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Joy is a sustained feeling of well-being and happiness

• Joy: The emotion of great delight or happiness caused by something exceptionally good or satisfying; keen pleasure; elation. Cambridge Dictionary
• Joy: The emotion evoked by well-being, success, or good fortune or by the prospect of possessing what one desires. Merriam Webster
• Joy: A feeling of great pleasure and happiness. Oxford Dictionary
• Joy is a sustained sense of well-being and internal peace – a connection to what matters. Oprah Winfrey
• Well-being,   Happiness,  Delight,  Cheerfulness,  Optimism,  Being fully alive

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Joy is peace dancing

• Joy is peace dancing and peace is joy at rest. F. B. Meyer
• Peace is joy at rest. Joy is peace on its feet. Anne Lamott
• Deep joy is a serene and sober emotion, rarely evinced in open merriment. Madame Roland
• Peace means joy; Joy means peace. Peace and joy can never be separated. Sri Chinmoy
• Joy is uncaused and arises from within as the joy of Being. It is an essential part of the inner state of peace, the state that has been called the peace of God. It is your natural state, not something that you need to work hard for or struggle to attain. Eckhart Tolle
• Joy descends gently upon us like the evening dew, and does not patter down like a hailstorm. Jean Paul Richter
• What is peace? Is it war? No. Is it strife? No. Is it lovely, and gentle, and beautiful, and pleasant, and serene, and joyful? O yes! Charles Dickens
• Peace in every step. The shining red sun is my heart. Each flower smiles with me. How green, how fresh all that grows. How cool the wind blows. Peace is every step. It turns the endless path to joy. Nhat Hanh
• There may be peace without joy, and joy without peace, but the two combined make happiness. John Buchan
• Tranquil pleasures last the longest; we are not fitted to bear the burden of great joys. Christian Nestell Bovee
• Tranquillity is contagious, peace is contagious. One only thinks of the contagiousness of illness, but there is the contagion of serenity and joy. Anaïs Nin
• Peace,   Dancing

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Joy is silent

• Great joy, especially after a sudden change of circumstances, is apt to be silent, and dwells rather in the heart than on the tongue. Henry Fielding
• Great joys, like griefs, are silent. Shackerley Marmion
• It’s easier to write about pain than about joy. Joy is wordless. Erica Jong
• Silence is the perfectest herault of joy. I were but little happy if I could say how much. William Shakespeare
• True gladness doth not always speak; joy, bred and born but in the tongue, is weak. Ben Jonson
• An ecstasy is a thing that will not go into words; it feels like music. Mark Twain
• People who shout joy from the rooftops are often the saddest of all. Milan Kundera
• The true experience of bliss is without words. Mother Meera
• The most profound joy has more of gravity than of gaiety in it. Michel de Montaigne
• Silence

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Joy is an emotion

• In emotions you should be bubbling with joy. Joy is your emotion. In action you should be thoughtless and in ascent you should be surrendered. Nirmala Srivastava
• There are seven emotions: joy, anger, anxiety, adoration, grief, fear, and hate, and if a man does not give way to these he can be called patient. Ieyasu Tokugawa
• Emotions,    Index of emotions

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Joy is a sensation …

• Love is not a feeling; it’s a sensation. Drinking water when you’re thirsty is a sensation, not a feeling. Being in nature or swimming in the sea is a sensation, not a feeling. Lying down when you’re tired is sensational, not a feeling, although you may say it feels good. Feeling is an emotional interpretation of experience and these sensations don’t need interpretation; they are just good or right. Making physical love rightly is a sensation, not a feeling. So is thme love of God. The same goes for joy and beauty; both are sensational.’ Barry Long
• Pleasure is a sensation. It is written into our bodies; it is our experience of delight, of joy. … Pleasure will become a marker, a compass pointing to emotional true north. Carol Gilligan

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… a very pleasant one

• Joy makes the longest journey too short. John Wooden
• Joy makes us giddy, dizzy. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
• Joy steals upon me, such joy as calls forth tears. Aeschylus

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Joy is a state of mind

• Joy is a condition that is experienced, but it is more than a feeling; it is, primarily, a state of mind. J. I. Packer

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Joy is a high state of consciousness

• When the rhythms of our body-mind are in synch with nature’s rhythms, when we are living in harmony with life, we are living in the state of grace. To live in grace is to experience that state of consciousness where things flow effortlessly and our desires are easily fulfilled. Grace is magical, synchronistic, coincidental, joyful. It’s that good-luck factor. But to live in grace we have to allow nature’s intelligence to flow through us without interfering. Deepak Chopra
• If you shift from compulsiveness to consciousness, being joyful will not be an effort. Jaggi Vasudev
• Real joy means immediate expansion. If we experience pure joy, immediately our heart expands. We feel that we are flying in the divine freedom-sky. The entire length and breadth of the world becomes ours, not for us to rule over, but as an expansion of our consciousness. We become reality and vastness. Sri Chinmoy
• Consciousness

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Joy is a human need

• We need Joy as we need air. We need Love as we need water. We need each other as we need the earth we share. Maya Angelou
• Joy is a constituent of life, a necessity of life; it is an element of life’s value and life’s power. As every person has need of joy, so too, every person has a right to joy . Paul Wilhelm von Keppler
• People need joy quite as much as they need clothing. Some of them need it far more. Margaret Collier Graham
• We all need joy, and we can all receive joy in only one way, by adding to the joy of others. Eknath Easwaran
• Human needs

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Extreme joy becomes ecstasy

• Ecstasy: An overwhelming feeling of great happiness or joyful excitement. Oxford Dictionary
• By ecstasy I mean inner joyousness, and by inner joyousness I mean those inspirational fires which burn within the consciousness of great geniuses, fires which give to them an inconquerable vitality of spirit which breaks down all barriers as wheat bends before the wind. Walter Russell
• Ecstasy is not simply joy. Ecstasy is an emotion of great complexity that hovers almost on the edge of terror sometimes. Terence McKenna
• Find expression for a sorrow, and it will become dear to you. Find expression for a joy, and you will intensify its ecstasy. Oscar Wild
• Let the power come. Let ecstasy erupt. Allow your heart to expand and overflow with adoration for this magnificent creation and for the love, wisdom and power that birthed it all. Rapture is needed now – rapture, reverence and grace. Ann Mortifee
• Ecstasy is a complex emotion containing elements of joy, fear, terror, triumph, surrender, and empathy. Terence McKenna
• Ecstasy cannot be constant, or it would kill. Eleanor Farjeon

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Extreme joy becomes bliss

• From tiny, tiny waves of joy, one gets to the ocean of happiness, which is called bliss. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

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To some extent, joy is a word that has gone out of favour

• I am fascinated by joy and by its relative absence in modern literature. Why is joy so resistant to language? How has it become so suspect in our times? Manipulated by advertisers, religious leaders, and politicians, joy can seem disquieting, even offensive. How does one speak of joy amid such ubiquitous injustice and suffering in the world? Christian Wiman

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Joy is different from happiness…

• For happiness one needs security, but joy can spring like a flower even from the cliffs of despair. Anne Morrow Lindbergh
• Happiness depends on the present. Joy leaps into the future and triumphantly creates a new present out of it. Elise M. Boulding
• For the real difference between happiness and joy is that one is grounded in this world, the other in eternity. Happiness cannot encompass suffering and evil. Joy can. Happiness depends on the present. Joy leaps into the future and triumphantly creates a new present out of it. Elise M. Boulding
• Happiness is smiling when the sun’s out. Joy is dancing in the downpour.
• Happiness always has an object… Depends on external things. Joy… Has no object. It seizes you for no apparent reason, it’s like the sun, its burning is fueled by its own heart. Susanna Tamaro
• Happiness and joy are not the same. For what does the fervent craving for joy mean? It does not mean that we wish at any cost to experience the psychic state of being joyful. We want to have reason for joy, for an unceasing joy that fills us utterly, sweeps all before it, exceeds all measure. Josef Pieper
• Happiness is like rising bubbles — delightful and inevitably fleeting. Joy is the oxygen — ever present. Danielle LaPorte
• Happiness is part of who we are. Joy is the feeling. Tony DeLiso
• Happiness is temporary and fleeting. … Joy is the right goal. Guy Kawasaki
• I certainly wasn’t happy. Happiness has to do with reason, and only reason earns it. What I was given was the thing you can’t earn, and can’t keep, and often don’t even recognize at the time; I mean joy. Ursula K. Le Guin
• I had thought joy to be rather synonymous with happiness, but it seems now to be far less vulnerable than happiness. Joy seems to be a part of an unconditional wish to live, not holding back because life may not meet our preferences and expectations. Joy seems to be a function of the willingness to accept the whole, and to show up to meet with whatever is there. It has a kind of invincibility that attachment to any particular outcome would deny us. Rachel Naomi Remen
• I think happiness is overrated, but joy is the key to the thousands of possible moods we can feel. And when we can rest in that joy, then peace is the moment of openness that holds all feeling. Mark Nepo
• The fact is always obvious much too late, but the most singular difference between happiness and joy is that happiness is a solid and joy a liquid. J. D. Salinger
• Joy is not like happiness, unhappiness. It is singular. Nirmala Srivastava
• Joy is spiritual and far grittier than happiness, and far more robust. Laurel Mellin
• Happiness is like rising bubbles — delightful and inevitably fleeting. Joy is the oxygen — ever present. Danielle LaPorte
• Joy is that kind of happiness that does not depend on what happens. David Steindl-Rast
• Condition, circumstance, is not the thing; Bliss is the same in subject or in king. Alexander Pope
• Joy seems to me a step beyond happiness—happiness is a sort of atmosphere you can live in sometimes when you’re lucky. Joy is a light that fills you with hope and faith and love. Adela Rogers St. Johns
• I certainly wasn’t happy. Happiness has to do with reason, and only reason earns it. What I was given was the thing you can’t earn, and can’t keep, and often don’t recognize at the time; I mean joy. Ursula K. LeGuin
• You know, that’s what I’ve regretted the most, that joy. Of course, later there were times when I felt happy, but happiness is to joy what an electric light bulb is to the sun. Happiness always has an object, you’re happy because of something, it’s a condition whose existence depends on external things. Joy, on the other hand, has no object. It seizes you for no apparent reason; it’s like the sun– its burning is fueled by its own heart. Susanna Tamaro
• Happiness is based on what is happening around us. Joy is based on what is happening within us. Margaret Minnicks
• Typically happiness comes when our wishes are fulfilled, when we see our standards met, when we find ourselves in a good place. Joy is a little different, because it’s inherently connected to making conscious choices about self-expression and higher purpose. Cat Thompson
• Happiness

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… and different from pleasure …

