c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
The fool says 'I never intended to kill. I meant only to wound.' But I tell you that if you prick a finger with a poisoned thorn you may not claim innocence when the heart dies. Do not plant a weed and pretend surprise when it grows to strangle your garden. For, I tell you that hate is to kill, for from hatred grows death as surely as life grows from love. Therefore do not nurture hatred, but love, even for those who hate you in return. Hatred wins many battles, and yet love will triumph.
— Michael Grant
No one gave us life, we're the products of an explosion.
— Dmitry Bakin
Finally, the horizon stretched out infinitely before me and I felt utterly content looking at stars from afar and trying to make out all the variable, temporary, extinguished or faded stars. I was nothing in this infinity, but I could finally breathe.
— Patrick Modiano, Paris Nocturne
Dicks don't have brains. It's why men get into trouble
— Kylie Scott, Deep
I'd never needed to know that my sister was a screamer. Never. That Mal was a screamer too just kind of confused me.
— Kylie Scott, Deep
Wade straight through life, right through the cesspool, while keeping eyes and heart open.
— Donna Tartt
Lynn said, "The blue of the sky is one of the most special colors in the world, because the color is deep but see-through both at the same time. What did I just say?""The sky is special.""The ocean is like that too, and people's eyes."She turned her head toward me and waited. I said, "The ocean and people's eyes are special too."That's how I learned about eyes, sky, and ocean: the three special, deep, colored, see-through things. I turned to Lynnie. Her eyes were deep and black, like mine.
— Cynthia Kadohata
Remember: if you see something, say nothing, and drink to forget.
— Cecil Baldwin
I want something else. I’m not even sure what to call it anymore except I know it feels roomy and it’s drenched in sunlight and it’s weightless and I know it’s not cheap. It’s probably not even real.
— Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves
It’s nice to have a station pet. Wish it wasn’t trapped in a hovering prison in the men’s bathroom, but listen: no pet is perfect. It becomes perfect when you learn to accept it for what it is.
— Cecil Baldwin
These dreams are disappearingSpeak and be misunderstood Or be silent and goodand as how far as it lookThese dreams are disappearing..Put hopes in a box and tieIt's either protect it or dieMaintain the truth or talk a lieThese dreams are disappearing..Mountains of gold and a lovely cata house by a lake and a lovely chata day in paradise and all of thatThese dreams are disappearing..Chase a purpose of life and doand be the one you wanted toand be with who have always wanted youThese dreams are disappearing..Run in pace and catch the sunRaise a family and have a sonBuild a home, not only oneThese dreams are disappearing..In daily wars like on regular basesIn daily problems a puzzled mazes In daily issues and complications These dreams are disappearing..Nothing is lost but nothing is healingAll is gone and all is leakingSome hope to hold on to and keep dreamingAlthough these dreams are disappearing...Ahmed Adel Hassona
— Ahmed Adel Hassona
Thinking is easy, acting difficult, and to put one's thoughts into actions the most difficult thing in the world.
— German poet Goethe 17491832
Life is short, Love is Endless. Live and love life to the full!
— ktr0x
You’re going to work in this life, and you’re going to play. And when the last days come, you’ll look back and find that that’s all there was, an endless stream of days going back to today. But if you can find the thing you should be doing, the thing that makes you you, and if you can make that thing yours, then you’ve beaten the game. I haven’t. Most men don’t. You probably won’t either, but the point is to try, and to never give up, even when you think it’s over.
— Eric Garcia
Funny how you can get used to not having things you thought you couldn't live without.
— Liza Palmer, Seeing Me Naked
Give me the strength to leaf, for I fear otherwise we may hang ourselves.
— Stephanie Hemphill, Wicked Girls
Give me the strength to lead, for I fear otherwise we may hang ourselves.
— Stephanie Hemphill
I believe that that love remains strong and intense in your memory because it was your first deep aloneness and the first inner work that you did on your life.
— Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
Marriage is deep. Don't marry someone shallow, it will cause both of you to drown
— Shon Hyneman
I don't think your missing pieces ever go inside you again once they go missing.
— John Green, An Abundance of Katherines
It's only in the finer points that it gets complicated and contentious, the inability to realize that no matter what our religion or gender or race or geographic background, we all have about 98 percent in common with each other. Yes, the differences between male and female are biological, but if you look at biology as a matter of percentage, there aren't a whole lot of things that are different. Race is different purely as a social construct, not as an inherent difference. And religion - whether you believe in God or Yahweh or Allah or something else, odds are that at heart you want the same things. For whatever reason, we like to focus on the 2 percent that's different, and most of the conflict in the world comes from that.
— David Levithan, Every Day
The oblivion fear is something else, fear that I won’t be able to give anything in exchange for my life. If you don’t live alife in service of a greater good, you’ve gotta at least die a death in service of a greater good, you know? And I fear that I won’t get either alife or a death that means anything.
— John Green, The Fault in Our Stars
He didn't know that sometimes, the most awesome and complicated thing you can do is just stick around.
— Kate Hattemer, The Vigilante Poets of Selwyn Academy
When you have nothing left to lose, it's easy to dive deep into those deep, dark hidden places and write your truth. I'm there.
