Jane Welsh Carlyle Quotes

Whether happiness may come or not, one should try and prepare one's self to do without it.

It is easy to get everything you want, provided you first learn to do without the things you cannot get.

The people who founded America, who fought for its freedom, did not look to anyone else to get them out of their troubles. They took matters into their own hands and answered only to God and their peers. In today's world, sacrifice and hardship are not in the everyday language, and instant gratification is foremost.

I'm no Buddhist monk, and I can't say I'm in love with renunciation in itself, or traveling an hour or more to print out an article I've written, or missing out on the N.B.A. Finals. But at some point, I decided that, for me at least, happiness arose out of all I didn't want or need, not all I did.

I was naughty but never demanding. I never asked my parents for shoes or tracksuits. I was happy with what I had.

A wise man cares not for what he cannot have.

Expect nothing, live frugally on surprise. Become a stranger to need of pity. Or if compassion be freely given out, take only enough. Stop short of the urge to plead, then purge away the need. Wish for nothing larger than your own small heart or greater than a star. Tame wild disappointment with caress, unmoved and cold. Make of it a parka for your soul. Discover the reason why so tiny human midget exists at all, so scared and so unwise. But expect nothing, live frugally on surprise.

It's so hard to do and so easy to say but sometimes you just have to walk away

Who knows what will happen or where I will be sent, yet already I have given a great many things away, expecting to be told to pack nothing, except the prayers which, with this thirst, I am slowly learning.

I do not hope for what I cannot have! I do not cling to things I cannot keep!

When we have done our best, we should wait the result in peace.

I don't have any expectations of anything.

Fortunate indeed, is the man who takes exactly the right measure of himself, and holds a just balance between what he can acquire and what he can use.

Who is the wisest man? He who neither knows or wishes for anything else than what happens.

Blessed is the man who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed was the ninth beatitude.

There's only one law you gotta follow to keep outta trouble. Do it first, do it yourself, and keep on doin' it.

I have learned to seek my happiness by limiting my desires, rather than in attempting to satisfy them.

We have to achieve what we can, and if we haven't yet learned that we are not always going to get our way this could be frustrating.

With renunciation life begins.

First and foremost, the monk should own nothing in this world, but he should have as his possessions solitude of the body, modesty of bearing, a modulated tone of voice, and a well-ordered manner of speech. He should be without anxiety as to his food and drink, and should eat in silence.

I never let myself get desperate.

If you would have a faithful servant, and one that you like, serve yourself.

I believed, up to last week, that Adam was somehow coming back. But I wouldn't trade that optimism for anything, because the other option is no fun.

Man must do his part and detach himself from created things.

The joy of losing consists in this: Where there are no expectations, there is no disappointment.