Stephen Greenblatt Quotes

Happy is the person who has learned the secret of being content with whatever life brings him, and has learned to rejoice in the simple and beautiful things around him.

In this moment that blooms and fades as it passes, he is enough, and all is well in the world.

Every life is narrow. Our only escape is not to run away, but to learn to love the people we are and the world in which we find ourselves.

Life has always treated me well. I therefore won't mind leaving it behind.

I try not to worry too much about anything any more, and enjoy every day as it comes.

I know mortality exists, but I cannot do anything about it. So it does not make me anxious.

Life deceives everyone except the individual who doesn't contemplate it, the individual who demands nothing from it, the individual who serenely accepts its few gifts and serenely makes the most of them.

That's the mistake I made, one of the mistakes, to have wanted a story for myself, whereas life alone is enough.

It pays to be content with your lot.

Consider thyself to be dead, and to have completed thy life up to the present time; and live according to nature the remainder which is allowed thee.

I've accomplished enough in life so that I do not fear death.

Sometimes now was enough. Sometimes it was everything.

It is not enough to be happy, one must be content.

There are so many beautiful things in the world which I will have to leave when I die, but I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready.

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

I don't have much in the way of money or worldly possessions, I'm not beautiful, intelligent or clever, but I'm happy, and I intend to stay that way! I was born happy, I love people, I have a trusting nature, and I'd like everyone else to be happy too.

The greatest happiness you can have is knowing that you do not necessarily require happiness.

I'm quite content: although what I'm doing is far from being as I should like, I am complemented often enough all the same.

The truth is, until you know any different, the island is enough. Actually, I know different. And it's still enough.

Paradoxically, I have found peace because I have always been dissatisfied. My moments of depression and despair turn out to be renewals, new beginnings. If I were once to settle down and be satisfied with the surface of life, with its divisions and its cliches, it would be time to call in the undertaker... So, then, this dissatisfaction which sometimes used to worry me and has certainly, I know, worried others, has helped me in fact to move freely and even gaily with the stream of life.

We have to acknowledge sometimes that this moment is enough. This place is enough. I am enough.

I don't need to be wildly famous for my life to make sense. I guess I'm kind of happy where I'm at, and I take whatever comes, and it's a good thing.

I had rather be in my grave than in my present situation, I had rather be on my farm than be emperor of the world; and yet they charge me with wanting to be a king.

Contentment with life is not a feeling, but it is a decision we must make. Contentment does not mean that we never want to see change or improvement, but it does mean we can be happy where we are and will do the best we can with what we have. It also means we will maintain an attitude that allows us to enjoy the gift of life.

Contentment is the continuing act of accepting the process of your own life.