Private Satisfaction Quotes

Populus me sibilat, at mihi plaudo Ipse domi stimul ac nummos contemplar in arca. (The public hiss at me, but I cheer myself when in my own house I contemplate the coins in my strong-box.)

Contempt for others, like masturbation, is best as a secret pleasure.

A private Life is to be preferrd; the Honour and Gain of publick Posts, bearing no proportion with the Comfort of it.

The old view was that delicacy of language was part of the nature, the sacred nature, of eros and that to speak about it in any other way would be to misunderstand it. What has disappeared is the risk and the hope of human connectedness embedded in eros. Ours is a language that reduces the longing for an other to the need for individual, private satisfaction and safety.

There is more of fear than delight in a secret pleasure.

Privately, I'm thrilled with what I do, but publicly, I hold it in disdain.

So long as the laws remain such as they are today, employ some discretion: loud opinion forces us to do so; but in privacy and silence let us compensate ourselves for that cruel chastity we are obliged to display in public.

Any enjoyment is weakened when shared.

I'm very ambitious. I live in reality but I have dreams I want to fulfill - I want to be a director, and I've already started my own production company. But I also have a measure of success that I keep to myself. It's something very personal to me.

It's in no way my interest (according to the common acceptance of that word) to convince the world of their errors; that is, I shall get nothing from it but the private satisfaction of having done good to mankind, and I know nobody that reckons that satisfaction any part of their interest.