• Joy is something entirely different from pleasure. Jiddu Krishnamurti
• Do not look for rest in any pleasure, because you were not created for pleasure: you were created for joy. And if you do not know the difference between pleasure and joy you have not yet begun to live. Thomas Merton
• The difference between pleasure and joy? Ohh … the distance is from here to the moon! From here to another galaxy! Pleasure is an attempt to fill yourself. Joy is what you are. Byron Katie
• Pleasure is always derived from something outside you, whereas joy arises from within. Eckhart Tolle
• Natural joy brings no headaches and no heartaches. Elbert Hubbard
• People can be happy while they are going through great pain and adversity. There’s no pleasure evident in their external lives yet they are content on the inside. And conversely, tons of people are surrounded by pleasure (fast cars, nice homes, great clothes) but there is no joy within. So choose to be happy. Robin Sharma
• I sometimes wonder whether all pleasures are not substitutes for joy. S. Lewis
• Pleasure is just a shadow of joy. When there is no joy in you, you become a pleasure seeker. Jaggi Vasudev
• Pleasure is not the purpose of man’s existence. Joy is. David O. McKay
• Pleasure without joy is as hollow as passion without tenderness. Alan Jay Lerner
• Short is the joy that guilty pleasure brings. Euripides
• True ‘joy’ is the difference between just amusing ourselves to death and creating ‘meaningful’ pleasure. Sidney Poitier
• We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us. C. S. Lewis
• Joy is never in our power and pleasure often is C. S. Lewis
• Though sin often brings immediate pleasure, it gives no lasting joy. R. C. Sproul
• Fun is temporary at best; it’s risky, even dangerous, at worst. Joy, on the other hand, was mystery I couldn’t seem to decipher. Liz Curtis Higgs
• Not joy is the mother of dissipation, but joylessness. Friedrich Nietzsche
• Made for spirituality, we wallow in introspection. Made for joy, we settle for pleasure. Made for justice, we clamor for vengeance. N. T. Wright
• Pleasure

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…because joy springs from within…

• Joy is not in things, it is in us. Richard Wagner
• Your joy lies within you. Rhonda Byrne
• Joy doesn’t exist in the world, it exists in us. Benjamin Franklin
• Joy rises in me, like a summer’s morn. Samuel Taylor Coleridge
• Even during sad times joy is within you. Bring it forth. Charlene Costanzo
• The source of joy is within yourself. Unless and until you seek yourself you cannot seek God. Nirmala Srivastava
• Never look for comfort from without… all true joy is found within. Alison Stormwolf
• Joy does not come from what you do, it flows into what you do and thus into this world from deep within you. Eckhart Tolle
• Joy cannot be pursued. It comes from within. It is a state of being. It does not depend on circumstances, but triumphs over circumstances. It produces a gentleness of spirit and a magnetic personality. Billy Graham
• Realize that true happiness lies within you. Waste no time and effort searching for peace and contentment and joy in the world outside. Og Mandino
• Your success and happiness lie in you. External conditions are the accidents of life, its outer trappings. The great, enduring realities are love of service. Joy is the holy fire that keeps our purpose warm and our intelligence aglow. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulty. Helen Keller
• Joy is the happiness of love–love aware of its own inner happiness. Pleasure comes from without, and joy comes from within, and it is, therefore, within reach of everyone in the world. Bishop Fulton J. Sheen
• The more you go within, the more you understand your true nature, and the more joy and happiness you feel in your life. Brian L. Weiss
• I tell you, deep inside you is a fountain of bliss, a fountain of joy. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
• You are seeking joy and peace in far-off places. But the spring of joy is in your heart. The haven of peace is in yourself. Sathya Sai Baba
• To experience love, we must go inside. When you experience real love you get into a state which is beyond words. You are filled with a joy that goes beyond all emotions. True love is the love of the inner Self. Swami Muktananda
• Outward attainment will not bring real inner joyfulness. We must look inside. The Dalai Lama
• The journey to true happiness and to happiness now is not a journey of physical distance or time; it is one of personal “self-recovery,” where we remember and reconnect consciously to an inner potential for joy–a paradise lost–waiting to be found. Robert Holden
• The joy I feel is immense; it burns inside me as though I have swallowed a piece of the sun. Edith Pattou
• We all carry it within us: supreme strength, the fullness of wisdom, unquenchable joy. It is never thwarted, and cannot be destroyed. Huston Smith
• We have within ourselves Enough to fill the present day with joy, And overspread the future years with hope. William Wordsworth
• Keep knocking, and the Joy inside will eventually open a window and look out to see who’s there. Rumi
• A pleasant and happy life does not come from external things. Man draws from within himself, as from a spring, pleasure and joy. Plutarch
• You don’t think your way back to joy; you open to it. Donna Quesada
• Because gratification of a desire leads to the temporary stilling of the mind and the experience of the peaceful, joyful Self, it’s no wonder that we get hooked on thinking that happiness comes from the satisfaction of desires. This is the meaning of the old adage, Joy is not in things, it is in us. Joan Borysenko
• Do not look for joy anywhere else. It is living in you, and gives meaning to all Existence. Judith Hanson Lasater
• Find a place inside where there’s joy, and the joy will burn out the pain. Joseph Campbell
• Outside is the joy of the drop. Inside is the joy of the ocean. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
• Inside everyone is a great shout of joy waiting to be born. David Whyte
• All the love and joy that a man has ever received in perception is laid up in him as the sunshine of a hundred years is laid up in the bole of the oak. Coventry Patmore
• Find ecstasy within yourself. It is not out there. It is in your innermost flowering. The one you are looking for is you. Rajneesh
• Go inwards. Find your inner space, and suddenly, you will find an explosion of light, of beauty, of ecstasy – as if suddenly thousands of roses have blossomed within you and you are full of their fragrance. Osho
• Find ecstasy within yourself. It is not out there. It is in your innermost flowering. The one you are looking for is you. Osho
• Mystical bliss, joy and rapture arises when you realize the inner Sun. Amit Ray
• The most visible joy can only reveal itself to us when we’ve transformed it, within. Rainer Maria Rilke
• Joy is a stronger, less common feeling than happiness. Witnessing or achieving selflessness to the point of personal sacrifice frequently triggers this emotion. Feeling spiritually connected to a god or to people. Diffen.com
• The treasure within

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.. and does not depend on external circumstances

• Happiness depends on what happens; joy does not. Oswald Chambers
• Our joy does not have to be based on our circumstances. Joyce Meyer
• Happiness and joy are inner qualities that can’t be shaken by outer circumstances because they are inherent within the core Self. Michael Beckwith
• Joy is not dependent on circumstances; it is your own. It is not a titillation produced by things; it is a state of peace, of silence- a meditative state. It is spiritual. Osho
• Joy is the happiness that doesn’t depend on what happens. Brother David Steindl-Rast
• We’re not in control but we do have a greater hope and we do have a source of joy that isn’t based on our circumstances. Rick Warren
• The pursuit of happiness is a matter of choice…it is a positive attitude we choose to express. It is not a gift delivered to our door each morning, nor does it come through the window. And it is certain that our circumstances are not the things that make us joyful. If we wait for them to get just right, we will never laugh again. Charles R. Swindoll
• Happiness is temporary, based on outward circumstances. Joy is lasting, based on inward circumstances. Diffen.com
• Happiness is caused by things that happen around me, and circumstances will mar it; but joy flows right on through trouble; joy flows in the night as well as in the day; joy flows through persecution and opposition. It is an unceasing fountain bubbling up in the heart; a secret spring the world can’t see and doesn’t know anything about. Dwight L. Moody
• The ultimate source of happiness is within us. Not money, not power, not status. Some of my friends are billionaires, but they are very unhappy people. Power and money fail to bring inner peace. Outward attainment will not bring real inner joyfulness. We must look inside. The Dalai Lama
• Life has all of these contradictory feelings and contradictory results. People spend their whole lives struggling to get what they think they want, and even if they get it, they find that it’s either not what they wanted, or it comes with so many unwanted consequences. We’re always shut off from pure joy. Harold Ramis
• True inner joy is self-created It does not rely on any outer circumstances A river is flowing in and through you carrying the message of joy. This divine joy is the sole purpose of life. Sri Chinmoy
• Joy is a mystery because it can happen anywhere, anytime, even under the most unpromising circumstances, even in the midst of suffering, with tears in its eyes. Frederick Buechner
• True joy is independent of circumstances – Choose to rejoice! Andrew Wommack
• We call “happiness” a certain set of circumstances that makes joy possible. But we call joy that state of mind and emotions that needs nothing to feel happy. Andre Gide
• There is within each of us a modulation, an inner exaltation, which lifts us above the buffetings with which events assail us. Likewise, it lifts us above dependence upon the gifts of events for our joy. Albert Schweitzer
• Celebration never need depend on outside circumstances. We need not wait for a special holiday or a formal occasion, nor a sunny and cloudless day. True celebration arises from a joy that is first experienced deep within, and spills over into an overflow of song and dance and laughter, and yes, even tears of gratitude. Rajneesh
• In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer. Albert Camus
• You can get fired, dumped, dumped on, and pulled through the eye of a needle, and still feel held by the container of joy — the truth of your existence. Danielle LaPorte

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We are joy itself …

• You are joy, wisdom, peace, compassion, and love. Ram Dass
• You are joy, looking for a way to express. It’s not just that your purpose is joy, it is that you are joy. You are love and joy and freedom and clarity expressing. Energy-frolicking and eager. That’s who you are. Esther Hicks
• You are goodness and mercy and compassion and understanding. You are peace and joy and light. You are forgiveness and patience, strength and courage, a helper in time of need, a comforter in time of sorrow, a healer in time of injury, a teacher in times of confusion. You are the deepest wisdom and the highest truth; the greatest peace and the grandest love. You are these things. And in moments of your life you have known yourself to be these things. Choose now to know yourself as these things always. Neale Donald Walsch

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… for joy is our true nature

