April > April's Quotes

“The greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances.”
― Martha Washington

“For after all, the best thing one can do when it is raining is let it rain.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“Be content with what you have;
rejoice in the way things are.
When you realize there is nothing lacking,
the whole world belongs to you.”
― Lao Tzu

“A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one's neighbor — such is my idea of happiness.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Семейное счастие

“Many people lose the small joys in the hope for the big happiness.”
― Pearl S. Buck

“We are not rich by what we possess but by what we can do without.”
― Immanuel Kant

“Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.”
― Epictetus

“Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is richness of self.”
― May Sarton

“I'd like to live as a poor man with lots of money.”
― Pablo Picasso

“Happiness can only be achieved by looking inward & learning to enjoy whatever life has and this requires transforming greed into gratitude.”
― John Chrysostom

“If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”
― Cicero

“I exist as I am, that is enough,
If no other in the world be aware I sit content,
And if each and all be aware I sit content.
One world is aware, and by the far the largest to me, and that is myself.”
― Walt Whitman

“Surely there is something in the unruffled calm of nature that overawes our little anxieties and doubts; the sight of the deep-blue sky and the clustering stars above seems to impart a quiet to the mind.”
― Jonathan Edwards

“A book of verses underneath the bough
A flask of wine, a loaf of bread and thou
Beside me singing in the wilderness
And wilderness is paradise now.”
― Omar Khayyám, Edward Fitzgerald's The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

“Contentment has learned how to find out what she needs to know. Last year she went on a major housecleaning spree. First she stood on her head until all the extra facts fell out. Then she discarded about half her house. Now she knows where every thing comes from—who dyed the yarn dark green and who wove the rug and who built the loom, who made the willow chair, who planted the apricot trees. She made the turquoise mugs herself with clay she found in the hills beyond her house.

When Contentment is sad, she takes a mud bath or goes to the mountains until her lungs are clear. When she walks through an unfamiliar neighborhood, she always makes friends with the local cats.”
― J. Ruth Gendler, The Book of Qualities: An Evocative Work of Poetic Psychology―Magical Personifications of Human Emotions

“All those who love Nature she loves in return, and will richly reward, not perhaps with the good things, as they are commonly called, but with the best things of this world-not with money and titles, horses and carriages, but with bright and happy thoughts, contentment and peace of mind.”
― John Lubbock

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best.”
― Marilyn Monroe

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”
― Oscar Wilde

“Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.”
― Dr. Seuss

“When someone loves you, the way they talk about you is different. You feel safe and comfortable.”
― Jess C. Scott, The Intern

“How do we keep our inner fire alive? Two things, at minimum, are needed: an ability to appreciate the positives in our life – and a commitment to action. Every day, it's important to ask and answer these questions: ‘What's good in my life?’ and ‘What needs to be done?”
― Nathaniel Branden

“Self-esteem is the reputation we acquire with ourselves.”
― Nathaniel Branden, Six Pillars of Self-Esteem

“The greater a child’s terror, and the earlier it is experienced, the harder it becomes to develop a strong and healthy sense of self.”
― Nathaniel Branden, Six Pillars of Self-Esteem

“The natural inclination of a child is to take pleasure in the use of the mind no less than of the body. The child's primary business is learning. It is also the primary entertainment. To retain that orientation into adulthood, so that consciousness is not a burden but a joy, is the mark of the successfully developed human being.”
― Nathaniel Branden

“I think that we approach the problem of romantic love all wrong when we start with the questions: why do so many relationships fail? I think that the interesting question is why do some succeed? Because if you consider how most of us were raised, how most of us were brought up, how few of us had decent role models in terms of our fathers or mothers, how inadequately we were prepared or educated for love as adults; it seems to me that the great miracle is that some people through their own independence, or their own perseverance, or their own creativity, make it.”
― Nathaniel Branden

“Some people stand and move as if they have no right to the space they occupy. They wonder why others often fail to treat them with respect--not realizing that they have signalled others that it is not necessary to treat them with respect.”
― Nathaniel Branden, Six Pillars of Self-Esteem

“One of the great self-deceptions--and one of the great foolishnesses--is to tell yourself, Only I will know. Only you will know that you are a liar; only you will know you deal unethically with people who trust you; only you will know you have no intention of honoring your promise. Whose knowledge or judgment do you imagine is more important? It is precisely your own ego from which there is no escape.”
― Nathaniel Branden

“Self-esteem is not a luxury; it is a profound spiritual need.”
― Nathaniel Branden

“Anyone who engages in the practice of psychotherapy confronts every day the devastation wrought by the teachings of religion.”
― Nathaniel Branden