— Lori Lesko
It might be just some trend that came and went,' I said. 'But for us, it's our life.
— Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go
Remember this: we all swim in the river of hope and risk, unless someone breaks the dam, and chaos reigns.”Excerpt From: Joison, Peter. “Ellring.” iBooks. This material may be protected by copyright.
— Peter Joison, Ellring
I'm a survivor - a living example of what people can go through and survive.
— Elizabeth Taylor
She had a voice that made Pearl Harbor seem like a lullaby.
— Richard Brautigan, A Confederate General from Big Sur / Dreaming of Babylon / The Hawkline Monster
And, you know, whenever you check yourself into rehab, they don't focus on, you know, the fact that you're an alcoholic. They go much deeper, you know? I mean, they go way deep. They crack you open and then spill you out and examine all the things that are on the table.
— Kirk Hammett - Metallica
Delusion is not just fantasy but compulsion.
— Sylvia Nasar
I believe I've come to understand something. Love isn't always big and dramatic. It's big, it's deep, but it's also quiet and calm.
— Ashlyn Macnamara, A Most Scandalous Proposal
I am speaking of something deeper. I am speaking of everything a being can give another. This is what I offer you. I offer myself.
— Jude Watson, The Ties That Bind
True peace is not found in external circumstances, but within ones own heart.
— Graham Aitchison
The oceans never stop. They know no beginning or end. The wind never finishes. Sometimes it disappears, but only to gather momentum from somewhere else, returning to fling itself at the island, to make a point which is lost on Tom.
— M.L. Stedman
You are this, which does not satisfy, so you want to be that. If there were an understanding of this, would that come into being? Because you do not understand this, you create that, hoping through that to understand or to escape from this.
— Jiddu Krishnamurti, Commentaries on Living 1
Isn’t it amazing, amazing, amazing that something so specific can be so resonant? These are the filaments, filaments, filaments from that Walt Whitman poem. It makes me think that the thoughts that I have in my head that make me feel the most lonely because I don’t think anyone else thinks them, are also the thoughts that have the most potential that make me feel connected. I just have to get them out some how gossamer thread.
— Ze Frank
I'm so deeply in love with you it's hard to fathom. No words could provide quantifiable resonance or measure.
— Truth Devour, Wantin
The world has a lot to offer. There’s a lot to explore. I like to take advantage of that.
— Chloe Neill, Drink Deep
Be your own solace
— Malak El Halabi
DO you think it hurts to die?" Not as much as it hurts to live, Trixie thought.
— Jodi Picoult, The Tenth Circle
Do you know what she did? Your cunting daughter?
— William Peter Blatty, The Exorcist
Here is one of the great truths of the human condition: when you need Stayfree Maxi Pads to absorb the expectorants produced by your insulted body, you are in serious fucking trouble.
— Stephen King, 11/22/63
My pit of love is too shallow, I can't fall deep.
— Cecil Thounaojam
Once I heard Dantly tell Welton that the Native Americans used to call that particular part of the morning “between the wolf and the dog” because the sky is so deep blue and spooky or whatever that you can’t tell what’s what. Is that a wolf on that hill or a dog? A man or a monkey? A saint or the devil?
— Adam Rapp, Under the Wolf, Under the Dog
There is no fact or fiction, only imagined truths.
— Mark Piper
It is better to die, than dive heart-first, into a pool of love, only knee-high deep.
— Anthony Liccione
Many people lose the small joys in the hope for the big happiness.
— Pearl S. Buck
I am content
—  that is a blessing greater than riches
Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are.When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.
— Lao Tzu
We need much less than we think we need.
— Maya Angelou
At some point, you gotta let go, and sit still, and allow contentment to come to you.
— Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love
You say, 'If I had a little more, I should be very satisfied.' You make a mistake. If you are not content with what you have, you would not be satisfied if it were doubled.
— Charles Haddon Spurgeon
I have learned to seek my happiness by limiting my desires, rather than in attempting to satisfy them.
— John Stuart Mill
Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not.
— Ann Brashares, Forever in Blue: The Fourth Summer of the Sisterhood
Ari smiled. The sun was shining, the weather was great, he was eating ice cream, and all his dreams were about to come true.
— James Patterson, School's Out—Forever
If all our misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be content to take their own and depart.
— Socrates
Mama told me to make a special point to remember the best times of my life. There are so many hard things to live through, and latching on to the good things will give you strength to endure, she says. So I must remember this day. It is beautiful and this seems like the best time to live and the best place
— Nancy E. Turner, These Is My Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine, 1881-1901
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
— Kahlil Gibran, Sand and Foam
You’re all so obsessed with other worlds, you’re so convinced that this one is crap and everywhere else is great, but you’ve never bothered to figure out what’s going on here!
