I have learned to seek my happiness by limiting my desires, rather than in attempting to satisfy them.

The sentence expresses a classic ethical insight: well-being is often achieved less by accumulating satisfactions than by disciplining and simplifying one’s wants. It aligns with a strain of Mill’s thought that distinguishes higher from lower pleasures and treats character-formation and self-government as central to a good life. Read this way, “limiting desires” is not mere resignation but a deliberate strategy for autonomy—reducing dependence on external conditions and the endless escalation of appetites. The remark also resonates with older Stoic and Epicurean themes (tranquility through moderating desire), though Mill frames it in a modern, reflective, self-experimental voice rather than as a formal doctrine.