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Until recently, over 98 percent of teachers just got one word of feedback: Satisfactory. If all my bridge coach ever told me was that I was 'satisfactory,' I would have no hope of ever getting better. -- Bill Gates
There is something very satisfactory about being in the middle of something. -- Marilyn Hacker
Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence. -- Erich Fromm
Unlike science, creationism cannot predict anything, and it cannot provide satisfactory answers about the past. -- Bill Nye
The civil service can never be placed on a satisfactory basis until it is regulated by law. -- James A. Garfield
It is more difficult to designate this form of conation on its practical side by a satisfactory name. -- Samuel Alexander
The world is full of people whose notion of a satisfactory future is, in fact, a return to the idealised past. -- Robertson Davies
Favor comes because for a brief moment in the great space of human change and progress some general human purpose finds in him a satisfactory embodiment. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt
I am waiting for a sign that will indicate to me what meaning I must give to my life, but right now my existence is satisfactory. -- Lucy Lawless
When I look at the record of President Obama concerning the major issue security I think it's a highly satisfactory record from Israeli point of view. -- Shimon Peres
Among those who are satisfactory in this respect it is desirable to have represented as great a diversity of intellectual tradition, social milieu and personal character as possible. -- Talcott Parsons
That text-books be permitted in Catholic schools such as will not offend the religious views of the minority, and which from an educational standpoint shall be satisfactory to the advisory board. -- Charles Tupper
It has been my fate in a long life of production to be credited chiefly with the equivocal virtue of industry, a quality so excellent in morals, so little satisfactory in art. -- Margaret Oliphant
To the truly benevolent mind, indeed, nothing is more satisfactory than to hear of a miser denying himself the necessaries of life a little too far and ridding us of his presence altogether. -- James Payn
Words are not as satisfactory as we should like them to be, but, like our neighbours, we have got to live with them and must make the best and not the worst of them. -- Samuel Butler
A mutual arrangement, I repeat, is the only satisfactory medium whereby the present system can be carried on with any degree of satisfaction, and in such an arrangement the employers have more to gain than the workers. -- James Larkin
The tubular steel chair is surely rational from technical and constructive points of view. It is light, suitable for mass production, and so on. But steel and chromium surfaces are not satisfactory from the human point of view. -- Alvar Aalto
The original 'Hobbit' was never intended to have a sequel - Bilbo 'remained very happy to the end of his days and those were extraordinarily long': a sentence I find an almost insuperable obstacle to a satisfactory link. -- J. R. R. Tolkien
Human attention tends to be focused on the satisfactions relationships are hoped to bring, precisely because somehow they have not been truly satisfactory. And if they do satisfy, the price of this satisfaction has often been found to be unacceptable. -- Zygmunt Bauman
If all my bridge coach ever told me was that I was 'satisfactory,' I would have no hope of ever getting better. How would I know who was the best? How would I know what I was doing differently? -- Bill Gates
Before you start some work, always ask yourself three questions - Why am I doing it, What the results might be and Will I be successful. Only when you think deeply and find satisfactory answers to these questions, go ahead. -- Chanakya
My father-in-law and I always had great interest in Indian sport. At the Athens Olympics, watching the wrestling event, we started discussing the state of Indian sport - inadequate representation, lack of satisfactory results etc. We thought we should do something about it. -- Amit Bhatia
Doubt is an uneasy and dissatisfied state from which we struggle to free ourselves and pass into the state of belief; while the latter is a calm and satisfactory state which we do not wish to avoid, or to change to a belief in anything else. -- Charles Sanders Peirce
What is a philosophy? It Is an answer satisfactory to the reason to all the great problems of life. That is what is meant by philosophy. It must satisfy the reason, and it must show the unity underlying the endless diversity of the facts that science observes. -- Annie Besant
The whole world appears to me like a huge vacuum, a vast empty space, whence nothing desirable, or at least satisfactory, can possibly be derived; and I long daily to die more and more to it; even though I obtain not that comfort from spiritual things which I earnestly desire. -- David Brainerd
