If you only try to please others, you're going to resent those people you're trying to please; the ones who are often closest to you. If you choose a path that you yourself want to take, then you're going to be much kinder to the people in your life.
When I was a teenager, I was trying to please people. I kept changing who I was to please the people I was with. And so once I just decided I wasn't going to do that anymore. I was going to live my life to please God. And so from that day to this, that's been my aim. Some people don't understand, but you can't please everybody anyway.
Everybody that listens to something hears it differently from their own perspective. And you can't please everyone. Don't even try. Please yourself first and then try to please those people around you that you feel know what you're doing.
I try to take it as it comes. I'm constantly trying to please myself. That's why I've basically realised now, that nothing else in the world matters at all, just please yourself and the people you love and that's it.
You can't make everyone happy no matter what. All I can do is live my life and try to be successful and please myself. I have my own morals I live by. Bill Cosby once said, 'I don't know the key to success but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.' I agree with that. I live my life my way. I try to do the right thing, but I know there are going to be people who aren't happy with what I do or say no matter what, so I'm not going to worry about it.
You want to make sure this particular car is going to please the customer and then you're going to be rewarded with something that is going to please the shareholder.
You cannot please everyone, and I think that what's important, ultimately, is to make sure you please yourself. If you start trying to please other people, you'll just go around in circles.
If I only have ten minutes, Sam, this is what I want to say. You're not the best of us. You're more than that. You're better than all of us. If I only have ten minutes, I would tell you to go out there and live. I'd say...please take your guitar and sing your songs to as many people as you can. Please fold a thousand more of those damn birds of yours. Please kiss that girl a million times.
I didn't want to say "No" because I didn't want people to think I'm not nice. And that, to me, has been the greatest lesson of my life: to recognize that I am solely responsible for it, and not trying to please other people, and not living my life to please other people, but doing what my heart says all the time.
I think any time you take on touchy subjects, you're going to offend some people, or you're going to please others.
When I was first writing, my little prayers were, 'Please, please, please. Let something be published someday.' Then it went to, 'Please, please, please. Let somebody read this.'
Once you get rid of the idea that you must please other people before you please yourself, and you begin to follow your own instincts - only then can you be successful. You become more satisfied, and when you are, other people will tend to be satisfied by what you do.
Be as honest with yourself as you possibly can. And it's not going to work for everybody, and I know you're going to be afraid of that, but please don't worry about being accepted by everybody. The people who like you and want to be around you, that's what matters, and that's what's healthiest for yourself.
The nuns taught us there are two ways through life... the way of Nature... and the way of Grace. You have to choose which one you'll follow. Grace doesn't try to please itself. Accepts being slighted, forgotten, disliked. Accepts insults and injuries. Nature only wants to please itself. Get others to please it too. Likes to lord it over them. To have its own way. It finds reasons to be unhappy... when all the world is shining around it... when love is smiling through all things.
When it comes to art you can't please everybody but if you please yourself then take pleasure in that.
If you want to be a well-paid copywriter, please your client. If you want to be an award-winning copywriter, please yourself. If you want to be a great copywriter, please your reader.
There's a stage where you're desperate to get a job, and you're waving your hands in a sea of nothingness, going, 'Please, please, please! I'm over here - give me a job!'