#contentment

Do you dislike your role in the story, your place in the shadow? What complaints do you have that the hobbits could not have heaved at Tolkin? You have been born into a narrative, you have been given freedom. Act, and act well until you reach your final scene. ↗

— N. D. Wilson

#inspirational #life #tolkien #freedom

She had had her momentary flowering, a year, perhaps, of wildrose beauty, and then she had suddenly swollen like a fertilized fruit and grown hard and red and coarse, and then her life had been laundering, scrubbing, laundering, first for children, then for grandchildren, over thirty years. At the end of it she was still singing. ↗

— George Orwell

#joy #motherhood #singing #beauty

Health is the greatest possession. Contentment is the greatest treasure. Confidence is the greatest friend. Non-being is the greatest joy. ↗

— Lao Tzu

#confidence #contentment #friend #greatest #health

I am sensible of the velocity of the moments, and entering that part of my head alert to the motion of the world I am aware that life was never perfect, never absolute. This bestows contentment, even a fearlessness. ↗

— Harold Brodkey

#alert #am #aware #bestows #contentment

A youthful mind is seldom totally free from ambition; to curb that, is the first step to contentment, since to diminish expectation is to increase enjoyment. ↗

— Frances Burney

#contentment #curb #diminish #enjoyment #expectation

There had to be something wrong with my life. I should have been born a Yugoslavian shepherd who looked up at the Big Dipper every night. ↗

— Haruki Murakami

#different-lives #discontentment #happiness #life #night

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

— Walt Whitman

#contentment #family #family

Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life. ↗

— Mark Twain

#contentment #friends #friendship #life #friendship

Contentment is, after all, simply refined indolence. ↗