— Lev Grossman, The Magician King
If at eighty you're not a cripple or an invalid, if you have your health, if you still enjoy a good walk, a good meal (with all the trimmings), if you can sleep without first taking a pill, if birds and flowers, mountains and sea still inspire you, you are a most fortunate individual and you should get down on your knees morning and night and thank the good Lord for his savin' and keepin' power. If you are young in years but already weary in spirit, already on your way to becoming an automaton, it may do you good to say to your boss - under your breath, of course - "Fuck you, Jack! you don't own me." If you can whistle up your ass, if you can be turned on by a fetching bottom or a lovely pair of teats, if you can fall in love again and again, if you can forgive your parents for the crime of bringing you into the world, if you are content to get nowhere, just take each day as it comes, if you can forgive as well as forget, if you can keep from going sour, surly, bitter and cynical, man you've got it half licked.
— Henry Miller, Sextet: Six Essays
Do you dislike your role in the story, your place in the shadow? What complaints do you have that the hobbits could not have heaved at Tolkien? You have been born into a narrative, you have been given freedom. Act, and act well until you reach your final scene.
— N.D. Wilson
Contentment has learned how to find out what she needs to know. Last year she went on a major housecleaning spree. First she stood on her head until all the extra facts fell out. Then she discarded about half her house. Now she knows where every thing comes from—who dyed the yarn dark green and who wove the rug and who built the loom, who made the willow chair, who planted the apricot trees. She made the turquoise mugs herself with clay she found in the hills beyond her house. When Contentment is sad, she takes a mud bath or goes to the mountains until her lungs are clear. When she walks through an unfamiliar neighborhood, she always makes friends with the local cats.
— J. Ruth Gendler, The Book of Qualities
Some men fish all their lives without knowing it is not really the fish they are after.
— Henry David Thoreau
A lonely impulse of delight
— W.B. Yeats
A dying man needs to die, as a sleepy man needs to sleep, and there comes a time when it is wrong, as well as useless, to resist. 
— Stewart Alsop
The storm is over, there is sunlight in my heart. I have a glass of wine and sit thinking of what has passed.
— P.G. Wodehouse, A Pelican at Blandings
Contentment can only happen as we increase desire, let it run itself out towar its fulfilment, and carry us along with it.
— John Eldredge
A contented mind is the greatest blessing a man can enjoy in this world.
— Joseph Addison
In the widely open cup of the armchair was I-330. I, on the floor, embracing her limbs, my head on her lap. We were silent. Everything was silent. Only the pulse was audible. Like a crystal I was dissolving in her, in I-330. I felt most distinctly how the polished facets which limited me in space were slowly thawing, melting away. I was dissolving in her lap, in her, and I became at once smaller and larger, and larger, unembraceable. For she was not she but the whole universe. For a second I and that armchair near the bed, transfixed with joy, we were one.
— Yevgeny Zamyatin, We
I would do what I pleased, and doing what I pleased, I should have my will, and having my will, I should be contented; and when one is contented, there is no more to be desired; and when there is no more to be desired, there is an end of it.
— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
Contentment is the only real wealth
— Albert Nobel
She had nothing to wish otherwise, but that the days did not pass so swiftly. It was a delightful visit;—perfect, in being much too short.
— Jane Austen, Emma
In a clock, stop but one wheel and you stop every wheel, because they are dependent upon one other. So when God has ordered a thing for the present to be thus and thus, how do you know how many things depend upon this thing? God may have some work to do twenty years hence that depends on this passage of providence that falls out this day or this week.
— Jeremiah Burroughs, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment
Fortify yourself with contentment for this is an impregnable fortress.
— Epictetus, Enchiridion and Selections from the Discourses
Americans were convinced in their own minds that they were very miserable, and those who think so are so. There is nothing so easy as to persuade people that they are badly governed. Take happy and comfortable people and talk to them with the art of the evil one, and they can soon be made discontented with their government, their rulers, with everything around them, and even with themselves.
— Thomas Hutchinson
Being content is perhaps no less easy than playing the violin well: and requires no less practice.
— Alain de Botton
There is no health in those who are displeased by an element in Your creation, just as there was none in me when I was displeased by many things You had made. Because my soul didn't dare to say that my God displeased me, it refused to attribute to You whatever was displeasing.
— Augustine of Hippo, Confessions
No, of course not. I just feel content,” she said carefully.“That’s an old person’s word,” said Ethan.
— Meg Wolitzer, The Interestings
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, The Greener Grass Conspiracy: Finding Contentment on Your Side of the Fence
So be satisfied and quiet, be contented with your contentment. I lack certain things that others have, but blessed be God, I have a contented heart which others have not.
— Jeremiah Burroughs, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment
Hoarding can never end, for the heart of man always covets for more, its raging appetites can only be quenched by the heavy sands of the grave.
— Bangambiki Habyarimana, Book of Wisdom
When you are on your purpose- when you do what you love to do
—  you have peace unexplainable. You are happy and contented. You are in the zone 24/7.
Others may not understand your joy and contentment because of your certainty about who you are and why you exist. Don't waste your time to explain.
— Assegid Habtewold, Soft Skills That Make or Break Your Success: 12 Soft skills to master self, get along with, and lead others successfully
True affluence is not needing anything.
— Gary Snyder
Happiness was not a word that seemed to apply anymore, when she had lost so many close to her. There was a contentment that felt deeper, that acknowledged and accepted the quieter offerings of small joys-- of love and occasional peace in a life that was full of pain.
