Contented In Life Quotes & Sayings

Who hurts the most? In the world you have invented, who suffers the most? Chances are that it is among the characters who are in pain that you will find your main character, partly because your readers' sympathy will be drawn toward a suffering character and partly because a character in pain is a character who wants things to change. He's likely to act. Of course, a character who suffers a lot and then dies won't be a productive main character unless your story is about life after death. But your eye should be drawn toward pain. Stories about contented people are miserably dull. — Orson Scott Card

I want Thy plan, O God, for my life. May I be happy and contented whether in the homeland or on the foreign field; whether married or alone, in happiness or sorrow, health or sickness, prosperity or adversity
I want Thy plan, O God, for my life. I want it; oh, I want it. — Oswald J. Smith

But most of the time, with a contented resignation that comes normally to a man only at the end of a long and busy life, he sat before the keyboard and filled the air with his beloved Bach.
Perhaps he was deceiving himself, perhaps this was some merciful trick of the mind but now it seemed to Jan that this what he had always wished to do. His secret ambition had at last dared to emerge into the full light of consciousness.
Jan had always been a good pianist, and now he was the finest in the world. — Arthur C. Clarke

But if anyone were to conduct his life by reason He would find great riches in living a peaceful life And being contented; one is never short of a little But men want always to be powerful and famous So that their fortune rests on a solid foundation And they can spend a placid life in opulence. There isn't a hope of it; to attain great honours You have to struggle along a dangerous way And even when you reach the top there is envy Which can strike you down like lightning into Tartarus. For envy, like lightning, generally strikes at the top Or any point which sticks out from the ordinary level. — Lucretius

Knowing how contented, free, and joyful is life in the world of science, one fervently wishes that many would enter its portals. — Dmitri Mendeleev

If you ever happen to turn your attention to externals, for the pleasure of any one, be assured that you have ruined your scheme of life. Be contented, then, in everything, with being a philosopher; and if you with to seem so likewise to any one, appear so to yourself, and it will suffice you. — Epictetus

Youth is rather to be pitied than envied by people in years since it is doomed to toil through the rugged road of life which the others have passed through, in search of happiness that is not to be met with in it and that, at the highest, can be compounded for only by the blessing of a contented mind. — Samuel Richardson

I am responsible for my personal happiness. One of the characteristics of immaturity is the belief that it is someone else's job to make me happy - much as it was once my parents' job to keep me alive. If only someone would love me, then I would love myself. If only someone would take care of me, then I would be contented. If only someone would spare me the necessity of making decisions, then I would be carefree. If only someone would make me happy. Here's a simple but powerful stem to wake one up to reality: If I take full responsibility for my personal happiness - . Taking responsibility for my happiness is empowering. It places my life back in my own hands. Ahead of taking this responsibility, I may imagine it will be a burden. What I discover is that it sets me free. — Nathaniel Branden

Being deeply contented with God in my everyday life is a focused attitude. It is always available. It means practicing letting go of my obsession with how I'm doing. It means training myself to learn to actually be present with people, and seeking to love them. — John Ortberg

Reilly: The human condition ... they may remember the vision they have had, but they cease to regret it, maintain themselves by the common routine, learn to avoid excessive expectation, Become tolerant of themselves and others, Giving and taking, in the usual actions what there is to give and take. They do not repine; Are contented with the morning that separates and with the evening that brings together for casual talk before the fire. Two people who know they do not understand each other, breeding children whom they do not understand and who will never understand them.
Celia: Is that the best life?
Reilly: It is a good life. Though you will not know how good until you come to the end. But you will want nothing else, and the other life will be only like a book you have read once, and lost. In a world of lunacy, violence, stupidity, greed ... it is a good life. — T. S. Eliot

But Ashla is a perversion," he went on, "for the dark has always preceded the light. The original idea was to capture the power of the Force and make it subservient to the will of sentient life. The ancients - the Celestials, the Rakata - didn't pronounce judgment on their works. They moved planets, organized star systems, conjured dark side devices like the Star Forge as they saw fit. If millions died in the process, so be it. The lives of most beings are of small consequence. The Jedi have failed to understand this. They are so busy saving lives and striving to keep the powers of the Force in balance that they have lost sight of the fact that sentient life is meant to evolve, not simply languish in contented stasis. — James Luceno

