It’s not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness.
– Charles Spurgeon
Contentment | Happiness
I have held many things in my hands, and have lost them all; but whatever I have placed in God’s hands, that I still possess.
– Martin Luther
Contentment
The art of being happy lies in the power of extracting happiness from common things.
– Henry Ward Beecher
Happiness | Contentment
Real contentment must come from within. You and I cannot change or control the world around us, but we can change and control the world within us.
– Warren Wiersbe
Contentment | Change
We would worry less if we praised more. Thanksgiving is the enemy of discontent and dissatisfaction.
– Harry Ironside
Praise | Thankfulness | Discontentment
Next to faith this is the highest art – to be content with the calling in which God has placed you.
– Martin Luther
Contentment | Calling
A wise man cares not for what he cannot have.
– George Herbert
Contentment
The joy of the Lord will arm us against the assaults of our spiritual enemies and put our mouths out of taste for those pleasures with which the tempter baits his hooks.
– Matthew Henry
Contentment | Enemies | Joy
Discontent is like ink poured into water, which fills the whole fountain full of blackness. It casts a cloud over the mind, and renders it more occupied about the evil which disquiets than about the means of removing it.
– Owen Feltham
Discontentment
If God doesn’t want something for me, I shouldn’t want it either. Spending time in meditative prayer, getting to know God, helps align my desires with God’s.
– Philip Yancey
Prayer | Contentment
You play the hand you’re dealt. I think the game’s worthwhile.
– C.S. Lewis
Contentment
As long as a man is alive and out of hell, he cannot have any cause to complain.
– Charles Spurgeon
Contentment
We must do our business faithfully; without trouble or disquiet, recalling our mind to GOD mildly, and with tranquility, as often as we find it wandering from Him.
– Brother Lawrence
Contentment | Business
Is the glass half empty or half full? Just be thankful you have a glass!
– Jack Wellman
Contentment | Thankfulness
There are many wells today, but they are dry. There are many hungry souls today that are empty. But let us come to Jesus and take Him at His Word and we will find wells of salvation, and be able to draw waters out of the well of salvation, for Jesus is that well.
– William J. Seymour
Jesus | Contentment
Surely there is something in the unruffled calm of nature that overawes our little anxieties and doubts: the sight of the deep-blue sky and the clustering stars above seem to impart a quiet to the mind.
– Jonathan Edwards
Contentment | Nature | Doubt
It is His joy that remains in us that makes our joy full.
– A. B. Simpson
Contentment | Joy
As long as a man is alive and out of hell, he cannot have any cause to complain.
– Charles Spurgeon
Contentment
The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched – they must be felt with the heart.
– Helen Keller
Contentment | Beauty | The Heart
The very nature of Joy makes nonsense of our common distinction between having and wanting.
– C.S. Lewis
ContentmentJoy
He who cannot rest, cannot work; he who cannot let go, cannot hold on; he who cannot find footing, cannot go forward.
– Harry Emerson Fosdick
Contentment | WorkRest
Sin is what you do when you are not satisfied in God.
– John Piper
Discontentment
The cure for the sin of envy and jealousy is to find our contentment in God.
– Jerry Bridges
Envy | Jealousy | Contentment
These things are not strange, Small One, though they are beyond our senses.
– C.S. Lewis
Contentment
Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me. Amen.
– Martin Luther
Contentment
If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.
– Martin Luther King Jr.
Contentment | Music
We may sing beforehand, even in our winter storm, in the expectation of a summer sun at the turn of the year; no created powers can mar our Lord Jesus’ music, nor spill our song of joy. Let us then be glad and rejoice in the salvation of our Lord; for faith had never yet cause to have wet cheeks, and hanging-down brows, or to droop or die.
– Samuel Rutherford
Contentment | Salvation
Roses grow on thorns and honey wears a sting.
– Isaac Watts
Contentment
The remarkable thing is, we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day.
– Chuck Swindoll
Attitude | Contentment | Choices
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.
