Quotes About Contentment

It seems no body's business to try to better things

Der Müßiggänger hat den Wunsch, ständig ein gutes Leben zu haben, nicht nur an Samstagabenden.

But we are moaning about the very lives that we have created for ourselves...We were free to go and retire alone in Goa and live on the beach for the rest of our lives, childless and free. But we chose not to do that. And then we complained.

After all, why be right when you can be happy.

You don't go around saying "Am I happy?" all the time, unless you're human, of course.

He was ... at peace with the world, for it is not in the praise of others that the true artist revels, but in the knowledge that he has satisfied himself.

Booze had never been one of his problems; but, given his present circumstances, he could see no reason why he shouldn't go for the complete set.

Not, of course, as much as Julia Roberts or David Beckham or Robbie Williams, but he found he wasn't really bothered about that. He was, after all, basically a simple, modest person at heart. Doing a short but honest day's work, doing it well and earning a revoltingly large amount of money would suit him very nicely.

Life is about eating and drinking and sleeping and breathing and working, and not being more unhappy than you absolutely have to.

Something had happened to him ove the past couple of years, something to do with being home with Aaron, sinking into the rhythm of a kid's day. The little tasks, the small pleasures. The repetition that goes beyond boredom and becomes a kind of peace. You do it long enough, and the adult world starts to drift away. You can't catch up with it, not even if you try.

and you form a map in your heart of all the places that make you so happy

Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness

Amnesia is not knowing who one is and wanting desperately to find out. Euphoria is not knowing who one is and not caring. Ecstasy is knowing exactly who one is - and still not caring.

You're better equipped for this world than I am, she said. I'm always trying to change the world. You know how to live in it.

Often, moreover, it is...that aspect of our being that society finds eccentric, ridiculous, or disagreeable, that holds our sweet waters, our secret well of happiness, the key to our equanimity in malevolent climes.

The word desire suggests that there is something we do not have. If we have everything already, then there can be no desire, for there is nothing left to want. I think that what the Buddha may have been trying to tell us is that we have it all, each of us, all the time; therefore, desire is simply unnecessary.

There are three mental states that interest me. These are: one, amnesia; two, euphoria; three, ecstasy. Amnesia is not knowing who one is and wanting desperately to find out. Euphoria is not knowing who one is and not caring. Ecstasy is knowing exactly who one is - and still not caring.

Beer's nice for being glad and dizzy, and sometimes for the mystery and stuff, but the happy that comes out of a beer can is not like the real happy you got to make in your heart.

To eliminate the agitation and disappointment of desire, we need but awaken to the fact that we have everything we want and need right now.

they were straining so desperately for admission to paradise that they had forgotten that paradise had always been their address.

and while meanness is a function of the insensitive, grumpiness is merely a function of the dissatisfied.

And the message, no matter how entertainingly couched, is invariably the same: to be special, you must conform; to be happy, you must consume.

Bones are patient. Bones never tire nor do they run away. When you come upon a man who has been dead many years, his bones will still be lying there, in place, content, patiently waiting, but his flesh will have gotten up and left him. Water is like flesh. Water will not stand still. It is always off to somewhere else; restless, talkative, and curious. Even water in a covered jar will disappear in time. Flesh is water. Stones are like bones. Satisfied. Patient. Dependable.

Unhappiness is the ultimate form o' self-indulgence.