Why do we take pleasure in gruesome death, neatly packaged as a puzzle to which we may find a satisfactory solution through clues - or if we are not clever enough, have it revealed by the all-powerful tale-teller at the end of the book? It is something to do with being reduced to, and comforted by, playing by the rules. -- A. S. Byatt
Have you got a Beemer, an Audi, a Saab or a Volvo that replaced a Ford, Vauxhall, Rover or Nissan? Many Brits have. Your first Beemer. A particularly nice smell of leather. Something rather plain but satisfactory about the interior. And that lovely enamel wotsit in the middle of the steering wheel. A moment of quiet 'because I'm worth it' pride. -- Peter York
Science is a satisfactory curiosity. -- Lailah Gifty Akita
The pursuit of perfection prevents achievement of the satisfactory. -- George Will
Anything that makes a noise is satisfactory to a crowd. -- Charles Dickens
Think it more satisfactory to live richly than die rich. -- Thomas Browne
A gilded No is more satisfactory than a dry Yes. -- Baltasar Gracian
If a solution isn't mutually satisfactory, it's not going to stick. -- Ross W. Greene
I find linseed oil and white lead the most satisfactory mediums. -- Edward Hopper
We had to be parents by long distance, which is far from satisfactory. -- Jeffrey Hunter
Regaining favor with your worst enemy is a satisfactory but short lived relief. -- Joseph O. Shelby
The only satisfactory thing about death is that our knowledge about it is unsatisfactory. -- Raheel Farooq
How very satisfactory those discussions must be, where each party retains their own opinion! -- Letitia Elizabeth Landon
The commencement speech is not, I think, a wholly satisfactory manifestation of our culture. -- John Kenneth Galbraith
Thirty-six satisfactory exposures on a roll means a photographer is not trying anything new -- Freeman Patterson
Science provides a much more satisfactory way to seek answers than does any religion. -- Bill Nye
I've not got a first in philosophy without being able to muddy things pretty satisfactory. -- John Banham
You don't always have to have the ending, but you want to have a satisfactory conclusion. -- Barry Levinson
People get to like a soul, but a satisfactory hat makes an impression at first sight. -- Pearl Mary Teresa Craigie
I wrote three books, I had three greenhouses. It seemed to me to be very satisfactory. -- Terry Pratchett
To be nothing - is that not, after all, the most satisfactory fact in the whole world? -- Virginia Woolf
It should be our care not so much to live a long life as a satisfactory one. -- Seneca the Younger
The most satisfactory definition of man from the scientific point of view is probably Man the Tool-maker. -- Kenneth Oakley
When orders are consistently trustworthy and observed, the relationship of a commander with his troops is satisfactory. -- Sun Tzu
I believe that the monetary stability is an absolutely critical element in the satisfactory operation of a system. -- Milton Friedman
Being cared for when one is dead is less satisfactory than being cared for when one is alive. -- Aldous Huxley
When I was at Kingsoft, I was under pressure and worked hard, but the results were not satisfactory. -- Lei Jun
We now have a satisfactory solution not only to coalition forces, but also to the Iraqi authorities themselves. -- John Prescott
To my mind Keep Yourself Alive was never really satisfactory. Never had that magic that it should have had. -- Brian May
One's dream is defeated not by unsolvable problems, but by all the more-or-less satisfactory solutions that kill it forever. -- Robert Breault
It would be most satisfactory if physics and psyche could be seen as complementary aspects of the same reality -- Wolfgang Paul
To achieve satisfactory investment results is easier than most people realize; to achieve superior results is harder than it looks. -- Benjamin Graham
There is nothing that is comparable to it, as satisfactory or as thrilling, as gathering the vegetables one has grown. -- Alice B. Toklas
Frankly, I wish I could make my heart quit doing an extra thump when Wolfe says satisfactory, Archie. It's childish. -- Rex Stout
Most believe that a satisfactory future requires a return to an idealized past, a past which never in fact existed. -- Frank Herbert
No knowledge can be more satisfactory to a man than that of his own frame, its parts, their functions and actions. -- Thomas Jefferson
a woman with a secret may be a fascinating study, but she can never be a safe, nor even satisfactory, companion. -- Anna Katharine Green
The world is full of people whose notion of a satisfactory future is, in fact, a return to the idealized past. -- Robertson Davies
None of us seem to think that we should draw a line under what would be a satisfactory amount of wealth. -- Jamaica Kincaid
Happiness is the intoxication produced by the moment of poise between a satisfactory past and an immediate future, rich with promise. -- Ella Maillart