THE ALIENS
from The Last Night Of The Earth Poems

you may not believe it
but there are people
who go through life with
very little
friction of distress.
they dress well, sleep well.
they are contented with
their family
life.
they are undisturbed
and often feel
very good.
and when they die
it is an easy death, usually in their
sleep.

you may not believe
it
but such people do
exist.

but i am not one of
them.
oh no, I am not one of them,
I am not even near
to being
one of
them.
but they
are there

and I am
here. — Charles Bukowski

Harness the imagination: Sometimes curbing her, sometimes giving her rein, for she is the whole of happiness. She sets to rights even the understanding. She sinks to tyranny, not satisfied with mere faith, but demanding works. Thus she becomes the mistress of life itself. She does so with pleasure or with pain, according to the nonsense presented. She makes people contented or discontented with themselves. By dangling before some nothing but the specter of their eternal suffering, she becomes the scourge of these fools. To others she shows nothing but fortune and romance, while merrily laughing. Of all this she is capable if not held in check by the wisest of wills. — Baltasar Gracian

The paradox that you need to comfortably inhabit, if you wish to live a contented creative life, goes something like this: "My creative expression must be the most important thing in the world to me (if I am to live artistically), and it also must not matter at all (if I am to live sanely)." Sometimes — Elizabeth Gilbert

Miss Bates ... had never boasted either beauty or cleverness. Her youth had passed without distinction, and her middle of life was devoted to the care of a failing mother, and the endeavour to make a small income go as far as possible. And yet she was a happy woman, and a woman whom no one named without good-will. It was her own universal goodwill and contented temper which worked such wonders. She loved every body, was interested in every body's happiness and quick-sighted to every body's merits; thought herself a most fortunate creature, and surrounded with blessings in such an excellent mother and so many good neighbours and friends, and a home that wanted for nothing. The simplicity and cheerfulness of her nature, her contented and grateful spirit, were a recommendation to every body and a mine of felicity to herself. — Jane Austen

My ambition for station was always easily controlled. If the place came to me it was welcome. But it never seemed to me worth seeking at the cost of self-respect, or independence. My family were not historic; they were well-to-do, did not hold or seek office. It was easy for me to be contented in private life. An honor was no honor to me, if obtained by my own seeking. — Rutherford B. Hayes

A female friend, amiable, clever, and devoted, is a possession more valuable than parks and palaces; and without such a muse, few men can succeed in life, none be contented. — Benjamin Disraeli

I keep life filled and speeded up so that I can cheat myself into believing that I am happy and contented, but oh! When night comes and I go to bed and turn out the lights, I lie there in the dark, I realize the absolute futility of trying to kid myself. — Margaret Mitchell

And when, at last, ... I stood in London with ten pounds in my hand - five of which I promptly lost - the ancestors dwelling in my blood who, all my life, had summoned me with insistent eldritch voices, murmured together, like contented cats. — P.L. Travers

For me, minimalism is about getting rid of unnecessary clutter (in all areas of life!), organizing what is left, and living in a peaceful, contented state, devoid of the extra stress that too much baggage brings to your life. — Kristen D. Smith

This book is not the memoir of a contented man. It's not the poignant reflections of a white-haired guru who has finally figured out the secret to contentment. It's more like sweaty, bloody, hastily scribbled notes from a battlefield. I'm still struggling to escape the sinister fingers on this conspiracy. I'm still waging war against the discontentment that rages in my life. I can see contentment in the distance, like a hazy oasis, but I have to pick my way through a minefield to get there. I'm not the contented man God wants me to be, but I'm fighting to get there. I'm writing this book the hope that you'll join me in the fight. — Stephen Altrogge

If you would get a contented life, do not grasp too much of the world, do not take in more of the business of the world than God calls you to. — Jeremiah Burroughs

In my experience, the more people have, the less likely they are to be contented. Indeed, there is abundant evidence that depression is a 'disease of affluence', a disorder of modern life in the industrialized world. — Andrew Weil

Those of us who know not the secret of properly regulating our own existence on this tumultuous sea of foolish troubles which we call life are constantly in a state of misery while vainly trying to appear happy and contented. We stagger in the attempt to keep our moral equilibrium, and see forerunners of the tempest in every cloud that floats on the horizon. Yet — Okakura Kakuzo