— Peter Heller, Celine
She ate--so, so good--cocooned in the harmonic dissonance of a large family, where every sound was distinct yet blended.
— Rachel Hauck, The Writing Desk
Be happy in the day - Today is enough - Each moment is all we need in the today given and not the tomorrow to come
— John M Sheehan
...'This is what I have seen to be good and proper: that one should eat and drink and find enjoyment for all the hard work at which he toils under the sun during the few days of life that the true God has given him, for that is his reward.'– Ecclesiastes 5:18
— Jehovah, New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures
Sometimes just breathing is enough.
— Marty Rubin
Never be content with your work, even if you are good at what you do, look at tightrope walkers – they don't stay in one place for a long time, they keep moving because no matter how confident they are about the efforts and skill set, a strong wind factor can hinder all the efforts. Improve & improvise because this time it was the wind, next time it could be rain, hailstones or sand storms.
— Shahenshah Hafeez Khan
She pats my knee. I’m going to tell you something my grandmother told me when I was fifteen years old. `Eliza, you won’t ever be content with someone if you can’t learn how to be content by yourself first.
— Erynn Mangum, Katie in Waiting
I HAVE PLENTYI know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have the learned the secret of being content in any and every situation. Whether well fed or hungry , whether living in plenty or in want I.WILL HAVE PLENTY
— The Good Book
Godliness with contentment is rare.
— Craig Groeschel, Weird: Because Normal Isn't Working
We speak of searching for happiness, of finding contentment, as if these were locations on an atlas, actual places that we could visit if only we had the proper map and the right navigational skills.
— Melody Warnick, This Is Where You Belong: The Art and Science of Loving the Place You Live
A rich man is not one who has the most, but one who needs the least.
— Unknown
Whether you are in an eight-hundred-square-foot home or living in a dream house on a lake, contentment is found on the way.
— Joanna Gaines, The Magnolia Story
Thus it looks in the last analysis as if the soul which serves God in spirit and in truth enjoys a very unusual kind of peace: not the satisfying inward rest which we would have expected, nor the outward rest of having everything in order and nothing left out, but a rest which consists in contentment at having sacrificed both to the will of God.
— Dom Hubert Van Zeller, We Die Standing Up
Some days 'staying put' might feel the same as Going Nowhere.Make a cup of tea, and wait for that feeling to pass.
— Vivian Swift, When Wanderers Cease to Roam: A Traveler's Journal of Staying Put
No one’s life ever goes as they planned. That truth alone should bring a sense of relief to everyone.
— Andrena Sawyer
It doesn't matter whether you do small or big Job
—  what matters is job Contentment.
Everything that is truly of value–love, family, peace, health, and contentment—can never be bought.
— Tiffany L. Jackson, 12 Keys to Success for Misfits, Weirdos & Introverts: A Practical and Spiritual Guide to Understanding Your Place in the World
Life is contentment.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
Go with the ebbs and the flows, and allow this non-resistance to guide us to contentment.
— Maximus Freeman
All I ever think about day and night is-how can I make a difference in the lives of others, how can I provide an ounce of contentment and happiness?
— Charmaine J. Forde
Perhaps, the secret in reaching that ever eluding state of personal contentment, lies in finding the balance between not caring too much and not giving a damn.
— Francois Bonthuys
Happiness lies in being content with what you have right now, than mongering over what you don't have. Respect Life, Celebrate Now!
— Ramana Pemmaraju
There are so many paths to contentment if you're open to self-delusion.
— Anthony Marra, The Tsar of Love and Techno
...the morning with the whole day waiting,full of promise,the nightof quiet, of no expectations, of rest.And the certainty of home, the one I live in,and the onethat lives in me.
— Karen Hesse, Out of the Dust
The angel of God, having secretly Betrothed us one winter day,Watches over our carefree livesWith fixed, darkening eyesBecause of this we love the sky,Keen air, the fresh windAnd the blackening branchesBehind the iron fence.Because of this we love the sternDark city with its many waterways.And we love our partings,And our brief meetings.
— Anna Akhmatova, The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova
just find your way, like a river settling into its bed, and the sigh of the wind over a lake, light but restful... content with the joy in the arc of an arm throwing a ball for a dog to fetch
— Jay Woodman
.... just find your way, like a river settling into its bed, and the sigh of the wind over a lake, light but restful... content with the joy in the arc of an arm throwing a ball for a dog to fetch, the ease of the grassy slope stretching away, birds in the trees singing sweet high notes, flowers growing close in the ditch.
— Jay Woodman
I would slay myself on the altar of boredom if given the chance.
— Jessa Crispin, The Dead Ladies Project: Exiles, Expats, and Ex-Countries
A man may be absolutely poor and dispossessed of everything, and yet be wordly. Another man may be very wealthy and yet severed. Severance means that one's heart must not be attached to the things of this world. It does not mean that a man must dispossess himself of them, or that he must not work and earn or practice his profession, whatever it may be, in the world. It does not mean that he must not put on what he has. If he has a silk garb, let him wear that; and if he has not, but has a suit of cotton goods, let him wear that clean. He must feel the same in both.