• Joy needs no object; it is our own nature. Sathya Sai Baba
• Your true nature is purity, peace and joy. Sathya Sai Baba
• Being joyful is our natural state of being. Deepak Chopra
• Happiness is part of who we are. Joy is the feeling. Tony DeLiso
• When your real, effortless, joyful grateful nature is realized, it will not be inconsistent with the ordinary activities of life. Ramana Maharshi
• Be the holder of your own Nature. It is a joyful responsibility. Eric Fischl
• Believe, then, that you are a being unlimited by nature, born into flesh to materialize as best you can the great joy and spontaneity of your nature. Jane Roberts
• Our original nature is…void, omnipresent, silent, pure; it is glorious and mysterious peaceful joy – and that is all. Enter deeply into it by awakening yourself. Huangbo Xiyun
• Our own true nature is Infinite Joy! Always happy, Always peaceful, Always free. Swami Satchidananda
• The joy of a strong nature is as cloudless as its suffering is desolate. Ouida
• The very life within you is longing to be joyful because joyfulness is the nature of the source of creation. Jaggi Vasudev
• Yoga teaches us both to let go and to have exquisite awareness in every moment. We remember our essential spiritual nature and life becomes more joyful, meaningful, and carefree. Deepak Chopra
• From joy I came, for joy I live, in sacred joy I melt. Paramahansa Yogananda
• Ramana Maharshi and Rumi would agree: the joy of being human is in uncovering the core we already are, the treasure buried in the ruin. Coleman Barks
• The closer you come to your core, the greater is your joy. Torkom Saraydarian
• Nothing from outside can stop a man from enjoying lasting peace and permanent joy in life, for it is the essential nature of his own soul. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
• Happiness is self-generated. It depends on one’s attitude of mind. The basis of happiness, is the simple fact that the deepest reality of our own nature is ever-existing, ever-conscious, ever-new joy. Goswami Kriyananda
• You are purer than the pure. Never manifold, you are individual Consciousness. Unborn, unchanging, all-pervasive You are a mountain of joy. Swami Muktananda
• Ecstasy is our very nature, not to be ecstatic is simply unnecessary. To be ecstatic is natural, spontaneous. It needs no effort to be ecstatic, it needs great effort to be miserable. That’s why you look so tired, because misery is real hard work; to maintain it is really difficult, because you are doing something against the nature. Rajneesh
• Joy is your birthright. Sarah Ban Breathnach
• The joy of Being, which is the only true happiness, cannot come to you through any form, possession, achievement, person, or event – through anything that happens. That joy cannot come to you – ever. It emanates from the formless dimension within you, from consciousness itself and thus is one with who you are. Eckhart Tolle
• Awakening to who we are

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Joy is the nature of the awareness we are in essence

• Be the silent watcher of your thoughts and behavior. You are beneath the thinker. You are the stillness beneath the mental noise. You are the love and joy beneath the pain. Eckhart Tolle
• Joy is simply being the silent mystery that is present at all places and at all times. It is always present, even through difficult circumstances, the ups and downs of varied emotions, that we may witness. In fact, it is the silent witnessing awareness and peace that is beyond all the vicissitudes of change. It is a state unconditional fulfillment expressing as, appreciation acceptance and gratitude. Mudita Badhwar
• Awareness is a background peace that spills over into the foreground of life as happiness, joy and delight. Anthony Lambert
• It makes a difference what we choose to experience during sleep. Many of us think of sleep as a chance to get away from it all. But sleep is also a chance to return to the joys of our spiritual heritage – our universal awareness. Henry Reed
• The great awareness comes slowly, piece by piece. The path of spiritual growth is a path of lifelong learning. The experience of spiritual power is basically a joyful one. M. Scott Peck
• Your Self, Aware Presence, knows no resistance to any appearance and, as such, is happiness itself; like the empty space of a room it cannot be disturbed and is, therefore, peace itself; like this page, it is intimately one with whatever appears on it and is thus love itself; and like water that is not affected by the shape of a wave, it is pure freedom. Causeless joy, imperturbable peace, love that knows no opposite and freedom at the heart of all experience….this is your ever-present nature under all circumstances. Rupert Spira
• The subliminal mind receives and remembers all those touches that delight the soul. Our soul takes joy in this right touching by the Essence of all experience. Sri Aurobindo
• Beyond this world and beyond all other worlds there is an all-perfect light. It is pure intelligence, ecstasy, peace and happiness. It is the light that shines beyond darkness, time, space and dimensionality. Frederick Lenz
• Awareness

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Joy is the silence at our core

• Silence is bringing you back home, and it gives you that much needed energy to realize ‘Who You Are’, to realize that there is bliss, there is beauty, there is joy, and that is ‘You’ Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
• As your silence grows; your friendliness, your love grows; your life becomes a moment-to-moment dance, a joy, a celebration. Rajneesh
• True, absolute silence and true, absolute love are not different. Absolute silent awareness overflows with simple, fulfilled absolute love. Objects – people, nature, emotions – may or may not appear. Objects are not needed and they are welcomed. The joy of this full silence is uncaused and unlimited. Always here, always discovering itself. It is the treasure, and it is hidden only when we refuse to keep quiet and find out who we are. Gangaji
• The world of men has forgotten the joys of silence, the peace of solitude, which is necessary, to some extent, for the fullness of human living. Man cannot be happy for long unless he is in contact with the springs of spiritual life which are hidden in the depths of his own soul. If man is exiled constantly from his own home, locked out of his spiritual solitude, he ceases to be a true person. Thomas Merton
• Silence is truth. Silence is bliss. Silence is peace. And hence Silence is the Self. Ramana Maharshi
• Silence

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Joy comes from self-realisation, the recognition of who we truly are…

• To be free from false identity and the hypnosis of conditioning is the biggest smile and joy you are going to feel in your life. Mooji
• The beauty of self realization lies in secretly working out within you everything that is virtuous, that is beautiful, that is joyful. Nirmala Srivastava
• Be still and know yourself as the Truth you have been searching for. Be still and let the inherent joy of that Truth capture your drama and destroy it in the bliss of consummation. Be still and let your life be lived by the purpose you were made for. Be still and receive the inherent truth of your heart. Gangaji
• There is no other greater ecstasy, no other greater blissfulness, than to know who you are. To know the inner space is to know all. It is unlimited silence but not dead, it is alive with songs of its own, with dances of its own. Rajneesh
• Love is overflowing joy. Love is when you have seen who you are. Then there is nothing left except to share your being with others. Rajneesh
• I think the source of our sorrow and the source of our joy are intimately entwined. Our sorrow is that we have forgotten who we are, we have forgotten we are one with that source of all life – absolutely indestructible, perfect, joyful. The source of our joy is when we remember that. Richard Bach
• The affirmation of one’s essential being in spite of desires and anxieties creates joy. Paul Tillich
• When you know who you truly are, there is an abiding alive sense of peace. You could call it joy because that’s what joy is: vibrantly alive peace. It is the joy of knowing yourself as the very life essence before life takes on form. That is the joy of Being – of being who you truly are. Eckhart Tolle
• When you have emptied all content – thoughts, desires, memories, projections, hopes – when all is gone, for the first time you find yourself, because you are nothing but that pure space, that virgin space within you. Unburdened by anything, that contentless consciousness, that’s what you are! Seeing it, realizing it, one is free. One is freedom, one is joy, one is bliss. Rajneesh
• We have all forgotten what we really are. All that we call common sense and rationality and practicality and positivism only means that for certain dead levels of our life we forget that we have forgotten. All that we call spirit and art and ecstasy only means that for one awful instant we remember that we forget. Gilbert K. Chesterton
• Discover that we are capable of solitary joy and having experienced it, know that we have touched the core of self. Barbara Ascher
• Reality is only possible if you are in the realm of joy. Nirmala Srivastava
• The man of Self-realization knows a bliss that cannot be compared to anything in this world. His joy is independent of any object or sensory experience. It is an incomparable happiness that cannot be described in words. Paramahansa Yogananda
• Awakening to who we are, Enlightenment

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… through our recognition of ourselves as the Self (God) …

• This little separate self must die. Then we shall find that we are in the Real, and that Real is God, and He is our own true nature, and He is always in us and with us. Let us live in Him and stand in Him. It is the only joyful state of existence. Life on the plane of the Spirit is the only life, and let us all try to attain to this realization. Swami Vivekananda
• Those who know they are neither body nor mind But the immemorial Self, the divine Principle of existence, find the source Of all joy and live in joy abiding. The Upanishads
• To know the self as the only reality and all else as temporal and transient is freedom, peace and joy. It is all very simple. Instead of seeing things as imagined, learn to see them as they are. Nisargadatta Maharaj
• By that alone you will become full of joy, recognising Self as Pure Being, Consciousness and Bliss. Adi Shankara
• I am here no longer just a vision birthed into this body. I accept my praise, my blame, my joy, my sorrow. I realize we are, in truth, the truth we seek – God, perfect this very moment. Meshell Ndegeocello
• Far beyond your intellect, far beyond your understanding, lies inexhaustible knowledge and wealth, strength and power, peace and joy. Do not use your intellect to find the answers for God and his manifestations. Everything is God. Vishnudevananda Saraswati
• People search for joy everywhere not knowing that the Self is the source of all joy. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
• What is your Self? Self is nothing but joy. A joyous person is definitely a person who has got his Self expressing through his joy. Such a person is so joy-giving, so humorous, and never degrading anyone. Nirmala Srivastava
• What is joy? Joy is nothing but the Self. When desires are fulfilled, the mind is stilled. This allows the Self to shine forth and that is what we call joy. Lester Levenson
• In the depth of the soul is the atman, the oversoul. And that oversoul is really love and compassion, peace, joy, and wisdom. Ram Dass

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… and a sense of our oneness with all …

• Some souls seek to walk in awareness. Souls who walk in awareness choose a different path. They seek to experience all the peace and joy, limitlessness and freedom, wisdom and love that Oneness brings. Neale Donald Walsch
• To discover joy is to return to a state of oneness with the universe. Peggy Jenkins
• True joy results when we become aware of our connectedness to everything. Paul Pearsall
• Joy is the realisation of the truth of oneness, the oneness of our soul with the world and of the world-soul with the supreme lover. Rabindranath Tagore
• Only those of tranquil minds, and none else, can attain abiding joy, by realizing within their souls the Being who manifests one essence in a multiplicity of forms. Rabindranath Tagore
• Everyone contributes a word, a sentence, an image, but in the end it all makes sense: the happiness of one becomes the joy of all. Paulo Coelho
• For the raindrop, joy is in entering the river. Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib
• He who knows that all things are his mind, That all with which he meets are friendly, Is ever joyful. Milarepa
• I love to think of the whole universe together as one eternal fact. I love to think that everything is alive; that crystallization is itself a step toward joy. I love to think that when a bud bursts into blossom: it feels a thrill. I love to have the universe full of feeling and full of joy, and not full of simple dead, inert matter, managed by an old bachelor for all eternity. Robert Green Ingersoll
• I experienced an ecstasy of unity. I not only saw the connectedness, I felt it and experienced it sentiently. The restraints and boundaries of flesh and bone fell away. Edgar Mitchell
• I feel an indescribable ecstasy and delirium in melting, as it were, into the system of being, in identifying myself with the whole of nature. Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• There are moments of oneness with the Beloved, absolutely ecstasy and bliss. That is nothingness. And this nothingness loves you, responds to you, fulfills you utterly and yet there is nothing there. You flow out like a river without diminishing. This is the great mystical experience, the great ecstasy. Irina Tweedie
• Knowing is not thinking. Knowing begins when thinking ceases, having finished its work. Every new knowing is a joy, for it is a new experience of unity. Ernest Wood
• A single face turned upward toward all Time, One flesh, one ecstasy, one peace. Ray Bradbury
• When a smile touches our hearts. When the forest stills us to peace. When music moves us to rapture. When we really love, laugh or dance with joy. We are at one with the Angels. Dorothy Maclean
• There are moments of oneness with the Beloved, absolutely ecstasy and bliss. That is nothingness. And this nothingness loves you, responds to you, fulfills you utterly and yet there is nothing there. You flow out like a river without diminishing. This is the great mystical experience, the great ecstasy. Irina Tweedie
• We try to get joy by dividing, but real joy comes from uniting. Sri Chinmoy
• Oneness

