Most men live lives of quiet desperation

[Winston]

What does this quote mean exactly?

"Most men live lives of quiet desperation"

What are most men quietly desperate about exactly?

Did George Bernard Shaw say this or Mark Twain?

[HappyGuy]

What does this quote mean exactly?

They spend their lives working jobs they don't care about and they don't have the time and money to pursue what they really want.

What are most men quietly desperate about exactly?

Their adult lives are dull and not what they hoped they would be when they were younger. They don't make enough money, they don't have enough free time, and they're getting older and have less energy.

Did George Bernard Shaw say this or Mark Twain?

― Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience and Other Essays
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/8202-t ... ation-what

[yick]

Charles Bukowski said something similar... let me find it...

There were always men looking for jobs in America. There were always all these usable bodies. And I wanted to be a writer. Almost everybody was a writer. Not everybody thought they could be a dentist or an automobile mechanic but everybody knew they could be a writer. Of those fifty guys in the room, probably fifteen of them thought they were writers. Almost everybody used words and could write them down, i.e., almost everybody could be a writer. But most men, fortunately, aren't writers, or even cab drivers, and some men - many men - unfortunately aren't anything.

Life is about the choices you make with the options on offer which you are able to negotiate with what skills/gifts/natural born talents you have at your disposal.

If you're a balding, overweight guy working nightshift - then Brittany Decker will always pick Andy Roddick over you 100 times out of a hundred.

For a lot of men, they can't accept that life is that unfair and the ones who do pick alternatives they don't really want and then take it out on everyone else for the rest of their lives.

Some men will never know what it is like for a sweet stranger to smile at them in passing or be told they're handsome. Even something as simple as that.

Most men live lives they don't want with people they don't particulary like.

If you're in your twenties and your married with kids - you're f***ed anyway, nothing will ever change - or nothing will ever improve.

[gsjackson]

If you're a balding, overweight guy working nightshift - then Brittany Decker will always pick Andy Roddick over you 100 times out of a hundred.

Brooklyn Decker. That's a pop cult blast from the past. Wonder how she's holding together ten years past her moment in the spotlight and Andy's days on center court (11 years actually). Yes, a major babe in her day.

[Contrarian Expatriate]

Only if they are married to aging banshees do men feel that way....