— Abdu'l-Bahá
Life is contentment not a competition.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
In the Salem of our peaceful hearts, the name of Jesus is great beyond compare: He has won our love, and He shall wear it.
— Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Morning and Evening, Based on the English Standard Version
The tailor bird builds her nest in deep woods, she uses no more than one branch.The mole drinks off the river, it can only fill one belly. Chuang Tzu
— Sung Yee Poon, FREE EASY MIND in Conflicts. Stress.Loss
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.
— John Balguy
In the Envoy Corps, you take what is offered, Virginia Vidaura said, somewhere in the corridors of my memory. And that must sometimes be enough.
— Richard K. Morgan, Altered Carbon
We call bad one who rejects the fruit he is given for the fruit he is expecting or the fruit he was given last time.
— C.S. Lewis, Perelandra
My goal in life is to be content. By that I don't mean "fine" or "basically satisfied." I don't mean settling. I mean, for last of better terms, feeling like I'm in the right life.
— Meghan Daum, The Unspeakable: And Other Subjects of Discussion
Cottage of content was better than the Palace of cold splendour, and that where love was, all was.
— Charles Dickens, David Copperfield
The author says this socially respectable option NOT to parent has actually made parenthood more stressful. The knowledge that parents have chosen that role allows for unrealistic buildup of expectations and unavoidable second-guessing.
— Jennifer Senior, All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood
She isn't the kind of girl that makes you wonder why she doesn't have someone, you just know that the kind of guy who is good enough for her is rare, and she projects the kind of strength that says she is perfectly happy to wait till he shows up.
— Stacey Ballis
The two women sat by the fire, tilting their glasses and drinking in small peaceful sips. The lamplight shone upon the tidy room and the polished table, lighting topaz in the dandelion wine, spilling pools of crimson through the flanks of the bottle of plum gin. It shone on the contented drinkers, and threw their large, close-at-hand shadows upon the wall. When Mrs Leak smoothed her apron the shadow solemnified the gesture as though she were moulding an universe. Laura's nose and chin were defined as sharply as the peaks peaks on a holly leaf.
— Sylvia Townsend Warner, Lolly Willowes
People on the spiritual path are people of unquenchable discontent. It is being propagated that spirituality means contentment. Contentment means you have contented yourself with what you have. A spiritual person means he is unwilling to settle for anything less than the Ultimate.
— Sadhguru
Once you have the gift of life, you are blessed.
— Lailah Gifty Akita, Pearls of  Wisdom: Great  mind
The moment we go looking for anything outside of ourselves, i.e., when we make our happiness contingent on another, we have a serious problem. All of the emotions and feelings that we have come from within―we have those natural capacities ourselves. If we did not have an appetite to begin with, food would hold no appeal. It does not make us hungry; it merely stimulates that hunger inside of us. The same is true of all virtues and vices. Everything we need to gratify us can be found within, if only we venture to look and not pay heed to the bright and blinding lights that have enthralled most of this world.
— John Stack IV
Christian, how did you enjoy comfort before? Was the creature anything to you but a conduit, a pipe, that conveyed God's goodness to you? 'The pipe is cut off,' says God, 'come to me, the fountain, and drink immediately.' Though the beams are taken away, yet the sun remains the same in the firmament as ever it was.
— Jeremiah Burroughs, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment
Most beautiful of all was the tarnished gold of the elms, with a little brown in it, a little bronze, a little blue, even-- a blue like amethyst, which made them melt into the azure haze with a kind of happiness, a harmony of mood that filled the air with content.
— Willa Cather, Shadows on the Rock
The search for contentment is, therefore, not merely a self-preserving and self-benefiting act, but also a generous gift to the world. Clearing out all your misery gets you out of the way. You cease being an obstacle, not only to yourself but to anyone else. Only then are you free to serve and enjoy other people.
— Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love
You know someone's okay if they can ignore things they can't do anything about and move on.
— Jo Nesbø, Blood on Snow
Do not think, Oh, that I were delivered from all these afflictions and troubles here in this world! If you were, then you would have more ease yourself, but this is a way of honoring God, and manifesting the excellence of grace here, when you are in this conflict of temptation, which God shall not have from you in Heaven.
— Jeremiah Burroughs
A year of contentment is worth more than ten of prosperity.
— Matshona Dhliwayo
Life, if you keep chasing it so hard, will drive you to death. Time - when pursued like bandit - will behave like one; always remaining one country or one room ahead of you, changing its name and hair color to elude you, slipping out the back door of the motel just as you're banging through the lobby with your newest search warrant, leaving only a burning cigarette in the ashtray to taunt you. At some point you have to stop because it won't. You have to admit that you can't catch it. At some point, as Richard keeps telling me, you gotta let go and sit still and allow contentment to come to you.
— Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love
You do not have to have the best of everything to make the best of everything.
— Matshona Dhliwayo
Well, aren't you just saying it's better to be neurotic, sensitive, and miserable than unimaginative, adjusted and content? Is it really better?
— Malcolm Bradbury, Eating People is Wrong
Everyone dies. The don't all have the chance to see what they wanted most. At least I've seen the Above. At least I've known True.
