#contentment

"The greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances."

"Be thankful for what you have; you'll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will never, ever have enough"

"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."

"The ultimate story of success: When a nobody, who has never once in his entire life known the feeling of being remembered or respected, suddenly snaps and becomes a world dictator. On one hand it sounds just, but on the other, it illustrates the reason why a prosperity message has and needs its limitations."

"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."

"With a philosophy education, one can infuriate his peers, intimidate his date, think of obscure, unreliable ways to make money, and never regret a thing."

"I only seem negative to the fortunate. That's because I show the less fortunate that they aren't less fortunate after all."

"Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life."

"Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get."

"Happiness is not a goal...it's a by-product of a life well lived."

"The midsummer sun shines but dim, The fields strive in vain to look gay; But when I am happy in Him December's as pleasant as May."

"Animals do it largely for the REPRODUCTION, but so-called Social Animals (People) do it regularly thinking that it will give them SATISFACTION."

"Inventory:"Four be the things I am wiser to know:Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe.Four be the things I'd been better without:Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt.Three be the things I shall never attain:Envy, content, and sufficient champagne.Three be the things I shall have till I die:Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye."

"Many people lose the small joys in the hope for the big happiness."

"he who is greedy is always in want"

"You don't have to be part of a couple to be happy, you know."

"In a person's lifetime there may be not more than half a dozen occasions that he can look back to in the certain knowledge that right then, at that moment, there was room for nothing but happiness in his heart."

"Learn from yesterday, live for today, look to tomorrow, rest this afternoon."

"I think instead [of happiness] we should be working for contentment... an inner sense of fulfillment that's relatively independent of external circumstances."

"Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants."