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• Contentment: A state of happiness and satisfaction. Oxford Dictionary
• Contentment: Pleased with your situation and not hoping for change or improvement.  Cambridge Dictionary
• Happiness,  Fulfilment,  True wealth,  Equanimity,  Complacency,  Serenity,  Pleasure,  Prosperity

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We all desire to be content

• I believe that the very purpose of life is to be happy. From the very core of our being, we desire contentment. The Dalai Lama
• People are never free of trying to be content. Murray Bookchin

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However, often we snub contentment in the present in our pursuit of greater happiness in the future

• The world is full of people looking for spectacular happiness while they snub contentment. Doug Larson
• You traverse the world in search of happiness, which is within the reach of every man. A contented mind confers it on all. Horace
• Many people lose the small joys in the hope for the big happiness. Pearl S. Buck
• Everyone chases after happiness, not noticing that happiness is right at their heels. Bertolt Brecht
• We may pass violets looking for roses. We may pass contentment looking for victory.
• Happiness

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The irony is that being content with what you have right now and really enjoying it is what creates true happiness

• Happiness consists not in having much, but in being content with little. Marguerite Gardiner
• Happiness is not having what you want. It’s wanting what you have.
• Success is getting what you want; happiness is wanting what you get. Dale Carnegie
• It is not how much we have but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness. Charles Haddon Spurgeon
• Plenty of people miss their share of happiness, not because they never found it, but because they didn’t stop to enjoy it. William Feather
• If you aren’t happy with what you’ve got, you probably aren’t going to be happy with anything else. Henri Junttila
• We always have enough to be happy if we are enjoying what we do have–and not worrying about what we don’t have. Ken Keyes, Jr.
• We tend to forget that happiness doesn’t come as a result of getting something we don’t have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have. Frederick Koenig
• Admit to your contentment so it can tip over into joy. Danielle LaPorte

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• Cheerfulness and contentment are great beautifiers and are famous preservers of youthful looks. Charles Dickens
• A contented mind is the greatest blessing a person can enjoy in this world. Joseph Addison
• Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship. Buddha
• 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
• It takes more distress and poison to kill someone who has peace of mind and loves life. Bernie Siegel
• How true it is that, if we are cheerful and contented, all nature smiles, the air seems more balmy, the sky clearer, the earth has a brighter green. . . the flowers are more fragrant. . .  and the sun, moon and stars all appear more beautiful, and seem to rejoice with us.  Orison Swett Marden

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The real beginning of contentment is realising that having more and more money will not make you significantly happier

• Money—beyond the bare minimum necessary for food and shelter (and I am not talking caviar and castles)—is nothing more than a means to an end. Yet so often we confuse means with ends and sacrifice happiness (end) for money (means). Tal Ben-Shahar
• Money can be a help in attaining psychological wealth, but it must be considered in the bigger picture of what makes people genuinely rich. Ed Diener & Robert Biswas-Diener
• …there’s nothing inherently wrong with the desires of the Wanting Mind—it’s just that we are doomed to disappointment when we think they’ll bring any kind of lasting fulfilment. Brent Kessel
• The desire to have, to acquire and possess, is in principle insatiable, and rarely generates the sense of fulfilment and happiness it promises. Tom Morris
• Happy is harder than money. Anyone who thinks money will make them happy, doesn’t have money. David Geffen
• He who is happy is rich, but it does not follow that he who is rich is happy. Sir Robert Baden- Powell
• There is a serious defect in the thinking of someone who wants–more than anything else– to become rich. As long as they don’t have the money, it’ll seem like a worthwhile goal. Once they do, they’ll understand how important other things are–and have always been. Joseph Brooks
• You can never get enough of what you don’t need to make you happy. Eric Hoffer
• I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it’s not the answer. Jim Carrey
• Money has never yet made anyone rich. Seneca
• Even though you have ten thousand fields, you can eat no more than one measure of rice a day. Even though your dwelling contains a hundred rooms, you can use but eight feet of space a night. Chinese proverb

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It is not wealth but contentment that will make you truly rich

