Quotes About Contentment

Sitting there in the Alabama winter with my mouth full of cold turnip and mud, I could see at least for a moment how if you ever took truly to heart the ultimate goodness and joy of things, even at their bleakest, the need to praise someone or something for it would be so great that you might even have to go out and speak of it to the birds of the air.

We're all, by and large, comparatively speaking, rich people and have perhaps more than one home. And yet the question is, are we really at home anywhere? Are we really at home in any of our homes? Because it seems to me that to be at home somewhere means to be at peace somewhere and I have a feeling at some deep level there can really be no peace for any of us, no real home for any of us, until there is some measure of real peace for everybody until everybody has a home.

When I went into their family, it was the abode of happiness and contentment. The mistress of the house was a model of affection and tenderness. Her fervent piety and watchful uprightness made it impossible to see her without thinking and feeling—that woman is a Christian.

I have found that, to make a contented slave," writes Douglass "it is necessary to make a thoughtless one…He must be able to detect no inconsistencies in slavery; he must be made to feel that slavery is right; and he can be brought to that only when he ceases to be a man.

I have often been utterly astonished, since I came to the north, to find persons who could speak of the singing, among slaves, as evidence of their contentment and happiness. It is impossible to conceive of a greater mistake. Slaves sing most when they are most unhappy. The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart; and he is relieved by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears.

I have often been utterly astonished, since I came to the north, to find persons who could speak of the singing, among slaves, as evidence of their contentment and happiness. It is impossible to conceive of a greater mistake. Slaves sing most when they are most unhappy. The songs of the slave represent the sorrow of his heart; and he is relieved by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears. At least, such is my experience.

The singing of a man cast away upon a desolate island might be as appropriately considered as evidence of contentment and happiness, as the singing of a slave; the songs of the one and of the other are prompted by the same emotion.

have often been totally astonished, due to the fact I got here to the north, to find folks who may want to talk of the making a song, among slaves, as proof of their contentment and happiness. It is not possible to conceive of a extra mistake. Slaves sing most while they're most unhappy. The songs of the slave constitute the sorrows of his coronary heart;

Amor Fati – "Love Your Fate", which is in fact your life.

He who possesseth little is so much the less possessed. Blessed be moderate poverty!

Why are we not satisfied when life mirrors itself peacefully in a deep lake? …How seldom do we now meet a person who can keep living so peacefully and cheerfully with himself even amidst the turmoil, saying to himself like Goethe: 'The best is the deep quiet in which I live and grow against the world, and harvest what they cannot take from me by fire or sword.

One who cannot leave himself behind on the threshold of the moment and forget the past, who cannot stand on a single point, like a goddess of victory, without fear or giddiness, will never know what happiness is; and, worse still, will never do anything that makes others happy.

Happiness: being able to forget or, to express in a more learned fashion.

Business people - Your business - is your greatest prejudice: it ties you to your locality, to the company you keep, to the inclinations you feel. Diligent in business - but indolent in spirit, content with your inadequacy, and with the cloak of duty hung over this contentment: that is how you live, that is how you want your children to live!

Still am I the richest and most to be envied - I, the lonesomest one!

One must learn to love oneself- thus do I teach- with a wholesome and healthy love: that one may endure to be with oneself, and not go roving about.

So bless me then, you tranquil eye that can behold even the greatest happiness without envy!

Precisely the least thing, the gentlest, lightest, the rustling of a lizard, a breath, a moment, a twinkling of the eye - little makes up the quality of the best happiness. Soft!

To 'want' something, to 'strive' after something to have an 'aim' or a 'wish' in my mind — I know none of this from experience. Even at this moment I look out upon my future — a distant future! as upon a calm sea: no sigh of longing makes a ripple on its surface. I have not the slightest wish that anything should be otherwise than it is: I do not want myself different than I am. But in this matter I have always been the same. I have never had a desire.

And again, there are those who sit in their swamp and speak thus from the rushes: 'Virtue - that means to sit quietly in the swamp. We bite nobody and avoid him who wants to bite: and in everything we hold the opinion that is given us.

is the most pleasant feeling in those who have not much pride, and have no prospect of great conquests:

Poor. — Today he is poor, not because they have taken everything away from him but because he has thrown everything away. What is that to him? He is used to finding things. It is the poor who misunderstand his voluntary poverty.

Diese räucherigen, stubenwarmen, verbrauchten, vergrünten, vergrämelten Seelen - wie könnte ihr Neid mein Glück ertragen!

My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it — all idealism is mendaciousness in the face of what is necessary — but love it.