The man who is contented to be only himself, and therefore less a self, is in prison. My own eyes are not enough for me, I will see through those of others. Reality, even seen through the eyes of many, is not enough. I will see what others have invented. Even the eyes of all humanity are not enough. I regret that the brutes connot write books. Very gladly would I learn what face things present to a mouse or a bee; more gladly still would I perceive the olfactory world charged with all the information and emotion it carries for a dog. Literary experience heals the wound, without undermining the privilege, of individuality ... in reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like the night sky in the Greek poem, I see with a myriad of eyes, but it is still I who see. Here, as in worship, in love, in moral action, and in knowing, I transcend myself; and am never more myself than when I do. — C.S. Lewis

The art of life consists in taking each event which befalls us with a contented mind, confident of good ... With this method ... rejoice always, though in the midst of sorrows, and possess all things, though destitute of everything. — James Freeman Clarke

A life built upon Sabbath is contented because in rhythms of rest we discover our time is full of the holiness of God. — Shelly Miller

What is it that is most beautiful? - The Universe; for it is the work of God. What is most powerful? - Necessity; because it triumphs over all things. What is most difficult? - To know one's self. What is most easy? - To give advice. What method must we take to lead a good life? - To do nothing we would condemn in others. What is necessary to happiness? - A sound body and a contented mind. — Thales

[F]rom my years of understanding ... I happily chose this kind of life in which I yet live [i.e., unmarried], which I assure you for my own part hath hitherto best contented myself and I trust hath been most acceptable to God. From the which if either ambition of high estate offered to me in marriage by the pleasure and appointment of my prince ... or if the eschewing of the danger of my enemies or the avoiding of the peril of death ... could have drawn or dissuaded me from this kind of life, I had not now remained in this estate wherein you see me. But so constant have I always continued in this determination ... yet is it most true that at this day I stand free from any other meaning that either I have had in times past or have at this present. — Elizabeth I

The Tao asks you to clearly see the parallels between you and this naturally flowing substance that allows life to sustain itself. Live as water lives, since you are water. Become as contented as the fluid that animates and supports you. Let your thoughts and behaviors move smoothly in accordance with the nature of all things. — Wayne Dyer

I hoped at first to find a rather more direct comprehension of life in one or two novelists and poets; but if they really had such a comprehension, it must be confessed they did not show it; most of them, I thought, did not really live - contented themselves with appearing to live, and were on the verge of considering life merely as a vexatious hindrance to writing. — Andre Gide

A good education is that which prepares us for our future sphere of action and makes us contented with that situation in life in which God, in his infinite mercy, has seen fit to place us, to be perfectly resigned to our lot in life, whatever it may be. — Ann Plato

I asked the head musician if I could go onstage during the next break and he said sure. I got two laughs in twenty minutes, and walked out feeling more elated than I had ever felt in my entire life. The glory of that triumph contented me for two full years. — Emo Philips

After all, what a lot of contented, happy people there must be! What an overwhelming power that means! I look at this life and see the arrogance and the idleness of the strong, the ignorance and bestiality of the weak, the horrible poverty everywhere, overcrowding, drunkenness, hypocrisy, falsehood ... Meanwhile in all the houses, all the streets, there is peace; out of fifty thousand people who live in our town there is not one to kick against it all. — Anton Chekhov

Don't confuse your mentor with your buddies. Unlike the latter, your mentor isn't contented with where you're in life right now... — Assegid Habtewold

Nine requisites for contented living: Health enough to make work a pleasure. Wealth enough to support your needs. Strength to battle with difficulties and overcome them. Grace enough to confess your sins and forsake them. Patience enough to toil until some good is accomplished. Charity enough to see some good in your neighbor. Love enough to move you to be useful and helpful to others. Faith enough to make real the things of God. Hope enough to remove all anxious fears concerning the future. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

A buddha laughs too, but his laughter has the quality of a smile. His laughter has the feminine quality of grace. When an ignorant person laughs, his laughter is very aggressive, egoistic. The ignorant person always laughs at others. The contented person, the person who knows life a little, laughs at himself - at the whole play of life itself. It is not addressed to anybody in particular. He just laughs at the absurdity of it all ... the impossibility of it all. — Rajneesh

He said, Contented? I am the MOST discontented man in the world! Don't you know I am the wealthiest man in the world? That is my discontent. Now I know there is no more to wealth: all that is possible I have attained, and yet I am dying empty. My life has been just a wastage. Next time, if God gives me another opportunity, I am not going to try money any more - it has failed. — Rajneesh

