Joseph Addison Quotes

Experiment with this a little. During these days that you are here with me, don't nourish any desire for happiness, and then see how your heart becomes filled with happiness. Don't have any desire for peace, and see how the turmoil within you vanishes. Don't beg for contentment and see how contentment showers down on you. Please try this - only then will you understand.

My prayer became 'May I find peace... May I love this life no matter what.' I was seeking an inner refuge, an experience of presence and wholeness that could carry me through whatever losses might come.

Indeed it is possible to stand with one foot on the inevitable 'banana peel' of life with both eyes peering into the Great Beyond, and still be happy, comfortable, and serene - if we will even so much as smile.

True contentment depends not upon what we have; a tub was large enough for Diogenes, but a world was too little for Alexander.

I am very willing to share whatever I know or feel I know about finding some serenity in this lifetime.

I tend to say faith is believing in life, and as I love life, I try to do the best with it, make it as serene and joyous as possible.

I just want to find some inner peace, and I think I'm getting there, slowly but surely.

The key is to be Zen-like and be happy with what one has.

The Dalai Lama has taught me that the best way to live life is to try and avoid desire. Desire is really the basic source of unhappiness.

To sit and contemplate - to remember the faces of women without desire, to be pleased by the great deeds of men without envy, to be everything and everywhere in sympathy and yet content to remain where and what you are.

A sense of contentment makes us kindly and benevolent to others; we are not chafed and galled by cares which are tyrannical because original. We are fulfilling our proper destiny, and those around us feel the sunshine of our own hearts.

We were all brought up to want things and maybe the world isn't big enough for all that wanting. I don't know. I don't know anything

It is true that we may desire much more. But let us use what we have, and God will give us more.

My God grant me love for that which has splendor, but in this time of my life let me strive for attainable things.

Contentment produces, in some measure, all those effects which the alchemist usually ascribes to what he calls the philosopher's stone; and if it does not bring riches, it does the same thing by banishing the desire for them.

When there is no expectation there is no possibility of frustration. Expectation is the mother of all frustrations; expectation gone, frustration disappears. And when there is no frustration in your life, life really becomes a bed of roses. Then God is a constant blessing; he goes on raining his grace, his beauty on you.

When you learn not to want things so badly, life comes to you.

The tourists always seem to want something. On Thisby, it's less about wanting, and more about being." I wonder after I say it if he'll think I sound like have no drive or ambition.

As meditation goes deep you will feel less and less desires, more and more contentment with whatsoever you have. There will be less and less desire for that which you don't have, and more and more contentment with whatsoever you have. As meditation goes deeper, a very contented consciousness evolves. Ultimately there is no desire, only contentment.

I pray daily, not for more riches, but for more wisdom with which to recognize, embrace and enjoy what I already possess.

Happiness comes most to persons who seek it least and think least about it. It is not an object to be sought, it is a state to be induced. It must follow and not lead. It must overtake you, and not you overtake it.

This is the secret of being content: To learn and accept that we live daily by God's unmerited favor given through Christ, and that we can respond to any and every situation by His divine enablement through the Holy Spirit.

Put personal ambition away from you, and then you will find consolation in living or in dying, whatever may happen to you.

If patience and gratitude had been she camels, it would have mattered little on which I rode.

Don't Seek Happiness. If you seek it, you won't find it, because seeking is the antithesis of happiness