Quotes
Quotes about Content
Discontent is something that follows ambition like a shadow.
Restlessness is discontent - and discontent is the first necessity of progress. Show me a thoroughly satisfied man - and I will show you a failure.
A late lark twitters from the quiet skies: And from the west, Where the sun, his day's work ended, Lingers as in content, There falls on the old, gray city An influence luminous and serene, A shining peace.
That is the land of lost content, I see it shining plain, the happy highways where I went and cannot come again.
Content thyself to be obscurely good. When vice prevails and impious men bear away, The post of honor is a private station.
'Twere better to be born a stone Of ruder shape, and feeling none, Than with a tenderness like mine And sensibilities so fine! Ah, hapless wretch! condemn'd to dwell Forever in my native shell, Ordained to move when others please, Not for my own content or ease; But toss'd and buffeted about, Now in the water and now out.
I die content, I die for the liberty of my country. [Fr., Je meurs content, je meurs pour la liberte de mon pays.]
What difference is there, do you think, between those in Plato's cave who can only marvel at the shadows and images of various objects, provided they are content and don't know what they miss, and the philosopher who has emerged from the cave and sees the real things?
And poets by their sufferings grow,-- As if there were no more to do, To make a poet excellent, But only want and discontent.
Thank God for poverty That makes and keeps us free, And lets us go our unobtrusive way, Glad of the sun and rain, Upright, serene, humane, Contented with the fortune of a day.
Content with poverty, my soul I arm; And virtue, though in rags, will keep me warm.
However human, envy is certainly not one of the sources of discontent that a free society can eliminate. It is probably one of the essential conditions for the preservation of such a society that we do not countenance envy, not sanction its demands by camouflaging it as social justice, but treat it, in the words of John Stuart Mill, as "the most anti-social and evil of all passions.
Our minds can work for us or against us at any given moment. We can learn to accept and live with the natural psychological laws that govern us, understanding how to flow with life rather than struggle against it. We can return to our natural state of contentment.
Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life. Thus people haunted by the purposelessness of their lives try to find a new content not only by dedicating themselves to a holy cause but also by nursing a fanatical grievance. A mass movement offers them unlimited opportunities for both.
If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.
If the bookseller happens to desire a privilege for his merchandise, whether he is selling Rabelais or the Fathers of the Church, the magistrate grants the privilege without answering for the contents of the book. - Voltaire (Francois Marie Arouet Voltaire),
I find my wife hath something in her gizzard, that only waits an opportunity of being provoked to bring up; but I will not, for my content-sake, give it.
To be rational is so glorious a thing, that two-legged creatures generally content themselves with the title.
When you are content to be simply yourself and don't compare or compete, everybody will respect you.
Contentious fierce, Ardent, and dire, spring from no petty cause.
If we devote our time disparaging the products of our business rivals, we hurt business generally, reduce confidence, and increase discontent.
Marry, by these special marks: first, you have learned, like Sir Proteus, to wreathe your arms like a malcontent, to relish a love-song like a robin-redbreast, to walk alone like one that had the pestilence, to sigh like a schoolboy that had lost his A B C, to weep like a young wench that had buried her grandam, to fast like one that takes diet, to watch like one that fears robbing, to speak puling like a beggar at Hallowmas.
No one is satisfied with his fortune, nor dissatisfied with his intellect. [Fr., Nul n'est content de sa fortune; Ni mecontent de son esprit.]
He is very foolish who aims at satisfying all the world and his father. [Fr., Est bien fou du cerveau Qui pretend contenter tout le monde et son pere.]
O Scotia! my dear, my native soil! For whom my warmest wish to heaven is sent; Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content.