– C.S. Lewis
Contentment | Thankfulness
I bless God for this retirement: I never was more thankful for anything than I have been of late for the necessity I am under of self-denial in many respects.
– David Brainerd
Contentment | Thankfulness | Self-denial
The utmost we can hope for in this life is contentment.
– Assorted Authors
Contentment
All our discontents about what we want appear to me to spring from the want of thankfulness for what we have.
– Assorted Authors
Blessings | Thankfulness | Discontentment
Contentment with the divine will is the best remedy we can apply to misfortunes.
– William Temple
Contentment
Spread out your petition before God, and then say, “Thy will, not mine, be done.” The sweetest lesson I have learned in God’s school is to let the Lord choose for me.
– Dwight L. Moody
Prayer | Contentment
If a soldier or labourer complains of the hardship of his lot, set him to do nothing.
– Blaise Pascal
Contentment
When we dare to depend entirely upon God and do not doubt, the humblest and feeblest agencies will become mighty through God, to the pulling down of strongholds.
– A. B. Simpson
Contentment | Doubt
Discontents are sometimes the better part of our life. I know not which is the most useful. Joy I may choose for pleasure; but adversities are the best for profit; and sometimes these do so far help me, that I should, without them, want much of the joy I have.
– Owen Feltham
Discontentment | Adversity | Joy
Among all the accomplishments of youth there is none preferable to a decent and agreeable behavior among men, a modest freedom of speech, a soft and elegant manner of address, a graceful and lovely deportment, a cheerful gravity and good-humor, with a mind appearing ever serene under the ruffling accidents of human life.
– Isaac Watts
Contentment | Youth | Freedom
God, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you.
– Augustine
Contentment | God | Rest
Great offices will have great talents, and God gives to every man the virtue, temper, understanding, taste, that lifts him into life, and lets him fall just in the niche he was ordained to fill.
– William Cowper
Obedience | Contentment
All earthly delights are sweeter in expectation than in enjoyment; but all spiritual pleasures more in fruition than in expectation.
– Francois Fenelon
Contentment
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.
– G.K. Chesterton
Contentment
All joy emphasizes our pilgrim status; always reminds, beckons, awakens desire. Our best havings are wantings.
– C.S. Lewis
Contentment | Joy | Status
When you are disposed to be vain of your mental acquirements, look up to those who are more accomplished than yourself, that you may be fired with emulation; but when you feel dissatisfied with your circumstances, look down on those beneath you, that you may learn contentment.
– Hannah More
Contentment | Circumstances | Discontentment
What cannot be altered must be borne, not blamed.
– Thomas Fuller
Contentment
Let no man carry you beyond the bounds God hath set for you, nor make you believe he hath found a plainer or more certain way to heaven than Christ hath given us.
– Assorted Authors
Contentment
The Golden Age was never the present Age.
– Thomas Fuller
Contentment
Actually, only God can satisfy a Christian’s heart; man cannot.
– Watchman Nee
Contentment | The Heart
The more we accommodate ourselves to plain things, and the less we indulge in those artificial delights which gratify pride and luxury, the nearer we approach to a state of innocency.
– Matthew Henry
Contentment
To be content with even the best people, we must be contented with little and bear a great deal. Those who are most perfect have many imperfections, and we have great faults; between the two, mutual toleration becomes very difficult.
– Francois Fenelon
Contentment | Tolerance
We are a long time in learning that all our strength and salvation is in God.
– David Brainerd
Strength | Contentment | Learning
I knew I was in danger but was not depressed. I’ve read pretty well everything.
– C.S. Lewis
Contentment | Reading | Depression
If you run after two hares, you will catch neither.
– Thomas Fuller
Contentment | Discretion
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
Contentment
There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, “All right, then, have it your way.”
– C.S. Lewis
Contentment | Rebellion
I am never better than when I am on the full stretch for God.
– George Whitefield
Contentment
Unsatisfied desire is in itself more desirable than any other satisfaction.
– C.S. Lewis
Contentment
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
Contentment
Nature, more of a stepmother than a mother in several ways, has sown a seed of evil in the hearts of mortals, especially in the more thoughtful men, which makes them dissatisfied with their own lot and envious of another’s.
– Desiderius Erasmus
Good and Evil | Discontentment | Envy
I would not change my blest estate for all the world calls good or great.
– Isaac Watts
Contentment
Contentment consists not in adding more fuel, but in taking away some fire.
– Thomas Fuller
Contentment | Discretion
I will not meddle with that which I cannot mend.
– Thomas Fuller
Contentment
Oh, the fullness, pleasure, sheer excitement of knowing God on earth!
– Jim Elliot
Holiness | Contentment
What God chooses for us children of men is always the best.
– Karl Barth
Contentment
He hath no leisure who useth it not.
– George Herbert
Contentment
Being “contented” ought to mean in English, as it does in French, being pleased. Being content with an attic ought not to mean being unable to move from it and resigned to living in it; it ought to mean appreciating all there is in such a position.
– G.K. Chesterton
Contentment
There’s a difference between knowing God and knowing about God. When you truly know God, you have energy to serve him, boldness to share him, and contentment in him.
– J.I. Packer
Service | Contentment
True rest is not that of torpor, but that of harmony; it is not refusing the struggle, but conquering in it; not resting from duty, but finding rest in it.
– Frederick W. Robertson
Adversity | Contentment | Struggles
No matter what looms ahead, if you can eat today, enjoy today, mix good cheer with friends today enjoy it and bless God for it.
– Henry Ward Beecher
Contentment
What I am looking for is not out there, it is in me.
– Helen Keller
Contentment
Let thy mind’s sweetness have its operation upon thy body, thy clothes, and thy habitation.
– George Herbert
Contentment
The consistent development of godly character qualities generally produces a heart of contentment.
– Patricia Ennis
Contentment
Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.
– C.S. Lewis
Contentment | Reading
Nothing which is at all times and in every way agreeable to us can have objective reality. It is of the very nature of the real that it should have sharp corners and rough edges, that it should be resistant, should be itself. Dream-furniture is the only kind on which you never stub your toes or bang your knee.
– C.S. Lewis
Contentment
If my life is surrendered to God, all is well. Let me not grab it back, as though it were in peril in His hand but would be safer in mine!
– Elisabeth Elliot
Contentment | Surrender
Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content.
– Helen Keller
Contentment
Grant that we may hold the world with a loose hand.
– William Tiptaft
Contentment
A little child often runs to its mother and exclaims: ‘Mother! Mother!’ Very often the child does not want anything in particular, he only wants to be near his mother, to sit upon her lap, or to follow her about the house, for the sheer pleasure of being near her, talking to her, hearing her dear voice. Then the child is happy. His happiness does not consist in asking and receiving all kinds of things from his mother. If that were what he wanted, he would be impatient and obstinate and therefore unhappy. No, his happiness lies in feeling his mother’s love and care, and in knowing the joy of her mother love.” “It is just the same with the true children of God; they do not trouble themselves so much about spiritual blessings. They only want to sit at the Lord’s feet, to be in living touch with Him, and when they do that they are supremely content.
– Sadhu Sundar Singh
Contentment
I would rather be what God chose to make me than the most glorious creature that I could think of; for to have been thought about, born in God’s thought, and then made by God, is the dearest, grandest, and most precious thing in all thinking.
– George Macdonald
Contentment | Life
Every year of my life I grow more convinced that it is wisest and best to fix our attention on the beautiful and the good, and dwell as little as possible on the evil and the false.
– Richard Cecil
Good and Evil | Contentment | Beauty
Let your children be as so many flowers, borrowed from God. If the flowers die or wither, thank God for a summer loan of them.
– Samuel Rutherford
Contentment | Gratitude
Many things–such as loving, going to sleep, or behaving unaffectedly–are done worst when we try hardest to do them.
– C.S. Lewis
Contentment
Thou must content thyself to see the world imperfect as it is. Thou wilt never have any quiet if thou vexest thyself because thou canst not bring mankind to that exact notion of things and rule of life which thou hast formed in thy own mind.
– Thomas Fuller
Contentment
When you become satisfied with God, however, everything else so loses its charm that He can give it to you without harm.
– A. B. Simpson
Contentment
The sound of ‘gentle stillness’ after all the thunder and wind have passed will be the ultimate Word from God.
– Jim Elliot
Prayer | Contentment
God is looking for imperfect men and women who have learned to walk in moment-by-moment dependence on the Holy Spirit. Christians who have come to terms with their inadequacies, fears, and failures. Believers who have become discontent with ‘surviving’ and have taken the time to investigate everything God has to offer in this life.
– Charles Stanley
Obedience | Women | Discontentment
Nothing makes God more supreme and more central in worship than when a people are utterly persuaded that nothing – not money or prestige or leisure or family or job or health or sports or toys or friends – nothing is going to bring satisfaction to their sinful, guilty, aching hearts besides God.
– John Piper
Worship | Contentment
The man who gets ahead is the man who works while others sleep. The people who do great works for God are those who are content and stay at their job.
– Jack Hyles
Contentment
The sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality.
– Martin Luther King Jr.
Justice | Discontentment
True contentment is a real, even an active, virtue – not only affirmative but creative. It is the power of getting out of any situation all there is in it.
– G.K. Chesterton
Contentment
Content makes poor men rich; discontent makes rich men poor.
– Assorted Authors
Finances | Contentment | Discontentment
In coming to understand anything we are rejecting the facts as they are for us in favour of the facts as they are.
– C.S. Lewis
Truth | Contentment
The true enjoyments must be spontaneous and compulsive and look to no remoter end.
– C.S. Lewis
Contentment
We have fought this fight as long, and as well as we know how. We have been defeated. For us as a Christian people, there is now but one course to pursue. We must accept the situation.
– Assorted Authors
War | Contentment
If the Lord sets you to guard a lonely post in perfect stillness from all active work, you ought to be just as content as to be in the midst of the active warfare. It is no virtue to love the Master’s work better than the Master’s will.
– Hannah Whitall Smith
Contentment
After a person has forsaken his natural longings he obtains a genuinely restful life. Formerly he had many desires. To satisfy them he planned, plotted and contrived, exhausting every ounce of his wisdom and power. His heart was in constant turmoil. But that child of God who purely follows the spirit and seeks not his own pleasure is satisfied with what God gives to him: and his restlessness immediately ceases.
– Watchman Nee
Contentment
Satan is ever seeking to inject that poison into our hearts to distrust God’s goodness – especially in connection with his commandments. That is what really lies behind all evil, lusting and disobedience. A discontent with our position and portion, a craving from something which God has wisely held from us. Reject any suggestion that God is unduly severe with you. Resist with the utmost abhorrence anything that causes you to doubt God’s love and his loving-kindness toward you. Allow nothing to make you question the Father’s love for his child.
– A. W. Pink
God | Discontentment | Doubt
Think it not hard if you get not your will, nor your delights in this life; God will have you to rejoice in nothing but himself.
– Samuel Rutherford
Contentment
A cheerful spirit is one of the most valuable gifts ever bestowed upon humanity by a kind Creator. It is the sweetest and most fragrant flower of the Spirit, that constantly sends out its beauty and fragrance, and blesses everything within its reach. It will sustain the soul in the darkest and most dreary places of this world. It will hold in check the demons of despair, and stifle the power of discouragement and hopelessness. It is the brightest star that ever cast its radiance over the darkened soul and one that seldom sets in the gloom of morbid fancies and foreboding imaginations.
– James H. Aughey
Contentment | Cheerfulness | Gifts