80 Contentment Quotes For Long Term Well Being

Check out these Sixty contentment quotes and let us know your favorite in the comment section below.

Research from the University of California, Davis, highlights the importance of contentment for overall life satisfaction and mental health.

This research suggests that those who experience feelings of contentment report greater well-being.

What is the difference between happiness and contentment?

Well, happiness refers to the state of being happy or feeling pleasure.

Happiness is a momentary state, meaning it can come and go.

People, things and experiences come around and they can provide happiness, but when they leave what happens to our happiness?

Contentment is a long-term state of being where one is at peace with their conditions and have the knowledge that things are ok just as they are.

Daniel Cordaro, founder of the Contentment Foundation, suggests that “Contentment comes from our relationship to what is going on around us, rather than our reaction to it.

It is the peaceful realization that we are whole and complete just as we are, despite the anger, sadness, joy, frustration, and excitement that may come in and out from time to time.”

How do you define contentment?

Keep reading these contentment quotes to discover more.

Don’t forget to also check out these inner peace quotes that will help you keep calm and focused.

Check out our inspirational quotes category page for more inspirational life quotes.

Contentment Quotes To Simplify Your Life 

A study by the University of Pennsylvania found that cultivating contentment can lead to better decision-making, greater creativity, and increased resilience. 

Contentment is a valuable tool for personal and professional success.

1. “Contentment is the only real wealth.”- Alfred Nobel

2. “The greatest wealth is to live content with little.” ― Plato

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3. “True contentment comes with empathy.”- Tim Finn

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4. “I don’t look for bliss, just contentment.”- Alison Krauss

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5. “True humility is contentment.”- Henri Frederic Amiel

6. “Contentment does not come from achievement.”- Paul Henderson

7. “One often learns more from ten days of agony than ten years of contentment.” – Merle Shain

8. “Contentment consists not in adding more fuel, but in taking away some fire.”- Thomas Fuller

9. “From labor health, from health contentment spring; contentment opes the source of every joy.”- James Beattie

10. “There’s satisfaction and contentment in direction.”- Manivannan

11. “Contentment is work so engrossing that you do not know that you are working.”- Donald Hall

12. “One should either be sad or joyful. Contentment is a warm sty for eaters and sleepers.”- Eugene O’Neill

13. “There is no end of craving. Hence contentment alone is the best way to happiness. Therefore, acquire contentment.” – Swami Sivananda

14. “Health is the greatest possession. Contentment is the greatest treasure. Confidence is the greatest friend. Non-being is the greatest joy.”- Lao Tzu

15. “Contentment is, after all, simply refined indolence.”- Thomas Chandler Haliburton

16. “Self-esteem is crucial to how much or how little contentment you feel at the end of your life.”- Mark Goulston

17. “The world is full of people looking for spectacular happiness while they snub contentment.” – Doug Larson

Contentment quotes for long term inner peace

The University of Cambridge’s research suggests that experiencing a sense of contentment can improve relationships.

Contentment quotes motivate conflict management skills and promote effective communication.

18. “We should purify our innate well of contentment – what a wonderful expression – and then external things will be in harmony with us.” – Eckhart Tolle

19. “Education was not about consumption, but about contentment with less and less. This is what Buddha taught and this is what the Vedas say.” – Sonam Wangchuk

20. “Yet better for one of my nature to have it that way than to have life a peaceful, placid flow of quiet contentment. I must have days of rushing excitement.” – Dawn Powell

21. “A youthful mind is seldom totally free from ambition; to curb that, is the first step to contentment, since to diminish expectation is to increase enjoyment.”- Frances Burney

22. “Man falls from the pursuit of the ideal of plan living and high thinking the moment he wants to multiply his daily wants. Man’s happiness really lies in contentment.”- Mahatma Gandhi

23. “True contentment is a thing as active as agriculture. It is the power of getting out of any situation all that there is in it. It is arduous and it is rare.” – Gilbert K. Chesterton

24. “This happiness consisted of nothing else but the harmony of the few things around me with my own existence, a feeling of contentment and well-being that needed no changes and no intensification.” – Hermann Hesse

25. “As to that leisure evening of life, I must say that I do not want it. I can conceive of no contentment of which toil is not to be the immediate parent.”- Anthony Trollope

26. “Disappointment is a sticky one, because no one can steal contentment, joy, gratitude, or peace – we have to give it away.”- Kristin Armstrong

27. “You say, ‘If I had a little more, I should be very satisfied.’ You make a mistake. If you are not content with what you have, you would not be satisfied if it were doubled.” ― Charles Spurgeon

28. “If all our misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be content to take their own and depart.”- Socrates

29. “I think instead [of happiness] we should be working for contentment… an inner sense of fulfillment that’s relatively independent of external circumstances.”― Andrew Weil

Contentment quotes about internal struggle 

30. “Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.” ― Oprah Winfrey

31. “If there is any one thing that will bring peace and contentment into the human heart, and into the family, it is to live within our means.”- Heber J. Grant

32. “Because one believes in oneself, one doesn’t try to convince others. Because one is content with oneself, one doesn’t need others’ approval. Because one accepts oneself, the whole world accepts him or her.” ― Lao Tzu

33. I find it very difficult just to sit. I would love to learn how to do that with contentment.”- Hume Cronyn

34. “I am content; that is a blessing greater than riches; and he to whom that is given need ask no more.” ― Henry Fielding

35. “He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have.” ― Socrates

36. “At some point, you gotta let go, and sit still, and allow contentment to come to you.” ― Elizabeth Gilbert

37. “Hope combined with action is the only thing that will bring you contentment.” ― Shannon L. Alder

38. “Contentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty.” ― Socrates

39. “A contented mind is the greatest blessing a man can enjoy in this world.” ― Joseph Addison

40. “It’s up to us to choose contentment and thankfulness now—and to stop imagining that we have to have everything perfect before we’ll be happy.” – Joanna Gaines

41. “Thankfulness creates gratitude which generates contentment that causes peace.”― Todd Stocker

42. “Search for contentment in each person you meet.” ― Steve Maraboli

43. “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

Contentment quotes about the bible & spirituality

44. “All religions try to benefit people, with the same basic message of the need for love and compassion, for justice and honesty, for contentment.”- Dalai Lama

45. “Contentment does not come from achievement. It comes from a relationship with the Lord.”- Paul Henderson

46. “There is greatness in the fear of God, contentment in faith of God, and honor in humility.”- Abu Bakr

47. “A grateful heart is a beginning of greatness. It is an expression of humility. It is a foundation for the development of such virtues as prayer, faith, courage, contentment, happiness, love, and well-being.”- James E. Faust

48. “The Christian experiences and lives a paradox. He possesses joy in sorrow, fulfillment in exile, light in darkness, peace in turmoil, consolation in dryness, contentment in pain and hope in desolation.”- Mother Angelica

49. “My main job is to live with deep contentment, joy, and confidence in my everyday experience of life with God. Everything else is job number two.”- John Ortberg

50. “Christian contentment is that sweet, inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit, which freely submits to and delights in God’s wise and fatherly disposal in every condition.” – Jeremiah Burroughs

Contentment Quotes To Help You Embrace Things However Small

51. “True contentment is not having everything, but in being satisfied with everything you have” — Oscar Wilde

52. Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.” – Epicurus

53. “Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.” – Buddha

54. “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

55. “Content makes poor men rich; discontent makes rich men poor.” — Benjamin Franklin

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

57. “It is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness.” – Charles Spurgeon

58. “I have learned to seek my happiness by limiting my desires, rather than in attempting to satisfy them.” ― John Stuart Mill

59. I don’t have everything I want but I have everything I need. That’s contentment. – James MacDonald

60. Be happy with what you have and are, be generous with both, and you won’t have to hunt for happiness. – William E. Gladstone

Contentment Quotes To Make You Feel Satisfied

61. “Contentment is just the realization that God has already provided for me today all that I need for my present peace and happiness.” — Nancy Leigh DeMoss

62. “Passion is overcome only by him who has won through stillness of spirit the perfect vision; it comes through the contentment that is regardless of the world.” — Shantideva

63. “By taking the time to live life in the slow lane, we quickly experience a deeper, more profound experience of contentment.” — Michael Neill

64. “Earthly greatness is a nice thing, and requires so much chariness in the managing, as the contentment of it cannot requite.” — Joseph Hall

65. Contentment, as it is a short road and pleasant, has great delight and little trouble.” — Epictetus

66. “Contentment with our lot is an element of happiness.” — Aesop

67. “Ultimately, contentment is more a shift in attitude than a change in circumstances.” — Linda Dillow

68. “Fortify yourself with contentment, for this is an impregnable fortress.” — Epictetus

69. “The seat of perfect contentment is in the head; for every individual is thoroughly satisfied with his own proportion of brains.” — Charles Caleb Colton

70. “Contentment is the continuing act of accepting the process of your own life.” — David Gerrold

Contentment Quotes To Fill You With Satisfaction

71. “Content is wealth, the riches of the mind; / And happy he who can that treasure find.” — John Dryden

72. “The rarest feeling that ever lights the human face is the contentment of a loving soul.” — Henry Ward Beecher

73. “It is necessary to the contentment of man that he be mentally faithful to himself.” — Thomas Paine

74. “He who is not contented with little will never be satisfied with much.” — Thomas Benton Brooks

75. “Content is the true riches, for without it there is no satisfying.” — Martin Tupper

76. “Desire upon desire causes the greatest sorrow; contentment, the greatest happiness.” — Sanskrit

77. “Contentment is the soil in which true joy grows.” — Socrates

78. “The noblest mind the best contentment has.” — Edmund Spenser

79. “Contentment doesn’t come from doing what we like to do, but from liking what we must do.” — Wilfred Peterson

80. “Contentment is the realization of how much I already have.” — Dave Grant

What did you learn from these Contentment quotes?

Did you have a favorite contentment quote?

More and more people are opening up to pursuing contentment rather than happiness.

For generations, many have been told it is their right to pursue life, liberty and happiness.

Cardaro encourages people to work towards contentment, sharing that “Instead of striving for temporary happiness, we can settle into a sustainable sense of contentment that nobody can take away from us, and nobody can give to us, either.

It is already inside of us, and it just takes a little practice to begin experiencing it for ourselves.”

Many are taught that happiness is a synonym for contentment, but they are different.

One is short term and influenced by our conditions, the other is long-term and is an inner state of being impervious to the outside world.

So ask yourself, which would you rather be, happy or satisfied?

Let us know in the comments below.