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… free of the illusion of being a separate self (ego)

• According to the Buddha, the failure to recognize the illusion of the self is the source of all ignorance and unhappiness. It is only by renouncing the self, that is, by dropping his ego defences and committing metaphorical suicide, that a person can open up to different modes of being and relating and thereby transform himself into a pure essence of humanity. In so doing, he becomes free to recast himself as a much more joyful and productive person, and attains the only species of transcendence and immortality that is open to man. Neel Burton
• Joy is the state of the human soul who is not identified with the personality. Happiness is a state of the soul who is identified with the personality and enjoys the life in the personality. Torkom Saraydarian
• If we observe ourselves truthfully and non-judgmentally, seeing the mechanisms of our personality in action, we can wake up, and our lives can be a miraculous unfolding of beauty and joy. Don Richard Riso
• One always treads with a joyful step when one has dropped the burden called the ego. Anthony de Mello
• Ecstasy carries you completely outside your ego boundaries. In ecstasy you know yourself as cosmic ego, unbounded in time and space. Deepak Chopra
• Give up all bad qualities in you, banish the ego and develop the spirit of surrender. You will then experience Bliss. Sathya Sai Baba
• If you want to reach a state of bliss, then go beyond your ego and the internal dialogue. Deepak Chopra
• With the ego there is only misery; without the ego there is only God; and God is bliss, and God is benediction, and God is ecstasy. Die to the ego so that God can live in you. Rajneesh
• I am in constant bliss, day and night, egotism has been dispelled from within me. Guru Nanak
• Ego

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Joy is of the soul …

• Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls. Mother Teresa
• For the atom’s soul is nothing but energy. Spirit blazes in the dullest of clay. The life of every woman or man – the heart of it – is pure and holy joy. George Leonard
• For the personality, bankruptcy or failure may be a disaster. For the soul, it may be grist for its strangely joyful mill, and a condition it has been secretly engineering for years. David Whyte
• Nowadays we are forced with so many things in life in society that all of the sudden we are no longer in tune with our soul, and if you can find a channel to that soul, its dark, and you’ve got to be able to look at it, with joy, because you’re willing to look at it. Jean-Marc Barr
• The world is extremely interesting to a joyful soul. Alexandra Stoddard
• The soul’s joy lies in doing. Percy Bysshe Shelley
• When you give without expectations, your soul dances and sparkles with deep inner joy. Debasish Mridha
• Blessed be those souls who are glad! They are a salve for sorrow and fatigue. A sun in days of darkness, a joy in sorrow, a ray of heaven shining through the uncertainness of earth. Candace Wheeler
• Soul

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… of the spirit

• The Spirit bears witness. Ecstasy and enlightenment, inspiration and intuition are not necessary. Happy is the man who is worthy of these; but woe unto us if we wait for such experiences; woe unto us if we do not perceive that these things are of secondary importance. Karl Barth
• That’s the quality of the Spirit that you start feeling so joyous and the joy doesn’t have the duality of happiness and unhappiness. It’s singular. Nirmala Srivastava
• There are some people who have the quality of richness and joy in them and they communicate it to everything they touch. It is first of all a physical quality; then it is a quality of the spirit. Tom Wolfe
• Spirit is the source of peace. It is the source of joy. It is not a duality of happiness and unhappiness, but singular joy. Nirmala Srivastava
• There is no point in trying to remember your dreams … There is only the unspeakable joy of eavesdropping on your spirit, catching tiny glimpses of its independent life, resting for a moment in its wisdom, puzzling, laughing sometimes, over what it’s up to, what it makes of you. Marsha Norman
• One has to understand that we have to become a higher personality which is the spirit, which is the truth, which is the enlightened attention, and which is the joy. Nirmala Srivastava
• the joy of my spirit – it is uncaged – it darts like lightning! Walt Whitman
• Sustain a bright and joyful spirit. Cornelia Connelly
• The spirit is the only thing that is free within, which has no hang-ups, which has no habits, which does not stick on to anything, is completely detached and emitting joy to us. Nirmala Srivastava
• Men die in despair, while spirits die in ecstasy. Honore de Balzac
• Ecstasy is the energy of spirit. When life flows, ecstasy is natural. Deepak Chopra
• You are a sacred spirit

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The soul is inherently joyful

• Nothing from outside can stop a man from enjoying lasting peace and permanent joy in life, for it is the essential nature of his own soul. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
• Joy is the vital air of the soul. Henri Frederic Amiel
• Even if your body isn’t healthy, your soul overcomes that, it doesn’t even care, it worships anyway, its joyful anyway. That’s what God wants to give you in your life. Lacey Mosley
• In the depth of the soul is the atman, the oversoul. And that oversoul is really love and compassion, peace, joy, and wisdom. Ram Dass
• To know intense joy without a strong bodily frame, one must have an enthusiastic soul. George Eliot
• The soul is love. Joy. Peace. Wisdom. Ram Dass
• To live happily is an inward power of the soul. Marcus Aurelius
• I’ve got joy like a fountain in my my soul.
• Happiness is the soul’s joy in the possession of the intangible. William George Jordan
• When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy. Rumi
• Joy is the soul made visible. Susan Santucci
• Joy is the fibre of your Soul. It’s the stuff of your essence. Danielle LaPorte

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Joy comes from being connected with the soul

• If you are not living in joy, you are out of integrity with your soul. Michael Beckwith
• If you are fully aligned with your soul it will be your pleasure, your joy to always move toward cooperation, toward sharing, toward reverence for life. You will not be torn. Gary Zukav
• Joy is a quality of the soul and is realized in the mind when personality and soul are in alignment. Djwhal Khul
• Life will only make sense; and can only produce long-term happiness, peace and joy when embraced from the perspective of the soul. Neale Donald Walsch
• Matter can never give you joy. It’s the Spirit that gives you joy. Nirmala Srivastava
• When you make genuine contact with your inner Spirit, there is an inner joy, an inner peace, that takes over. Michael Beckwith
• Most human beings are completely out of touch with their spiritual nature and with the inner dimensions that exist within themselves. They don’t realize each person has a soul, an inner core of light and intelligence as vast as the ten thousand worlds, whose inner nature is emptiness, ecstasy and happiness. Frederick Lenz

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The soul is nourished by joy

• The food of thy soul is light and space; feed it then on light and space. But the food of thy body is champagne and oysters; feed it then on champagne and oysters; and so shall it merit a joyful resurrection, if there is any to be. Herman Melville
• When you recover or discover something that nourishes your soul and brings joy, care enough about yourself to make room for it in your life. Jean Shinoda Bolen
• The interior joy we feel when we have done a good deed is the nourishment the soul requires. Albert Schweitzer
• The body grows by food and work, the mind by use, and the soul through joy and pain. Myrtle Reed
• How do we nurture the soul? By revering our own life. By learning to love it all, not only the joys and the victories, but also the pain and the struggles. Nathaniel Branden
• The progress of our soul is like a perfect poem. It has an infinite idea which, once realised, makes all movements full of meaning and joy. Rabindranath Tagore
• The soul is here for its own joy. Rumi
• Joy is the vital air of the soul. Henri-Frederic Amiel

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Joy is of the heart

• A joyful heart is more easily made perfect than a downcast one. Philip Neri
• May your heart always be joyful. May your song always be sung. Bob Dylan
• A joyful spirit is evidence of a grateful heart. Maya Angelou
• A rejoicing heart soon makes a praising tongue. Charles Spurgeon
• But who can feel ugly, when their heart feels joy C. S. Lewis
• Keep a green tree in your heart and perhaps the singing bird will come. Lois Lowry
• Something the heart must have to cherish, Must love and joy and sorrow learn; Something with passion clasp, or perish And in itself to ashes burn. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
• When your heart beats in harmony, in love, in joy, when you are no longer greedy, when there are no desires and no ambitions, and when there are no ego trips any more, one is simply, ordinary, but sweet. That taste is the taste of god. Rajneesh
• Profound joy of the heart is like a magnet that indicates the path of life. Mother Teresa
• Rest, rest at the heart’s core . . . till joy shall overtake. Christina Rossetti
• The Divine Spirit does not reside in any except the joyful heart. The Talmud
• Well, you know, the mind is nothing. The mind is only a bunch of thoughts. Thoughts about the past and the future, that is all a mind is. But, the Heart is a center of stillness, of quietness, of Absolute Peace. When you rest your mind in your heart, you feel a joy and a bliss that overwhelms you, and you will Know. Surrender your mind to your Heart, and you will feel it. Robert Adams
• There can be many opinions on a thing, but there is only one truth.” Vashet smiled lazily. “And if the pursuit of the truth was my goal, that would concern me.” She gave a long yawn, stretching like a happy cat. “Instead I will focus on the joy in my heart … Patrick Rothfuss
• One does not always know how to express the sorrow of the soul. One does not always know how to silence the joy of the heart. Tariq Ramadan
• Nothing brings joy as does a tamed, controlled, attended and restrained heart. This heart brings joy. Gautama Buddha
• Heart

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The heart fills and overflows with joy

• May everyone be happy and safe, and may their hearts be filled with joy. Gautama Buddha
• I have a heart with room for every joy . Philip James Bailey
• When the heart is full of joy, it always allows its joy to escape. It is like the fountain in the marketplace; whenever it is full it runs away in streams, and so soon as it ceases to overflow, you may be quite sure that it has ceased to be full. The only full heart is the overflowing heart. Charles Spurgeon
• A heart that overflows may seek out merrymaking and boisterous festivities to quietly rejoice, unnoticed amidst the reveling crowds. Franz Grillparzer

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Joy comes from an open heart

• I want to continue to encourage as many people as I can to open their hearts to life, because if I know anything for sure, it’s that opening my own heart is what has brought me my greatest success and joy. Oprah Winfrey
• Joy and openness come from our own contented heart. Gautama Buddha
• May your heart open. May joy emerge. May love flow through you. May you heal and help others. Charlene Costanzo
• When you live with an open heart, unexpected, joyful things happen. Oprah Winfrey
• Openness

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Joy comes from travelling the way of the heart

