75 Quotes About Finding Contentment

Finding contentment in the hustle and bustle of modern life can often feel like an elusive goal. Yet, throughout history, many individuals—philosophers, writers, and everyday people alike—have pondered this profound state of being and offered insights through memorable quotes. In this curated collection, we bring you 75 of the most thought-provoking and uplifting quotes about finding contentment. Whether you're seeking inspiration, comfort, or a new perspective, these words of wisdom will serve as a gentle reminder that true happiness is often found within. Join us on this journey towards inner peace and discover the timeless wisdom that can help guide you to a more contented life.

1. “Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.” - Mark Twain

2. “For after all, the best thing one can do when it is raining is let it rain.” - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

3. “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

4. “That same night, I wrote my first short story. It took me thirty minutes. It was a dark little tale about a man who found a magic cup and learned that if he wept into the cup, his tears turned into pearls. But even though he had always been poor, he was a happy man and rarely shed a tear. So he found ways to make himself sad so that his tears could make him rich. As the pearls piled up, so did his greed grow. The story ended with the man sitting on a mountain of pearls, knife in hand, weeping helplessly into the cup with his beloved wife's slain body in his arms.” - Khaled Hosseini

5. “I have learned to seek my happiness by limiting my desires, rather than in attempting to satisfy them.” - John Stuart Mill

6. “I should be contentto look at a mountainfor what it isand not as a comment on my life.” - David Ignatow

7. “We need much less than we think we need.” - Maya Angelou

8. “Many people lose the small joys in the hope for the big happiness.” - Pearl S. Buck

9. “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

10. “He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have.” - Socrates

11. “Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.” - Epictetus

12. “It was being a runner that mattered, not how fast or how far I could run. The joy was in the act of running and in the journey, not in the destination. We have a better chance of seeing where we are when we stop trying to get somewhere else. We can enjoy every moment of movement, as long as where we are is as good as where we'd like to be. That's not to say that you need to be satisfied forever with where you are today. But you need to honor what you've accomplished, rather than thinking of what's left to be done (p. 159).” - John Bingham

13. “Within what is allotted to us, we can have spiritual contentment.” - Neal A. Maxwell

14. “A book of verses underneath the boughA flask of wine, a loaf of bread and thouBeside me singing in the wildernessAnd wilderness is paradise now.” - Omar Khayyám

15. “I have learned that to be with those I like is enough” - Walt Whitman

16. “He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature.” - Socrates

17. “I mean a man whose hopes and aims may sometimes lie (as most men's sometimes do, I dare say) above the ordinary level, but to whom the ordinary level will be high enough after all if it should prove to be a way of usefulness and good service leading to no other. All generous spirits are ambitious, I suppose, but the ambition that calmly trusts itself to such a road, instead of spasmodically trying to fly over it, is of the kind I care for.” - Charles Dickens

18. “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

19. “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.” - Jane Taylor

20. “No wealth can ever make a bad man at peace with himself” - Plato

21. “I think the secret to a hoppy life is a selective memory. Remember what you are most grateful for and quickly forget what your not.” - Richard Paul Evans

22. “Learn from yesterday, live for today, look to tomorrow, rest this afternoon.” - Charles M. Schulz

23. “Happiness can only be achieved by looking inward & learning to enjoy whatever life has and this requires transforming greed into gratitude.” - John Chrysostom

24. “(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. ” - Brenda Ueland

25. “And you require no answers", Foamfollower was laughing in his gladness, "You are sufficient to every question".” - Stephen R. Donaldson

26. “I have observed this in my experience of slavery,--that whenever my condition was improved, instead of its increasing my contentment, it only increased my desire to be free, and set me to thinking of plans to gain my freedom. I have found that, to make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason. He must be able to detect no inconsistencies in slavery; he must be made to feel that slavery is right; and he can be brought to that only when he ceased to be a man.” - Frederick Douglass

27. “You have to open up to the world and learn optimism...Contentment with the past, happiness with the present, and hope for the future. Learned optimisim.” - Jennifer Crusie

28. “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

29. “I'd like to live as a poor man with lots of money.” - Pablo Picasso

30. “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

31. “Christian contentment is that sweet, inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit, which freely submits to and delights in God's wise and fatherly disposal in every condition.” - Jeremiah Burroughs

32. “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 Spurgeon

33. “Contentment can only happen as we increase desire, let it run itself out towar its fulfilment, and carry us along with it.” - John Eldredge

34. “So in our own poor hides and from our miserable comrades we learn the nature of satiety. 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.” - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

35. “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

36. “A cat knows how to be comfortable, how to get the people around it to serve it. In a tranquil domestic situation, the cat is a veritable manipulative genius. It seeks the soft, it seeks the warm, it prefers the quiet and it loves to be full. It displays, when it gets its own way in these matters, a degree of contentment we would all like to emulate.” - Roger A. Caras

