Quotes About Contentment

He thought rightly that we Americans, by inclination at least, have been divided into two kinds: "boomers" and "stickers." Boomers, he said, are "those who pillage and run," who want "to make a killing and end up on Easy Street," whereas stickers are "those who settle, and love the life they have made and the place they have made it in.

Everything there seemed to belong where it was. That was why I went there.

However interesting and lovely my days were, I could get from one day to the next only by passing through a night. I have, it is true, known lovely nights here; nights of sound sleep and good dreams and nights made wakeful by happy thoughts. but I have not always been a good sleeper, and my thoughts at night have sometimes been far from happy.

Look in and see him looking out. He is not always quiet, but there have been times when happiness has come to him, unasked, like the stillness on the water that holds the evening clear while it subsides - and he let go what he was not.

Something better! Everybody's talking about something better. The important thing is to feel good and be proud of what you got, don't matter if it ain't nothing but a log pen.

Most people now are looking for a 'better place,' which means that a lot of them will end up in a worse one. I think this is what Nathan learned from his time in the army and the war. He saw a lot of places, and he came home. I think he gave up the idea that there is a better place somewhere else. There is no 'better place' than this, not in this world.

The world has room for many people who are content to live as humans, but only for a relative few intent upon living as giants or as gods. Twelfth

felt older. I felt that I had seen ages of the world come and go. Now, finally, I really had lost all desire for change, every last twinge of the notion that I ought to get somewhere or make something of myself. I was what I was. "I will stand like a tree," I thought, "and be in myself as I am." And the things of Port William seemed to stand around me, in themselves as they were.

She was going about her life, taking her pleasures as she found them, suffering what was hers to suffer, doing what she had to do. She had about her no air of self-pity or complaint. And this could only have been because, in her own heart, she was not pitying herself or complaining.

A window opening on nothing but the blank sky was endlessly attractive to me…. A window that looked out into a tree was a source of inexpressible happiness…

Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.

Oh, it ain't mine. I don't own anything I can't carry or that won't follow me when I whistle.

he gave up the idea that there is a better place somewhere else. There is no better place than this, not in this world. And it is by the place we've got, and our love for it and our keeping of it, that this world is joined to Heaven.

Oh Lord, make us able To eat all that's on this table, And if there's some we haven't got Bring it to us while it's hot

My wish is to live my life as fully as I can. In both our work and our leisure, I think, we should be so employed. And in our time this means that we must save ourselves from the products that we are asked to buy in order, ultimately, to replace ourselves.

Therefore, be patient. Such pleasure as there is, is here, now. Take pleasure as it comes. Take work as it comes. The end may never come, or when it does it may be the wrong end.

All goes back to the earth, and so I do not desire pride of excess or power, but the contentments made by men who have had little: the fisherman's silence receiving the river's grace, the gardener's musing on rows.

I began to take for granted that I was somewhere, and somewhere that I knew, but I never quite felt that I was somewhere I wanted to be.

To have the two of them there, at opposite corners of the table, with their long endurance in their faces, and their present affection and pleasure, was a blessing of another kind.

Theoretically, there is always a better place for a person to live, better work to do, a better spouse to wed, better friends to have. But then this person must meet herself coming back: Theoretically, there always is a better inhabitant of this place, a better member of this community, a better worker, spouse, and friend than she is. This surely describes one of the circles of Hell, and who hasn't traveled around it a time or two?

Although we cannot command it, we choose joy, making a deliberate commitment to happiness (essentially another word for peace).

When people see you're happy doing what you're doing, it sort of takes the power away from them to tease you about it.

He could never be happy; as an obsessive perfectionist, perfection would always stay tantalizingly out of reach

We who have grandly fill'd our time; With Nature's calm content, with tacit huge delight, We welcome what we wrought for through the past. - SONG OF THE REDWOOD-TREE