Contentment

“ All the way home I could not refrain from philosophising on the happiness of life, perfect contentment, and the love of good. My reflections, while perhaps not particularly deep nor brilliant, were none the less imbued with a sense of gratitude to the Almighty, and filled with pity and respect for poor human nature. ”

“ If we are noted for anything, it is for modest contentment, unassuming virtue, and cheerful candor—just as you see them in me. Each face reflects the genuine emotions and guileless innocence of the heart connected therewith ”

“ Absolute contentment and serenity and the delight that never dies were the boons it offered. There man could cease from toil, for nature, unassisted, produced all that was necessary for his sustenance. ”

“ Contentment often abides with little, and rarely dwells with abundance. "Peace and few things are preferable to great professions and great cares." Such was the maxim of the Stoics. Nature teaches us to live, but wisdom teaches us to live contented. ”

“ Something dimly stirred in her, and the healing spirit that haunts such spots did its sweet ministering till the innocent soul began to see that life was not perfect with out labor as well as love, duty as well as happiness, and that true contentment came from within, not from without. ”

“ True contentment bids you be content with what you have, not with what you are; not to be sighing and wishing for things unattainable, but to cheerfully and contentedly accept the facts of your position, and then, if the way opens for improvement, to accept it at once ”

“ Certainly true contentment is only that which is taken in the Creator, and not that which is taken in the creature; a contentment which no man can take from the soul, and in comparison [Pg 25] with which all other joy is sadness, all pleasure sorrow, all sweetness bitter, all beauty ugliness, all delight affliction. ”

“ True, my own experience of life has suggested that contentment is rather the monopoly of the simplest souls, whose understanding is very limited indeed. A stinging thought this, and apt to keep a man wakeful at night, if indulged. ”

“ Ambition he laughs to scorn. 'What, he asks, can be added to the happiness of the man who is in health, out of debt, and has a clear conscience?' Again, 'the chief part of happiness consists in the consciousness of being beloved, hence, sudden changes of fortune seldom contribute to happiness.' But what he dwells upon most persistently, as the prime condition of happiness, is Contentment, and Tranquillity. ”

“ Thus leaning upon God and his promises, we may be free from care and anxiety; content with our lot in life, because he appoints it. 'Godliness with contentment is great gain.' Lucilla, can you tell us of a Bible saint who had learned this lesson? ”

“ Gracious Providence, to whom I owe all my powers, why didst thou not withhold some of those blessings I possess, and substitute in their place a feeling of self-confidence and contentment? ”

“ From labour health, from health contentment springs.
Contentment opes the source of every joy. ”

“ O lift up our affections to things above, that we may have perfect contentment in well-doing and patient suffering, and the good hope we have of being eternally beloved of thee, may make us rejoice evermore. Free us from the cares of the world, from all distrust of thy good providence, from repining at any thing that befals us, and enable us in every thing to give thanks, believing that all things are ordered wisely, and shall work together for good. ”

“ God be praised for your contentment with the sufficiency which He has given you. Persevere in thanking Him for it. It is, indeed, the beatitude of this poor earthly life to be contented with what is sufficient, because those who are not contented when they have enough will never be contented, how much soever they may acquire. In the words of your book—since you call it your book—Nothing will ever content those who are not contented when they have enough. ”

“ To me the performance of one's present duty is the only real thing that brings contentment. And duty need not always be stern and forbidding; to laugh and play and be merry may, at the proper time and in the proper circumstances, be a duty both to ourselves [Pg 129] and to others. ”

“ My endeavour, therefore, to-day will be to point out to you how in the best wisdom, that there may be happy advance, there must first be happy contentment; that, in one sense, we must always be entering its kingdom as a little child, and pleased yet for a time not to put away childish things. ”

“ Properly cultivated, they save much of the wear and tear of life, and make for contentment and happiness much more than many of the things for which men strive so anxiously because they seem to promise happiness. ”

“ So He pours on man all the blessings in His reservoir: strength, beauty, wisdom, honour, pleasure—and then He refrains from giving him the last of them, which is rest, i.e., contentment. God sees that if man is contented he will never win his way to Him. ”

“ For what is there in the world so desirable, unless a man should desire deceit, and violence, and misery, and wretchedness, giddiness and distraction? Contentment and tranquillity,’ said he, ‘constitute the happiness of man ”

“ Care for a moment loosed its grasp,
⁠And breathing deep the fragrant brine,—
My hand locked in my lover's clasp,—
⁠I felt his pulses throb with mine;
And dear contentment seemed my right,—
⁠There roaming from the world apart ”

“ Sir, I know it as though it were written in a book: your life has been one long calculation—your sympathy or kindness a calculated thing. Good-nature, emotion you may have had, but never the divine thing by which the world is saved. ”

“ All those to whom I looked up, were of opinion that the pleasure of sympathy with human beings, and the feelings which made the good of others, and especially of mankind on a large scale, the object of existence, were the greatest and surest sources of happiness. ”

“ This is, perhaps, the foundation, on which, without the aid of reflection, the contented and the cheerful have rested the gaiety of their tempers. It is, perhaps, the most solid basis of fortitude which any reflection can lay; and happiness itself is secured by making a certain species of conduct our amusements; and, by considering life in the general estimate of its value, as well on every particular occasion, as a mere scene for the exercise of the mind, and the engagements of the heart. ”

