The Christian is the most contented man in the world, but he is the least contented with the world.

The man never feels the want of what it never occurs to him to ask for.

I do not understand what the man who is happy wants in order to be happier.

Others may know pleasure, but pleasure is not happiness. It has no more importance than a shadow following a man.

No man's body is as strong as his appetites, but Heaven has corrected the boundlessness of his voluptuous desires by stinting his strength and contracting his capacities.

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.

If any be unhappy, let him remember that he is unhappy by reason of himself alone. For God hath made all men to enjoy felicity and constancy of good.

The reflections on a day well spent furnish us with joys more pleasing than ten thousand triumphs.

5. Be ofttimes mindful of the saying,(3) The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear with hearing. Strive, therefore, to turn away thy heart from the love of the things that are seen, and to set it upon the things that are not seen. For they who follow after their own fleshly lusts, defile the conscience, and destroy the grace of God.

Rest from inordinate desire or knowledge, for therein is found much distraction and deceit.

Observe this simple counsel of perfection: Forsake all, and you shall find all. Renounce desire, and you shall find peace. Give this due thought, and when you have put it into practice, you will understand all things.

He who hath true and perfect charity, in no wise seeketh his own good, but desireth that God alone be altogether glorified. He envieth none, because he longeth for no selfish joy; nor doth he desire to rejoice in himself, but longeth to be blessed in God as the highest good.