• Contentment gives a crown, where fortune hath denied it. John Ford
• Abundance is not a number or acquisition. It is the simple recognition of enoughness. Alan Cohen
• Contentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty. Socrates
• 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
• Riches are not from abundance of worldly goods, but from a contented mind. Mohammed
• Prosperity depends more on wanting what you have than having what you want. Geoffrey F. Abert
• To be satisfied with a little, is the greatest wisdom; and he that increaseth his riches, increaseth his cares; but a contented mind is a hidden treasure, and trouble findeth it not. Akhenaton
• He who knows he has enough is rich. Lao Tzu
• The only truly affluent are those who do not want more than they have. Eric Fromm
• 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. Balguy
• He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature. Socrates
• If you want to feel rich, just count the things you have that money can’t buy. Proverb
• If you realize that you have enough, you are truly rich. Lao Tzu
• There are two ways you can be rich. One is to have all you want, the other is to be satisfied with what you have.
• Contentment is the greatest wealth. Buddha
• The true way to gain much, is never to desire to gain too much. He is not rich that possesses much, but he that covets no more; and he is not poor that enjoys little, but he that wants too much. Francis Beaumont
• The richest person is the one who is contented with what he has. Robert Savage
• I am content; that is a blessing greater than riches; and he to whom that is given need ask no more. Henry Fielding
• Content makes poor men rich; discontentment makes rich men poor. Benjamin Franklin
• The greatest wealth is to live content with little, for there is never want where the mind is satisfied. Lucretius
• Riches are not from abundance of worldly goods, but from a contented mind. Mohammed
• My crown is in my heart, not on my head, Nor decked with diamonds and Indian stones, Nor to be seen: My crown is called content: A crown it is, that seldom kings enjoy. William Shakespeare
• To be content with what we possess is the greatest and most secure of riches. Cicero
• Wealth is a relative thing since those who have little and want less are richer than those who have much but want more. Charles Caleb Colton
• Who is wealthy? One who is happy with what they have. Pirkei Avot
• Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants. Epictetus
• To be satisfied with a little, is the greatest wisdom; and he that increaseth his riches, increaseth his cares; but a contented mind is a hidden treasure, and trouble findeth it not. Akhenaton
• True wealth

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Contentment comes from within

• The fountain of contentment must spring up in the mind, and they who have so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but their own disposition, will waste their lives in fruitless efforts and multiply the grief they propose to remove. Samuel Johnson
• When we cannot find contentment in ourselves, it is useless to seek it elsewhere. Francois La Rochefoucauld
• The greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances. Martha Washington
• It is not our circumstances that create our discontent or contentment. It is us. Vivian Greene
• The treasure within

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Contentment comes from accepting things as they are

• Neither circumstances nor surroundings can bring contentment. Only by fitting ourselves to meet conditions as they are, calmly and courageously, may we hope to reconcile ourselves to our position and conditions of life.  Fred van Amburgh
• Contentment comes as the infallible result of great acceptances, great humilities–of not trying to make ourselves this or that, but of surrendering ourselves to the fullness of life–of letting life flow through us. David Grayson
• For after all, the best thing one can do when it is raining is let it rain. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
• My personal opinion is that the neutral position on the mood spectrum—what I called emotional sea level—is not happiness but rather contentment and the calm acceptance that is the goal of many kinds of spiritual practice. Andrew Weil
• Acceptance

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Contentment comes from considering who you are and what you have and being satisfied

• The key to contentment is to consider. Consider who you are and be satisfied with that. Consider what you have and be satisfied with that.  Consider what God’s doing and be satisfied with that.  You will be amazed at how much more comfortable you’ll feel with yourself.  Finally, consider this: If contentment cannot be found within yourself, you’ll never find it.  Luci Swindoll
• Be happy with what you have and are, be generous with both, and you won’t have to hunt for happiness. William E. Gladstone
• To accept what you are is to be content, and contentment is the greatest wealth. To work with patience is to gather power. Vimalia Mcclure
• The greatest blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach. A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not.  Seneca

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Contentment comes from living each day to the fullest

• Happy the man, and happy he alone, he who can call today his own; he who, secure within, can say, tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today. John Dryden
• A Sunday well-spent brings a week of content. Proverb
• Success means we go to sleep at night knowing that our talents and abilities were used in a way that served others. Marianne Williamson
• Embrace the gift of today

