#contentment

Surely there is something in the unruffled calm of nature that overawes our little anxieties and doubts; the sight of the deep-blue sky and the clustering stars above seems to impart a quiet to the mind. ↗

— Jonathan Edwards

#nature #nature

Look well into thyself; there is a source of strength which will always spring up if thou wilt always look. ↗

— Marcus Aurelius

#self-confidence #self-contentment #spring

he who is greedy is always in want ↗

— Horace

#greed #satisfaction #wisdom #satisfaction

For the briefest moment, they came face to face. Their eyes locked. Then he broke the stare, swiveled, sank into a sitting position, chains clanking, with his knees up. She watched him speechlessly as he set a cooler bag between his boots, like he was settling down to a picnic or something. An image of the contents as hospital blood bags, complete with juice straws, flashed through her mind. Unfolding her legs, she made herself as comfortable as she could on the cold outer edge of the sill. An intangible and unnameable charge electrified the space between them, and at first, neither of them said anything. [...] Finally she heard him unzip the bag and watched him pull out a small cylinder. "I thought you might like some crappy ice cream," he said. ↗

— Kelly Creagh

#roof-picnic #varen #contentment

Though I was having a blissful moment of being happy and content, I had one of those stray ideas you get at odd moments. I thought,How nice it would be if Eric were here with me in the car. He'd look so good with the wind blowing his hair, and he'd enjoy the moment . Well, yeah, before he burned to a crisp. But I realized I'd thought of Eric because it was the kind of day you wanted to share with the person you cared about, the person whose company you enjoyed the most. And that would be Eric as he'd been while he was cursed by a witch: the Eric who hadn't been hardened by centuries of vampire politics, the Eric who had no contempt for humans and their affairs, the Eric who was not in charge of many financial enterprises and responsible for the lives and incomes of quite a few humans and vampires. In other words, Eric as he would never be again. ↗

— Charlaine Harris

#eric-northman #sookie-stackhouse #true-blood #contentment

I was especially perceptive to all things beautiful that morning—raspberries in blue china bowls were enough to make the heart sing. ↗

— Irene Hunt

#contentment #happiness #little-things #beauty

Happiness, contentment, the health and growth of the soul, depend, as men have proved over and over again, upon some simple issue, some single turning of the soul. ↗

— George A. Smith

#again #contentment #depend #growth #happiness

Alas! if the principles of contentment are not within us, the height of station and worldly grandeur will as soon add a cubit to a man's stature as to his happiness. ↗

— Laurence Sterne

#alas #contentment #grandeur #happiness #height

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

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