#contentment

Be like the flower, content with its nature. ↗

— Seth D.

#contentment #desire #happiness #identity #living

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

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

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

Whatever we are waiting for - peace of mind, contentment, grace, the inner awareness of simple abundance - it will surely come to us, but only when we are ready to receive it with an open and grateful heart. ↗

— Sarah Ban Breathnach

#awareness #come #contentment #grace #grateful

When you are discontent, you always want more, more, more. Your desire can never be satisfied. But when you practice contentment, you can say to yourself, 'Oh yes - I already have everything that I really need.' ↗

— Dalai Lama

#always #contentment #desire #discontent #everything

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

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