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Contentment comes from meditation

• Suppose you read about a pill that you could take once a day to reduce anxiety and increase your contentment. Would you take it? Suppose further that the pill has a great variety of side effects, all of them good: increased self- esteem, empathy, and trust; it even improves memory. Suppose, finally, that the pill is all natural and costs nothing. Now would you take it? The pill exists. It is meditation. Jonathan Haidt
• If we have not quiet in our minds, outward comfort will do no more for us than a golden slipper on a gouty foot. John Bunyan
• Meditation

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Here are yet more paths to contentment

• How true are you to yourself? That is the degree of your contentment. Vernon Howard
• At some point, you gotta let go, and sit still, and allow contentment to come to you. Elizabeth Gilbert
• To feel that one has a place in life solves half the problems of contentment. George E. Woodberry
• Learn to be pleased with everything; with wealth, so far as it makes us beneficial to others; with poverty, for not having much to care for; and with obscurity, for being unenvied. Plutarch
• A sound mind in a sound body, is a short, but full description of a happy state in this World: he that has these two, has little more to wish for; and he that wants either of them, will be little the better for anything else. John Locke

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The surest way to become happier and more content is to be grateful for what you already have

• If you look at what you have in life, you’ll always have more. If you look at what you don’t have in life, you’ll never have enough. Oprah Winfrey
• They say he who is not happy with what he has, will not be happy with what he gets. Karl Moore
• Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough. Oprah Winfrey
• He is a man of sense who does not grieve for what he has not, but rejoices in what he has. Epictetus
• This seems to be the central dilemma of human life – that it is easier to desire what is over there than to appreciate what is right here. Byron Brown
• We tend to forget that happiness doesn’t come as a result of getting something we don’t have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have. Frederick Koenig
• If you count all your assets, you always show a profit. Robert Quillen
• I pray daily, not for more riches, but for more wisdom with which to recognize, embrace and enjoy what I already possess. Napoleon Hill
• You need much less than you think you need to be happy, and you usually have a lot more than you think you have. Marc and Angel Chernoff
• Happiness can only be achieved by looking inward and learning to enjoy whatever life has and this requires transforming greed into gratitude. John Chrysostom
• Contentment is not the fulfilment of what you want, but the realization of how much you already have.
• Gratitude

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If you can’t be grateful for what you have, you’re unlikely to be content with anything else

• If you aren’t happy with what you’ve got, you probably aren’t going to be happy with anything else. Gratitude isn’t just something that magically happens, you have to practice, consciously. Henri Junttila
• He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have. Socrates
• If you don’t enjoy what you have, how could you be happier with more?
• 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 H. Spurgeon
• He who doesn’t find a little enough will find nothing enough. Epicurus
• Some people are like that – always searching for something better, never satisfied. Makes you wonder if they ever get a good night’s sleep. They must toss and turn, dreaming about a softer mattress or a plumper pillow. Farahad Zama

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It’s all about wanting what you have rather than striving for what you want

• It is better to want what you have than to have what you want. Proverb
• Since we cannot get what we like, let us like what we can get. Spanish Proverb
• When you can’t have what you want, it’s time to start wanting what you have. Kathleen A. Sutton
• It’s not about having what you want. It’s about wanting what you have and what you are, right at this moment. Zen saying

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To be upset over what you don’t yet have is to waste what you do already have

• To be upset over what you don’t have is to waste what you do have. , Ken S. Keyes
• Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for. Epicurus
• Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not. Ann Brashares

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The path to contentment is to savour the blessings that life brings

