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Read through the most famous quotes by topic #contentment
There is no austerity equal to a balanced mind, and there is no happiness equal to contentment; there is no disease like covetousness, and no virtue like mercy. ↗
Charles' conversation was as flat as a street pavement, on which everybody's ideas trudged past, in their workday dress, provoking no emotion, no laughter, no dreams. At Rouen, he said, he had never had any desire to go and see a Paris company at the theatre. He couldn't swim, or fence, or fire a pistol, and was unable to explain a riding term she came across in a novel one day. Wheras a man, surely, should know about everything; excel in a multitude of activities, introduce you to passion in all its force, to life in all its grace, initiate you in all mysteries! But this one had nothing to teach; knew nothing, wanted nothing. He thought she was unhappy; and she hated him for that placid immobility, that stolid serenity of his, for that very happiness which she herself brought him. ↗
A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one's neighbor — such is my idea of happiness. ↗
(about William Blake) As for Blake's happiness--a man who knew him said: "If asked whether I ever knew among the intellectual, a happy man, Blake would be the only one who would immediately occur to me." And yet this creative power in Blake did not come from ambition. ...He burned most of his own work. Because he said, "I should be sorry if I had any earthly fame, for whatever natural glory a man has is so much detracted from his spiritual glory. I wish to do nothing for profit. I wish to live for art. I want nothing whatever. I am quite happy." ...He did not mind death in the least. He said that to him it was just like going into another room. On the day of his death he composed songs to his Maker and sang them for his wife to hear. Just before he died his countenance became fair, his eyes brightened and he burst into singing of the things he saw in heaven. ↗
When service is unto people, the bones can grow weary, the frustration deep. Because, agrees Dorothy Sayers, "whenever man is made the center of things, he becomes the storm-center of trouble. The moment you think of serving people, you begin to have a notion that other people owe you something for your pains...You will begin to bargain for reward, to angle for applause... When the eyes of the heart focus on God, and the hands on always washing the feet of Jesus alone - the bones, they sing joy and the work returns to it's purest state: eucharisteo. The work becomes worship, a liturgy of thankfulness. "The work we do is only our love for Jesus in action" writes Mother Theresa. "If we pray the work...if we do it to Jesus, if we do it for Jesus, if we do it with Jesus... that's what makes us content." Deep joy is always in the touching of Christ - in whatever skin He comes to us in. Page 194 ↗
It's only when we truly know and understand that we have a limited time on earth---and that we have no way of knowing when our time is up---that we will begin to live each day to the fullest, as if it was the only one we had. ↗
