Quotes About Contentment

Everywhere I have sought rest and not found it, except sitting in a corner by myself with a book.

To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich; to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with open heart; to study hard ; to think quietly, act frankly, talk gently, await occasions, hurry never; in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common—this is my symphony.

To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich; to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with open heart; to study hard ; to think quietly, act frankly, talk gently, await occasions, hurry never; in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common—this is my symphony. William Henry Channing, clergyman, reformer, 1810-1884

Knitting, he thought, was a comfort to the soul.

If you yield it up, God will make it enough

Men ate the bread of angels," was how the psalmist described it. That appeared, somehow, to illustrate his marriage. Every day, with what seemed to be no effort at all on his part, he received God's extraordinary provision of contentment—there it was, waiting for him at every dawn; all he had to do was gather it in.

He had laughed today; he had been happy. He didn't know why he had not counted more sunny hours in his life, but he hadn't. God had clearly asked him to, but he was intent on having his own nature, and his own nature could be inward, even melancholy. He didn't like it, but here it was.

There are two things to aim at in life,' " he quoted from Logan Pearsall Smith. " 'First, to get what you want, and after that, to enjoy it.

I believe if I were charged with having a goal, it would be to live without fretting—to live more fully in the moment not always huffing about as I've done in recent years . . . to live humbly—and appreciatively—with whatever God furnishes.

What God has given us," Taylor had written, "is all we need; we require nothing more. It is not a question of large supplies—it is a question of the presence of the Lord.

She was thinking about the future too, though most times it appeared in her mind as a complete blank. 'That's the way the future should appear,' Olivia once said. 'We're asked not to fret about the future and to take no thought for tomorrow. We must try to live in the present or we shall miss it entirely.' Living in the present was exactly what she'd been trying to do.

Only he who gives thanks for little things receives the big things.

If his wife was happy and his boy was happy, he was happy.

Thomas à Kempis: "Everywhere I have sought rest and not found it, except sitting in a corner by myself with a book.

Sometimes you have to gag on fancy before you can appreciate plain, th' way I see it.

We think we dare not be satisfied with the small measure of spiritual knowledge, experience and love that has been given to us, and that we must constantly be looking forward eagerly for the highest good.' 

Then he turned and went home to the yellow house where he had been given everything and more, none of it especially deserved.

Love is an actual need, an urgent requirement of the heart," he read aloud from an old essay on marriage that he found in his files. "Every properly constituted human being who entertains an appreciation of loneliness...and looks forward to happiness and content feels the necessity of loving. Without it, life is unfinished...

One of the prizes of old age is its release from competition.

The ultimate resolution to the search for happiness is spiritual.

Not that she didn't enjoy the holidays: but she always felt—and it was, perhaps, the measure of her peculiar happiness—a little relieved when they were over. Her normal life pleased her so well that she was half afraid to step out of its frame in case one day she should find herself unable to get back.

She had no idea how long these moments of pure unadulterated glee would last, but she was going to enjoy the hell out of it as long as she could.

enough alone. So, what's this text that got you all

Jane Austen] knew that it was better to remain a spinster, with a limited income and no permanent home, than to marry without the deepest emotional attachment.