• Contentment has the ability to squeeze out of every situation all the good there is to get. Shantidasa
• True contentment is a thing as active as agriculture. It is the power of getting out of any situation all that there is in it. It is arduous and it is rare. Gilbert K. Chesterton
• Joy is a deeply felt contentment that transcends difficult circumstances and derives maximum enjoyment from every good experience. Charles R. Swindoll
• Researchers define savouring as any thoughts or behaviours capable of “generating, intensifying, and prolonging enjoyment.” The habit of savouring has been shown in empirical research to be related to intense and frequent happiness.  Sonja Lyubomirsky
• Rather than merely reacting to positive events when they occur, people can learn to savour proactively – to consciously anticipate positive experiences, to mindfully accentuate and sustain pleasurable moments, and to deliberately remember these experiences in ways that rekindle enjoyment after they end. Fred Bryant and Joseph Verdoff
• Life will sometimes hand you a magical moment. Savor it. Jackson Brown Jr.
• He who allows his day to pass by without practicing generosity and enjoying life’s pleasures is like a blacksmith’s bellows: he breathes but does not live. Proverb
• Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that they hurry past it. Soren Kierkegaard
• My advice to you is not to inquire why or whither, but just enjoy your ice cream while it’s on your plate. Thornton Wilder
• One of the secrets of a happy life is continuous small treats. Iris Murdoch
• In Buddhism, it is considered appropriate and helpful to cultivate and enhance our well- being. We often overlook the well- being that is easily available in daily life. Even taking time to enjoy one’s tea or the sunset can be a training in well- being. Gil Fronsdal
• I prefer to explore the most intimate moments, the smaller, crystallized details we all hinge our lives on. Rita Dove
• One regret dear world, that I am determined not to have when I am lying on my deathbed is that I did not kiss you enough. Hafez of Persia
• …a wonderful capacity to appreciate again and again, freshly and naively, the basic goods of life, with awe, pleasure, wonder, and even ecstasy. Abraham Maslow
• Savour life’s simple joys

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Contentment consists in consciously reducing your desires…

• The greatest wealth is a poverty of desires. Seneca
• Abundance consists not so much in material possessions, but in an uncovetous spirit. John Seldon
• Bring your desires down to your present means. Increase them only when your increased means permit. Aristotle
• Contentment consists not in adding more fuel, but in taking away some fire; not in multiplying of wealth, but in subtracting people’s desires. Generally those who boast most of contentment have least of it. Their very boasting shows they want something and basely beg it, namely commendation. Thomas Fuller
• Desires are just waves in the mind. A desire is just a thing among many. I feel no urge to satisfy it, no action needs be taken on it. Freedom from desire means this: the compulsion to satisfy is absent. Nisargadatta Maharaj
• Give up on the idea that more is better. The desire to have more and more and more is insatiable. As long as you think more is better, you’ll never be satisfied. As soon as we get something, or achieve something, most of us simply go onto the next thing. Immediately. You can learn to be happy with what you have by becoming more present moment oriented, by not focusing so much on what you want. You can spend your life time wanting more, always chasing happiness – or you can simply decide to consciously want less. The latter strategy is infinitely easier and more fulfilling. Richard Carlson
• I have learned to seek my happiness by limiting my desires, rather than in attempting to satisfy them. John Stuart Mill
• I have the greatest of all riches: that of not desiring them. Eleonora Duse
• If being wealthy is taken to mean having the means to satisfy one’s every want, all but the very poor can become rich as thou at a single stroke of a magician’s wand, simply by ceasing to want more than is really necessary for sustaining life. By being content with little and not giving a rap for what the neighbours think, one can attain a very large measure of freedom, shedding care and worry in a trice. John Blofeld
• If thou wilt make a man happy, add not unto his riches but take away from his desires. Epicurus
• It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor. Seneca
• Men become richer not only by increasing their existing wealth but also by decreasing their expenditure. Aristotle
• People exaggerate the value of things they haven’t got. George Bernard Shaw
• The amount of money a person made only modestly predicted whether or not she was satisfied with her income. Some people with a lot of money could not meet their desires, and others with little money were able to do so. Happiness = What we have (attainments) / What we want (aspirations) Ed Diener & Robert Biswas- Diener
• The man is richest whose pleasures are cheapest. Henry David Thoreau
• The secret of contentment is knowing how to enjoy what you have, and to be able to lose all desire for things beyond your reach. Lin Yu-tang
• There is no end of craving. Hence contentment alone is the best way to happiness. Therefore, acquire contentment. Swami Sivananda
• Who covets more, is evermore a slave. Robert Herrick
• Contentment is a state of grace, a state of peace and happiness, appreciation and enjoyment for what is, right now. Desires, in contrast, can never be satisfied. Once we get what we crave, we soon find it less satisfying than we expected, so we strive for something else. The only escape from this perpetual wheel of want is to discover the contentment and perfection we already have. Gillian Stokes
• Freedom is not procured by a full enjoyment of what is desired, but by controlling the desire. Epictetus
• Desire

