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Gratefulness is the key to a happy life that we hold in our hands, because if we are not grateful, then no matter how much we have we will not be happy -- because we will always want to have something else or something more.

David Steindl-Rast

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David Steindl-Rast
Age: 98
Born: 1926
Born: July 12
Monk
Non-Fiction Writer
Psychologist
Theologian
Vienna
Austria
Life
Happy
Else
Gratefulness
Hands
Insightful
Matter
Gratitude
Much
Grateful
Something
Keys
Always
Hold
Love
Happiness

More quotes by David Steindl-Rast

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If there is anything the artist or a true work of art teaches us, it is that variety and complexity really increase the unity, and that to achieve unity within a great variety of complexity is a greater achievement and more satisfying piece of art than to achieve unity with just a few elements, which is relatively easily achieved.
David Steindl-Rast
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As I express my gratitude, I become more deeply aware of it. And the greater my awareness, the greater my need to express it. What happens here is a spiraling ascent, a process of growth in ever expanding circles around a steady center.
David Steindl-Rast
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The experience of love and the experience of death destroy the illusion of our self-sufficiency. The two are closely connected, and to become fully human we must experience both of them.
David Steindl-Rast
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The greatest gift one can give is thanksgiving. In giving gifts, we give what we can spare, but in giving thanks we give ourselves.
David Steindl-Rast
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As we learn to give thanks for all of life and death, for all of this given world of ours, we find a deep joy. It is the joy of trust, the joy of faith in the faithfulness at the heart of all things. It is the joy of gratefulness in touch with the fullness of life.
David Steindl-Rast
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Look closely and you will find that people are happy because they are grateful. The opposite of gratefulness is just taking everything for granted.
David Steindl-Rast
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People who have faith in life are like swimmers who entrust themselves to a rushing river. They neither abandon themselves to its current nor try to resist it. Rather, they adjust their every movement to the watercourse, use it with purpose and skill, and enjoy the adventure.
David Steindl-Rast
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Solitude without togetherness deteriorates into loneliness. One needs strong roots in togetherness to be solitary rather than lonely when one is alone.
David Steindl-Rast
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Joy is that kind of happiness that does not depend on what happens.
David Steindl-Rast
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Gratefulness is that fullness of life for which we are all thirsting.
David Steindl-Rast
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One single gift acknowledged in gratefulness has the power to dissolve the ties of our alienation.
David Steindl-Rast
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Gratefulness is the great task, the how of our spiritual work, because, rightly understood, it re-roots us.
David Steindl-Rast
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The universe is gratis. It cannot be earned, nor need it be earned.
David Steindl-Rast
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The root of joy is gratefulness.
David Steindl-Rast
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Any change in attitude changes the way one sees the world, and this in turn changes the way one acts.
David Steindl-Rast
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Impatience makes us get ahead of ourselves, reaching out for something in the future and not really being content with where we are, here and now.
David Steindl-Rast
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We have thousands of opportunities every day to be grateful: for having good weather, to have slept well last night, to be able to get up, to be healthy, to have enough to eat. ... There's opportunity upon opportunity to be grateful that's what life is.
David Steindl-Rast
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If you're really mind-full, and if you underline that aspect of fullness, wholeness, or wholeheartedness, it reveals the gift character of everything.
David Steindl-Rast
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What is necessary when we want to face reality? Stillness.
David Steindl-Rast
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When you focus so much on the word, you tend to neglect the realm of silence.
David Steindl-Rast