• What a Joy, to travel the way of the heart. Rumi
• All paths are the same: they lead nowhere. … Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn’t, it is of no use. Both paths lead nowhere; but one has a heart, the other doesn’t. One makes for a joyful journey; as long as you follow it, you are one with it. The other will make you curse your life. One makes you strong; the other weakens you. Carlos Castaneda

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Joy comes from a pure and loving heart

• Your life will be joyful and complete when you have a pure heart and your motives are unsullied. Frederick Lenz
• Set your heart on doing good. Do it over and over again, and you will be filled with joy. Buddha
• Joy comes not through possession or ownership but through a wise and loving heart. Buddha
• A joyful heart is the normal result of a heart burning with love. She gives most who gives with joy. Mother Teresa
• Purity,   Love

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Joy is the purpose of life …

• Pleasure is not the purpose of man’s existence. Joy is. David O. McKay
• Happiness and joy are the purpose of life. If we know that the future will be very dark or painful, then we lose our determination to live. Therefore, life is something based on hope. The Dalai Lama
• It is not selfish to be happy. It is your highest purpose. Your joy is the greatest contribution you can make to life on the planet. A heart at peace with its owner blesses everyone it touches. Alan Cohen
• Life does not require you to sacrifice or compromise your joy to get what you want. Joy is what you want, so when you choose in harmony with it, you are fulfilling your purpose in living. Alan Cohen
• Nobody else knows your reason for being. You do. Your bliss guides you to it. When you follow your bliss, when you follow your path to joy, your conversation is of joy, your feelings are of joy – you’re right on the path of that which you intended when you came forth into this physical body. Esther Hicks
• See your “career” as one of creating a joyful life experience. You are not a regurgitator of what someone else has created or a gatherer of stuff. You are a creator, and the subject of your creation is your joyful life experience. That is your mission. That is your quest. That is why you are here. Esther Hicks
• What we get from this adventure is just sheer joy. And joy is, after all, the end of life. We do not live to eat and make money. George Leigh Mallory
• What if your purpose is to take impeccable care of yourself so that you have the energy and joy to serve others? Kris Carr
• True inner joy is self-created It does not rely on any outer circumstances A river is flowing in and through you carrying the message of joy. This divine joy is the sole purpose of life. Sri Chinmoy
• There is nothing you cannot be, do or have – but your dominant intent is to be joyful. Abraham-Hicks
• If we were talking to you on your first day here we would say, “Welcome to planet Earth. There is nothing that you cannot be or do or have. And your work here, your lifetime career is…to seek joy. Abraham-Hicks
• There is only one blasphemy and that is the refusal to experience joy. Paul Rudnick
• The soul is here for its own joy. Rumi
• My path is about joy. Abraham-Hicks
• Ecstasy is what everyone craves – not love or sex, but a hot-blooded, soaring intensity, in which being alive is a joy and a thrill. That enravishment doesn’t give meaning to life, and yet without it life seems meaningless. Diane Ackerman
• Live in the world without any idea of what is going to happen. Whether you are going to be a winner or a loser, it doesn’t matter. Death takes everything away. Whether you lose or win is immaterial. The only thing that matters, and has always been, is how you played the game. Did you enjoy it? – the game itself – then each moment is of joy. You never sacrifice the moment for the future. Rajneesh
• In Heaven (if there is one), we are held accountable for every joy we failed to taste. Douglas Carlton Abrams
• Purpose

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… the very goal of existence

• Joy is the goal of existence, and joy is not to be stumbled upon, but to be achieved, and the act of treason is to let its vision drown in the swamp of the moment’s torture. Ayn Rand
• Joy, rather than happiness, is the goal of life, for joy is the emotion which accompanies our fulfilling our natures as human beings. It is based on the experience of one’s identity as being of worth and dignity. Rollo May
• Joy is our goal, our destiny. We cannot know who we are except in joy. Not knowing joy, we do not know ourselves. Marianne Williamson
• Our goal should be to achieve joy. Ana Castillo
• Happiness is temporary and fleeting. … Joy is the right goal. Guy Kawasaki
• The goal of life is rapture. Art is the way we experience it. Joseph Campbell

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We were created for joy

• You and I were created for joy, and if we miss it we miss the reason for our existence. If our joy is honest joy, it must somehow be congruous with human tragedy. This is the test of joy’s integrity. It is compatible with pain. Only the heart that hurts has a right to joy. Lewis B. Smedes
• Joy is your destiny. You were created for joy. Pay attention to what brings you joy and take joyful actions daily. Creative action equals joy attraction. Joy is the path to your true purpose. Marta Davidovich Ockuly
• I feel that joy is the basic emotion of life and of human beings. It’s what supports everything. We are here to be happy. We are to enjoy “alegria”. Alex Abreu
• I think people would be surprised to discover that their challenges and struggles are not too dissimilar to us, average ordinary people. We’re all looking for essentially the same thing and I think that’s faith and hope and love and meaning and of course satisfaction, peace, joy. Judah Smith
• You are here to experience outrageous joy. Abraham-Hicks
• Know that you are a miracle and that you have a unique place in the cosmic plan. You are here to be the presence of love. You are here to be the presence of joy. You are here to be the presence of peace. Deepak Chopra
• Tell the world you are a one-of-a-kind creation who came here to experience wonder and spread joy. Expect to be accommodated. Victoria Moran
• Man was made for joy and woe, And when this we rightly know Through the world we safely go. William Blake

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To miss joy is to miss all

• If you’re not getting to joy, then you’ve gotten nowhere. Joy is really where you’re going. Esther Hicks
• To miss out on joy is to miss out on the reason for your existence. Lewis B. Smedes
• To miss the joy is to miss all. Robert Louis Stevenson

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Joy is the very essence of life

• Surely joy is the condition of life. Henry David Thoreau
• Joy is the life of man’s life. Benjamin Whichcote
• This joy you feel is life. Gertrude Stein
• Life is simply bursting with joy. Sue Krebs
• May your life be crowded with unexpected joys. H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
• When men have killed joy, I do not believe they still live. Sophocles
• Existence itself does not feel horrible; it feels like an ecstasy, rather, which we have only to be still to experience. John Updike
• Find ecstasy in life; the mere sense of living is joy enough. Emily Dickinson
• Preservation of life is the only true joy. Albert Schweitzer
• Life is bliss. It is unbounded, deep within; and it is full of boundaries outside. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

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Joy is at the heart of the universe

• Now I know that at the heart of the universe is joy. Paul Claudel
• The beating heart of the universe is holy joy. Martin Buber
• This is a catastrophic universe, always; and subject to hidden reversals, upheavals, changes, cataclysms, with joy never anything but the song of substance under pressure forced into new forms and shapes. Doris Lessing
• I cannot believe that the inscrutable universe turns on an axis of suffering; surely the strange beauty of the world must somewhere rest on pure joy! Louise Bogan
• Joy is big. Joy lives in your own drunken electrons, billions of them, spinning and dancing without end in their own intimate Universe, longing for You. Judith Hanson Lasater
• Know that you are part of a joyful Universe. Wayne Dyer
• It was joy, joy, happy joy. Happy, happy joy. A big fat smiley sun rose above the rooftops and beamed down its blessings onto the borough known as Brentford. Robert Rankin
• Just as a mountain of snow is nothing but water, so also the whole universe is nothing but bliss. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
• Joy is you at the deepest level, and your joy is one with the infinite timeless joy of this unbound universe. Robert Ellwood
• Universe

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Joy is at the heart of nature

• The trees tremble with delirious joy as the breeze Greets them, one by one-now the oak Now the great sycamore, now the elm. Hamlin Garland
• The very plants turn with a joyful transport to the light. Friedrich Schiller
• Take hold of your own life. See that the whole existence is celebrating. These trees are not serious, these birds are not serious. The rivers and the oceans are wild, and everywhere there is fun, everywhere there is joy and delight. Watch existence, listen to the existence and become part of it. Rajneesh
• Look at the trees, look at the birds, look at the clouds, look at the stars… and if you have eyes you will be able to see that the whole existence is joyful. Everything is simply happy. Trees are happy for no reason; they are not going to become prime ministers or presidents and they are not going to become rich and they will never have any bank balance. Look at the flowers – for no reason. It is simply unbelievable how happy flowers are. Rajneesh
• Joy is everywhere; it is in the earth’s green covering of grass: in the blue serenity of the sky: in the reckless exuberance of spring: in the severe abstinence of grey winter: in the living flesh that animates our bodily frame: in the perfect poise of the human figure, noble and upright: in living, in the exercise of all our powers: in the acquisition of knowledge. . . Joy is there everywhere. Rabindranath Tagore
• And joy is everywhere; it is in the earth’s green covering of grass; in the blue serenity of the sky. Rabindranath Tagore
• The great pulsation of nature beats too in my breast, and when I carol aloud, I am answered by a thousand-fold echo. I hear a thousand nightingales. Spring hath sent them to awaken Earth from her morning slumber, and Earth trembles with ecstasy, her flowers are hymns, which she sings in inspiration to the sun. Heinrich Heine
• Imitate the magnificent trees that speak no word of their rapture, but only breathe largely the luminous breeze. H. Lawrence
• Every leaf speaks bliss to me, fluttering from the autumn tree. Emily Bronte
• Nature

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What a joy it is to be human

• To have a human form is a joyful thing. Zhuangzi
• To have attained to the human form is a source of joy… What an incomparable bliss it is to undergo these countless transitions. Zhuangzi
• We are an arrogant species, full of terrible potential, but we also have a great capacity for love, friendship, generosity, kindness, faith, hope, and joy. Dean Koontz

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Absence of all joy is hell

• Hell is the opposite of joy. It is unfulfillment. It is knowing Who and What You Are, and failing to experience that. It is being less. Neale Donald Walsch
• The deepest poverty is the inability of joy. Pope Benedict XVI
• Hell

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Joy is the truest measure of success

