Baltasar Gracian Quotes

It is a miserable state of mind to have few things to desire and many things to fear.

Which of us is happy in this world? Which of us has his desire? or, having it, is satisfied?

Be happy. If you're successful but unhappy, that's emptiness.

Those who constantly want something will never feel happy.

In all of my looking at happiness, one thing I noticed right away is that the opposite of happiness isn't unhappiness or even depression, it's anxiety. It is something that can constantly block our happiness, or our chance to reach that sort of meditative state in our work or our home lives.

I think people who sit around and are always yearning for the next thing are not always the happiest people.

We ask for happiness but what we get is unhappiness. We all put our efforts into trying to be happy but we make a fundamental mistake: happiness is not related to the effort, happiness is related to not asking for it.

Be contented with whatsoever is; never ask for more. The moment you ask for more you have asked for hell. The moment you ask for more you have asked for misery. The desire for more creates misery.

right in this moment, I can´t even remember what unhappy feels like.

Happiness is liberty from everything that makes us unhappy.

Where there is no desire or pursuits, there is no wholeness. But there are satisfying lesser states, fragments.

He who has few things to desire cannot have many to fear.

It is impossible that happiness, and yearning for what is not present, should ever be united.

I have coveted everything and taken pleasure in nothing

He that studies his content, wants it.

If this life is unhappy, it is a burden to us, which it is difficult to bear; if it is in every respect happy, it is dreadful to be deprived of it; so that in either case the result is the same, for we must exist in anxiety and apprehension.

Happiness is never there to stay [...] Happiness is merely a respite offered by inquietude.

I've excluded happiness as one of those possibilities we seek for ourselves. Oh, I still want it, but that's beside the point. Contentment - they say it's the ultimate, but I can't even wish for that. I don't even want the desire to be content. I can only hope for silence.

You wear yourself out in the pursuit of wealth or love or freedom, you do everything to gain some right, and once it's gained you take no pleasure in it.

We have everything we need to be happy, but we aren't happy. Something's missing.

There is no end of craving. Hence contentment alone is the best way to happiness. Therefore, acquire contentment.

There are two kinds of people on this Earth: Those who are content and those who are not.

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

Who's happy these days?

You know that day after day of, Oh God what am I going to do with myself feeling? The fear of the emptiness that it implies keeps me going.