contentment

There's Nothing To Hide When Your Soul Is Not Guilty....

One honest John Tompkins, a hedger & ditcher, Although he was poor, did not want to be richer;For all such vain wishes in him were preventedBy a fortunate habit of being contented.

Happiness is wanting what you have.

Be like the flower, content with its nature.

I'm not "happy" but I'm not unhappy about it.

Satiety depends not at all on how much we eat, but on how we eat. It's the same with happiness, the very same...happiness doesn't depend on how many external blessings we have snatched from life. It depends only on our attitude toward them. There's a saying about it in the Taoist ethic: 'Whoever is capable of contentment will always be satisfied.

We just wanna be the happy bums that we are. That's all.

There had to be something wrong with my life. I should have been born a Yugoslavian shepherd who looked up at the Big Dipper every night.

Try to be happy in this present moment, and put not off being so to a time to come--as though that time should be of another make from this which has already come and is ours.

Instead of living our lives fighting discontentment, striving to gain contentment from things that were never meant to bring contentment_ What if we gave it all up for a grand adventure, for a worthy cause, for the Father? Why do we keep searching to find a hole to shove our hearts into when they were meant to be poured out and fill the entire world?

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.

Imagination doesn't always make you long for what you cannot have, but rather thrive in what you do not have.

(about William Blake)As for Blake's happiness--a man who knew him said: "If asked whether I ever knew among the intellectual, a happy man, Blake would be the only one who would immediately occur to me."And yet this creative power in Blake did not come from ambition. ...He burned most of his own work. Because he said, "I should be sorry if I had any earthly fame, for whatever natural glory a man has is so much detracted from his spiritual glory. I wish to do nothing for profit. I wish to live for art. I want nothing whatever. I am quite happy."...He did not mind death in the least. He said that to him it was just like going into another room. On the day of his death he composed songs to his Maker and sang them for his wife to hear. Just before he died his countenance became fair, his eyes brightened and he burst into singing of the things he saw in heaven.

Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it. If you don__, you will leak away your innate contentment. It__ easy enough to pray when you__e in distress but continuing to pray even when your crisis has passed is like a sealing process, helping your soul hold tight to its good attainments.

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

Happy are those who evolve from within.

It is bad enough when rich Christians show little concern for the poor, but when they moan about their lot, they show contempt not only for the poor but also for the generosity of God.

Happiness can only be achieved by looking inward & learning to enjoy whatever life has and this requires transforming greed into gratitude.