Vronsky meanwhile, in spite of the complete fulfilment of what he had so long desired, was not completely happy. He soon felt that the realization of his longing gave him only one grain of the mountain of bliss he had anticipated. That realization showed him the eternal error men make by imagining that happiness consists in the gratification of their wishes. When first he united his life with hers and donned civilian clothes, he felt the delight of freedom in general, such as he had not before known, and also the freedom of love - he was contented then, but not for long. Soon he felt rising in his soul a desire for desires - boredom. Involuntarily he began to snatch at every passing caprice, mistaking it for a desire and a purpose. — Leo Tolstoy

The contented person finds rest in death, and for the greedy person, death puts an end to his long list of desires. — Liezi

In my own life I know that my state of cheerfulness is a reliable gauge of my level of spiritual enlightenment at that moment. The more cheerful, happy, contented, and satisfied I am feeling, the more aware I am of my deep connection to Spirit. — Wayne Dyer

In all governments accordingly, even in monarchies, the highest offices are generally possessed, and the whole detail of the administration conducted, by men who were educated in the middle and inferior ranks of life, who have been carried forward by their own industry and abilities, though loaded with the jealousy, and opposed by the resentment, of all those who were born their superiors, and to whom the great, after having regarded them first with contempt, and afterwards with envy, are at last contented to truckle with the same abject meanness with which they desire that the rest of mankind should behave to themselves. — Adam Smith

I'll think of something, he temporized, and Horace nodded wisely, satisfied that Halt would indeed think of something. In Horace's world, that was what Rangers did best, and the best thing a warrior apprentice could do was let the Ranger get on with thinking while a warrior took care of walloping anyone who needed to be walloped along the way. He settled back in the saddle, contented with his lot in life. — John Flanagan

When I was a boy, I went to war searching for glory. I didn't find it.
I came here, thinking I'd find glory if I built a ranching empire or a thriving town.
Instead I discovered that I didn't even know what glory was, not until you smiled at me for the first time with no fear in your eyes ...
A hundred years from now, everything I've worked so hard to build will be nothing more than dust blowing in the wind, but if I can spend my life loving you, I'll die a wealthy man, a contented man.
-Dallas to Dee — Lorraine Heath

In the early morning as dawn was just beginning to streak through the cabin windows, Jack was stirred awake by the soft sound of slightly off-key humming. He found Mel nestled into the crook of his arm, her breath tickling his chest. She was purring, humming, her lips moving slightly, as though singing. It might've troubled him if her expression had been sad or disturbed. But she was smiling. She snuggled closer, throwing a leg over his. And this sleepy little music, contented, drifted out of her. He could count on one hand the number of times he'd spent the entire night in bed with a woman. And already, he couldn't imagine waking up alone. He pulled her closer knowing he'd never been happier in his life. — Robyn Carr

I've married a man who owns nine cows," said Jinjur to Ozma, "and now I am happy and contented and willing to lead a quiet life and mind my own business."
"Where is your husband?" asked Ozma.
"He is in the house, nursing a black eye," replied Jinjur, calmly. "The foolish man would insist upon milking the red cow when I wanted him to milk the white one; but he will know better next time, I am sure. — L. Frank Baum

I fear I have not one good word to say this fair morning, though the sun shines so encouragingly on the distant hills and gentle river and the trees are in their festive hues. I am not festive, though contented. When obliged to give myself to the prose of life, as I am on this occasion of being established in a new home I like to do the thing, wholly and quite, - to weave my web for the day solely from the grey yarn. — Margaret Fuller

Life is all about choices. Make the right one and find your happiness. Don't waste a minute thinking of what others have, be contented with what you have. Ask God to help you achieve. He will, if you believe in Him, if you work hard, and if you do not give up on your dreams. After all, if you give up on your dreams how can you blame others who give up on you? — Cecile Rischmann

It is not your passing thoughts or brilliant ideas so much as your plain everyday habits that control your life ... Live simply. Don't get caught in the machine of the world - it is too exacting. By the time you get what you are seeking your nerves are gone, the heart is damaged, and the bones are aching. Resolve to develop your spiritual powers more earnestly from now on. Learn the art of right living. If you have joy you have everything,so learn to be glad and contented ... Have happiness now. — Paramahansa Yogananda

