Discontent

“ If these things excite discontent, the more our shame to suffer injustice, and grievances, and injurious distinctions to remain, and the more imperious the call on every honorable mind to do them away. ”

“ Into our nation also has come the disturbing vision. Ours is called an age of unrest. We hear much about social discontent. Beneath all the outer activity and bustle there is an undertone of profound sadness. ”

“ Discontent is the first step in the progress of a man or a nation. ”

“ If it be said that there is an evil in change as change, I answer that there is also an evil in discontent as discontent. This, indeed, is the strongest part of our case. It is said that the system works well. ”

“ But I think there will be others of you in whom vague discontent is stirring: who are oppressed by the life that surrounds you; confused and troubled by that oppression, and not knowing on which side to seek a remedy, though you are fain to do so: well, we, who have gone further into those troubles, believe that we can help you: true we cannot at once take your trouble from you ”

“ Do you not see amid the masses congregated in the wealthiest cities of the world, writhings and struggles against the received order of things? In this sentiment of discontent there is a certain truthfulness, because it is an element of human nature, and how best to deal with it is a problem yet unsolved ”

“ But the great mass of seeming contentment is real discontent, combined with indolence or self-indulgence, which, while taking no legitimate means of raising itself, delights in bringing others down to its own level. ”

“ Having created or stimulated popular discontent by such rhetorical exaggeration, they point to the discontent as itself sufficient proof of the existence of social oppression. They are immersed in a fallacy. ”

“ In all ages the aim of despotism, small or great, material or intellectual, has been to keep its subjects in ignorance and darkness; since, in all ages, discontent and rebellion have come with the spread of knowledge, light and understanding. ”

“ We may premise, in order to clear the way, that there is a noble discontent which has a great work to do in the world; a discontent which is the antidote to conceit and self-satisfaction, and which urges the worker of every kind continually to realize a higher ideal. ”

“ To awaken among them a feeling of discontent with their lot without providing them with the means of removing the cause thereof is to court certain destruction, anarchy, outrage and plunder in which they themselves will be the chief victims. ”

“ His discontent destroys us. But also His intercession saves us. Conscious of victory, building solely upon His word, we go through labor, ridicule sorrow, misery and death, for we have in Him God's revealed word. ”

“ Their business is to so mix the real wrongs of our social life with imaginary hardships, and to heighten the whole with illusory and often debasing theories, that discontent will be engendered. For it is by means of that only that they live. ”

“ If it had not been for the discontent of a few fellows who have not been satisfied with their condition you would still be living in caves. You never would have emerged from the jungle. Intelligent discontent is the mainspring of civilization.
Progress is born of agitation. It is agitation or stagnation. ”

“ If I understand you rightly, you would maintain that in many cases discontent and disorder are the fermentation in the mind of one man, who for some hidden personal motive works his thought through a whole kingdom ”

“ The same disposition which manifests itself in arrogance on the one side, on the other takes the form of discontent and envy. The heart-burnings and the social tension which this state of things creates, make every chance collision a danger ”

“ Discontented men—and discontent and wickedness are not far apart—would have used the new powers for their own wicked purposes, just as formerly they rent the veil that concealed from the uninitiated the secrets of powers in nature ”

“ Hence it comes that each one of us has his own cause of discontent, and is troubled by care, despondency, anger, hatred, or envy, that he cannot agree with others, nor avoid being distressed by bickerings and strife. ”

“ I poured out, that day, the torrent of my long-accumulating discontent, with such vehemence and indignation that I stirred myself, as well as the rest of the party, to do and dare anything. ”

“ It is the moment for all of us to show ourselves, to shake off, some of us, our apathy, others of us our egoism, to silence all our dissensions, to combine with force will, abnegation, and audacity.”—Le Libertaire. ”

“ There are some—and perhaps you think me one of them—who are driven by circumstances, led by their passions, or their follies, or their vices, to a state of opposition with the rest of mankind, and who then, when cast out from society, find a thousand specious reasons for warring against it. ”

“ You have set your heart and face against society, when you thought it wrong, and returned it frown for frown. Excellent: now can you afford to forget it, reckoning all your action no more than the passing of your hand through the air, or a little breath of your mouth? ”

“ From desires arise hatred, dissensions, quarrels, seditions, wars. Nor is it only out of doors that these passions vent themselves, nor is it only against others that they run with blind violence; but they are often shut up, as it were, in the mind, and throw that into confusion with their disagreements. ”

“ The first thing to realize is the utter futility of going against the spirit of the Age. From the earliest days of civilization, waves of an irresistible desire for some change—some freer expression of emotion—have periodically swept over society; all the people with limited horizons of thought have immediately launched forth their protests, and their horrified and outraged feelings upon whatever the subject happens to be have been expressed in frantic cries. ”

“ For what reason do you afflict your souls while you continue to find pleasure in oppression and to take delight in injustice? Behold, you fast for the sake of strife and contention and to smite with the fist of wickedness. ”

“ The oppression which, trembling at every nerve yet resolute to heroism, it was his ill-fortune to encounter at school and at college, led him to dissent in all things from those whose arguments were blows, whose faith appeared to engender blame and hatred. ”