• If the day and night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal – that is your success. Henry David Thoreau
• If you will let your standard of success be your achievement of joy, everything else will fall easily into place. For in the finding of joy, you are finding vibrational alignment with the resources of the Universe. Esther Hicks
• Inner success is the ongoing experience of love, happiness, fulfillment and well-being – the experience of joy in your everyday life. Michael Neill
• Instead of looking for the success in your life, look for the thing that is going to bring you the greatest joy. Oprah Winfrey
• Success is only measured in terms of joy. Esther Hicks
• Success, I would find out, is interior. It has to do with self-fulfillment and the joy of living. Sophia Loren
• The only true measure of success is the amount of joy we are feeling. Abraham-Hicks
• The standard of success in life isn’t the things. It isn’t the money or the stuff. It is absolutely the amount of joy that you feel. Abraham-Hicks
• To burn always with this hard, gem-like flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life. Walter Pater
• True success is the progressive expansion of happiness. It is the ability to express spontaneous joy and share it with others. Deepak Chopra
• We are not proponents of long life. We are proponents of joyful life, and when you find yourself in joy, the longevity usually follows. Although we do not count the success of life by its length; we count it by its joy. Abraham-Hicks
• What is an Extraordinary Life? A life of meaning, a magnificent life, a life of joy, happiness, love, passion, success, and fulfillment. Life experienced on your terms. Tony Robbins
• Ancient Egyptians believed that upon death they would be asked two questions and their answers would determine whether they could continue their journey in the afterlife. The first question was, “Did you bring joy?” The second was, “Did you find joy?” Leo Buscaglia
• Having a good home, eating good food, wearing good clothes, are a means to living well; they are not the goals of our life. The quality of your life is decided by how peaceful and joyful you are. Jaggi Vasudev
• Joy is the triumph of life; it is the sign that we are living our true life as spiritual beings. William Ralph Inge
• The cosmos doesn’t measure sweat and hours for reward. The cosmos deals in the currencies of joy and satisfaction. Danielle LaPorte
• The trick is not how much pain you feel–but how much joy you feel. Any idiot can feel pain. Life is full of excuses to feel pain, excuses not to live, excuses, excuses, excuses. Erica Jong
• Unless each day can be looked back upon by an individual as one in which he has had some fun, some joy, some real satisfaction, that day is a loss. Dwight D. Eisenhower
• Any real ecstasy is a sign you are moving in the right direction. Teresa of Avila
• You cannot judge the value of a life by its quantity. It is by the joy that you are feeling. The more joyful you are, the longer you live. Let yourself relax and breathe and be free and be joyous. Abraham-Hicks
• If I can bring joy into the world, then I’ll be successful. Bobby McFerrin
• Progress and joy are interchangeable. Sri Chinmoy
• Success

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Joy is true wisdom and understanding

• Joy in one’s heart and some laughter on one’s lips is a sign that the person down deep has a pretty good grasp of life. Hugh Sidey
• When we are centered in joy, we attain our wisdom. Marianne Williamson
• Common sense is strengthened by joy. Nachman of Breslov
• Dignity and quiet joy in all that we do are the expression of perfect concentration and perfect wisdom. Gautama Buddha
• Genius, apart from natural sensitiveness, is prone equally to unreasoning joy and to bitterest morbidness. Mary MacLane
• Irony is the gaiety of reflection and the joy of wisdom. Anatole France
• Whoever possesses abundant joy must be a good man: but he is probably not the cleverest man, although he achieves exactly what it is that the cleverest man strives with all his cleverness to achieve. Friedrich Nietzsche
• The weak have remedies, the wise have joys; superior wisdom is superior bliss. Edward Young
• The wise find pleasure in water; the virtuous find pleasure in hills. The wise are active; the virtuous are tranquil. The wise are joyful; the virtuous are long-lived. Confucius
• Wisdom,    Understanding

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Joy is the true measure of well-being

• Joy in what we do is not an added feature; it is a sign of deep health. Mark Nepo
• Joy is an indicator of deep wellness. Danielle LaPorte
• The healthiest response to life is joy. Deepak Chopra
• Joy is a sustained sense of well-being and internal peace – a connection to what matters. Oprah Winfrey
• We laugh to survive. Then, with joy we thrive. Mary Anne Radmacher
• Joy and happiness are the indicators of balance in a human machine…An inner joyousness, amounting to ecstasy, is the normal condition of the genius mind. Any lack of that joyousness develops body-destroying toxins. That inner ecstasy of the mind is the secret fountain of perpetual youth and strength in any man. He who finds it finds omnipotence and omniscience. Walter Russell
• Well-being

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Joy is the true measure of wealth

• Joy is wealth and love is the legal tender of the soul. Robert Green Ingersoll
• Prosperity isn’t defined by money alone; it encompasses time, love, success, joy, comfort, beauty, and wisdom. Louise Hay
• Begin to build up confidence and joy in your own richness. That richness is the essence of generosity. It is the essence of resourcefulness ; that you can deal with whatever is available around you and not feel poverty stricken. Chogyam Trungpa
• The deepest poverty is the inability of joy. Pope Benedict XVI
• What is most important is your Spirit. Why identify with anything else but your own spirit? You cannot get money out of it. No. The joy of Spirit is the reward of Spirit. Nirmala Srivastava
• Wealth is good when it brings joy to others. Og Mandino
• The really poor man is not the one who lacks money, but the one who lacks the joy of the heart. Chinmayananda Saraswati
• The secret of fortune is joy in our hands. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• This is our true wealth: the riches we take with us, the joy we carry inside, the support we learn to give ourselves, and the self-loving that flows as a natural by-product of that support. Peter McWilliams
• Take all away from me, but leave me Ecstasy, And I am richer then than all my Fellow Men. Emily Dickinson
• That side of our existence whose direction is towards the infinite seeks not wealth, but freedom and joy. Rabindranath Tagore
• True wealth

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Joy is true responsibility

• Seriousness is equated with responsibility, when, in fact, I think we would be much more responsible if we had more joy and laughter in our lives. Deepak Chopra
• From the greatest to the smallest, happiness and usefulness are largely found in the same soul, and the joy of life is won in its deepest and truest sense only by those who have not shirked life’s burdens. Theodore Roosevelt
• One of the greatest challenges in creating a joyful, peaceful and abundant life is taking responsibility for what you do and how you do it. As long as you can blame someone else, be angry with someone else, point the finger at someone else, you are not taking responsibility for your life. Iyanla Vanzant
• Responsibility

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Do not equate money with joy

• Do what you love. Do what makes your heart sing. And NEVER do it for the money, Go to work to spread joy. Marianne Williamson
• Don’t go to work to make money; go to work to spread joy.
• Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. The joy and moral stimulation of work must no longer be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits. Theodore Roosevelt
• It is said that for money you can have everything, but you cannot. You can buy food, but not appetite… fun, but not joy; acquaintances, but not friends; leisure, but not peace. You can have the husk of everything for money, but not the kernel. Arne Garborg
• Money cannot purchase joy. It buys temporary distractions. LeCrae
• Peace of mind, joy and happiness cannot be purchased with money or worldly goods. Spencer W. Kimball
• Real joy comes not from ease or riches or from the praise of men but from doing something worthwhile. Wilfred Grenfell
• The materialistic pattern of life is that where money predominates over everything. The non-materialistic life is that where money is just a means – happiness predominates, joy predominates. Rajneesh
• The standard of success in life isn’t the things. It isn’t the money or the stuff. It is absolutely the amount of joy that you feel. Esther Hicks
• What can become of him if he is in such bondage to the habit of satisfying the innumerable desires he has created for himself? He is isolated, and what concern has he with the rest of humanity? They have succeeded in accumulating a greater mass of objects, but the joy in the world has grown less. Fyodor Dostoevsky
• What is most important is your Spirit. Why identify with anything else but your own spirit? You cannot get money out of it. No. The joy of Spirit is the reward of Spirit. Nirmala Srivastava
• What we get from this adventure is just sheer joy. And joy is, after all, the end of life. We do not live to eat and make money. George Leigh Mallory
• Financial wealth

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Joy is deep and powerful

• Joy is the wild card of life; it supersedes every other formula for success. If you can find a way to create joy, you can rise beyond all external factors. If you can play at whatever you are doing, you are the master of your life. Alan Cohen
• Joy is what we are, not what we must get. Joy is the realization that all we want or need in life has been etched into our souls. Joy helps us see not what we are “going through,” but what we are “growing to”–a greater sense of understanding, accomplishment, and enlightenment. Joy reveals to us the calm at the end of the storm, the peace that surpasses the momentary happiness of pleasure. If we keep our minds centered on joy, joy becomes a state of mind. Iyanla Vanzant
• Can you go a whole day with joy in your heart? Joy and vitality are an inseparable combination. Joy is not concerned with having fun; it is an inner spiritual quality that overcomes despair, pain and defeat. You cannot turn on joy like an electric light, but you can prepare yourself to receive it. Norman Vincent Peale
• There are joys so complete, so all perfect, that one should not survive them. Isadora Duncan
• Joy is the characteristic by which God uses us to re-make the distressing into the desired, the discarded into the creative. Joy is prayer–Joy is strength–Joy is love–Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls. Mother Teresa

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Joy brings happiness

• In joy, in peace, in that soothing inner state, you will find happiness. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
• There may be peace without joy, and joy without peace, but the two combined make happiness. John Buchan
• Happiness happens when you fit with your life, when you fit so harmoniously that whatsoever you are doing is your joy. Happiness is not a possession to be prized, it is a quality of thought, a state of mind. Daphne du Maurier
• Happiness is never a negative affair; it is to be won by men who are fully alive, full of the joy of living. Aga Khan III
• Happiness is the moment when you cease to make an inventory of joys; it is a glow, a brightness – never a list. Elizabeth Bibesco
• Happiness lies in making others happy, in forsaking self-interest to bring joy to others. Paramahansa Yogananda
• Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. Franklin D. Roosevelt
• Happy the man, and happy he alone, he who can call today his own: he who, secure within, can say, tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today. Be fair or foul or rain or shine, the joys I have possessed, in spite of fate, are mine. Not Heaven itself upon the past has power, but what has been, has been, and I have had my hour. Horace
• Anything that’s motivated from fear will ultimately take you down the wrong road and lead you in a cul de sac, anything motivated from purpose, from joy, and from love will take you on an evolutionary path to greater and greater happiness. Jack Canfield
• Happiness

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Joy attracts to us what we want in life

• The certain pathway to all things that you want is through the corridor of joy. Abraham-Hicks
• Joy is not the result of getting what you want; it is the way to get what you want. In the deepest sense, joy is what you want. Alan Cohen
• To attract something that you want, become as joyful as you think that thing would make you. Martha Beck
• The purpose of life is joy! When you’re in joy, you attract the highest and best in every area of your life. Joy increases to the exact degree that you deliberately increase your good thoughts, good words, and good actions. I’ve found in my life that the easiest way to increase my joy is to religiously practice gratitude until I’m a gratitude machine! Rhonda Byrne
• The greatest gift you can give yourself is joy, not only because of the feeling that goes with it at the moment, but because of the magnificent experiences it will draw to you. It will produce wonders in your life. Jack Boland
• The way to create more joy in your life is by having an attitude of abundance. Lynn Robinson
• It’s not your work to make anything happen. It’s your work to dream it and let it happen. Law of Attraction will make it happen. In your joy, you create something, and then you maintain your vibrational harmony with it, and the Universe must find a way to bring it about. That’s the promise of Law of Attraction. Abraham-Hicks
• Go for the sense of inner joy and peace, then all outside things appear. Rhonda Byrne
• Let your alignment (with Well-Being) be first and foremost, and let everything else be secondary. And not only will you have an eternally joyous journey, but everything you have ever imagined will flow effortlessly into your experience. There is nothing you cannot be or do or have—but your dominant intent is to be joyful. The doing and the having will come into alignment once you get that one down. Esther Hicks
• The shortcut to anything you want in your life is to BE and FEEL happy now! It is the fastest way to bring money and anything else you want into your life. Focus on radiating out into the Universe those feelings of joy and happiness. When you do that, you will attract back to you all things that bring you joy and happiness. Rhonda Byrne
• The Universe is not punishing you or blessing you. The Universe is responding to the vibrational attitude that you are emitting. The more joyful you are, the more Well-Being flows to you-and you get to choose the details of how it flows. Esther Hicks
• The certain pathway to all things that you want is through the corridor of joy. Most of you say, ‘When I get that I will be joyful.’ And we say, until you are joyful, you will not get that. You must start with the decision-with the determination-with the insistence that, ‘I will not settle for less than feeling good.’ Esther Hicks
• Law of attraction

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Joy attracts more joy

• When you’re feeling joyful, you are giving joy, and you’ll receive back joyful experiences, joyful situations, and joyful people, wherever you go. From the smallest experience of your favorite song playing on the radio to bigger experiences of receiving a pay raise — all of the circumstances you experiences are the law of attraction responding to your feeling of joy. Rhonda Byrne
• Joy attracts more joy. Happiness attracts more happiness. Peace attracts more peace. Gratitude attracts more gratitude. Kindness attracts more kindness. Love attracts more love. Your job is an inside one. To change your world, all you have to do is change the way you feel inside. How easy is that? Rhonda Byrne
• Keep ramping up your level of joy every day. There is no limit to the levels of joy you can reach. You will see change to the degree of joy that you can attain and maintain. The higher the joy you can create within you, the more spectacular the change, and the higher the joy, the faster the change. Your emanation of joy attracts more Joy. The law of attraction will continually send you more feelings of joy! Rhonda Byrne
• You cannot struggle to joy. Struggle and joy are not on the same channel. You joy your way to joy. You laugh your way to success. It is through your joy that good things come. Esther Hicks
• Just as thoughts, send out vibrations to which there is a creative and attractive power, gratitude stimulates the field of etheric energy that surrounds you on a subtle level to bring into your life more of what brings you joy. Genevieve
• The world mirrors back to you perfectly the condition of your love and of your intent. And if the world you re living in is not a world that is at peace and at joy and at grace, then you have to find peace, joy, and grace within you. Alberto Villoldo

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Joy energises and motivates

• True joy is that which gives us more energy and makes us feel more alive. Robert Puryear
• Joy is a very high frequency current of energy with a great deal of energy content. Somebody who is joyful has a lot of energy. Gary Zukav
• Joy is my energy and energy is my powerhouse. Sara Genn
• Joy is what we all seek. It is an energy more powerful than food. But without love we can not feel true joy. Akiane Kramarik
• Joy is the holy fire that keeps our purpose warm and our intelligence aglow. Helen Keller
• Vitality,   Being fully alive

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Joy fills, sustains and strengthens

• Joy, collected over time, fuels resilience – ensuring we’ll have reservoirs of emotional strength when hard things do happen. Brené Brown
• If we don’t allow ourselves to experience joy and love, we will definitely miss out on filling our reservoir with what we need when. . . . hard things happen. Brené Brown
• Joy is a strength; intoxication, a weakness. August Bournonville
• Joy is a weapon we use to fight life’s battles. Margaret Feinberg
• Joys are our wings, sorrows our spurs. Jean Paul
• Your success and happiness lies in you. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties. Helen Keller
• When we feel joyful, euphoric, happy, we are more open to life, more capable of seeing things clearly and handling daily tensions. Leo Buscaglia
• One joy dispels a hundred cares. Confucius
• The cup of joy is heaviest when empty. Margaret of Valois
• It is only in sorrow bad weather masters us; in joy we face the storm and defy it. Amelia Barr
• Joy gives us wings! In times of joy our strength is more vital, our intellect keener, and our understanding less clouded. We seem better able to cope with the world and to find our sphere of influence. Abdu’l-Bahá
• Without joy in your life you are powerless. Joyce Meyer
• Joy is good–the angel’s food. Caroline Spencer
• Out of joy strength came, strength that was fashioned to bear sorrow: sorrow brought forth joy. Forever? This was Ezekiel’s wheel, in the middle of the burning air forever — and the little wheel ran by faith, and the big wheel ran by the grace of God. James Baldwin
• Here below is not the land of happiness; I know it not; it is only the land of toil, and every joy which comes to us is only to strengthen us for some greater labor that is to succeed. Johann Gottlieb Fichte
• Strength,   Resilience

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Joy brings courage

• Has joy any survival value in the operations of evolution? I suspect that it does; I suspect that the morose and fearful are doomed to quick extinction. Where there is no joy there can be no courage; and without courage all other virtues are useless. Edward Abbey
• Courage

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Joy expands

• Real joy means immediate expansion. If we experience pure joy, immediately our heart expands. We feel that we are flying in the divine freedom-sky. The entire length and breadth of the world becomes ours, not for us to rule over, but as an expansion of our consciousness. We become reality and vastness. Sri Chinmoy
• I need a kind of spiritual inhalation, a spaciousness that comes when I am living from the inside out. Only in this way can I find my joy again, the tenderness I can feel toward myself and the world. Dawna Markova

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Joy brings health and well-being

• Joyfulness keeps the heart and face young. A good laugh makes us better friends with ourselves and everybody around us. Orison Swett Marden
• Whether 60 or 16, there is in every human being’s heart the lure of wonder, the unfailing child-like appetite of what’s next, and the joy of the game of living. In the center of your heart and my heart there is a wireless station; so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, courage and power from men and from God, so long are you young. Samuel Ullman
• Health is not just the absence of a disease. It’s an inner joyfulness that should be ours all the time; a state of positive well-being. Deepak Chopra
• The essence of all health begins through joyful living. Jesse Dylan
• Joyfulness keeps the heart and face young. Orison Swett Marden
• Health,   Well-being

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Joy heals

• If you carry joy in your heart, you can heal any moment. Carlos Santana
• If you do a good job for others, you heal yourself at the same time, because a dose of joy is a spiritual cure. Dietrich Bonhoeffer
• Our most natural state is joy. It is the foundation for love, compassion, healing, and the desire to alleviate suffering. Deepak Chopra
• Joy is more divine than sorrow, for joy is bread and sorrow is medicine. Henry Ward Beecher
• Joy, temperance, and repose, slam the door on the doctor’s nose. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
• If people only knew the healing power of laughter and joy, many of our fine doctors would be out of business. Joy is one of nature’s greatest medicines. Joy is always healthy. A pleasant state of mind tends to bring abnormal conditions back to normal. Catherine Ponder
• Healing

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Joy brings creativity and inspiration

• Joy is integral to all creativity. Creativity brings joy. Matthew Fox
• The best work is done with the heart breaking, or overflowing. Mignon McLaughlin
• From joy springs all creation, by joy it is sustained, towards joy it proceeds, and unto joy it returns. Upanishads
• Where there is joy there is creation. Where there is no joy there is no creation: know the nature of joy. Upanishads
• About my method of work: first it’s the state of mind—Elation. Alexander Calder
• All real works of art look as though they were done in joy. Robert Henri
• Art comes from joy and pain…But mostly from pain. Edvard Munch
• God left the world unfinished; the pictures unpainted, the songs unsung, and the problems unsolved, that man might know the joys of creation. Thomas S. Monson
• Set me a task in which I can put something of my very self, and it is a task no longer; it is joy; it is art. Bliss Carman
• What is art? Art grows from joy and sorrow, but mostly from sorrow. It grows from human lives. Edvard Munch
• The glow of inspiration warms us; this holy rapture springs from the seeds of the Divine mind sown in man. Ovid
• The glow of inspiration warms us; it is a holy rapture. Ovid
• Creativity,    Inspiration

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Joy instructs and teaches

• I think joy is just as instructive as pain, and I like it better. I never meant to suffer any more than I could help; my nature was meant for happiness, a daylight art and living. Katherine Anne Porter
• Joy in looking and comprehending is nature’s most beautiful gift. Albert Einstein
• Begin today. Declare out loud to the universe that you are willing to let go of struggle and eager to learn through joy. Sarah Ban Breathnach
• Don’t postpone joy until you have learned all of your lessons. Joy is your lesson. Alan Cohen
• When we are centered in joy, we attain our wisdom. Marianne Williamson
• It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge. Albert Einstein
• It’s not up to you what you learn, but only whether you learn through joy or through pain. A Course In Miracles
• You know what? Joy is the only guide. I’m going to have fun regardless. Joseph Fiennes
• The melancholy joys of evils pass’d, For he who much has suffer’d, much will know. Homer
• Trust life, and it will teach you, in joy and sorrow, all you need to know. James A. Baldwin
• We learn as much from sorrow as from joy, as much from illness as from health, from handicap as from advantage and indeed perhaps more. Pearl S. Buck
• Learning,   Knowledge

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Joy makes us love the world

• Great joys make us love the world. Great sadnesses make us understand the world. Kent Nerburn

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Joy beautifies

• Joy is the best makeup. Anne Lamott
• Joy is the sweet voice, joy the luminous cloud. We in ourselves rejoice! And thence flows all that charms or ear or sight, all melodies the echoes of that voice, all colours a suffusion from that light. Samuel Taylor Coleridge
• Taking joy in living is a woman’s best cosmetic. Rosalind Russell
• There is no beautifier of complexion, or form, or behavior, like the wish to scatter joy and not pain around us. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• There isn’t a person on earth who is not beautiful while he or she is smiling and experiencing unadulterated joy! Kristine Carlson
• But who can feel ugly, when their heart feels joy. C. S. Lewis
• Beauty

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Joy solves

• Our problems are not solved by physical force, by hatred, by war. Our problems are solved by loving kindness by gentleness, by joy Gautama Buddha
• When I’m creatively solving problems, I’m in my sweet spot, and nothing can take me out of that joyful present. Maria Semple
• Problem-solving

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Joy frees

• When we give way to joy, we do not feel that we have lost control, but gained freedom. Jane Roberts
• Outside of that single fatality of death, everything, joy or happiness, is liberty. Albert Camus
• Joy is a freedom. It helps a person to find his/her own liberation. The person who is joyous takes responsibility for the time he/she takes up and the space that he/she occupies. You share it! Some of you have it … you share it! That is what joy is! When you continue to give it away you will still have so much more of it. Maya Angelou
• Freedom