Women owe Friedan an incalculable debt for The Feminine Mystique. Domesticity was not a satisfactory story of an intelligent woman's life. -- Elizabeth Fox-Genovese
Cry down materialism all you will, surely one of the thoroughly satisfactory sensations of this world is to feel financially independent ... -- Cornelia Parker
It is better and more satisfactory to acquit a thousand guilty persons than to put a single innocent one to death. -- Maimonides
Changing husbands is about as satisfactory as changing a bundle from one hand to the other; it gives you only temporary relief. -- Helen Rowland
Intercourse with a woman is sometimes a satisfactory substitute for masturbation. But it takes a lot of imagination to make it work. -- Karl Kraus
At first blush I am tempted to conclude that a satisfactory hobby must be in large degree useless, inefficient, laborious, or irrelevant. -- Aldo Leopold
A satisfactory translation is not always possible, but a good translator is never satisfied with it. It can usually be improved. (Newmark) -- Peter Newmark
The only really satisfactory confidante for your troubles is someone who enjoys them, and this inevitably cuts out anyone who actually loves you. -- Celia Fremlin
To give a satisfactory decision as to the truth it is necessary to be rather an arbitrator than a party to the dispute. -- Aristotle
The intuitive, the expressive, the un-measurable, the intensely personal have never found a satisfactory place in the curriculum, in assessment, in the publics esteem. -- Hedley Beare
Perhaps the two most valuable and satisfactory products of American civilization are the librarian on the one hand and the cocktail in the other. -- Louis Stanley
Having no national system of catastrophic health insurance, we have, through the courts, managed to patch together pieces of a not very satisfactory one. -- Andrew Tobias
There is a satisfactory boniness about grammar which the flesh of sheer vocabulary requires before it can become a vertebrate and walk the earth. -- Anthony Burgess
America has had many other discoverers besides Columbus, but he seems to have made more satisfactory arrangements with the historians than any of the others. -- Bill Nye
Both sides were supposed to release all their prisoners, those were unconditional. There was some prisoner release that took place but it's not been satisfactory. -- Warren Christopher
Nature is, in fact, a suggester of uneasiness, a promoter of pilgrimages and of excursions of the fancy which never come to any satisfactory haven. -- Charles Dudley Warner
Action is an attempt to substitute a more satisfactory state of affairs for a less satisfactory one. We call such a willfully induced alteration an exchange. -- Ludwig von Mises
Perhaps it's true that I'm very hard on myself, but that's better than exhibiting mediocre work... too few were satisfactory enough to trouble the public with. -- Claude Monet
If there is one question I dread, to which I have never been able to invent a satisfactory reply, it is the question what am I doing. -- Samuel Beckett
The artist's work constitutes the only satisfactory relationship he can have with his fellow men since he seeks his real friends among the dead and the unborn. -- Lawrence Durrell
To say that a man is made up of certain chemical elements is a satisfactory description only for those who intend to use him as a fertilizer. -- Hermann Joseph Muller
We cannot adopt the way of living that was satisfactory a hundred years ago. The world in which we live has changed, and we must change with it. -- Felix Adler
That was my way of putting it-not very satisfactory: A periphrastic study in a worn-out poetical fashion, Leaving one still with the intolerable wrestle With words and meanings. -- T. S. Eliot
Prostitutes are in no danger of finding their present life so satisfactory that they cannot turn to God: the proud, the avaricious, the self-righteous, are in that danger. -- C. S. Lewis
The argument advanced by the supporters of the theory of hereditary transmission does not furnish a satisfactory explanation of the cause of the inequalities and diversities of the universe. -- Swami Abhedananda
That of War and Peace or of Almagestes. All are satisfactory. The only criterion of a work is its validity: that it should grip and that it should last. -- Jean-Paul Sartre
No theory of the universe can be satisfactory which does not adequately account for the phenomena of life, especially in that richest form which finds expression in human personality. -- Burnett Hillman Streeter
If a person becomes content with what is average, minimally acceptable, or satisfactory, she will rarely exert the effort or work toward something that is truly excellent or outstanding. -- Charles Stanley
The natural tendency of every government is to grow steadily worse-that is, to grow more satisfactory to those who constitute it and less satisfactory to those who support it. -- H. L. Mencken
