Selected contentment quotes

1. Human happiness and human satisfaction must ultimately come from within oneself. It is wrong to expect some final satisfaction to come from money or from a computer.

2. A happy man is too satisfied with the present to dwell too much on the future.

3. Those who thank God much are the truly wealthy. So our inner happiness depends not on what we experience but on the degree of our gratitude to God, whatever the experience.

4. As to that leisure evening of life, I must say that I do not want it. I can conceive of no contentment of which toil is not to be the immediate parent.

5. Bring your desires down to your present means. Increase them only when your increased means permit.

6. The important thing isn't the house. It's the ability to make it. You carry that in your brains and in your hands, wherever you go... It's one thing to carry your life wherever you go. Another thing to always go looking for it somewhere else.

7. Oh, don't let's ask for the moon. We've already got the stars.

8. Fate often puts all the material for happiness and prosperity into a man's hands just to see how miserable he can make himself with them.

9. Life's cares are comforts; such by Heav'n design'd; He that hath none must make them, or be wretched.

10. Man wants little, nor that little long.

11. Our frustration is greater when we have much and want more than when we have nothing and want some. We are less dissatisfied when we lack many things than when we seem to lack but one thing.

12. The only truly affluent are those who do not want more than they have.

13. I'm happy and I have a great life.

14. I have no money, no resources, no hopes. I am the happiest man alive.

15. Hope is a bad thing. It means that you are not what you want to be. It means that part of you is dead, if not all of you. It means that you entertain illusions. It's a sort of spiritual clap, I should say.

16. We used to have a lot of fun. We never had any problems. We always ate. The fact that we didn't have steak? Who had steak?

17. All the wild world is beautiful, and it matters but little where we go, to highlands or lowlands, woods or plains, on the sea or land or down among the crystals of waves or high in a balloon in the sky; through all the climates, hot or cold, storms and calms, everywhere and always we are in God's eternal beauty and love. So universally true is this, the spot where we chance to be always seems the best.

18. Where does discontent start? You are warm enough, but you shiver. You are fed, yet hunger gnaws you. You have been loved, but your yearning wanders in new fields. And to prod all these there's time, the Bastard Time.

19. He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough.

20. How many persons must there be who cannot worship alone since they are content with so little.

21. It is so much easier to covet what one hasn't than to revel in what one has. Also, it is so much easier to be enthusiastic about what exists than about what doesn't.

22. Happiness in this world, when it comes, comes incidentally. Make it the object of pursuit, and it leads us a wild-goose chase, and is never attained. Follow some other object, and very possibly we may find that we have caught happiness without dreaming of it.

23. Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.

24. Once more I realized to what an extent earthly happiness is made to the measure of man. It is not a rare bird which we must pursue at one moment in heaven, at the next in our minds. Happiness is a domestic bird found in our own courtyards.

25. Let others praise ancient times; I am glad I was born in these.

26. I don't like to discuss my marriage, but I will tell you something which may sound corny but which happens to be true. I have steak at home. Why should I go out for hamburger?

27. I have drunken deep of joy, And I will taste no other wine tonight.

28. I am a freeman and jolly as a beggar.

29. Nobody ever left the presidency with less regret, less disappointment, fewer heart burnings, or any general content with the result of his term (in his own heart, I mean) than I do. Full of difficulty and trouble at first, I now find myself on smooth waters and under bright skies.

30. Life is a progress from want to want, not from enjoyment to enjoyment.

31. When a glass sits on a table here, people don't wonder if it's half filled or half empty. They just hope it's good beer.

32. Often when looking at a mass of things for sale, he would say to himself, 'How many things I have no need of!'

33. He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature.

34. He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have.

35. My belief is that to have no wants is divine.

36. What a lot of things there are a man can do without.

37. So long as there is desire or want, it is a sure sign that there is imperfection. A perfect, free being cannot have any desire.

38. Your street, rich street or poor Used to always be sure, on your street There's a place in your heart you know from the start Can't be complete outside of the street Keep moving on through the joy and the pain Sometimes you got to look back To the street again Would you prefer all those castles in Spain? Or the view of your street from your window pane?

39. Why do we have to grow up? I know more adults who have the children's approach to life. They're people who don't give a hang what the Joneses do. You see them at Disneyland every time you go there. They are not afraid to be delighted with simple pleasures, and they have a degree of contentment with what life has brought - sometimes it isn't much, either.

40. All I can do is write my stories for mankind, and rest easy.

41. Don't fool yourself that you are going to have it all. You are not. Psychologically, having it all is not even a valid concept. The marvelous thing about human beings is that we are perpetually reaching for the stars. The more we have, the more we want. And for this reason, we never have it all.