37. “It was a life, she eventually concluded, that had been lived in the middle ground, where contentment and love were found in the smallest details of people's lives. It was a life of dignity and honor, not without sorrows yet fulfilling in a way that few experiences ever were.” - Nicholas Sparks

38. “In a person's lifetime there may be not more than half a dozen occasions that he can look back to in the certain knowledge that right then, at that moment, there was room for nothing but happiness in his heart.” - Ernestine Gilbreth Carey

39. “I'm not "happy" but I'm not unhappy about it.” - Alan Bennett

40. “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.” - St. Augustine of Hippo

41. “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.” - Haruki Murakami

42. “[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

43. “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

44. “The search for contentment is, therefore, not merely a self-preserving and self-benefiting act, but also a generous gift to the world. 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

45. “Health is the greatest possession. Contentment is the greatest treasure. Confidence is the greatest friend.” - Lao Tzu

46. “Live near to God, and so all things will appear to you little In comparison to eternal realities.--” - Robert Murray McCheyne

47. “We just wanna be the happy bums that we are. That's all.” - Mike Patton

48. “Happiness is in contentment, gratitude, and love. It is a lifestyle, not a location.” - Ogwo David Emenike

49. “Deep, contended joy comes from a place of complete security and confidence [in God] - even in the midst of trial.” - Swindoll Charles R.

50. “I only seem negative to the fortunate. That's because I show the less fortunate that they aren't less fortunate after all.” - Criss Jami

51. “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 Alder

52. “If you're not content with the small things, then you won't be content with the big things.” - Anthony Liccione

53. “Some things are hard to imagine. Can you conceive of excessive contentment, for example? Or an over pleasant evening? Too much happiness?” - Alan Moore

54. “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.” - John Newton

55. “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

56. “Whenever he was in company he wanted to get away, and whenever he was alone he wanted company.” - J.K. Rowling

57. “Was it possible to do both, to contribute to the world while merely observing it? To be content in the moment, but plan for the future? Could you follow your heart without losing all common sense?” - Holly Robinson

58. “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

59. “Being content with what you have already is an art form that leads to a peace that can’t be replaced by anything else.” - Elizabeth Gilbert

60. “Contentment comes from wanting what we need, not needing what we want.” - Wayne Gerard Trotman

61. “Happy are those who evolve from within.” - Amit Abraham

62. “Sage.” He laughed. “I’m into anything, so long as you’re with me.” - Richelle Mead

63. “...I hear the sounds of melting snow outside my window every night and with the first faint scent of spring, I remember life exists...” - John Geddes

64. “Be not wishing and pining but thankfully content.  For it is a short bridge between wanting and regret."- from "Dimpellumpzki” - Richelle E. Goodrich

65. “My dad’s contentment is all that matters to me. When he’s laughing, I’m laughing. When he’s happy, I’m happy. I would give up my soul for him. To me, nothing else but his happiness matters.” - Rebecah McManus

66. “People will ask you the question 'how is life treating you?' But my question is 'how are you treating life?' On that your happiness rests” - Rasheed Ogunlaru

67. “Thoughts will lead you in circles. Silence will bring you back to your centre.” - Rasheed Ogunlaru

68. “We all have a suspicion and hope that we've just been part of something special, something that may eventually change our lives. That no one else knows this makes it seem like we are living with a secret that we would like to share, but can't, sort of like having a superpower that's not come online or being president elect. For the moment, our lives proceed as usual, but within a month, we think, everything will change. It's a frustrating, if exciting, disconnect.” - Rob Lowe

69. “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

70. “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

71. “Just resign yourself to the fact that you're going to be miserable so you can finally be happy. (It's a sound theory if you think about it hard enough.)” - Richelle E. Goodrich

72. “Why is it people will complain, when they have an open door, where they can walk out to and gaze the stars; rather than having a closed door to lock them in?” - Anthony Liccione

73. “There are enough resources in the world for everyone.” - Bryant McGill

74. “Better to be happy with the cod fish in your plate now, than to linger for the taste of a tuna that is still swimming in the sea.” - Dennis E. Adonis

75. “Real poverty is when hunger pangs force from my mind all thoughts but those of food. Real poverty is when the children are not dressed warmly enough for winter. Real poverty is when the housing we can afford is not adequate to the needs of our families. On the other hand, real poverty is - equally - when I have eaten so much that I am uncomfortable, and again, my thoughts center on food. Or when I have so many clothes that I have to spend a lot of mental energy making choices among them or finding ways to store them. Or when, regardless of my living conditions, I am discontent and brooding about how to have more. Real poverty is when material things are uppermost and pressing - whether because we have too few or too many of them. It is poverty, because the human mind and spirit are made for higher things, worthier pursuits.” - Maxine Hancock