Quotes about Contentment

I'm the type of person, you see, who rushes ahead, who often just goes through the motions of any current activity on my way to the next one. My heart and my body haven't always been good about sharing the same space. Instead of relishing each moment, each year, each opportunity, each step on the journey, I'm constantly overeager to get to the next thing, which always looks more enticing that what's currently before me. I'm rarely satisfied in full with

The happiest pillow on which you may rest your head is the knowledge of God's will. I cannot imagine a more miserable situation than consciously to be out of God's will.

That in the midst of heartache so deep it was a physical pain, she was finding a deeper joy and contentment in life than she'd ever known.

One cannot be a good person without gratitude, and one cannot be a happy person without gratitude. This provides a vital link between goodness and happiness.

The only happy people I know are people I don't know well.

In all my studies of happiness, one of the most significant conclusions I have drawn is that there is little correlation between the circumstances of people's lives and how happy they are. A moment's reflection should make this obvious to anyone. We know people who have a relatively easy life and who are essentially unhappy, and we know people who have suffered a great deal but maintained a relatively high level of happiness.

The happiness that the psychologically impaired achieve through religion alone is often the shallow happiness of the unexamined life.

Expectations Undermine Gratitude, the Key to Happiness

Many people seem to want this epitaph: "I led as painless a life as possible." But the purpose of life is not to avoid pain. That is the purpose of an animal's life—but animals cannot know happiness.

A poor man who can make himself satisfied with his portion will be happier than a wealthy man who does not allow himself to be satisfied with his portion

Given my view that tragedy is normal, I try to be happy unless something happens that makes me unhappy, rather than unhappy unless something makes me happy. Most people go through life waiting for something wonderful to happen to make them happy. My attitude is so long as nothing terrible is happening to us, we ought to be happy.

A life filled with tension can be a deeply happy one. A life filled with aggravation or stress cannot.