Quotes About Contentment

Age has given me the gift of me, it just gave me what I was always longing for, which was to get to be the woman I've already dreamt of being. Which is somebody who can do rest and do hard work and be a really constant companion, a constant tender-hearted wife to myself.

I kept my expectations low, which is one of the secrets of life.

What you're looking for is already inside you..You can't buy it, lease it, rent it, date it, or apply for it. The best job in the world can't give it to you. Neither can success, or fame, or financial security.

The world can't give that serenity, he said. The world can't give us peace. We can only find it in our hearts. I hate that, I said. I know. But the good news is that by the same token, the world can't take it away.

Gratitude is peace.

But in surrender you have won.

Late Fragment And did you get what you wanted from this life even so? I did. And what did you want? To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth. RAYMOND CARVER

had to learn to be present without paying quite so much attention to my poor old overamped mind, because this was the source of most of my unhappiness. And it still is. The

It's all here, everything we seek and need, inside us.

I have actually come to believe that a person being herself is beautiful - that contentment and acceptance and freedom are beautiful.

even though you know that your manuscript is not perfect and you'd hoped for so much more, but if you also know that there is simply no more steam in the pressure cooker and that it's the very best you can do for now—well? I think this means that you are done.

My elderly priest friend Terry says, "Don't try harder—resist less.

I desperately want to stop minding so much about other people, life, and myself. Krishnamurti, the great Indian teacher, when asked what was the secret to his serenity, said in his soft, shy voice, "I don't mind what happens." This is so not me—I mind his having even said this.

And did you get what you wanted from this life even so? I did. And what did you want? To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth.

that a good marriage is one in which each spouse secretly thinks he or she got the better deal

Die happy-I will, F'nor cried, cutting more fruit.

To ask how little, not how much, can I get along with. To say—is it necessary?—when I am tempted to add one more accumulation to my life, when I am pulled toward one more centrifugal activity.

I begin to shed my Martha-like anxiety about many things. Washable slipcovers, faded and old—I hardly see them; I don't worry about the impression they make on other people. I am shedding pride.

Clothes, first. Of course, one needs less in the sun. But one needs less anyway, one finds suddenly. One does not need a closet-full, only a small suitcase-full.

But I want first of all—in fact, as an end to these other desires—to be at peace with myself

One learns first of all in beach living the art of sheding;how little one can get along with, not how much....To say-is it necessary?-when I am tempted to add one more accumulation to my life, when I am pulled toward one more centrifugal activity. One is free, like the hermit crab, to change one's shell.

The acquisitive instinct is incompatible with true appreciation of beauty.

One cannot collect all the beautiful shells on the beach. One can only collect a few, and they are more beautiful if they are few.

I mean to live a simple life, to choose a simple shell I can carry easily - like a hermit crab.