42. Polygamy: An endeavour to get more out of life than there is in it.

43. There is room in the smallest cottage for a happy loving pair.

44. Our farmers round, well pleased with constant gain, Like other farmers, flourish and complain.

45. I got rhythm, I got music, I got my man Who could ask for anything more?

46. A little rule, a little sway, A sunbeam in a winter's day, Is all the proud and mighty have Between the cradle and the grave.

47. Souls will be unable to reach perfection who do not strive to be content with having nothing, in such fashion that their natural and spiritual desire is satisfied with emptiness; for this is necessary in order to reach the highest tranquility and peace of spirit. Hence the love of God in the pure and simple soul is almost continually in act.

48. There are, indeed, two forms of discontent: one laborious, the other indolent and complaining. We respect the man of laborious desire, but let us not suppose that his restlessness is peace, or his ambition meekness. It is because of the special connection of meekness with contentment that it is promised that the meek shall 'inherit the earth.' Neither covetous men, nor the Grave, can inherit anything; they can but consume. Only contentment can possess.

49. When you are content to be simply yourself and don't compare or compete, everybody will respect you.

50. A single rose can be my garden... a single friend, my world.

51. If solid happiness we prize, Within our breast this jewel lies, And they are fools who roam. The world has nothing to bestow; From our own selves our joys must flow, And that dear hut, our home.

52. How simple and frugal a thing is happiness: a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea. . . . All that is required to feel that here and now is happiness is a simple, frugal heart.

53. If there's another world, he lives in bliss; If there is none, he made the best of this.

54. Every man is rich or poor according to the proportion between his desires and his enjoyments; any enlargement of wishes is therefore equally destructive to happiness with the diminution of possession, and he that teaches another to long for what he never shall obtain is no less an enemy to his quiet than if he had robbed him of part of his patrimony.

55. Not to be content with Life is the unsatisfactory state of those which destroy themselves; who being afraid to live, run blindly upon their own Death, which no Man fears by Experience.

56. Contentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty.

57. Happy the people whose annals are blank in history books!

58. Thus happiness depends, as Nature shows, Less on exterior things than most suppose.

59. There are two things that kill a genius - a fatal disease and contentment. When a man is contented he goes to sleep. Voltaire had no chance to be contented, and so he wrote eternally and unceasingly, more than any other man in the history of the world.

60. I would rather sleep in the southern corner of a little country churchyard, than in the tombs of the Capulets.

61. The progressive world is necessarily divided into two classes - those who take the best of what there is and enjoy it - those who wish for something better and try to create it. Without these two classes the world would be badly off. They are the very conditions of progress, both the one and the other. Were there none who were discontented with what they have, the world would never reach anything better.

62. It is a queer and fantastic world. Why can't people have what they want? The things were all there to content everybody; yet everybody has got the wrong thing. Perhaps you can make head or tail of it; it is beyond me. Is there any terrestrial paradise where, amidst the whispering of the olive-leaves, people can be with whom they like and have what they like and take their ease in shadows and in coolness? Or are all men's lives like the lives of us good people - like the lives of the Ashburnhams, of the Dowells, of the Ruffords - broken, tumultuous, agonized, and unromantic lives, periods punctuated by screams, by imbecilities, by deaths, by agonies? Who the devil knows?

63. My wants are many, and, if told, Would muster many a score; And were each wish a mint of gold, I still would want for more.

64. Place yourself in the middle of the stream of power and wisdom which animates all whom it floats, and you are without effort impelled to truth, to right and a perfect contentment.

65. But listen, I'm 29 years old, I'm really lucky to be there and whatever happens I've been really blessed already. I have plenty of awards for this movie and if this was it for me I'd be really content.

66. The grass is not, in fact, always greener on the other side of the fence. Fences have nothing to do with it. The grass is greenest where it is watered. When crossing over fences, carry water with you and tend the grass wherever you may be.

67. I can only say that whatever my life and work have been, I'm not envious of anyone- and this is my biggest satisfaction.

68. Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, Their sober wishes never learned to stray; Along the cool sequestered vale of life They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.

69. Her strong sense that neither she nor any human being deserved less than was given, did not blind her to the fact that there were others receiving less who had deserved much more. And in being forced to class herself among the fortunate she did not cease to wonder at the persistence of the unforeseen, when the one to whom such unbroken tranquility had been accorded in the adult stage was she whose youth had seemed to teach that happiness was but the occasional episode in a general drama of pain.

70. The almighty dollar, that great object of universal devotion throughout our land, seems to have no genuine devotees in these peculiar villages; and unless some of its missionaries penetrate there, and erect banking houses and other pious shrines, there is no knowing how long the inhabitants may remain in their present state of contented poverty.

