“People, even poor people, were in general more contented before the 1914-18 war than they are now, although not nearly so well provided with comforts and luxuries. Incidentally they were also more often people of strong individuality, "characters" or "personalities" as we might say; not of course always either virtuous or agreeable, but qualitatively distinctive, not mere drops in an ocean of mediocrity. And they were more content with their lot than we are. What then is the true criterion of contentment? Can it be anything but the acceptance of one's lot, whatever it may be? Or in other words, knowing one's place and fulfilling faithfully whatever function may be associated with it, with a pride in the quality of the product as the principal incentive rather than any tangible reward; knowing, perhaps, that not to want is better than to have; and above all being intelligent enough not to place one's best hopes in nothing but the satisfactions which a short sojourn in this world can bring. All these things are criteria of contentment, and at the same time they are universal ethical constituents of every religion and tradition.”

— Walter James, 4th Baron Northbourne

Intellectual Freedom (1971)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "People, even poor people, were in general more contented before the 1914-18 war than they are now, although not nearly …" by Walter James, 4th Baron Northbourne?

Walter James, 4th Baron Northbourne photo

Walter James, 4th Baron Northbourne 5

British rower, agriculturalist and translater 1896–1982

Related quotes

“The land was ours before we were the land's.
She was our land more than a hundred years
Before we were her people.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

" The Gift Outright http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/994.html" (1941)
1940s

“For months the life of the little band went on much as it had before, except that Tarzan's greater intelligence and his ability as a hunter were the means of providing for them more bountifully than ever before. Most of them, therefore, were more than content with the change in rulers.”

Edgar Rice Burroughs book Tarzan of the Apes

Source: Tarzan of the Apes (1912), Ch. 12 : Man's Reason

“There is little consolation in the fact that millions of people are unhappier than we are. Why should other people's misery make us happier or more content?”

Azar Nafisi (1955) Iranaian academic and writer

“Altogether, a more miserable trio than we were that evening it would have been difficult to discover; and our only comfort lay in the reflection that we were exceedingly fortunate to be there to feel miserable, instead of being stretched dead upon the plain, as so many thousands of brave men were that night, who had risen well and strong in the morning.”

H. Rider Haggard book King Solomon's Mines

Source: King Solomon's Mines (1885), Chapter 15, "Good Falls Sick"

“[T]he struggle over slavery and racial injustice that did result in civil war. Here, too, the disputes were not merely about means, but about ends — about fundamental matters of right and wrong. And although the war, after consuming the lives of nearly three-quarters of a million people, ended after four years, the struggle went on for more than a hundred more, and we are still living with its aftershocks today.”

Robert P. George (1955) American legal scholar

2017, Interview with Matthew Bunson (2017)

“Somehow, like so many people who get depressed, we felt our depressions were more complicated and existentially based than they actually were.”

Kay Redfield Jamison (1946) American bipolar disorder researcher

Source: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness

“But suppose we were to teach creationism. What would be the content of the teaching? Merely that a creator formed the universe and all species of life ready-made? Nothing more? No details?”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

"The Dangerous Myth of Creationism" in Penthouse (January 1982); reprinted as Ch. 2 : "Creationism and the Schools" in The Roving Mind (1983), p. 16
General sources

“The People is always worth more than individuals.”

Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794) French revolutionary lawyer and politician

As quoted in Portrayals of Revolution, Images, Debates, and Patterns of Thought on the French Revolution, p. 27, by Noel Parker, Southern Illinois University Press

“We are a moderate, pragmatic people, more comfortable with practice than theory.”

Isabel II do Reino Unido (1926–2022) queen of the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and head of the Commonwealth of Nations

Speech in reply to Addresses from both Houses of Parliament in Westminster Hall in the year of Her Golden Jubilee (30 April 2002)

“The Will-be and the Has-been touch us more nearly than the Is. So we are more tender towards children and old people than to those who are in the prime of life.”

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist

Future and Past
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XIV - Higgledy-Piggledy

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Walter James, 4th Baron Northbourne 5

Related quotes

Related topics