— Ally Condie, Atlantia
I didn't feel like I was missing anything. Nor did I feel ambitious any more. It all seemed stupid wanting to be better than the others in the same ring, shallow, pointless.
— Jackie Kay, Wish I Was Here
When the symphony of life fills your heart, the chorus of contentment joins in.
— Tom Althouse
Contentment achieve inwardly change outer realities
— Kishore Bansal
Contentment is the only one substitute for happiness.
— Kishore Bansal
Simple things, simple pleasures, cutting and splitting wood, a love of the country they wanted to see more of, memories of softball fields and a girl named Amanda. There are such women as Theresa "Sam" Fitzgerald who love their men. Are content with their lives together.
— James Brady, Why Marines Fight
Start from here, now is all you have, there will never be a better place or time and by tomorrow you would have lost more time.
— Malti Bhojwani
Having lived with kings, I have become a king in my own home.
— Voltaire
Happiness consists of living in the dailyness of life and not knowing how happy you are.
— E.L. Doctorow
Happiness is achieving your goals. Contentment is not having any.
— Chloe Thurlow, Snow Falls Softly
A breeze blew softly, slightly rippling the water as it carried the heady scents of late Carolina springtime through the air. Honeysuckle. Jasmine. Ripe, pungent river mud. Ah, the world felt right.
— Caitlin Rush, Curses Beneath Her Feet
Money brings courage with it but lock contentment behind.
— Kishore Bansal
In a clock, stop but one wheel and you stop every wheel, because they are dependent upon one another. So when God has ordered a thing for the present to be thus and thus, how do you know how many things depend upon this thing? God may have some work to do twenty years hence that depends on this passage of providence that falls out this day or this week.
— Jeremiah Burroughs
I couldn't ignore the fact that it felt good. So. Very. Good. To be held, in bed, in the arms of a tall, strong, handsome man.
— Kristen Ashley, The Gamble
Contentment is not the fulfillment of what you want, but the realization of how much you already have.
— Anonymous
Maybe I don't know yet how to be happy and play well at the same time.
— Andre Agassi, Open
Walden is the report of a man torn by two powerful and opposing drives – the desire to enjoy the world and the urge to set the world straight.
— E.B. White
I felt a taste of that other kind of contentment that doesn't come from acquiring information or getting praise or building a resume, the kind that is just there, like a hidden pearl.
— Jaimal Yogis, Saltwater Buddha: A Surfer's Quest to Find Zen on the Sea
When we turn life’s little pleasures into remedies for life’s troubles, we are setting up idols in our hearts, which actually push God aside.
— Lydia Brownback, Contentment: A Godly Woman's Adornment
My modus operandi is that I'll be content with anything, as long as I know that it's the best that's possible.
— Russell Brand, Booky Wook 2: This Time it's Personal
I feel like how you matter is defined by the things that matter to you. You matter as much as the things that matter to you do. And I got so backwards, trying to make myself matter to him. All this time, there were real things to care about: real, good people who care about me, and this place. It's so easy to get stuck. You just get caught in being something, being special or cool or whatever, to the point where you don't even know why you need it; you just think you do.
— John Green, An Abundance of Katherines
As impossible as this may seem (in infertility), try to reach outside of yourself and realize all of the things that you are able to do for now because you do not have children. There are seasons in life, and for now yours is an unfettered one. Allow God to use you in the present. The best way to help alleviate your pain is to try to help others alleviate their pain.
— Sara Dormon, So You Want to Adopt...Now What?: A Practical Guide for Navigating the Adoption Process
I live wherever you are cos honestly there's no better place to call home.
— Nomzamo Nhlumayo
Contentment should not be confused with smugness… Contentment is being happy despite of the successes and failures.
— Girdhar Joshi, Some Mistakes Have No Pardon
Where other powers of entertainment are wanting, the true philosopher will derive benefit from such as are given.
— Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
Don’t Seek Happiness - Happiness is like an orgasm: if you think about it too much, it goes away. Keep busy and aim to make someone else happy, and you might find you get some as a side effect. We didn’t evolve to be constantly content. Contented Australopithecus Afarensis got eaten before passing on their genes.
— Tim Minchin
...are you happy?""I am content.""What is the difference?""Between happiness and contentment? Ah, there you have me. It is not easy to put into words. Contentment is a state of mind and body when the two work in harmony, and there is no friction. The mind is at peace, and the body also. The two are sufficient to themselves. Happiness is elusive--coming perhaps once in a life-time--and approaching ecstasy.""Not a continuous thing, like contentment?""No, not a continuous thing. But there are, after all, degrees of happiness.
— Daphne du Maurier, Frenchman's Creek
Perhaps the price of comfort is that life passes more rapidly. But for anyone who has lived in uneasiness, even for a short, memorable duration, it's a trade-off that will gladly be made.
— Arthur Nersesian, The Fuck-Up
Perhaps...I could not be content with mere contentment!
— Angela Carter, Nights at the Circus
A thankful and a contented spirit is a continual feast. We ought to be contented, and we shall be contented, if we are in the habit of seeing God in everything, and living upon Him day by day. Oh, for a spirit of true thankfulness!