71. Happy people die whole, they are all dissolved in a moment, they have had what they wanted

72. When our two souls stand up erect and strong, Face to face, silent, drawing nigh and nigher, Until the lengthening wings break into fire At either curved point,--what bitter wrong Can the earth do to us, that we should not long Be here contented?

73. If all misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be contented to take their own and depart.

74. What's my line? I'm happy cleaning windows Take my time I'll see you when my love grows Baby don't let it slide I'm a working man in my prime Cleaning windows...

75. Ecstasy is a glassful of tea and a piece of sugar in the mouth.

76. Well, my greatest reward, I think, is that I've been able to build this wonderful organization. I've been able to enjoy good health, and the way I feel today, I feel like I can still go on being part of this thing after forty some odd years of business, and also, to have the public appreciate and accept what I've done all these years. That, that is a great reward. ... Well of course, happiness is a state of mind. You can be happy or you can be unhappy. It's just according to the way you look at things. You know. So I think happiness is contentment but it doesn't mean you have to have wealth. But all individuals are different. Some of us just wouldn't be satisfied with just carrying out a routine job and being happy. Yet I envied those people. I had a brother who I really envied because he was a mailman. But he's the one that had all the fun. He had himself a trailer, and he used to go out and go fishing, and he didn't worry about payrolls and stories and picture grosses or anything. And he was the happy one. I always said, 'He's the smart Disney.'

77. If I were not Alexander, I should wish to be Diogenes.

78. I built my soul a lordly pleasure-house, Wherein at ease for aye to dwell. I said, 'O Soul, make merry and carouse, Dear soul, for all is well.'

79. O let us love our occupations, Bless the squire and his relations, Live upon our daily rations, And always know our proper stations.

80. Though we're absolute beginners With nothing much at stake As long as you're still smiling There's nothing more I need.

81. When you come right down to it, the secret of having it all is loving it all.

82. I believe in sunshine, fresh air, spinach, applesauce, laughter, buttermilk, babies, bombazine and chiffon, always remembering that the greatest word in the English language is 'Sufficiency.'

83. When we are invited to a banquet, we take what is set before us; and were one to call upon his host to set fish upon the table or sweet things, he would be deemed absurd. Yet in a word, we ask the Gods for what they do not give; and that, although they have given us so many things! (35)

84. To you, all you have seems small: to me, all I have seems great. Your desire is insatiable, mine is satisfied. See children thrusting their hands into a narrow-necked jar, and striving to pull out the nuts and figs it contains: if they fill the hand, they cannot pull it out again, and then they fall to tears.-'Let go a few of them, and then you can draw out the rest!'-You, too, let your desire go! covet not many things, and you will obtain (95)

85. Keep death and exile daily before thine eyes, with all else that men deem terrible, but more especially Death. Then wilt thou never think a mean thought, nor covet anything beyond measure. (161)

86. Fortify thyself with contentment: that is an impregnable stronghold.

87. O cool glad pasture; living tree, tall corn, Great cliff, or languid sloping sand, cold sea, Waves: river curving; you, eternal flowers, Give me content, while I can think of you: Give me your living breath! Back to your rampart, Death!

88. I knew I wouldn't ever trade all this whirling about my head for Russia or heaven or anything on earth.

89. Inde fit ut raro, qui se vixisse beatum dicat et exacto contentus tempore vita cedat uti conviva satur, reperire queamus.

90. An elegant sufficiency, content, Retirement, rural quiet, friendship, books.

91. Hark you shadows that in darkness dwell, Learn to contemn light, Happy, happy they that in hell Feel not the world's despite.

92. 'Mongst all these stirs of discontented strife, O, let me lead an academic life; To know much, and to think for nothing, know Nothing to have, yet think we have enow.

93. He is wealthy enough, that wanteth not: he is great enough, that is his own master: he is happy enough, that lives to die well.

94. Suave magni maro turbantibus aequora ventis e terra magnum alterius spectare laborem; non quia vexari quemquamst jucunda voluptas, sed quibus ipse malis careas quia cernere suave est.

95. Cur non ut plenus vitae conviva recedis aequo animoque capis securam, stulte, quietem?

96. Quod siquis vera vitam ratione gubernet, divitiae grandes homini sunt vivere parvo aequo animo; neque enim est umquam penuria parvi.

97. You ask a faith, - they are content with faith; You ask to have, - but they reply 'IT hath.' There is no end, there need be no path.

98. Simple food but it tasted good and they were satisfied.

99. This is near enough true bliss.

100. I think I ran out of ambition at 24... Indolent. I see nothing wrong with that.