#contentment

It occurred to me that the voracious ambition of humans is never sated by dreams coming true, because the is always the thought that everything might be done better and again ↗

— John Green

#dreams #fault #fulfillment #hazel-grace-lancaster #in

...ambition or contentment? This simple question led me back to a more balanced view of life and put me in touch with the Me I used to know... ↗

— John Geddes

#balanced-life #contentment #self #life

That same night, I wrote my first short story. It took me thirty minutes. It was a dark little tale about a man who found a magic cup and learned that if he wept into the cup, his tears turned into pearls. But even though he had always been poor, he was a happy man and rarely shed a tear. So he found ways to make himself sad so that his tears could make him rich. As the pearls piled up, so did his greed grow. The story ended with the man sitting on a mountain of pearls, knife in hand, weeping helplessly into the cup with his beloved wife's slain body in his arms. ↗

— Khaled Hosseini

#cring #fables #greed #poverty #sorrow

Because one believes in oneself, one doesn't try to convince others. Because one is content with oneself, one doesn't need others' approval. Because one accepts oneself, the whole world accepts him or her. ↗

— Lao Tzu

#contentment #perception #self-acceptance #self-assurance #self-confidence

[M]ost people go through life a wee bit disappointed in themselves. I think we all keep a memory of a moment when we missed someone or something, when we could have gone down another path, a happier or better or just a different path. Just because they're in the past doesn't mean you can't treasure the possibilities ... maybe we put down a marker for another time. And now's the time. Now we can do whatever we want to do. ↗

— James Robertson

#contentment #delayed-opportunities #disappointment #fulfillment #life

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.) ↗

— Richelle E. Goodrich

#happiness #life #misery #resolve #richelle

Real poverty is when hunger pangs force from my mind all thoughts but those of food. Real poverty is when the children are not dressed warmly enough for winter. Real poverty is when the housing we can afford is not adequate to the needs of our families. On the other hand, real poverty is - equally - when I have eaten so much that I am uncomfortable, and again, my thoughts center on food. Or when I have so many clothes that I have to spend a lot of mental energy making choices among them or finding ways to store them. Or when, regardless of my living conditions, I am discontent and brooding about how to have more. Real poverty is when material things are uppermost and pressing - whether because we have too few or too many of them. It is poverty, because the human mind and spirit are made for higher things, worthier pursuits. ↗

— Maxine Hancock

#poverty #prosperity #wealth #equality

I love everything that makes up a milieu, the rolling of the carriages and the noise of the workmen in Paris, the cries of a thousand birds in the country, the movement of the ships on the waters. I love also absolute, profound silence, and, in short, I love everything that is around me, no matter where I am. ↗

— George Sand

#felicity #happiness #joy #life #lightheartedness

You have to open up to the world and learn optimism...Contentment with the past, happiness with the present, and hope for the future. Learned optimisim. ↗

— Jennifer Crusie

#optimism #positive-thinking #optimism

A book of verses underneath the bough A flask of wine, a loaf of bread and thou Beside me singing in the wilderness And wilderness is paradise now. ↗

— Omar Khayyám

#love #paradise #poetry #love