Quotes about Contentment

Our desires always disappoint us; for though we meet with something that gives us satisfaction, yet it never thoroughly answers our expectation.

Sad will be the day for any man when he becomes contented with the thoughts he is thinking and the deeds he is doing - where there is not forever beating at the doors of his soul some great desire to do something larger; which he knows he was meant and made to do.

Take all away. I am content to know Such love is mine-for life is all too brief To grieve for pleasures bringing only grief; Give me but You; it is enough just so.

Remember that very little is needed to make a happy life.

In this flowing stream, then, on which there is no abiding, what is there of the things which hurry by on which a man would set a high price? It would be just as if a man should fall in love with one of the sparrows which fly by, but it has already passed out of sight.

The present moment is the only thing of which anyone can be deprived, at least if this is the only thing he has and he cannot lose what he has not got.

Think not so much of what you lack as of what you have: but of the things that you have, select the best, and then reflect on how eagerly you would have sought them if you did not have them.

And the things which conduce in any way to the commodity of life, and of which fortune gives an abundant supply, he [my father] used without arrogance and without excusing himself; so that when he had them, he enjoyed them without affectation, and when he had them not, he did not want them.

Don't be overheard complaining ... not even to yourself.

Treat what you don't have as nonexistent. Look at what you have, the things you value most, and think of how much you'd crave them if you didn't have them. But be careful. Don't feel such satisfaction that you start to overvalue them—that it would upset you to lose them.

Perfection of character: to live your last day, every day, without frenzy, or sloth, or pretense

Now forget what they think of you. Be satisfied if you can live the rest of your life, however short, as your nature demands. Focus on that, and don't let anything distract you. You've wandered all over and finally realized that you never found what you were after: how to live. Not in syllogisms, not in money, or fame, or self-indulgence. Nowhere.