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Therefore the sufficiency of contentment is an enduring and unchanging sufficiency.
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“Therefore the sufficiency of contentment is an enduring and unchanging sufficiency.”

Lao Tzu

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Source
Tao Teh King
Date
ancient
English wording
James Legge — Translator · from Classical Chinese
Meaning

Meaning of “Therefore the sufficiency of contentment is an enduring…”

Contentment supplies a form of enoughness that does not depend on continually acquiring more, making inward sufficiency less vulnerable to comparison and appetite.

Source context

Where does it come from?

Tao Teh King, chapter 46, James Legge translation; the statement follows warnings about ambition, discontent, and the wish to keep getting.

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Acceptance Quotes About Reality, Limits & ChangeCalmDeepGratitudeHappinessInner PeaceJoyLovePeacePhilosophyPositive Quotes About a Constructive OutlookSelf LoveShortSimplicityThought-Provoking Quotes That Invite ReflectionWisdom Quotes About Judgment & Living Well
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However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names.
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“However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names.”

Henry David Thoreau · Walden · 1854
Meaning & context

Thoreau asks for direct engagement with the life actually present rather than contempt for it because it falls short of wealth, status or imagined alternatives.

Source details

Walden, “Conclusion,” Project Gutenberg #205. The sentence opens a passage urging the reader to “Love your life, poor as it is” and noting that a quiet mind may live contentedly even in materially poor circumstances. It is not an argument that poverty or injustice should never be changed.

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He who binds to himself a joy does the winged life destroy.
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“He who binds to himself a joy does the winged life destroy.”

William Blake · Eternity · c. 1790s
Meaning & context

Trying to possess a joyful moment permanently can damage it, while accepting impermanence allows experience to remain alive and free.

Source details

Short poem commonly titled “Eternity”; Blake contrasts grasping with the passing movement of joy.

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The most manifest sign of wisdom is a continual cheerfulness.
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“The most manifest sign of wisdom is a continual cheerfulness.”

Michel de Montaigne · Essays of Montaigne — Book I · 1580
Meaning & context

Montaigne associates wisdom with a settled, clear disposition rather than with performative gloom or intellectual severity.

Source details

Essays of Montaigne, Book I, Chapter XXV, ‘Of the Education of Children,’ Charles Cotton translation edited by William Carew Hazlitt (1877); Project Gutenberg Volume 05 #3585 / Complete Essays #3600. The cheerfulness sentence belongs to Montaigne’s account of philosophy as forming a serene, active way of life rather than a gloomy scholastic display.

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What a man is and has in himself,—in a word personality, with all it entails, is the only immediate and direct factor in his happiness and welfare.
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“What a man is and has in himself,—in a word personality, with all it entails, is the only immediate and direct factor in his happiness and welfare.”

Arthur Schopenhauer · The Wisdom of Life · 1851
Meaning & context

Personality is presented as the nearest and most continuous condition of well-being, because possessions and reputation affect life only through the person who experiences them.

Source details

The Wisdom of Life; Schopenhauer argues that personality has a more direct relation to happiness than property, rank, or external opinion.

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