Gratification

He who seeks Beauty
Shall find Vanity
He who seeks Order
Shall find Gratification. ~ Moshe Safdie.

Gratification is the pleasurable emotional reaction of happiness in response to a fulfillment of a desire or goal. Gratification, like all emotions, is a motivator of behavior and thus plays a role in the entire range of human social system.

Quotes

• People are not only, as the saying goes, falling for the swindle; if it guarantees them even the most fleeting gratification they desire a deception which is nonetheless transparent to them. They force their eyes shut and voice approval, in a kind of self-loathing, for what is meted out to them, knowing fully the purpose for which it is manufactured.
  • Theodor W Adorno, The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture, Routledge, 29 August 2005, p. 103.

• The one thing that would utterly destroy the new capitalism is the serious practice of deferred gratification.
  • Daniel Bell, The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism: 20th Anniversary Edition, Basic Books, 5 August 2008, p. 78.

• Workers, the most absolutely necessary part of the whole social structure, without whose services none can either eat, or clothe, or shelter himself, are just the ones who get the least to eat, to wear, and to be housed withal — to say nothing of their share of the other social benefits which the rest of us are supposed to furnish, such as education and artistic gratification.
  • Voltairine de Cleyre, "Direct Action" (1912), in Exquisite Rebel: The Essays of Voltairine de Cleyre -- Anarchist, Feminist, Genius, SUNY Press, 10 February 2005, p. 280.

• All history attests that man has subjected woman to his will, used her as a means to promote his selfish gratification, to minister to his sensual pleasures, to be instrumental in promoting his comfort; but never has he desired to elevate her to that rank she was created to fill.
  • Sarah Grimké in The Creation of Feminist Consciousness: From the Middle Ages to Eighteen-seventy, Oxford University Press, 1993, p. 162.

• The Satanist believes in complete gratification of his ego. Satanism, in fact, is the only religion which advocates the intensification or encouragement of the ego. Only if a person's own ego is sufficiently fulfilled, can he afford to be kind and complimentary to others, without robbing himself of his self-respect. We generally think of a braggart as a person with a large ego; in reality, his bragging results from a need to satisfy his impoverished ego.
  • Anton LaVey in: The Satanic Bible, Avon Books, 1969, p. 51.

It must be remembered that painting is not the mere gratification of sight. As the natural dignity of the subject (of a portrait) is less, the more the ornamental helps are necessary to its embellishments. - Joshua Reynolds.

The sensualist will find sensuality in Titian; the thinker will find thought; the saint, sanctity; the colourist, colour; the anatomist, form; and yet the picture will never be a popular one in the full sense, for none of these narrower people will find their special taste so alone consulted, as that the qualities which would ensure their gratification shall be sifted or separated from others; they are checked by the presence of the other qualities which ensure the gratification of other men -John Ruskin.

• The job of mass entertainment is exactly the opposite of the job of art — the job of mass entertainment is to cajole, seduce and flatter consumers to let them know that what they thought was right is right, and that their tastes and their immediate gratification are of the utmost concern of the purveyor.
  • David Mamet, in an interview for the Salan Magazine (1997) quoted in American Theatre: History, Context, Form, Edinburgh University Press, 2011, p. 167.

• It is true that Heaven forbids certain gratifications, but there are means' of compounding with it upon such matters, and of rectifying the evil of the act by the purity of the intention, We shall be able to initiate you into all those secrets...
  • Molière in: Charles Heron Heron Wall Dramatic Works Moliere, 1876, p. 325.

• The sexual anxiety is caused by an external frustration of instinctual gratification, and is anchored internally by the fear of the dammed up sexual excitation. This is the mechanism of orgasm anxiety. It is the fear of the organism – which has become unwilling to experience pleasure – of the overpowering excitation of the genital system. Orgasm anxiety forms the basis of the general pleasure anxiety which is an integral part of the human structure.
  • Wilhelm Reich in: Jane G. Goldberg Psychotherapeutic Treatment of Cancer Patients, Transaction Publishers, 1 January 1990, p. 91.

• The suppression of natural sexual gratification leads to various kinds of substitute gratifications. Natural aggression, for example, becomes brutal sadism which then is an essential mass-psychological factor in imperialistic wars.
  • Wilhelm Reich in The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1933) Ch. 1 : Ideology As Material Power, Section 4 : The Social Function of Sexual Suppression quoted in: R. Claire Snyder Citizen-soldiers and Manly Warriors: Military Service and Gender in the Civic Republican Tradition, Rowman & Littlefield, 1999, p. 152.

• It must be remembered that painting is not the mere gratification of sight. As the natural dignity of the subject (of a portrait) is less, the more the ornamental helps are necessary to its embellishments.
  • Joshua Reynolds in: Henry Morley Seven Discourses on Art, by Joshua Reynolds, The Project Gutenberg eBook.

• The sensualist will find sensuality in Titian; the thinker will find thought; the saint, sanctity; the colourist, colour; the anatomist, form; and yet the picture will never be a popular one in the full sense, for none of these narrower people will find their special taste so alone consulted, as that the qualities which would ensure their gratification shall be sifted or separated from others; they are checked by the presence of the other qualities which ensure the gratification of other men.
  • John Ruskin in: The two paths: being lectures on art, and its application to decoration and manufacture, 1859, p. 63.

• He who seeks Truth
  Shall find Beauty
  He who seeks Beauty
  Shall find Vanity
  He who seeks Order
  Shall find Gratification
  He who seeks Gratification
  Shall be Disappointed.
  • Moshe Safdie in: Diana Murphy Moshe Safdie: Volume 1, mages Publishing, 2009, p. 11.

• What is the motive which operates in every man's breast to counteract the impulse towards the gratification of his wants and appetites?
  • Jean-Baptiste Say in: A Treatise on Political Economy, Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2008, p. 207.

• He read because it gave him instant gratification in a way nothing else did, and, as was the case with all addicts, gratification was the important thing. He liked history, travel, anthropology, cookbooks (which he read in the same way as other books for pleasure); he liked books with specialized information.
  • Jeet Thayil in: Narcopolis, Faber & Faber, 31 January 2012, p. 202.

• The superior gratification derived from the use and contemplation of costly and supposedly beautiful products is, commonly, in great measure a gratification of our sense of costliness masquerading under the name of beauty.
  • Thorstein Veblen in: Theory of the Leisure Class, BoD – Books on Demand, 2013, p. 89.

• Though they suffer no restriction of choice, in reality even multi-millionaires soon reach the outer limits of purely personal gratification—which should be some satisfaction to the rest of us.
  • Alan Whicker, British interviewer, journalist and author in Within Whicker's World (1982). Also in Multimillionaires Quotes,

• Mass consumption, advertising, and mass art are a corporate Frankenstein; while they reinforce the system, they also undermine it. By continually pushing the message that we have the right to gratification now, consumerism at its most expansive encouraged a demand for fulfillment.
  • Ellen Willis in: Out of the Vinyl Deeps: Ellen Willis on Rock Music, U of Minnesota Press, 2011, p. 221.