Nothing prevents our denying life by suicide. well then, kill yourself, and you won't discuss. If life displeases you, kill yourself! You live, and cannot understand the meaning of life - then finish it, and do not fool about in life, saying and writing that you do not understand it. You have come into good company where people are contented and know what they are doing; if you find it dull and repulsive - go away! — Leo Tolstoy

#8 - Feeling Peaceful - It is helpful to be at peace with your loved one's returning Home to God, in order to be better able to receive a comforting communication. Feeling peaceful is an emotion that is very hard to experience when you are, understandably, very upset as you go through the grieving process. But being emotionally overwrought can give out negative energy, thus, making it harder for your loved one to get through to you, or for you to even notice a sign from them. However, all things are possible with God, and He may bless you with an after-death communication, no matter what the circumstances, because He wants to comfort you and bring you peace. Pray for peace for your anguished heart. Pray for acceptance and comfort, so that you can go on with your life contented in knowing that you will be fully reunited once again. — Christine Duminiak

Possibly the best suggestion in condensed form, as to how to live, was given by my old Headmaster, Dr. Haig Brown, in 1904, when he wrote his Recipe for Old Age. A diet moderate and spare, Freedom from base financial care, Abundant work and little leisure, A love of duty more than pleasure, An even and contented mind In charity with all mankind, Some thoughts too sacred for display In the broad light of common day, A peaceful home, a loving wife, Children, who are a crown of life; These lengthen out the years of man Beyond the Psalmist's narrow span. — Robert Baden-Powell

I think about this, not like someone thinking, but like someone breathing,
And I look at flowers and I smile...
I don't know if they understand me
Or if I understand them,
But I know the truth is in them and in me
And in our common divinity
Of letting ourselves go and live on the Earth
And carrying us in our arms through the contented Seasons
And letting the wind sing us to sleep
And not have dreams in our sleep. — Alberto Caeiro

Likewise, you can't live a truly productive, contented, and joy-filled life while your finances are in complete disarray. A Good Life and financial stability go hand in hand. — Ruth Soukup

So overall, though my life is far from perfect, I'm contented with it. And in a peculiar way, I'm grateful for the troubling emotions I experienced. The obstacles we face in life can provide powerful incentives for change. — Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

The use of knowledge in our sex (beside the amusement of solitude) is to moderate the passions and learn to be contented with a small expense, which are the certain effects of a studious life and, it may be, preferable even to that fame which men have engrossed to themselves and will not suffer us to share. — Mary Wortley Montagu

We have all our playthings. Happy are they who are contented with those they can obtain; those hours are spent in the wisest manner that can easiest shade the ills of life, and are the least productive of ill consequences. — Mary Wortley Montagu

I believe it will have become evident why, for me, adjectives such as happy, contented, blissful, enjoyable, do not seem quite appropriate to any general description of this process I have called the good life, even though the person in this process would experience each one of these at the appropriate times. But adjectives which seem more generally fitting are adjectives such as enriching, exciting, rewarding, challenging, meaningful. This process of the good life is not, I am convinced, a life for the faint-fainthearted. It involves the stretching and growing of becoming more and more of one's potentialities. It involves the courage to be. It means launching oneself fully into the stream of life. Yet the deeply exciting thing about human beings is that when the individual is inwardly free, he chooses as the good life this process of becoming. — Carl R. Rogers

Change may be the vitalizing wind blowing through the house of life, but it is not an abiding force. We need permanent things to soak peace into us as well as progress - the beauty of the earth, seedtime and harvest, the smiles of lovers, the joy of the young in being alive, pride in craftsmanship. Why, oh why must we let ourselves forget these lasting treasures in an age of consuming ambition, speed madness and accumulated goods that leave us no chance to live? If we cannot be contented with a little no wealth will ever satisfy us. — Helen Keller

Be contented with what you possess in life; be thankful for what does not belong to you, for it is so much care the less; but try to obtain what you need in life, and make the best of every moment of your life. — Hazrat Inayat Khan

In the past there were people who were not rich but contented with their living style, laughing and happy all day. But when the new rich people appear, people look at them and ask, 'why don't I have a life like that too, a beautiful house, car and garden,' and they abandon their values. — Thich Nhat Hanh