Contentment is an interior thing that goes with freedom. Freedom depends on it, and he who cannot be content in adversity cannot be free. Contentment has nothing to do either with defeat or compromise; it is the condition for victory. For when I am content I recognize that I need no other conditions and no other situation in order to be free and happy. This is, in one sense, to transcend the whole business!
— Thomas Merton, The Intimate Merton by Patrick Hart