Quotes About Contentment

She had not made a lot of money, but she had not made a loss, and she had been happy and entertained. That counted for infinitely more than a vigorously healthy balance sheet. In fact, she thought, annual accounts should include an item specifically headed Happiness, alongside expenses and receipts and the like.

How many of us are happy to be exactly where we are at any moment?...only the completely happy think that they are in the correct place.

Mma Ramotsew accepted her large slice of cake and looked at the rich fruit within it. There were at least seven hundred calories in that, she thought, but it did not matter; she was a traditionally built lady and she did not have to worry about such things.

The danger, of course, is that we spend time imagining that we would be happier elsewhere, and forget to cultivate happiness where fate has placed us.

a drive in the country, an expedition to a shoe shop a quiet cup of tea under a cloudless sky; each of us had something that made it easier to continue in a world that sometimes, just sometimes, was not as we might wish it to be.

Well, that's the important thing, isn't it, Mma? To feel happiness, and then to remember it.

I told him that if a man is born in a dry place, then although he may dream of rain, he does not want too much, and that he will not mind the sun that beats down and down.

Perhaps if you don't know there's a gap, you don't worry about it. If you were a millipede, a tshongololo , crawling along the ground would you look at the birds and worry about not having wings? Probably not.

What does it matter, she thought, if businesses are left unattended, if people are not always as we want them to be; we need the time just to be human, to enjoy something like this: a boy chasing ants, a dry land drinking at last, birds in the the sky, a rainbow.

Dear friends, he began, there is no timetable for happiness; it moves, I think, according to rules of its own. When I was a boy I thought I'd be happy tomorrow, as a young man I thought it would be next week; last month I thought it would be never. Today, I know it is now.

They talked about the sorts of things they liked to talk about when there were no important decisions to be made and when the conversation could wander comfortably along uncluttered shores.

I am just saying that we have to have some things that we like, otherwise we shall be very unhappy. And if you are very unhappy you can die – we all know that.

each of us needed to find just the right way to take our mind off our problems, and it did not matter what that was--a drive in the country, an expedition to a shoe shop, a quiet cup of tea under a cloudless sky; each of us had something that made it easier to continue in a world that sometimes, just sometimes, was not as we might wish it to be.

How many of us are happy to be exactly where we are at any moment?

I'd like to be tidy, said Hen, I try, but I guess you can't be what you aren't.

Simple questions--and simple answers--were what we needed in life. That was what Mma Ramotswe believed. Yes.

I cannot see myself in a new car. I am a tiny white van person. That is what i want!

The sun went, and it was dark. He sat beside her in the comfortable darkness and they listened, contentedly, to the sounds of Africa settling down for the night. A dog barked somewhere; a car engine raced and then died away; there was a touch of wind, warm dusty wind, redolent of thorn trees.

Perhaps one day she would find a place where she would stay. That would be good. To know that the place you were in was your own place—where you should be.

But we are all fortunate in one way or another. The task for most of us is to identify in what way that is, would you not agree?

Cat was searching for the company of one who would make her happy. Some of us did not have to look long for that person, some of us found him or her with little difficulty; others had longer to look, and had less luck.

Such men knew their worth, but did not flaunt it. Such men could look anybody in the eye without flinching; even a poor man, a man with nothing, could stand upright in the presence of those who had wealth or power. People did not know, Mma Ramotswe felt, just how much we had in those days—those days when we seemed to have so little, we had so much. She

Do not complain about your life. Do not blame others for things that you have brought upon yourself. Be content with who you are and where you are, and do whatever you can do to bring to others such contentment, and joy, and understanding that you have managed to find yourself.

What else do you need in life, Mma? You have a fine husband—which is one of the most important things that anybody can have.