Mignon McLaughlin Quotes

It is not customary to love what one has.

The pursuit of happiness is a most ridiculous phrase: if you pursue happiness you'll never find it.

I have now reigned above fifty years in victory or peace; beloved by my subjects, dreaded by my enemies, and respected by my allies. Riches and honors, power and pleasure, have waited on my call, nor does any earthly blessing appear to have been wanting to my felicity. In this situation, I have diligently numbered the days of pure and genuine happiness which have fallen to my lot: they amount to Fourteen: - O man! place not thy confidence in this present world.

It seems like a lot of people seek their peace in things. And most of us are not even satisfied with the things we have... we always want more.

I have learnt that gardens are like happiness: you cannot pursue them as an absolute thing or moment.

We tend to always want to obtain something new and something more, and we never really enjoy what we have.

Life has an interesting way of teaching even the most powerful people that joy from wealth is fleeting at best.

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.

And which I take notice of here, to put those discontented people in mind of it, who cannot enjoy comfortably what God has given them, because they see and covet something that he has not given them. All our discontents about what we want appeared to me to spring from the want of thankfulness for what we have.

People who don't have much get ugly about giving up the little they have left.

Inner peace begins when we stop saying of things, 'I have lost it' and instead say, 'It has been returned to where it came from.' Why should it be any concern of yours who gives your things back to the world that gave them to you? The important thing is to take great care with what you have while the world lets you have it.

It is easy to forget how much you have, when your eyes are always fixed on what you have not.

We so easily forget that we came into life with nothing. Whatever we get soon seems our natural right, not a gift. And we forget the giver. Then our gaze shifts from what we have been given to what we dont have yet. . . .

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

Never having something is different than having something and losing it.

when happiness makes a guest appearance in one's life,it's important to make the most of it.It may not stay around for long and when it has gone wouldn't it be terrible to think that all the time one could have been happy was wasted worrying when the happiness would be taken away.

You have nothing. One should never allow themselves to think that they have, one can just touch - to have is to lack appreciation, to touch is to want to touch again.

He doesn’t know to want for more because nothing in his life has been as much as this...on that night he thinks that no one has ever had so much and only later will he know he should have asked for more.

Don't let your happiness depend on something you may lose.

He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have.

It is so much easier to covet what one hasn't than to revel in what one has. Also, it is so much easier to be enthusiastic about what exists than about what doesn't.

Find joy in the ordinary.

Enjoyment of life is not based on enjoyable circumstances. It is an attitude of the heart, a decision to enjoy everything because everything - even little, seemingly insignificant things - have a part in the overall "big picture" of life.

Consider pleasures as they depart, not as they come.

If we only look around us, there are a thousand reasons for us not to be happy, and it is simplicity itself to blame our unhappiness on the things we lack in life. It doesn’t take any talent at all to find them. The problem is, the more we focus on the things we don’t have, the more unhappy and more resentful we become.