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… and reducing your list of wants and needs

• We’ve got everything we need right here, and everything we need is enough. Jack Johnson
• To have what we want is riches; but to be able to do without is power. George Macdonald
• We don’t need to increase our goods nearly as much as we need to scale down our wants. Not wanting something is as good as possessing it. Donald Horban
• We are not rich by what we possess but by what we can do without. Immanuel Kant
• We are happy in proportion to the things we can do without. Henry David Thoreau
• If we reduce our needs and learn to be content with little, we need to work little to survive. Leo Babauta
• It is not what we take up, but what we give up, that makes us rich. Henry Ward Beecher
• Keep high aspirations, moderate expectations, and small needs. William Howard Stein
• Learning to be satisfied doesn’t mean you can’t, don’t, or shoudn’t ever want more than you have, only that your happiness isn’t contingent on it. Richard Carlson
• My riches consist not in the extent of my possessions but in the fewness of my wants. J. Brotherton
• Need nothing and then see what happens. Gangaji
• Reduce the complexity of life by eliminating the needless wants of life, and the labors of life reduce themselves. Edwin Way Teale
• Human needs

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Contentment comes from only wanting what you need…

• Contentment comes from wanting what we need, not needing what we want. Wayne Gerard Trotman
• You have succeeded in life when all you really want is only what you really need. Vernon Howard
• My belief is that to have no wants is divine. Socrates
• Those who want much, are always much in need. Horace

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… and realising you’ve already got everything you need to be happy

• Everything I need is already within me. Abraham-Hicks
• It is a tremendous fact that all you need is already within you. Wallace D. Wattles
• You say you need help. Help for what? You have everything needed for the extravagant journey that is your life. Carlos Castaneda
• Your treasure is deep within you: it holds all you need. Hui-Hai
• Gratitude is the realization that we have everything we need, at least in this moment. M J Ryan
• You have within you right now, everything you need to deal with whatever the world can throw at you. Brian Tracy
• Everything you need you already have. You are complete right now, you are a whole, total person, not an apprentice person on the way to someplace else. Your completeness must be understood by you and experienced in your thoughts as your own personal reality. Wayne Dyer
• We’ve got everything we need right here, and everything we need is enough. Jack Johnson
• All I have is all I need and all I need is all I have in this moment. Byron Katie
• Everything I need now is here. Wayne Dyer
• Need does not exist. I need nothing to be happy. Happiness is a state of mind. Neale Donald Walsch
• We need much less than we think we need. Maya Angelou

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To be content, reduce your attachment to money and physical possessions…

• You can do less and live more. You don’t need more stuff. Release your cravings for materialism. It will lead to less debt, less work and less stress. Henri Junttila
• Once you become detached from things, they don’t own you any longer. Wayne Dyer
• Money doesn’t have to enslave you. How much money do you really need? How about having enough to do what you want, when you want to do it? Why would anyone need more than that? Henri Junttila
• Material objects are just tools to help you enjoy your life. You do not carry them with you when you die. So, don’t invest yourself in them. Rather, invest yourself in the development of your consciousness. Celestine Chua
• Notice that out of control material aspirations quickly shrink your happiness. Gratitude for what we have plus keeping our material aspirations in check? That’s a good way to boost your happiness. Brian Johnson
• Prosperity in the form of wealth works exactly the same as everything else. You will see it coming into your life when you are unattached to needing it. Wayne Dyer
• Non-attachment

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… and choose to travel through the journey of life without too much baggage

