You may never get to that perfect world that you’re waiting for where everything’s going to be perfect and you got that much money and your house paid off.

Our real blessings often appear to us in the shape of pains, losses and disappointments; but let us have patience and we soon shall see them in their proper figures.

My dream is of a place and a time where America will once again be seen as the last best hope of earth.

The road to perdition has ever been accompanied by lip service to an ideal.

When you are discontent, you always want more, more, more. Your desire can never be satisfied. But when you practice contentment, you can say to yourself, ‚Oh yes – I already have everything that I really need.‘

He that waits upon fortune, is never sure of a dinner.

The saddest thing I can imagine is to get used to luxury.

Happy the man whose wish and care a few paternal acres bound, content to breathe his native air in his own ground.

Pray that success will not come any faster than you are able to endure it.

All religions try to benefit people, with the same basic message of the need for love and compassion, for justice and honesty, for contentment.

It isn’t what you have, or who you are, or where you are, or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about.

It’s a lot easier to stay idealistic if you don’t sign two to five next-of-kin letters every day.

I really didn’t consider myself happy or unhappy.

God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.

Truth is a deep kindness that teaches us to be content in our everyday life and share with the people the same happiness.

If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.

A principle is the expression of perfection, and as imperfect beings like us cannot practise perfection, we devise every moment limits of its compromise in practice.

What we need is a system of thought – you might even call it a religion – that can bind humans together. A system that would fit the Republic of Chad as well as the United States: a system that would supply our idealistic young people with something to believe in.

You see, idealism detached from action is just a dream. But idealism allied with pragmatism, with rolling up your sleeves and making the world bend a bit, is very exciting. It’s very real. It’s very strong.

Living big and joyful and content is almost always the result of our finding satisfaction in life’s ordinary day-to-day pleasures. And God must be fond of them, too, for He made so many of them for us to enjoy.

The longer a man’s fame is likely to last, the longer it will be in coming.

No great thing is created suddenly.

I think in the ’70s that there was a general feeling of chaos, a feeling that the idea of the ’60s as ‚ideal‘ was a misnomer. Nothing seemed ideal anymore. Everything seemed in-between.

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.

The Bible tells us to be perfect. This is likely a scary thought for many people. It used to scare me. I didn’t think I could ever get there, no matter how hard I tried.

The happiest part of a man’s life is what he passes lying awake in bed in the morning.

Money is the seed of money, and the first guinea is sometimes more difficult to acquire than the second million.

It is a fine game to play – the game of politics – and it is well worth waiting for a good hand before really plunging.

Words without actions are the assassins of idealism.

Of all the things which wisdom provides to make us entirely happy, much the greatest is the possession of friendship.

Be content to seem what you really are.

An idealist is one who, on noticing that roses smell better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.

Happiness is neither without us nor within us. It is in God, both without us and within us.

Dancers are always striving for perfection. A great dancer never achieves it: you always want to do another turn, a higher jump,a more difficult acrobatic jump.

No greater thing is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.

You might not have the things you want, but if you check carefully, you got all you need.

In retrospect, I do think it’s fair to say that we were overly idealistic and focused on more of the good parts of what connecting people and giving people a voice can bring.

A man’s felicity consists not in the outward and visible blessing of fortune, but in the inward and unseen perfections and riches of the mind.

Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol or morphine or idealism.

I never needed much, and I never thought I’d get more than what I had. A trip to Burger King was the biggest thing in the world to me. Heaven.

Men of lofty genius sometimes accomplish the most when they work least, for their minds are occupied with their ideas and the perfection of their conceptions, to which they afterwards give form.

The happiness and peace attained by those satisfied by the nectar of spiritual tranquillity is not attained by greedy persons restlessly moving here and there.

The finest workers in stone are not copper or steel tools, but the gentle touches of air and water working at their leisure with a liberal allowance of time.

A man should always consider how much he has more than he wants.

Content makes poor men rich; discontent makes rich men poor.

I always was a rich person because money’s not related to happiness.

Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get.

It is the greatest of all advantages to enjoy no advantage at all.

Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.

A man who is eating or lying with his wife or preparing to go to sleep in humility, thankfulness and temperance, is, by Christian standards, in an infinitely higher state than one who is listening to Bach or reading Plato in a state of pride.

The purpose of our lives is to be happy.

Can anything be so elegant as to have few wants, and to serve them one’s self?

Our pleasures were simple – they included survival.

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.

To try to become happy is to try to build a machine with no other specifications than it shall run noiselessly.

Do not overrate what you have received, nor envy others. He who envies others does not obtain peace of mind.

I believe that a trusting attitude and a patient attitude go hand in hand. You see, when you let go and learn to trust God, it releases joy in your life. And when you trust God, you’re able to be more patient. Patience is not just about waiting for something… it’s about how you wait, or your attitude while waiting.

Writing is good, thinking is better. Cleverness is good, patience is better.

For me, the opposite of scarcity is not abundance. It’s enough. I’m enough. My kids are enough.

Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content.

He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough.