My transition from cluttered to simple living.

Monday, January 24, 2011

Happy?

If you want to be happy, be.  ~Leo Tolstoy

Can anything be so elegant as to have few wants, and to serve them one's self?  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
  

Pleasure is spread through the earth
In stray gifts to be claimed by whoever shall find.
~William Wordsworth, 1806




We tend to forget that happiness doesn't come as a result of getting something we don't have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have.  ~Frederick Keonig

Every now and then,
when the world sits just right,
a gentle breath of heaven
fills my soul with delight...
~Hazelmarie ‘Mattie’ Elliott, A Breath of Heaven

If the day and night be such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more immortal - that is your success.  All nature is your congratulation, and you have cause momentarily to bless yourself.  ~Henry David Thoreau, Walden
 


5 comments:

  1. When we were kids and something wasn't quite going as we planned, Dad would say, "the power of positive thinking" and then walk away. Drove me insane. Then I (sort of) grew up and now I get it.

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  2. Liz... If I saw this on Facebook, I would be saying "Like!"

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  3. When "life emits a fragrance like flowers" fits perfectly. I just saw a full-blown rose on someone's blog and it filled my nostrils with the smell, amazingly. And yes, appreciating what we do have is the best way to find happiness... very nice quotes. :-)

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  4. I love the Ralph Waldo Emerson quote! Did he every say anything not worth quoting? :-)

    ~Ron

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