Goethe’s guide to: Contentment

I read all sorts of books, blogs and articles. There are so many good ideas, interesting facts and compelling words out there. Don’t you reckon?

While reading around recently, I came across Goethe’s nine requisites for contented living.* I loved them! Sage advice calling to us – or certainly me – from the early 19th century. And those requisites for contentment..? As follows:

Health enough to make work a pleasure;

Wealth enough to support your needs;

Strength enough to battle with difficulties and forsake them;

Grace enough to confess your sins and overcome 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.

xoxox

I don’t always have all these requisites by the way, but I work at it. How about you?

* Found through Brain Pickings and Explore – two excellent online spaces worth a regular squizz.