#contentment

True humility is contentment. ↗

— Henri Frederic Amiel

#humility #true

True contentment is a thing as active as agriculture. It is the power of getting out of any situation all that there is in it. It is arduous and it is rare. ↗

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

#agriculture #any #arduous #contentment #getting

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. ↗

— Chanakya

#balanced #contentment #covetousness #disease #equal

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. ↗

— Gustave Flaubert

#contentment #static #dreams

One often learns more from ten days of agony than from ten years of contentment. ↗

— Harold Coffin

#contentment #days #learns #more #often

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. ↗

— Leo Tolstoy

#conduct-of-life #contentment #country #happiness #life

Good humor is a tonic for mind and body. It is the best antidote for anxiety and depression. It is a business asset. It attracts and keeps friends. It lightens human burdens. It is the direct route to serenity and contentment. ↗

— Grenville Kleiser

#anxiety #asset #attracts #best #body

As to that leisure evening of life, I must say that I do not want it. I can conceive of no contentment of which toil is not to be the immediate parent. ↗

— Anthony Trollope

#contentment #evening #i #i can #i do

We may pass violets looking for roses. We may pass contentment looking for victory. ↗

— Bern Williams

#looking #may #pass #roses #victory

(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. ↗

— Brenda Ueland

#creativity #effort #freedom #glory #happiness