Julien Benda Quotes

You cannot possess all and everything. Whatsoever you possess will not give you contentment. The mind, the ego, will always feel unfulfilled.

Those who have everything but thee, my God, laugh at those who have nothing but thyself.

Never let the things money can buy, rob you of the things money can't buy.

The more objects you set your heart upon, the more thorns there are to tear your peace of mind to shreds.

A man's contentment is in his mind, not in the extent of his possessions. Alexander the Great, with all the world at his feet, cries for another world to conquer.

You are led, when you share your loves, to an enchanted life of inner happiness, which unsharing others cannot know.

How few our real wants, and how vast our imaginary ones!

Certainly, possessions, money, and power can give a momentary thrill, the illusion of being happy, but they end up possessing us and making us always want to have more, never satisfied. ‘Put on Christ’ in your life, place your trust in him, and you will never be disappointed!

He who has nothing and wants something is less frustrated than he who has something and wants more.

You never truly need what you want. That is the main and thoroughgoing key to serenity.

To cure us of our immoderate love of gain, we should seriously consider how many goods there are that money will not purchase, and these the best; and how many evils there are that money will not remedy, and these the worst.

Let your greatest possession be the ability to let go of any possession, joyfully.

Small things are best: Grief and unrest To rank and wealth are given; But little things On little wings Bear little souls to Heaven.

If you're looking for happiness in things, you'll never find it.

All should be taught that the highest ambition is to be happy, and to add to the well-being of others; that place and power are not necessary to success; that the desire to acquire great wealth is a kind of insanity. They should be taught that it is a waste of energy, a waste of thought, a waste of life, to acquire what you do not need and what you do not really use for the benefit of yourself or others.

Every day there is only one thing to learn: how to be honestly happy.

Happiness is strange; it comes when you are not seeking it. When you are not making an effort to be happy, then unexpectedly, mysteriously, happiness is there, born of purity, of a loveliness of being.

There is no greater sin than desire, No greater curse than discontent, No greater misfortune than wanting something for oneself. Therefore he who knows that enough is enough will always have enough.

No changing of place at a hundred miles an hour will make us one whit stronger, or happier, or wiser. There was always more in the world than man could see, walked they ever so slowly; they will see it no better for going fast. The really precious things are thought and sight, not pace. It does a bullet no good to go fast; and a man, if he be truly a man, no harm to go slow; for his glory is not at all in going, but in being.

If you are searching for your purpose in life then you're never going to be satisfied. This life will never satisfy you. You'll never be happy and you'll never be content. The only really contentment or true happiness is with Christ.

Those two fatal words, Mine and Thine.

He who understands the limits of life knows that it is easy to obtain that which removes the pain of want and makes the whole of life complete and perfect. Thus he has no longer any need of things which involve struggle.

There is a time when a man distinguishes the idea of felicity from the idea of wealth; it is the beginning of wisdom.

The life of sensation is the life of greed; it requires more and more. The life of the spirit requires less and less.

You should know that there is little you can seek in this world, that there is no need for you to be so greedy, in the end all you can achieve are memories, hazy, intangible, dreamlike memories which are impossible to articulate. When you try to relate them, there are only sentences, the dregs left from the filter of linguistic structures.