#contentment

I find it very difficult just to sit. I would love to learn how to do that with contentment. ↗

— Hume Cronyn

#difficult #find #how #i #just

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

— Doug Larson

#full #happiness #looking #people #spectacular

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

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

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

[F]rom my years of understanding ... I happily chose this kind of life in which I yet live [i.e., unmarried], which I assure you for my own part hath hitherto best contented myself and I trust hath been most acceptable to God. From the which if either ambition of high estate offered to me in marriage by the pleasure and appointment of my prince ... or if the eschewing of the danger of my enemies or the avoiding of the peril of death ... could have drawn or dissuaded me from this kind of life, I had not now remained in this estate wherein you see me. But so constant have I always continued in this determination ... yet is it most true that at this day I stand free from any other meaning that either I have had in times past or have at this present. ↗

— Elizabeth I Tudor

#choice #contentment #dignity #empowerment #freedom

London is satisfied, Paris is resigned, but New York is always hopeful. Always it believes that something good is about to come off, and it must hurry to meet it. ↗

— Dorothy Parker

#home #hometown #new-york-city #new-yorker #optimism

If God gave you contentment then you would never pursue your life purpose. It is your restlessness that pushes you to take action, change your life and seek more of what you could possibly be. ↗

— Shannon L. Alder

#misery #needs #change

I only seem negative to the fortunate. That's because I show the less fortunate that they aren't less fortunate after all. ↗

— Criss Jami

#fortunate #fortune #happiness #inspirational #negativity