Echoes

There are two kinds of pleasure: one consisting in a state of rest, in which both body and mind are undisturbed by any kind of pain; the other arising from an agreeable agitation of the senses, producing a correspondent emotion in the soul. It is upon the former of these that the enjoyment of life chiefly depends. Happiness may therefore be said to consist in bodily ease, and mental tranquility.

We place the happy life in the security of the mind and in freedom from all obligations.

What can be added to the happiness of a man who is in health, out of debt, and has a clear conscience?

To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition, the end to which every enterprise and labour tends, and of which every desire prompts the prosecution.

Nowhere you can go is more peaceful — more free of interruptions — than your own soul.

With an eye made quiet by the power of harmony, and the deep power of joy, we see into the life of things.

A crust eaten in peace is better than a banquet partaken in anxiety.

With coarse rice to eat, with water to drink, and my bended arm for a pillow — I have still joy in the midst of these things. Riches and honors acquired by unrighteousness are to me as a floating cloud.

You shall have joy, or you shall have power, said God; you shall not have both.

First keep the peace within yourself, then you can also bring peace to others.

Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.

Ah! there is nothing like staying at home for real comfort.

Happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected.

He who is not satisfied with a little, is satisfied with nothing.

To the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders.

God rests in Himself, and makes all things rest in Him.

If you wish to make Pythocles wealthy, don't give him more money; rather, reduce his desires.

I have arrived. I am home. In the here, in the now. I am solid. I am free. In the ultimate I dwell.

The primary indication, to my thinking, of a well-ordered mind is a man's ability to remain in one place and linger in his own company.

In ease of body and peace of mind, all the different ranks of life are nearly upon a level, and the beggar, who suns himself by the side of the highway, possesses that security which kings are fighting for.

For some identify happiness with virtue, some with practical wisdom, others with a kind of philosophic wisdom, others with these, or one of these, accompanied by pleasure or not without pleasure; while others include also external prosperity. Now ... it is not probable that these should be entirely mistaken, but rather that they should be right in at least some one respect or even in most respects.

Do not seek pleasure for its own sake.

After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality, and so on — have found that none of these finally satisfy, or permanently wear — what remains? Nature remains.

Men seek retreats for themselves, houses in the country, sea-shores, and mountains. But this is altogether a mark of the most common sort of men, for it is in thy power whenever thou shalt choose to retire into thyself. For nowhere either with more quiet or more freedom from trouble does a man retire than into his own soul.

He is richest who is content with the least, for contentment is the wealth of nature.