A Few of My Favorite Quotes

A collection of notebooks, slips of paper, napkins, and envelopes have written quotes and affirmations that I’ve come across over the years. I’ve used them for reflection, meditation, and motivation over the years and have developed an inspirational practice of collecting them. The power of words is incredible. 

So, today, I’m sharing some of my favorites. Try writing them on sticky notes and put them in different places to remind you to ponder the thoughts they contain. And if you have a favorite, please share with me at www.facebook.com/ahousewithfourrooms. 

1. The secret of happiness is not in doing what one likes, but is liking what one has to do. – Sir James M Barrie

2. There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval. – George Sanayana

3. But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads? – Albert Camus

4. There is only one way to happiness, and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will. – Epictetus

5. Happiness depends on being free, and freedom depends on being courageous. – Thucydides.

6. Happiness is the meaning and purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence. – Aristotle

7. Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us, but is always the result of a good conscience, good health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits. – Thomas Jefferson

8. Happiness is experienced when your life gives you what you are willing to accept. – Ken Keyes Jr

9. To win one's joy through struggle is better than to yield to melancholy. – Andrew Gide

10. Nine requisites for contented living: Health enough to make work a pleasure. Well enough to support your needs. Strength to battle with difficulties and overcome them. Grace enough to confess your sins and forsake them. Patience enough to toil until some good is accomplished. Charity enough to see some good in your neighbor. Love enough to move you to be useful and helpful to others. Faith enough to make real the things of God. Hope enough to remove all anxious fears concerning the future. – Johann von Goethe

11. All animals except man know that the principle business of life is to enjoy it. – Samuel Butler

12. It is the chiefest point of happiness that a man is willing to be what he is. – Erasmus.

13. One is happy as a result of one's own efforts – once one knows the necessary ingredients of happiness – simple tastes, a certain degree of courage, self-denial to a point, love of work, and, above all, a clear conscience. – George Sand

14. Some pursue happiness, others create it. – Anon

15. No man is more cheated than the selfish man. – Henry Ward Beecher

16. Five great enemies to peace inhabit us: avarice, ambition, envy, anger and pride. If those enemies were to be banished, we should infallibly enjoy perpetual peace. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

  17.  Fear less, hope more; eat less, chew more; whine less, breathe more; talk less, say more; love more, and all good things will be yours. – Swedish proverb

18. Few are they who have never had the chance to achieve happiness… And fewer are those who have taken that chance. – Andre Maurois

19. Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be. – Abraham Lincoln

20. Happiness is: a good martini, a good meal, a good cigar and a good woman…or bad woman, depending on how much happiness you can stand. – George Burns

 What favorites do you have? Share your quotes and affirmations at www.facebook.com/ahousewithfourrooms

Until next time...

LIsa