruptible things with the glue of love, attached to what my senses find pleasing. For things we are attached to go where they will, then they cease, leaving the lover torn with corrupted longings. — Augustine Of Hippo

I need you to do more than survive. As writers, as revolutionaries, tell the truth, your truth in your own way. Do not buy into their system of censorship, imagining that if you drop this character or hide that emotion, you can slide through their blockades. Do not eat your heart out in the hope of pleasing them.
— Dorothy Allison

I've thought all my life, 'Lord Christ in heaven! what did I live for?' Beatings, work! I saw nothing except my husband. I knew nothing but fear! And how Pasha grew I did not see, and I hardly know whether I loved him when my husband was alive. All my concerns, all my thoughts were centered upon one thing - to feed my beast, to propitiate the master of my life with enough food, pleasing to his palate, and served on time, so as not to incur his displeasure, so as to escape the terrors of a beating, to get him to spare me but once! But I do not remember that he ever did spare me. He beat me so - not as a wife is beaten, but as one whom you hate and detest. — Maxim Gorky

If you are too afraid to offend anyone, then I'm afraid you may not be able to do anything remarkable — Bernard Kelvin Clive

But there is something about pleasing your parents, even when you're grown up, even when you're almost middle-aged yourself. It never goes away, at least not for me. — Cynthia Swanson

She could not resist, so she asked, "Why do men refer to vehicles in the feminine form?" ...
Amelia groaned. "You're going to say it's because they're temperamental like women, aren't you?"
"Of course not," defended Rick. "Far from it. Men have a great deal of respect for their cars and their women. I was talking to a friend about this the other day and we both agreed that we see a vehicle as a piece of artwork."
"What do you mean?" asked Amelia as she leaned against the door and faced him.
"The body of a car, especially a classic, has pleasing curves to the male eye. Just like women. It tends to work better with tender loving care. Just like women. Not only that, cars get us men excited and so do women. — Linda Weaver Clarke

Do you like my working persona?" Saiman asked softly. "An aesthetically pleasing combination of intelligence and elegance, wouldn't you say?"
Aren't we pleased with ourselves. "Are you Chinese, Japanese, half-white? I can't tell, your features are neither here nor there."
"I'm inscrutable, mysterious and intellectual."
He forgot conceited. "Did you have any trouble getting that ego through the door?"
Saiman didn't even blink. "Not in the least. — Ilona Andrews

What you do in your house is worth as much as if you did it up in heaven for our Lord God. We should accustom ourselves to think of our position and work as sacred and well-pleasing to God, not on account of the position and work, but on account of the word and faith from which the obedience and work flow. — Martin Luther

In my household, you will be treated as a child. You shall have no responsibilities beyond pleasing me. You will have a nanny who will see to all of your needs. During the day you will receive instruction from her. You will learn your letters and numbers. At night, you will receive instruction from me." Penelope licked her lips. Not wanting to speak out of turn, she still needed to know. "What kind of instruction?" Alex ran his thumb over her wet bottom lip, the desire heavy in his gaze. "Submission, my dear Penelope. — Zoe Blake

Do not distress yourself on account of any distaste or dryness you experience in God's service. He wills that you should serve Him fervently and constantly it is true, but without any other help than simple faith, and thus your love will be more disinterested, and your service the more pleasing to Him. — Margaret Mary Alacoque

Dance has become an exclusionary enterprise. To participate, one must be thinner than thin, of pleasing form, flexible, athletic and young. If you are not all these things, you will be allowed to dance in the privacy of your own living room. You just wouldn't dare to put yourself onstage. — Clive Barnes