Gratify Quotes (7 quotes)
Chemically induced hallucinations, delusions and raptures may be frightening or wonderfully gratifying; in either case they are in the nature of confidence tricks played on one’s own nervous system.
In 'Return Trip to Nirvana', Sunday Telegraph (12 Mar 1961), as collected in Kaleidoscope: Essays from Drinkers of Infinity, and The Heel of Achilles and Later Pieces and Stories (1981), 80 (source cited on p.72, footnote).
Mathematics make the mind attentive to the objects which it considers. This they do by entertaining it with a great variety of truths, which are delightful and evident, but not obvious. Truth is the same thing to the understanding as music to the ear and beauty to the eye. The pursuit of it does really as much gratify a natural faculty implanted in us by our wise Creator as the pleasing of our senses: only in the former case, as the object and faculty are more spiritual, the delight is more pure, free from regret, turpitude, lassitude, and intemperance that commonly attend sensual pleasures.
In An Essay on the Usefulness of Mathematical Learning (1701), 3-4.
Not every one of our desires can be immediately gratified. We’ve got to learn to wait patiently for our dreams to come true, especially on the path we’ve chosen. But while we wait, we need to prepare symbolically a place for our hopes and dreams.
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Since 1957, influenza epidemics have continued to be a major, serious, and intractable health problem, as frustrating to an action and control orientated epidemiologist as poliomyelitis has been gratifying.
(1971). As quoted in Nancy J. Cox, 'Prevention and Control of Influenza', The Lancet 2000 (Dec 1999), 354.
To be at once a Scholar and a Wanderer is to indulge the least congruous desires, in the same hour to gratify the last refinement of intellectual curiosity and to obey a call from the first rude state of nature. For the “wandering fever” is in a sense a temptation of original sin, still heard across the ages, and the scholar finds a subtle joy in returning to the wilderness rather in spite than because of being a scholar.
In A Wandering Scholar in the Levant (1896), 1-2.
We want greater venturesomeness. We have sat on the river bank and caught catfish with pin hooks. The time has come to harpoon a whale. And if we must gratify any human tendency to appropriate, let us take an empire.
As quoted in Ridgely Torrence, The Story of John Hope (1948), 144.
When in Ames, I had charge of a football team and a track team. I was the official ‘rubber.’ Now we call them ‘Masseurs.’ But we weren’t so stylish in those days, so my title was that of a ‘rubber.’ I noticed then that there was something lacking in the oils used for such purposes, which set me thinking. When I came to Tuskegee, I found a healing strength in peanut oil not found in other oils. I have found great possibilities in it. I am simply a scientist attempting to work out a complete oil therapy. In my investigations I find that the peanut oils give better results when skillfully applied than any of the 44 other oils that I have used. So far my success is very gratifying. I have more than 6,000 letters before me on this subject, and there are people who come to consult with me every day.
As quoted in 'Chemistry and Peace', Atlanta Daily World (3 Jan 1943), 4.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