But if too many countries, as has been the case, interfere too much in the internal affairs, the political situation of Afghanistan, then of course we can't hope satisfactory results. -- Bulent Ecevit
The temptation was great to muster what force we could and put up a fight. It's the easiest way out, and the most satisfactory to self-respect--but, nearly invariably, the stupidest. -- Isaac Asimov
In fact the a priori reasoning is so entirely satisfactory to me that if the facts won't fit in, why so much the worse for the facts is my feeling. -- Erasmus Darwin
The magnitude of this evil among us is so deeply felt, and so universally acknowledged, that no merit could be greater than that of devising a satisfactory remedy for it. -- James Madison
Thousands of years ago the question was asked; ''Am I my brother's keeper?'' That question has never yet been answered in a way that is satisfactory to civilized society. -- Eugene V. Debs
Atheism, I began to realize, rested on a less-than-satisfactory evidential basis. The arguments that had once seemed bold, decisive, and conclusive increasingly turned out to be circular, tentative, and uncertain. -- Alister E. McGrath
As a bathtub lined with white porcelain, When the hot water gives out or goes tepid, So is the slow cooling of our chivalrous passion, O my much praised but-not-altogether-satisfactory lady. -- Ezra Pound
Twenty years ago many chemists would have defended the theory of bond arms as a satisfactory explanation because they had become accustomed to thinking of it as unique and as ultimate. -- Henry Margenau
Thus, the isolated interference with one or a few prices of consumer goods always bring about effects-and this is important to realize-which are even less satisfactory than the conditions that prevailed before. -- Ludwig von Mises
I suppose what you're doing as a painter is making a record of your trip through life. I can't think of any job that is quite as satisfactory as doing a painting. -- Robert Genn
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... I have noticed that no sooner do people embark on a course of action which they do not find wholly satisfactory than they muster every argument to persuade others to imitate it ... -- Anne Morice
If you're going to have a satisfactory standard of living, you're going to have to be competitive in this world. And you can't be competitive if you don't have a good education. -- Bob McNair
No doubt one may quote history to support any cause, as the devil quotes scripture; but modern history is not a very satisfactory side-arm in political polemics; it grows less and less so. -- Learned Hand
The purest natural food for human beings would be fresh, uncooked food and nuts. A fare which consists of three-quarters of vegetable food and one-quarter meat would appear to be the most satisfactory. -- George Hackenschmidt
Human relationships are the tragic necessity of human life; that they can never be wholly satisfactory, that every ego is half the time greedily seeking them, and half the time pulling away from them. -- Willa Cather
There are situations in life to which the only satisfactory response is a physically violent one. If you don't make that response, you continually relive the unresolved situation over and over in your life. -- Russell Hoban
I was making love to a man, a man I hardly even know. He was kissing the face off me and I was kissing the face off him. And I found it highly satisfactory. -- Anita Loos
I was a child that both my parents wanted. I was told from the time I was born that I was totally satisfactory. I had a chance to be what I wanted to be. -- Margaret Mead
The only object of theoretical physics is to calculate results that can be compared with experiment... it is quite unnecessary that any satisfactory description of the whole course of the phenomena should be given. -- Paul Dirac
How can a modern anthropologist embark upon a generalization with any hope of arriving at a satisfactory conclusion? By thinking of the organizational ideas that are present in any society as a mathematical pattern. -- Edmund Leach
Our journey so far has been very satisfactory: we are most fortunate as regards the season, for there has been more rain this winter than has been known for the last four or five years. -- William John Wills
The criterion of mental health is not one of individual adjustment to a given social order, but a universal one, valid for all men, of giving a satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence. -- Erich Fromm
If there's no unity in your work, then you've deliberately made yourself into that kind of person. You don't want that unity in your work. You've made some kind of satisfactory arrangement with your culture. -- Milton Resnick
DUEL, n. A formal ceremony preliminary to reconciliation of two enemies. Great skill is necessary to its satisfactory observance; if awkwardly performed . . . deplorable consequences sometimes ensue. A long time ago a man lost his life. -- Ambrose Bierce

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