“ Despite your strength, will never leave the marge,
But still in weary revolutions be
A vanity of vanities to you.
These words to you in parting. O beware
In seeking heaven, lest you despise the earth ”

“ Burn up the chaff of vanity and self-indulgence, of hasty prejudice, second-hand dogmas—husks which do not feed my soul, with which I cannot be content, of which I feel ashamed daily—and if there be any grain of wheat in me, any word or thought or power of action which may be of use as seed for my nation after me, gather it, oh Lord, into Thy garner. ”

“ Every day I exist, I the more fervently [102] congratulate myself upon having forsaken the deceitful splendour of a false ambition, for wherever I look around among those who belong to that undeservedly honoured section of society I was forced to leave in disgust, I observe so much of envy, inquietude, pride, folly, hatred, ignorance, ambition, and tyranny, I wonder that such things the prejudices of custom can regard with homage. ”

“ But with a people who have once tasted the sweets of liberty, this kind of tranquillity is short. Maddened by wrongs, real or supposed, they are soon prepared again to rush into the death-dance of revolution. ”

“ The quiet and peaceably-disposed are wearied, worried, tormented, and almost stunned, by the ceaseless jarring produced by the confusion into which bad men have contrived to throw all the elements of social life. ”

“ Under the oppression of such melancholy, it has been found useful to take a survey of the world, to contemplate the various scenes of distress in which mankind are struggling round us, and acquaint ourselves with the terribiles visit formæ, the various shapes of misery, which make havock of terrestrial happiness, range all corners almost without restraint, trample down our hopes at the hour of harvest, and, when we have built our schemes to the top, ruin their foundations. ”

“ This is the creation of the world, that the pain of division is as nothing, and the joy of dissolution all.
31. For these fools of men and their woes care not thou at all! They feel little; what is, is balanced by weak joys; but ye are my chosen ones.
32. Obey my prophet! follow out the ordeals of my knowledge! ”

“ We have asked, petitioned, begged, implored, for the removal of our grievances. If we are men we must do more—we must strike for them. Else we confess ourselves unworthy of the freedom which we claim. ”

“ If the opinion comes to prevail in a society that the struggle for existence justifies or demands a reckless pursuit of one's own interests, the oppression and ruin of the weak by the strong, the destruction of misery by destroying the miserable, the extirpation of the voice of compassion, which protests within us against such a course ”

“ Not, it is true, when the evil passions or evil deeds held their tyrannical sway over us, but when the spell was gone, when the mind’s eye grew clear, and the hour of reflection came with sorrow, and the sad pale light spread over the hand-writing on the wall, from which conscience might shrink but could not fail to read. ”

“ The soul, long pent up and dwarfed, suddenly expands in new-found freedom. What wonder that every tendency is to excess,—radical complaint, radical remedies, bitter denunciation or angry silence. Some sink, some rise. ”

“ How comes it then, that all complain, some of their temporal miseries, others of their imperfections and failings? How is it that our passions tyrannise over us; that bad habits keep us, as it were, in chains; that one is troubled with so many fruitless desires; that another so frequently yields to temptation; that impatience and anger daily infuriate some persons, and grief and melancholy oppress others? ”

“ The most obstinate and desperate struggles of all—struggles for the preservation of one’s most sacred identity, of one’s inmost liberty of action and feeling—take place, and have their advances and retreats, their treacheries and their betrayals, under the hypocritical calm of the domestic roof. ”

“ A levelling spirit I detest indeed, and from my heart do I abhor every sort of spoliation. Many years, however, must pass, and strange events take place, before any such evils can threaten this country. ”

“ The petty crafts which make the pleader's art,
The dolts who sit in judgment, when the one
Who knows all must be silent; but you know not
The intolerable burden of suspense,
The hard and hateful gaze of hungry eyes
Which gloat upon your suffering. When doom came
It was well to know the worst, and hear no more
The half-forgotten horrors. But I think
The sense of common peril, common wrong,
Knits us in indissoluble unity,
Closer than years of converse. ”

“ No, since I accept your ravage, what strikes me is the long list of the arrears of your undone; and so constantly, right and left, that your pretended message of civilization is but a colossal recipe for the creation of arrears, and of such as can but remain forever out of hand. You touch the great lonely land—as one feels it still to be—only to plant upon it some ugliness about which, never dreaming of the grace of apology or contrition, you then proceed to brag with a cynicism all your own. ”

“ The graver wrongs of his age—wars of ambition, the abuse of public justice, the hypocrisies, cruelties, and lethargy of the ecclesiastics, distrust of the intellectual movement, spurious ideals of life—are vigorously condemned. ”

“ The revolution, confusion, and distress of whole peoples is in my opinion of less importance than the misfortunes which attend great individuals in their development. We must not allow ourselves to be deceived: the many misfortunes of all these small folk do not together constitute a sum-total, except in the feelings of mighty men. ”

“ And from the fusion of opinions and sympathies thus produced, a general sentiment is elicited, to which oppression of any kind, whether of one class by another, or of individuals by the tyranny of sectarian custom, seldom appeals in vain. ”

“ Anybody, who has experienced, written, read, heard, or seen, even a little of this ever-recurrent hanging controversy, loathes its very atmosphere, and gladly retreats from it, seldom without a sense of protest, and a chafing at injustice. ”