Quotes About Contentment

It's very funny. People do not want to achieve liberation or be happy. This is the basic guideline they teach you in Spiritual Training School.

Buddhism teaches us not to want things, not to avoid things, not to be upset by the loss. In the I Ching, there's a hexagram that says, "Be like the sun at midday". View all things as being equal.

Whatever you need will be provided. Eternity takes care of everything perfectly. So never want for that which you do not have; you have exactly what you need.

You want to be happy; of course, that isn't how you get to be happy; because if you want to be happy, you are going to be sitting around being unhappy because you're not happy.

Don't focus so much on your relationships. Have fun with them. Or if you don't have them, you don't want them, have fun with that.

There are times, Kruppe murmurs, when celibacy born of sad deprivation becomes a boon, nay, a source of great relief.

The more you dream of one particular and pleasing thing, Ralata, the quicker it palls. The edges get worn down, the lustre fades. To leave such obsessions behind, dream of them often.

It is a fool's curse, to measure oneself in endless dissatisfaction.

peace would settle on his soul.

It wouldn't be happiness then, happiness wasn't kind anyway, the way it could vanish in an instant. He might not miss it at all.

Being alive, Tattersail concluded as she approached her tent, isn't the same as feeling good about it.

He's…what would be the best word…he's okay. Just okay." Julia let Estelle slip by into the shop. "He has some good days and some bad days. I keep kidding him that it's a victory if he can remember enough about the day to decide whether it's good or bad.

I feel at peace, content. My questions have been answered. I can accept my alone-life, knowing it's purpose. Interaction, love, is the purpose and the core. Now I see the possibility of a different kind of interaction - and it is something that I can start to learn as soon as I get home, beginning with my little place/house and my plants. How to interact with people this way I do not yet know. [Gift Bearer]

Halston listened to her thoughtfully, smoking a cigarette, and when Liza was finished with her lament, he said softly, "Gee, I think about my life, and I've just had a wonderful life. Always. I was always a success. I've always had the best workers. I've always had the nicest friends. I always had everything I wanted.' He smiled his perfect smile at her. 'I've had a great life,' he said.

If this city is to die, it won't be because of the men on the hills, it will be because of the people in the valley. When they're content to live with death, to become what the men on the hills want them to be, then Sarajevo will die.

There's nothing like a good cup of tea.

I'm dreaming of a month of Sundays.

I work hard in the orchard, not for the money anymore, but for something I can't explain. Something worth more than money.

There is not one drop of real joy to be experienced apart from him. All joy is in the Lord.

So imagine a fire going -- wood snapping the way it does when it's a little green — the wind rattling the windows behind the curtains -- and one of those Chopin melodies that feel like sorrow and ecstasy all mixed together pouring from the keys -- and you have my idea of happiness. Or just reading, reading and lamplight, the sound of pages turning. And so you dare to be happy. You do that thing. You dare.

I expected no miracles; I wasn't young enough for dreams; I knew in my bones that I couldn't escape my troubles by changing the view from my window.

we are happy to be here, where the sky has always seemed a little bluer, the leaves a little greener, than in other towns we know.

This man has conquered the world! What have you done?" The philosopher replied without an instant's hesitation, "I have conquered the need to conquer the world.

Stoics like Marcus had long recommended such a practice—to concentrate entirely and exclusively on the present moment, and if that moment contained no physical suffering, then to be content.