Quotes About Fulfillment

To be happy, one must be as ignorant as youth. Youth thinks that willing and striving are joys; it has not yet discovered the weary insatiableness of desire, and the fruitlessness of fulfilment; it does not yet see the inevitableness of defeat.

he loved wisdom too much to be a "successful" man.

I have said to myself a thousand times that I should be happy if I were but as ignorant as my old neighbor; and yet it is a happiness which I do not desire.

The Creator has given us souls equal to all the world, and yet satiable not even with a world.

Let ask the gods not for possessions, but for things to do; happiness is in making things rather than in consuming them.

Nor may we define progress in terms of happiness, for idiots are happier than geniuses, and those whom we most respect seek not happiness but greatness.

The secret of peace is not to make our achievements equal to our desires, but to lower our desires to the level of our achievements. "If what you have seems insufficient to you," said the Roman Stoic Seneca (d. 65 A.D.), "then, though you possess the world, you will yet be miserable.

Desire is infinite, fulfilment is limited

in both cases the desire for knowledge had ended bliss. Sophisticates

To be happy means to be self-sufficient.

we do not desire things because they give us pleasure; but they give us pleasure because we desire them;

I have brought light into this world, and I have been given light from this world. And what light it is! I can say that I have lived. Can you say that you have lived? You must be able to say you have lived. I have loved, and I have been loved. That is all we should want. This is all you have to do right now. It's right in front of you. So just take it. I know I plan to.

We please others best-and best satisfy ourselves-only when we have done our own job fully and thus fulfilled our own potential.

In a wife I would desire / What in whores is always found / The lineaments of gratified desire.

I sometimes try to be miserable that I may do more work, but find it is a foolish experiment. Happinesses have wings and wheels; miseries are leaden legged, and their whole employment is to clip the wings and to take off the wheels of our chariots. We determine, therefore, to be happy and do all we can, tho' not all that we would. - Letter to William Hayley, 26th November 1800

This is vexing: I feel in a kind of limbo - an author but not truly an author, true authorship being conferred by having a book physically published - a thing you can hold in your hand, purchase in a bookshop.

Maybe this is the answer - maybe this is how to find true contentment - to live your life within confined horizons. To set modest goals, achievable ambitions. Not all of us can manage it, alas.

William Boyd

Why should I go further than I am able? Is it not enough for you that I am perfect?

The man of imagination who turns to art for release and fulfilment of his baby promises contends with the sky through the layers of demoded words and shapes.

Boys, be ambitious. Be ambitious not for money, not for selfish aggrandizement, not for the evanescent thing which men call fame. Be ambitious for the attainment of all that a man can be.

Be happy with what you have and are, be generous with both, and you won't have to haunt for happiness

There is a man who has won the decathlon of human existence."*

There is something about jumping a horse over a fence, something that makes you feel good. Perhaps it's the risk, the gamble. In any event it's a thing I need.