• Simplicity is making the journey of this life with just baggage enough.
• Very little is needed for a happy life. Marcus Aurelius
• Everything we possess that is not necessary for life or happiness becomes a burden, and scarcely a day passes that we do not add to it. Robert Brault
• Frugality is one of the most beautiful and joyful words in the English language, and yet one that we are culturally cut off from understanding and enjoying. The consumption society has made us feel that happiness lies in having things, and has failed to teach us the happiness of not having things. Elise Boulding
• What a unique treasure are the things we have learned to live without, for no thief can take them from us. Robert Brault
• Unnecessary possessions are unnecessary burdens. If you have them, you have to take care of them! There is great freedom in simplicity of living. It is those who have enough but not too much who are the happiest. Peace Pilgrim
• A great fortune is a great slavery. Seneca
• Many wealthy people are little more than janitors of their possessions. Frank Lloyd Wright
• Barn’s burned down – now I can see the rising moon. Zen Master Masahide
• The more things you own, the more they own you.
• The greatest step towards a life of simplicity is to learn to let go. Steve Maraboli
• How many things are there which I do not want. Socrates
• Everything you lose gives you a little more space for something new. Ashleigh Brilliant
• Let me not be tied down to property or praise and I shall be free. Free from the nagging ache of envy. Free from the hurts of resentment. Free to love all and forgive all. Free to do and say what is right, regardless of the unpopularity. Free to wander everywhere as inspiration guides me. Saint Francis of Assisi
• I like to walk about among the beautiful things that adorn the world; but private wealth I should decline, or any sort of personal possessions, because they would take away my liberty. George Santayana
• A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone. Henry David Thoreau
• It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly. Bertrand Russell
• The more you have, the more you are occupied. The less you have, the more free you are. Mother Teresa
• The things you used to own, now they own you. Chuck Palahniuk
• In dwelling, live close to the ground. Lao Tzu
• Don’t let your possessions possess you. Jackson Brown Jr.

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Live content through small means

• To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not, rich; to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with open heart; to study hard; to think quietly, act frankly, talk gently, await occasions, hurry never; in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common. this is my symphony. William Ellery Channing

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To be content, live rich rather than die rich

• It is better to live rich than to die rich. Samuel Johnson
• Think it more satisfactory to live richly than die rich. Sir Thomas Browne
• It is through creating, not possessing, that life is revealed. Vida D. Scudder
• Treasure your relationships – not your possessions. Anthony J. D’Angelo
• Constantly remind yourself that you’re here for a reason, and it’s not to hoard a lot of material stuff! Wayne Dyer
• It is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness. Charles Spurgeon
• Not what we have but what we enjoy, constitutes our abundance. John Petit-Senn
• There’s nothing wrong with possessions; it’s just that they have value to us only when we use them, engage them, and enjoy them. They’re nouns that mean something only in conjunction with verbs. That’s why wealth is so dangerous: if you’re not careful you can easily end up with a garage full of nouns. Rob Bell
• In the proximity of death, the whole concept of ownership stands revealed as ultimately meaningless. Eckhart Tolle
• He who dies with the most toys is nonetheless dead.
• Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me… Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful… that’s what matters to me. Steve Jobs
• There are no pockets in a shroud.
• If your capacity to acquire has outstripped your capacity to enjoy, you are on the way to the scrap- heap. Glen Buck
• I don’t want to own anything that won’t fit into my coffin. Fred A. Allen

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Contentment is realising the greatest joy is to be found in simple things…