— Ashton Oxenden, A Happy Old Age
Happiness is never found in materialistic things; it exists in things that cannot be physically possessed. Therefore, happiness is priceless. It can never be purchased. Love is happiness.
— Ellen J. Barrier, How to Trust God When All Other Resources Have Failed
If you are not content today, there is nothing you can buy tomorrow to change that.
— Joshua Becker
The world is full of people looking for spectacular happiness while they snub contentment.
— Doug Larson
...you play the instrument you have.
— Ursula K. Le Guin, The Compass Rose
If consumers found fulfillment at any meaningful level, she extemporized, corpocracy would be finished.
— David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas
There was a man with tongue of woodWho essayed to sing,And in truth it was lamentable.But there was one who heardThe clip-clapper of this tongue of woodAnd knew what the manWished to sing,And with that the singer was content.
— Stephen Crane
Peace means no one is worried about anyone else's cookie...in this moment we are all quietly content with the cookies we have.
— Amy Krouse Rosenthal, Christmas Cookies: Bite-Size Holiday Lessons
We found a smooth inviting boulder under a vast banyan tree, and sat in companionable silence. There unexpectedly, on that rock, I saw the secret of contentment. True happiness is only ever possible if you have been unhappy. And there, at that moment, I couldn’t remember the last time I had felt so peaceful. It wouldn’t have been possible for me to take in any more happiness. Moti turned to me and smiled as if she knew. I realised then that this moment and this wonderful feeling would sustain me for a long, long time.
— Jane Wilson-Howarth, Snowfed Waters
Indeed, I have observed one ingredient, somewhat necessary in a man’s composition towards happiness, which people of feeling would do well to acquire; a certain respect for the follies of mankind: for there are so many fools whom the opinion of the world entitles to regard, whom accident has placed in heights of which they are unworthy, that he who cannot restrain his contempt or indignation at the sight will be too often quarrelling with the disposal of things to relish that share which is allotted to himself. 
— Henry MacKenzie, The Man of Feeling
Inner contentment liberates the soul
— Mukesh Kwatra
Whenever you look in front and see a lot of people ahead of you, take time to look at the long queue behind you. Let us live a life of contentment.
— Emmanuel Moore Abolo
In individuals as in nations, contentment is silent, which tends to unbalance the historical record.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, A Distant Mirror:  The Calamitous 14th Century
Watching too much TV can triple our hunger for more possessions, while reducing our personal contentment by about 5 percent for every hour a day we watch.
— David Niven
I was especially perceptive to all things beautiful that morning—raspberries in blue china bowls were enough to make the heart sing.
— Irene Hunt, Up a Road Slowly
She had the experience to suffer with discretion.
— John le Carré, Call for the Dead
The Yogic path is about disentangling the built-in glitches of the human condition, which I'm going to over-simply define here as the heartbreaking inability to sustain contentment. Different schools of thought over the centuries have found different explanation for man's apparently inherently flawed state. Taoists call it imbalance, Buddism calls it ignorance, Islam blames our misery on rebellion against God, and the Judeo-Christian tradition attributes all our suffering to original sin. Freudians say that unhappiness is the inevitable result of the clash between our natural drives and civilization's needs. (As my friend Deborah the psychologist explains it: "Desire is the design flaw.") The Yogis, however, say that human discontentment is a simple case of mistaken identity. We're miserable because we think that we are mere individuals, alone with our fears and flaws and resentments and mortality. We wrongly believe that our limited little egos constitute our whole entire nature. We have failed to recognize our deeper divine character. We don't realize that, somewhere within us all, there does exist a supreme Self who is eternally at peace. That supreme Self is our true identity, universal and divine. Before you realize this truth, say the Yogis, you will always be in despair, a notion nicely expressed in this exasperated line from the Greek stoic philosopher Epictetus: "You bear God within you, poor wretch, and know it not.
— Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love
He doesn't yearn for a better, different life than the one he has - because he knows he's got a home in this one.
— Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly
Just this once, in the very heart of the busiest of cities, everyone was perfectly content not to move and hardly to breathe. And for those few minutes, while the song lasted, Times Square was still as a meadow at evening, with the sun streaming in on the people there and the wind moving among them as if they were only tall blades of grass.
— George Selden, The Cricket in Times Square
Been Contented goes beyond our material wants; contentment sets us free from the illusion of having more or “Better things”, or expecting “better times" it sets us free from the illusion that somehow things should be different.
— Martin Suarez
That was bliss. Being cared for. Wanted. Feeling so necessary to someone’s existence that there was no place for the loneliness inside her.
— Julie Miller, Protecting the Pregnant Witness
All the arguing in the world won't change the mind of the Umpire.
— Pride of the Yankees
Give me a bottle of hard cider, a bowl of Peterson Irish Oak in my Neerup pipe, and please, above all, give my Henry David Thoreau’s Wild Apples. Do that and you will see a man contented.
— Nicholas Trandahl
Sage.” He laughed. “I’m into anything, so long as you’re with me.
— Richelle Mead, The Indigo Spell
It is not enough to be happy, one must be content.