“ Then, when I reflect that, not satisfied with sympathising with sufferings of which you can form no idea from actual experience, you aid me with the most salutary counsels, and guide me, step by step, in the new and delightful path of virtue and goodness pointed out by you to relieve a weary and worn-out heart, oh, my lord, what treasure of all that is good must your mind contain! From what source have you drawn so large a supply of tender pity for the woes of all? ”

“ By a kind of fashionable discipline the eye is taught to brighten, the lip to smile, and the whole countenance to emanate the semblance of friendly welcome, while the bosom is unwarmed by a single spark of genuine kindness and good-will. Grief and anxiety lie hidden under the golden robes of prosperity, and the gloom of calamity is often cheered by the secret radiations of hope and comfort, as in the works of nature the bog is sometimes covered with flowers and the mine concealed in barren crags. Beware, so long as you live, of judging men by the outward appearance. ”

“ Let it suffice for you to perform your daily duties with uprightness; let your joys be centred in your wife and children, and you will be happy. What need you more? Think not that honor and station would make you happy. Rejoice, and again I say, rejoice: ‘A contented spirit is a continual feast.’ I often whisper this to myself, when I feel disposed to give way to dejection: and although misery be not our fault, yet lack of endurance and of patience in misery is undoubtedly our fault. ”

“ Every principle of goodness, the exercise of which brings us present peace and future bliss, seemed to point at her in bitter mockery. The reward that waits on worthy endeavour--how could she hope to win it? The blessing that attends on a pure life--how could she hope to gain it? ”

“ The comfort gained by these virtues, and the rewards they bring, both in this and in a future life, are a thousand-fold richer than the easy, indolent life of indulgence, which we should choose for ourselves. ”

“ Who shall decide for me—if not myself—on their claims?—who can judge for me what strength requires to be exercised, what pleasure to be enjoyed, what growth to be forwarded? All around me, everywhere, are the means of gratification,—I have but to reach forth my hand and grasp ”

“ This entreaty still rings in my ears, and leads me so to use any influence I may now have over parents.
Is it not true that the strongest delight the human being ever has is in well-doing? Is it not true that this pleasure, like the pleasures of the eye and ear, the pleasures of benevolence, the pleasures of the understanding and the imagination, will seek its own continuance and gratification, if it have fair play? ”

“ Is our happiness in this life, our self-respect, our real worth, dependent upon the accident of our station, or upon the place we occupy in the affections of men,—what we possess of their sympathy and love? ”

“ Here we are in a world which holds much pain and many pleasures, oceans of tears and echoes of laughter. Our position is not without dignity, because we can endure; and not without enjoyment, because we can be merry. ”

“ While, therefore, they feel it to be their duty still to add to their [240] "virtue, knowledge; and to knowledge, temperance; and to temperance, patience; and to patience, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, charity;" they are fully conscious of their innumerable defects, and wait in humble expectation of eternal life, not as a reward for their good deeds, but as a sovereign and unmerited favour. ”

“ What happiness to have created innocent and tranquil pleasures for ourselves in these younger years, to have accustomed the heart to be contented with them, not to have contracted the sad necessity of being unable to do without violent and criminal gratifications, and not to have rendered insupportable, by a long habit of warm and tumultuous passions, the gentleness and the tranquillity of virtue and innocence! ”

“ For all things which seem to be for our peace and for our happiness, when thou art absent, are nothing, and in truth contribute nothing to our felicity.
Thou therefore art the fountain of all good, and the height of life, and the depth of wisdom; and to trust in thee above all things is the strongest comfort of thy servants. ”

“ When we look back on the past history of this people, and see the difficulties they have had to encounter and have overcome, our hearts should swell with joy and gratitude to the benign Providence which has brought us to the position that we now enjoy. ”

“ It strikes at the root of every virtue, and undermines the foundations of all happiness. Cultivate candour and sincerity; they will endear you to the good and to the judicious. Endeavour to realize the importance of establishing good habits; of forsaking errors; and of acquiring those sources of intellectual pleasure which will continue unimpaired, when the enjoyments of youth are departed, and its bloom forever gone. ”

“ The best comfort for us is, to say to ourselves, Are not many, many others carrying the same burdens, disappointments, and toils as we? How do they bear them, and where do they get their patience and strength from? ”

“ May you feel in your own bosom the reward you so richly deserve, and be sensible of those joys with which 'a stranger intermeddleth not.' So early disciplined in the school of affliction, your heart has felt the need of consolation which the world has not to bestow; and at a period of life when the follies and vanities of the world most commonly engross us, you have been led to an attention to those things which are unseen and eternal. ”

“ View those miseries, then, as special acts of mercy and commiseration of a beneficient Creator, who, with every calamity, melts away a link of that earthly chain that fetters our wishes to this dismal world. Accept his blessings and his goods, when he sends them, with gratitude and enjoyment: receive his afflictions, too, with as joyous acceptance, and as hearty gratitude. ”

“ Let the days of love, happiness, and devotion count in the final reckoning, and, in turning over a new leaf, be sure you bring forward devotion, and soon happiness may have to be added again.
Put on a cheerful face always, and remember that it pays to excite envy, never to excite pity. ”

“ I had begun to hope that you had learned lessons of charity and kindness during the past year—that you had come to realize there was something more required in life than a continual seeking after pleasure and the gratification of pride and ambitious desires ”

“ But above it shines, with a steady light, your sympathy, your benevolence, your gentleness of heart, and your warm appreciation of the virtues, rude but sincere, of a people whose condition it is necessary to improve, in order to make them contented and happy. ”