Contentment is a pearl of great price, and whoever procures it at the expense of ten thousand desires makes a wise and a happy purchase.

If we have not quiet in our minds, outward comfort will do no more for us than a golden slipper on a gouty foot.

There's naught, no doubt, so much the spirit calms as rum and true religion.

Being "contented" ought to mean in English, as it does in French, being pleased. Being content with an attic ought not to mean being unable to move from it and resigned to living in it; it ought to mean appreciating all there is in such a position.

Try to be like the turtle -- at ease in your own shell

Happy the man, and happy he alone, he who can call today his own; he who, secure within, can say, tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today.

A man who is contented with what he has done will never become famous for what he will do.

Content is a word unknown to life; it is also a word unknown to man.

Content makes poor men rich; discontentment makes rich men poor.

Yes, there is a Nirvanah; it is leading your sheep to a green pasture, and in putting your child to sleep, and in writing the last line of your poem.

There are two kinds of discontent in this world. The discontent that works, and the discontent that wrings its hands. The first gets what it wants. The second loses what it has. There's no cure for the first, but success and there's no cure at all for the second.

The contented man can be happy with what appears to be useless.

A sound mind in a sound body, is a short, but full description of a happy state in this World: he that has these two, has little more to wish for; and he that wants either of them, will be little the better for anything else.

It is right to be contented with what we have, but never with what we are.

To accept what you are is to be content, and contentment is the greatest wealth. To work with patience is to gather power.

If you are content, you have enough to live comfortably.

Learn to be pleased with everything; with wealth, so far as it makes us beneficial to others; with poverty, for not having much to care for; and with obscurity, for being unenvied.

What makes us discontented with our condition is the absurdly exaggerated idea we have of the happiness of others.

Since we cannot get what we like, let us like what we can get.

Happy the man who can endure the highest and the lowest fortune. He, who has endured such vicissitudes with equanimity, has deprived misfortune of its power.

He that is well paid is well satisfied.

Contentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty.

To the right, books; to the left, a tea-cup. In front of me, the fireplace; behind me, the post. There is no greater happiness than this.

You can't have everything. Where would you put it?