— Victor Hugo, Les Miserables
One of the Enemy's most effective strategies is to get you to focus on what you don't have, what you used to have, or what someone else has that you wish you had. He does this to keep you from looking around and asking, "God, what can You do through what I have?
— Steven Furtick, Greater: Dream Bigger. Start Smaller. Ignite God's Vision for Your Life.
Perhaps it's because I appreciate all I have so much that I don't worry about what I haven't got.
— Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
Part of the trick of being happy is a refusal to allow oneself to become too nostalgic for the heady triumphs of one's youth.
— Larry McMurtry, Roads : Driving America's Great Highways
The most difficult thing to adjust to, apparently, is peace and contentment.
— Henry Miller
There are enough resources in the world for everyone.
— Bryant McGill, Voice of Reason
The one who finds contentment is truly rich.
— Dillon Burroughs, Hunger No More: A 1-Year Devotional Journey Through the Psalms
The key to contentment was to never ask why
—  she had learned that long ago.
If all I had was all that money could buy, I'd be bankrupt!" EL
— Evinda Lepins, A Cup of Hope for the Day: Coffee Hour with Chicklit Power
Some of the freckles I once loved are now closer to liver spots. But it’s still the eyes we look at, isn’t it? That’s where we found the other person, and find them still.
— Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending
The secret of contentment is never to allow yourself to want anything which reason tells you you haven't a chance of getting.
— P.D. James
My personal opinion is that the neutral position on the mood spectrum—what I called emotional sea level—is nothappiness but rather contentment and the calm acceptance that is the goal of many kinds of spiritual practice.
— Andrew Weil, Spontaneous Healing
The tourists always seem to want something. On Thisby, it's less about wanting, and more about being." I wonder after I say it if he'll think I sound like have no drive or ambition.
— Maggie Stiefvater, The Scorpio Races
Wanting less is probably a better blessing than having more.
— Mary Ellen Edmunds, You Can Never Get Enough of What You Don't Need: The Quest for Contentment
I love everything that makes up a milieu, the rolling of the carriages and the noise of the workmen in Paris, the cries of a thousand birds in the country, the movement of the ships on the waters. I love also absolute, profound silence, and, in short, I love everything that is around me, no matter where I am.
— George Sand
Timing clicking together, finally, pieces falling into place.
— Sarah Dessen, This Lullaby
I think it's a real gift to be able to say that what's in your life is enough. It seems most of us re always wanting more.
— Elizabeth Berg, Until The Real Thing Comes Along
If God gave you contentment then you would never pursue your life purpose. It is your restlessness that pushes you to take action, change your life and seek more of what you could possibly be.
— Shannon L. Alder
Give a bull grass, sweet water and a willing heifer and he is happy. But a man is never content. If no gadflies of worry exist he will invent them.
— Alison Fell, The Element -inth in Greek
I was so nearly happy. There remained only a tiny something, something unexplained and inexplicable that buzzed in my ear when the lights were out, like a malarial mosquito.
— Jennie Rooney, Inside the Whale
I have never loved Fortune, even when she seemed most to love me. I never considered her treasures mine, neither her money, nor her office nor her influence. Her theft of these things, therefore. has taken away nothing of my own. Mother, my roof is the stars. My house is human goodness. My body is clothed. My stomach is full. And the thirstier part of me, my soul, drinks gladly from the pool of my books.So much for me. I am just fine.
— Walter Wangerin Jr., Paul
If you are foolish enough to be contented, don't show it, but grumble with the rest; and if you can do with a little, ask for a great deal. Because if you don't you won't get any.
— Jerome K. Jerome, Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow
Some things are hard to imagine. Can you conceive of excessive contentment, for example? Or an over pleasant evening? Too much happiness?
— Alan Moore, Tom Strong, Book 2
If we cannot be contented with our current lives and possessions, then we are feeding an appetite that no amount of money will ever satiate.
— Breanna Sampson
It's great that you can listen and be a shoulder to someone, but what about when someone doesn't need a shoulder? What if they need the arms or something like that? You can't just sit there and put everybody's lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love. You just can't. You have to do things.
— Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower
And in the end, we were all just humans, drunk on the idea that love, only love, could heal our brokenness.
— Christopher Poindexter, Naked Human
Almost everyone first realized they were becoming a grown woman when some dude did something nasty to them. ...It was mostly men yelling shit from cars. Are they a patrol sent out to let girls know they've crossed into puberty? If so, it's working.
— Tina Fey, Bossypants
Me? I had no dreams. No longings. Dreams only set you up for disappointment. Plus, you had to have a life to have dreams of a better life.
— Julie Anne Peters, Luna
She didn't want to be considered a woman yet, wasn't ready to be the recipient of jewelry from men.
— Sarah Blakley-Cartwright, Red Riding Hood
As for me I will follow the path of the pink bunnies.
— Magenta Periwinkle
Do you ever wonder whether people would like you more or less if they could see inside you? I mean, I’ve always felt like the Katherines dump me right when they start to see what I look like from the inside—well, except K-19. But I always wonder about that. If people could see me the way I see myself—if they could live in my memories—would anyone, anyone, love me?
— John Green, An Abundance of Katherines