“For me, Art is the restoration of order. It may discuss all sort of terrible things, but there must be satisfaction at the end. A little bit of hunger, but also satisfaction.”

1970s-, The Captains, the Kings, and Taylor Caldwell (1978)
Context: This world’s brought me very little joy, very little satisfaction. It’s brought me nothing but tragedy from the time I was born. I regret every day I live. The human situation is not as unique as you think it is. We’re all the same. We all get kicked in the pants, we all have our moments of elation — though not much happiness. Happiness is a child’s word. There may be short periods of contentment, but very short. Life is mostly disappointment, tragedy, loss and failure. <!--
It wasn’t until the last few years — imagine, not till the last few years — that I found out something that even a child knows. That money rules the world. That’s what nations fight about. I didn’t know it was that important. It came as a big shock to me.

Lift Me UP! Service With A Smile (2005)

Letter to John Davis (18 January 1824). Published in The Works of Thomas Jefferson in Twelve Volumes http://oll.libertyfund.org/ToC/0054.php, Federal Edition, Paul Leicester Ford, ed., New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1904, Vol. 12 http://oll.libertyfund.org/Texts/Jefferson0136/Works/0054-12_Bk.pdf, pp. 331–332
1820s
Context: I thank you, Sir, for the copy you were so kind as to send me of the revd. Mr. Bancroft's Unitarian sermons. I have read them with great satisfaction, and always rejoice in efforts to restore us to primitive Christianity, in all the simplicity in which it came from the lips of Jesus. Had it never been sophisticated by the subtleties of Commentators, nor paraphrased into meanings totally foreign to its character, it would at this day have been the religion of the whole civilized world. But the metaphysical abstractions of Athanasius, and the maniac ravings of Calvin, tinctured plentifully with the foggy dreams of Plato, have so loaded it with absurdities and incomprehensibilities, as to drive into infidelity men who had not time, patience, or opportunity to strip it of its meretricious trappings[. ]

Variant translation: Laziness may appear attractive but work gives satisfaction.
6 July 1944
The Diary of a Young Girl (1942 - 1944)
Variant: Laziness may look inviting, but only work gives you true satisfaction.

“An Unread Book”, p. 40
The Third Book of Criticism (1969)

"No Religion is an Island", p. 264
Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays (1997)
Context: Religion is critique of all satisfaction. Its end is joy, but its beginning is discontent, detesting boasts, smashing idols. It began in Ur Kasdim, in the seat of a magnificent civilization. Yet Abraham said, "No," breaking the idols, breaking away. And so every one of us must begin by saying no to all visible, definable entities pretending to be triumphant, ultimate. The ultimate is a challenge, not an assertion. Dogmas are allusions, not descriptions.

Source: The Last Castle (1966), Chapter 1, section 1

Source: Arcadia