A lonely impulse of delight

I don’t need to go to heaven or hell. I have been both places and always wanted more. I will settle for somewhere in between, so eternity never becomes dull and every miracle is something I never take for granted.

Hope combined with action is the only thing that will bring you contentment.

She had learned the lesson of renunciation and was as familiar with the wreck of each day’s wishes as with the diurnal setting of the sun.

She seemed to be occupied with of inner chamber of ideas and to have slight need for visible objects.

As impossible as this may seem (in infertility), try to reach outside of yourself and realize all of the things that you are able to do for now because you do not have children. There are seasons in life, and for now yours is an unfettered one. Allow God to use you in the present....

…you play the instrument you have.

Be like the flower, content with its nature.

The true antidote to greed is contentment. If you have a strong sense of contentment, it doesn’t matter whether you obtain the object of your desire or not. Either way, you are still content.

There was a man with tongue of woodWho essayed to sing,And in truth it was lamentable.But there was one who heardThe clip-clapper of this tongue of woodAnd knew what the manWished to sing,And with that the singer was content.

Recently I keep thinking that this isn’t about the survival of a species. It’s about why we’re never satisfied with what we need, why we always take a bit more.

I have learned that to be with those I like is enough

This book is not the memoir of a contented man. It’s not the poignant reflections of a white-haired guru who has finally figured out the secret to contentment. It’s more like sweaty, bloody, hastily scribbled notes from a battlefield. I’m still struggling to escape the sinister fingers on this conspiracy. I’m still waging war against...

There are still blue skies and rainbows and days bathed in sunlight. There are colorful shade trees filled with sweet bird songs. And there are wishing stars in the heavens as well as angels in God’s service. So lift up your eyes. Refuse to be unhappy.

My modus operandi is that I’ll be content with anything, as long as I know that it’s the best that’s possible.

Well, ‘we’ are certainly happy to hear that. Oh, and I’m also happy to watch our darling little love child dragon while you’re in St. Louis.”I grinned back.

Sometimes in life there’s no problem and sometimes there solution. Within this space – between these apparent poles – life flows.

Just resign yourself to the fact that you’re going to be miserable so you can finally be happy. (It’s a sound theory if you think about it hard enough.)

The moment that you give gratitude is the moment that you find happiness. The moment that you lose gratitude your happiness will vanish and slip through your fingers

Live near to God, and so all things will appear to you little In comparison to eternal realities.–

Dreams aren’t only an illusion to put you into a subconsciously pleasurable state of mind for the time being, but also a pathway to gain complete contentment.

She did not find these riches (of fulfillment). They were a gift from God.

If I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than my own back yard. Because if it isn’t there, I never really lost it to begin with.

You do not have to have the best of everything to make the best of everything.

I have found contentment and joy in being exactly where God wants me to be, and that is what makes me happy.

..there are times when it is best to be content with what one has, so as not to lose everything.

Gracious Providence, to whom I owe all my powers, why didst thou not withhold some of those blessings I possess, and substitute in their place a feeling of self-confidence and contentment?

It was one of those happy days that God grants us sometimes on earth to give us an idea of the bliss of heaven.

The secret of contentment is never to allow yourself to want anything which reason tells you you haven’t a chance of getting.

We need much less than we think we need.

[F]or just one second, look at your life and see how perfect it is. Stop looking for the next secret door that is going to lead you to your real life. Stop waiting. This is it: there’s nothing else. It’s here, and you’d better decide to enjoy it or you’re going to be miserable wherever...

She had the experience to suffer with discretion.

The tourists always seem to want something. On Thisby, it’s less about wanting, and more about being.” I wonder after I say it if he’ll think I sound like have no drive or ambition.

Inner contentment liberates the soul

If you are not content today, there is nothing you can buy tomorrow to change that.

better times” it sets us free from the illusion that somehow things should be different.

Give me a bottle of hard cider, a bowl of Peterson Irish Oak in my Neerup pipe, and please, above all, give my Henry David Thoreau’s Wild Apples. Do that and you will see a man contented.

It’s a gift of tranquility when your adult desires mesh with your childhood background. I don’t quite know why mine didn’t, although I think books, again, are partly to blame.

I couldn’t ignore the fact that it felt good. So. Very. Good. To be held, in bed, in the arms of a tall, strong, handsome man.

With a philosophy education, one can infuriate his peers, intimidate his date, think of obscure, unreliable ways to make money, and never regret a thing.

The key to contentment was to never ask why; she had learned that long ago.

The world is full of people looking for spectacular happiness while they snub contentment.

Ari smiled. The sun was shining, the weather was great, he was eating ice cream, and all his dreams were about to come true.

why”—so as to leave nothing more. To speak, or think, of these many questions is to sound like I’m whining. But I am whining, about why….

‎I’m in a win-win playoff. ” Response of a Christian dying of cancer at thirty on the prospect of miraculous healing.

The Yogic path is about disentangling the built-in glitches of the human condition, which I’m going to over-simply define here as the heartbreaking inability to sustain contentment. Different schools of thought over the centuries have found different explanation for man’s apparently inherently flawed state. Taoists call it imbalance, Buddism calls it ignorance, Islam blames our...

Rosa had achieved the sort of serene and confident happiness that Tamsin had never really known. She was connected to Roberto in a way that made Tamsin long for something similar. A man with whom she could share all parts of her life, someone to be her equal and her inspiration.

Contentment should not be confused with smugness… Contentment is being happy despite of the successes and failures.

Reality. It is sometimes brought through foreign eyes; because if you do not know any better, you cannot see the worse. And vice versa.

If consumers found fulfillment at any meaningful level, she extemporized, corpocracy would be finished.