“What you want is what you cannot have. What you cannot have is what you want.”

“Happiness is not having what you want, it is wanting what you have.”

Sheryl Crow (1962) American musician and actress

“Happiness is not having what you want but wanting what you have.”

Jimmy Stewart (1908–1997) American film and stage actor

“You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.”

Jane Goodall (1934) British primatologist, ethologist, and anthropologist

“Buy not what you want, but what you have need of; what you do not want is dear at a farthing.”
Emas non quod opus est, sed quod necesse est. Quod non opus est, asse carum est.

Cato the Elder (-234–-149 BC) politician, writer and economist (0234-0149)

“No matter what you have been told by people who make your needs wrong because they don’t want to meet those needs, you cannot un-need what you need.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

“Happiness isn't wanting what you can get, but wanting what you have.”

Beverly Lewis (1949) American writer

“Sometimes to get what you want the most, you have to do what you want the least.”

Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper

“Some luck lies in not getting what you thought you wanted but getting what you have, which once you have got it you may be smart enough to see is what you would have wanted had you known.”

Garrison Keillor (1942) American radio host and writer

“Do what you have to do, to do what you want to do.”

Denzel Washington (1954) actor, screenwriter, director, producer