pleased (adj.)

I would have nobody to control me; I would be absolute: and who but I? Now, he that is absolute can do what he likes; he that can do what he likes can take his pleasure; he that can take his pleasure can be content; and he that can be content has no more to desire. So the matter's over; and come what will come, I am satisfied.

Miguel De Cervantes (1547-1616): Don Quixote. Part i. Book iv. Chap. xxiii.

The play, I remember, pleased not the million; 't was caviare to the general.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Hamlet. Act ii. Sc. 2.

There is in souls a sympathy with sounds;

And as the mind is pitch'd the ear is pleased.

With melting airs or martial, brisk or grave;

Some chord in unison with what we hear

Is touch'd within us, and the heart replies.

How soft the music of those village bells

Falling at intervals upon the ear

In cadence sweet!

William Cowper (1731-1800): The Task. Book vi. Winter Walk at Noon. Line 1.

They please, are pleas'd; they give to get esteem,

Till seeming blest, they grow to what they seem.

Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774): The Traveller. Line 266.

Pleased to the last, he crops the flowery food,

And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Essay on Man. Epistle i. Line 83.

Hope travels through, nor quits us when we die.

Behold the child, by Nature's kindly law,

Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw;

Some livelier plaything gives his youth delight,

A little louder, but as empty quite;

Scarfs, garters, gold, amuse his riper stage,

And beads and prayer-books are the toys of age.

Pleased with this bauble still, as that before,

Till tired he sleeps, and life's poor play is o'er.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Essay on Man. Epistle ii. Line 274.

The earth was made so various, that the mind

Of desultory man, studious of change

And pleased with novelty, might be indulged.

William Cowper (1731-1800): The Task. Book i. The Sofa. Line 506.

A fiery soul, which, working out its way,

Fretted the pygmy-body to decay,

And o'er-inform'd the tenement of clay.

A daring pilot in extremity;

Pleas'd with the danger, when the waves went high

He sought the storms.

John Dryden (1631-1701): Absalom and Achitophel. Part i. Line 156.