A man's discontent is his worst evil. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
What is more miserable than discontent? [ William Shakespeare ]
A day of such serene enjoyment spent.
Were worth an age of splendid discontent. [ James Montgomery ]
Men would be angels; angels would be gods. [ Pope ]
Yes - it was love - if thoughts of tenderness.
Tried in temptation, strengthened by distress,
Unmoved by absence, firm in every clime,
And yet - oh more than all! - untired by time.
Which nor defeated hope, nor baffled wile,
Could render sullen were she near to smile,
Nor rage could fire, nor sickness fret to vent
On her one murmur of his discontent;
Which still would meet with joy, with calmness part.
Lest that his look of grief should reach her heart;
Which nought removed, nor menaced to remove -
If there be love in mortals— this was love! [ Byron ]
Discontent is the want of self-reliance: it is infirmity of will. [ Emerson ]
Discontent is the first step in the progress of a man or a nation. [ Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance ]
Man's grief is but his grandeur in disguise, and discontent is immortality. [ Young ]
Action is the parent of results; dormancy, the brooding mother of discontent. [ Miss Mulock ]
Discontent is the source of all trouble, but also of all progress, in individuals and nations. [ Berthold Auerbach ]
Poor in abundance, famished at a feast, man's grief is but his grandeur in disguise, and discontent is immortality. [ Young ]
What is it that keeps men in continual discontent and agitation? It is that they cannot make realities correspond with their conceptions, that enjoyment steals away from among their hands, that the wished-for comes too late, and nothing reached and acquired produces on the heart the effect which their longing for it at a distance led them to anticipate. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]