• The art of contentment is the recognition that the most satisfying and the most dependably refreshing experiences of life lie not in great things but in little. Edgar A. Collard
• Appreciate every little beautiful moment in every day of your life. Give it a try and you’ll see the world from another perspective. Thea Kristine May
• The essence of life is not in the great victories and grand failures, but in the simple joys. Jonathan Lockwood Huie
• Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things. Robert Brault
• How simple and frugal a thing is happiness: a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea. All that is required to feel that here and now is happiness is a simple, frugal heart.  Nikos Kazantzakis
• If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world. R.R.Tolkien
• In the dew of little things, the heart finds it’s morning and is refreshed. Kahlil Gibran
• Life holds so many simple blessings, each day bringing its own individual wonder. John McLeod
• Make up your mind to be happy. Learn to find pleasure in simple things. Robert Louis Stevenson
• Some days, it’s simply about delicious acts of doing simple things, simply. Jack Ricchiuto
• Some people have a wonderful capacity to appreciate again and again, freshly and naively, the basic goods of life, with awe, pleasure, wonder, and even ecstasy. A.H. Maslow
• Teach us to delight in simple things. Rudyard Kipling
• The art of being happy lies in the power of extracting happiness from common things. Henry Ward Beecher
• The best things are nearest: breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of God just before you. Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life’s plain, common work as it comes, certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things of life. Robert Louis Stevenson
• The little things? The little moments? They aren’t little. Jon Kabat-Zinn
• The moment I stopped spending so much time chasing the big pleasure of life. I began to enjoy the little ones, like watching the stars dancing in moonlit sky or soaking in the sunbeams of a glorious summer morning. Robin S. Sharma
• The Warrior tries to enjoy the small everyday things of life. Paulo Coelho
• Think big thoughts but relish small pleasures. H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
• After a visit to the beach, it’s hard to believe that we live in a material world. Pam Shaw
• The best things in life are not only free, they require less assembly. Robert Brault
• Think big thoughts, but relish small pleasures. H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
• Don’t overlook life’s small joys while searching for the big ones. Jackson Brown Jr.
• Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life. Mark Twain
• 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
• To the right, books; to the left, a tea-cup. In front of me, the fireplace; behind me, the post. There is no greater happiness than this. Teiga
• As we become curators of our own contentment on the Simple Abundance path… we learn to savor the small with a grateful heart. Sarah Ban Breathnach
• Life’s simple joys,  Life is in the little things

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… and realising the most valuable things in life are often not things and are often free

• The most valuable things in life are not measured in monetary terms. The really important things are not houses and lands, stocks and bonds, automobiles and real state, but friendships, trust, confidence, empathy, mercy, love and faith. Bertrand Russell
• The best things in life are free. American Proverb
• The best things in life….. aren’t things. Art Buchwald
• It’s good to have money and the things that money can buy, but it’s good, too, to check up once in a while and make sure that you haven’t lost the things that money can’t buy. George Horace Lorimer
• The little money I have – that is my wealth, but the things I have for which I would not take money, that is my treasure. Robert Brault
• Ordinary riches can be stolen; real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you.  Oscar Wilde
• If you want to feel rich, just count the things you have that money can’t buy. Proverb
• The best things in life are not only free, they require less assembly. Robert Brault

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Some don’t advocate contentment as always being desirable

• It is right to be contented with what we have, but never with what we are. James Mackintosh
• A man who is contented with what he has done will never become famous for what he will do. Fred Estabrook
• One should either be sad or joyful. Contentment is a warm sty for eaters and sleepers. Eugene O’Neill
• Nobody got anywhere in the world by simply being content. Louis L’Amour
• Be always displeased at what thou art, if thou desire to attain to what thou art not; for where thou hast pleased thyself, there thou abidest. Francis Quarles
• One often learns more from ten days of agony than from ten years of contentment. Merle Shain

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Maybe the answer lies in a balance of contentment with what you have and unattached desire for more

• My motto is: Contented with little, yet wishing for more. Charles Lamb
• Intentions are a form of desire. Desire per se is not the root of suffering; craving is. The key is to have wholesome intentions without being attached to their results. Rick Hanson
• I embrace desires but I am not bound by them, I’m not attached to them. I can have a desire, and drop the desire if it’s not fulfilled… I don’t get stuck anywhere. Zen Master Genpo Roshi
• Desire is a powerful force that can be used to make things happen. Yet do not confuse desire with expectation, or with need. Desire has an entirely different quality to it. You can desire something without needing or requiring it. That little difference makes everything work. That little difference is the whole trick. Desire, do not Require. To desire propels. To require compels. Life will not be compelled, but it can be coaxed. Neale Donald Walsch

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At the end of the day, it’s all right to want more, but don’t make your happiness contingent on it

• Learning to be satisfied doesn’t mean you can’t, don’t, or shouldn’t ever want more than you have, only that your happiness isn’t contingent on it. Richard Carlson

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• You can’t have everything. Where would you put it? Steven Wright
• If you can look back on your life with contentment, you have one of man’s most precious gifts — a selective memory. Jim Fiebig
• Gather the crumbs of happiness and they will make you a loaf of contentment.

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