Quotes About Contentment

Another's wife is a white swan, and ours is bitter wormwood.

Oh, how happy I am to have found it at last. Yes! It's all vanity, it's all an illusion, everything except that infinite sky.

Does it ever happen to you," Natasha said to her brother, when they had settled in the sitting room, "does it ever happen to you that you feel there's nothing more - nothing; that everything good has already happened? And it's not really boring, but sad?" "As if it doesn't!" he said. "It's happened to me that everything's fine, everybody's merry, and it suddenly comes into my head that it's all tiresome and we all ought to die....

One must do one of two tings: either admit that the existing order of society is just, and then stick up for one's rights in it;or acknowledge that you are enjoying unjust privileges, as i do, and then enjoy them and be satisfied.

Everything seemed pleasant and easy to Nikolai during the first part of his stay in Voronezh and, as generally happens when a man is in a pleasant state of mind, everything went well and easily. p 1128

The latter part of her stay in Voronezh had been the happiest period in Princess Marya's life. Her love for Rostov was not then a source of torment or agitation to her. That love had by then filled her whole soul and become an inseparable part of herself, and she no longer struggled against it. Of late Princess Marya was convinced- though she never clearly in so many words admitted it to herself- that she loved and was beloved.

as long as there is life, there is still happiness

Natasha was happy as she had never been in her life. She was at that highest pitch of happiness, when one becomes completely good and kind, and disbelieves in the very possibility of evil, unhappiness, and sorrow.

All this was clear to me, and I was glad and at peace. Then it is as if someone is saying to me, "See that you remember." And I awoke.

Himmlisch ist's, wenn ich bezwugen Meine irdische Begier; Aber doch wenn's nicht gelungen, Hatt' ich auch recht huebsch Plaisir!"* *"Splendid if I overcome My earthy passion, But if I succeed not, Still I have known happiness!

En la vida sólo hay dos verdaderas desgracias: el remordimiento de conciencia y la enfermedad. Y la felicidad es sólamente la ausencia de estos dos males.

The aim of civilization is to enable us to get enjoyment out of everything.

One must try to make one's life as pleasant as possible. I'm alive and it's not my fault, which means I must somehow go on living the best I can, without bothering anybody, until I die.' 'But what makes you live? With such thoughts, you'll sit without moving, without undertaking anything...' 'Life won't leave one alone as it is.

I assure you that I sleep anywhere, and always like a dormouse.

No matter when, at whatever moment, if she were asked what she was thinking about she could reply quite correctly - one thing, her happiness and her unhappiness.

Why do I thrash about, why do I fuss inside this narrow, limited frame, when life, the whole of life, with all its joys, is open to me?

It showed him the mistake men make in picturing to themselves happiness as the realization of their desires.

Vronsky meanwhile, despite the full realization of what he had desired for so long, was not fully happy. He soon felt that the realization of his desire had given him only a grain of the mountain of happiness he had expected. It showed him the eternal error people make in imagining that happiness is in the realization of desires.

One might murder and steal and yet be happy

No, you're not going to get away from us, and you're not going to be different, you're going to be the same as you've always been; with doubts, ever lasting dissatisfaction with yourself, vain efforts to improve, and failures, and continual expectations of happiness that has eluded you and that isn't possible for you.

He felt that in the depth of his soul something had been put in its place, settled down, and laid to rest.

If you look for perfection, you will never be satisfied.

He was fond of angling, and seemed proud of being able to like such a stupid occupation.

I have hundreds of roubles that I don't know what to do with, and she stands there in a tattered coat and looks at me timidly," thought Pierre. "And what does she need money for? As id this money can add one hair's breadth to her happiness, her peace of mind? Can anything in the world make her or me less subject to evil and death? Death, which will end everything and which must come today or tomorrow - in a moment, anyhow, compared with eternity.