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Love brings joy

• Love is simply creation’s greatest joy. Hafez
• All we really want is love’s confusing joy. Rumi
• Where there is love, there is joy. Mother Teresa
• Love and joy are twins or born of each other. William Hazlitt
• No man truly has joy unless he lives in love. Thomas Aquinas
• Love is joy. Don’t convince yourself that suffering is a part of it. Paulo Coelho
• Love is like a rose, the joy of all the earth. Christina Rossetti
• It is a fine seasoning for joy to think of those we love. Moliere
• Everyone longs for love’s tense joys and red delights. Jane Kenyon
• Love is very light, very joyful, very simple and innocent. Isha Judd
• There is one and only one possible road to joy: selfless love. Peter Kreeft
• You will find inner ecstasy when you can be reckless in love. Deepak Chopra
• Love flies, runs, leaps for joy; it is free and unrestrained. Thomas a Kempis
• He who seeks ecstasy in love should not complain of suffering. Khalil Gibran
• Without love and laughter there is no joy; live amid love and laughter. Horace
• Love is the unifier, the motivator and the source of joy for every being. Sai Baba
• If love is killed, joy is lost. You cannot have joy without love. Nirmala Srivastava
• You know it’s love when you want to give joy and damn the consequences. Frank Herbert
• When we love unconditionally, with our hearts wide open, we feel joyfulness. Arnold Patent
• As I grow through love, so grows my joy, ever more present, ever more constant. M. Scott Peck
• In contentment and joy are found the height and perfection of all love towards our neighbor. William Ames
• For life, with all its yields of joy and woe Is just a chance o’ the prize of learning love. Robert Browning
• I know no joy as great as a moment of rushing into a new love, no ecstasy like that of a new love. Anaïs Nin
• There is no real and true Joy if that Joy is not imbued with love. Love cannot exist without Joy. Saraydarian
• If we open our hearts to give love we are immediately transported into the joy and blessings of love. Genevieve
• As selfishness and complaint pervert the mind, so love with its joy clears and sharpens the vision. Helen Keller
• These are true felicities. No joy beyond these joys. Love is the only ecstasy, everything else weeps. Victor Hugo
• There is one experience that brings joy or happiness to every living being. The experience of love. Deepak Chopra
• This is the basis for the joy of love when there is joy; we feel that our existence is justified. Jean-Paul Sartre
• Joy is unlimited, because each shining thought of love extends its being and creates more of itself. A Course in Miracles
• Joy is what we all seek. It is an energy more powerful than food. But without love we cannot feel true joy. Akiane Kramarik
• All the keys to joy can be reduced to these two. Laugh but at no one’s expense and love but without expectation. Pat McBride
• Love: I recognize the emotion for what it is, an irrational self-destructive impulse, which is disguised as joy. Nikola Tesla
• Love, in the divine alchemy of life, transmutes all duties into privileges, all responsibilities into joys. William George Jordan
• Now shall my inward joys arise, And burst into a song; Almighty love inspires my heart, And pleasure tunes my tongue. Isaac Watts
• Focus only on things you love, feel love, and you will experience that love and joy coming back to you – multiplied! Rhonda Byrne
• Love cannot exist in peace, it will always come accompanied by agonies, ecstasies, intense joys and profound sadnesses. Paulo Coelho
• Love is down to earth and it reaches to the highest star; it is the valey of humility and the mopuntaintop of ecstasy. Wilferd Peterson
• As much as it hurts to lose something you love, there’s much greater joy in getting to experience it for as long as it lasts. Alyson Noel
• Love also makes you full of things which are unknown to you right now; it makes you full of fragrance, full of light, full of joy. Rajneesh
• Love is overflowing joy. Love is when you have seen who you are. Then there is nothing left except to share your being with others. Rajneesh
• True love always brings joy to ourself and the one we love. If our love does not bring joy to both of us, it is not true love. Thich Nhat Hanh
• Serene will be our days, and bright and happy will our nature be, when love is an unerring light, and joy its own security. William Wordsworth
• Love to faults is always blind, always is to joy inclined. Lawless, winged, and unconfined, and breaks all chains from every mind. William Blake
• The desire of love, Joy. The desire of life, Peace. The desire of the soul, Heaven. The desire of God … a flame-white secret forever. William Sharp
• All I have to say is, Love one another – that is the height of all philosophy. It is beyond all religions. It is the secret of joy. Robert Green Ingersoll
• If we most value love, we will begin to see more and more love and joy and adventure-creative expressions of life shimmering everywhere around us. Richard Bach
• There were thousands and thousands of forms of joy in the world, but that all were essentially one and the same, namely, the joy of being able to love. Michael Ende
• At the highest level of awareness, the greatest gift given and received when you give someone flowers, is the joy of living a life based on love. Marianne Williamson
• Love isn’t material. It’s energy… We experience it as kindness, giving, mercy, compassion, peace, joy, acceptance, non-judgment, joining and intimacy. Marianne Williamson
• Love is the joy of the good, the wonder of the wise, the amazement of the gods; desired by those who have no part in him, and precious to those who have the better part in him. Plato
• Love is not greedy or self-seeking, but pure, faithful and genuinely free, open to others, respectful of their dignity, seeking their good, radiating joy and beauty. Pope Benedict XVI
• Our two first parents, yet the only two Of mankind, in the happy garden placed, Reaping immortal fruits of joy and love, Uninterrupted joy, unrivalled love In blissful solitude. John Milton
• Love always seeks for betterment, for ways of making life more workable, joyful, whole, and beautiful. Love examines every option available to bring about an improvement in life. Glenda Green
• Love delights in paradoxes. Saddest when it has most reason to be gay, sighs are the signs of its deepest joy, and silence is the expression of its yearning tenderness. Christian Nestell Bovee
• Love is cheering and sharing and compassion, and giving and receiving. Love is an action thing more than a word thing, that brings comfort or joy, or relief to anyone or anything. Ziggy Marley
• Once we recognize what it is we are feeling, once we recognize we can feel deeply, love deeply, can feel joy, then we will demand that all parts of our lives produce that kind of joy. Audre Lorde
• The moment you have in your heart this extraordinary thing called love and feel the depth, the delight, the ecstasy of it, you will discover that for you the world is transformed. Jiddu Krishnamurti
• Joy is the happiness of love–love aware of its own inner happiness. Pleasure comes from without, and joy comes from within, and it is, therefore, within reach of everyone in the world. Bishop Fulton J. Sheen
• Maybe love is like rain. Sometimes gentle, sometimes torrential, flooding, eroding, joyful, steady, filling the earth, collecting in underground springs. When it rains, when we love, life grows. Carol Gilligan
• Love is swift, sincere, pious, joyful, generous, strong, patient, faithful, prudent, long-suffering, courageous, and never seeking its own; for wheresoever a person seeketh his own, there he falleth from love. Thomas a Kempis
• To experience love, we must go inside. When you experience real love you get into a state which is beyond words. You are filled with a joy that goes beyond all emotions. True love is the love of the inner Self. Swami Muktananda
• Love is a force more formidable than any other. It is invisible – it cannot be seen or measured, yet it is powerful enough to transform you in a moment, and offer you more joy than any material possession could. Barbara De Angelis
• Let ourselves be seen, deeply seen, vulnerably seen, to love with our whole hearts, even though there’s no guarantee… to practice gratitude and joy in those moments of terror, to be this vulnerable means that we’re alive. Brené Brown
• There are only two emotions: love and fear. All positive emotions come from love, all negative emotions from fear. From love flows happiness, contentment, peace, and joy. From fear comes anger, hate, anxiety and guilt. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
• Now and then in life, love catches you unawares, illuminating the dark corners of your mind, and filling them with radiance. Once in awhile you are faced with a beauty and a joy that takes your soul, all unprepared, by assault. Jennifer Worth
• Holding on to love is not wrong, but you need to learn to hold it lightly, caressingly. Let it fly when it wants. When it’s allowed to be free, love is what makes life alive, joyful, and new. As long as love is in my heart, it’s everywhere. Michael Jackson
• Without love a man is just a body, an empty temple without the deity. With love the deity arrives, the temple is no more empty. That’s why love gives such fullness, such deep contentment, such tremendously overflowing joy. Remain in love and let love be the door to the divine. Rajneesh
• Love makes you empty – empty of jealousy, empty of power trips, empty of anger, empty of competitiveness, empty of your ego and all its garbage. But love also makes you full of things which are unknown to you right now; it makes you full of fragrance, full of light, full of joy. Rajneesh
• Love is trusting, accepting, and believing, without guarantee. Love is patient and waits, but it’s an active waiting, not a passive one. For it is continually offering itself in a mutual revealing, a mutual sharing. Love is spontaneous and craves expression through joy, through beauty, through truth, even through tears. Leo Buscaglia
• If you were all alone in the universe with no one to talk to, no one with which to share the beauty of the stars, to laugh with, to touch, what would be your purpose in life? It is other life; it is love, which gives your life meaning. This is harmony. We must discover the joy of each other, the joy of challenge, the joy of growth. Mitsugi Saotome
• When it’s allowed to be free, love is what makes life alive, joyful and new. Michael Jackson
• Just by gazing upon her face… No matter how weary you are, you will feel happy, deep inside your heart, you will feel a warmth This is a “piece of joy” This is all the happiness you need. Normally, we call this “love”. Yoshiki Nakamura
• Only love has the ability to put you in that state of bliss. Miguel Angel Ruiz
• Love is a wave flowing in the direction of bliss for all living things. It will carry you if you allow it to flow through you. Marianne Williamson
• Genuine love will always feel urged to communicate joy–to be a joy-giver. Mankind needs joy. Lawrence G. Lovasik
• Love

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… as well as pain and sorrow

• Those we most love cause us not only great joy but also great pain. LOVE is stronger than fear, life stronger than death, hope stronger than despair. We have to trust that the risk of loving is always worth taking. Henri Nouwen
• But love, honest love, requires empathy. It is a sharing—of joy, of pain, of laughter, and of tears. R. A. Salvatore
• When love brings so much joy, why must it bring so much pain? Lou Rawls
• Love should bring joy, it should grant a person peace, but here and not, it was bringing only pain. Nicholas Sparks
• Love why do we one passion call, When ’tis a compound of them all? Where hot and cold, where sharp and sweet, In all their equipages meet; Where pleasures mix’d with pains appear, Sorrow with joy, and hope with fear. Jonathan Swift
• Oh, if only I could hurt with such misery once again, to feel the powers of love here inside my heart, the joys of heaven and the pains of hell! Victor Villasenor
• Love cannot exist in peace, it will always come accompanied by agonies, ecstasies, intense joys and profound sadnesses. Paulo Coelho
• Love is the root of all joy and sorrow. Meister Eckhart
• Love is the centre and circumference; The cause and aim of all things–’tis the key To joy and sorrow, and the recompense For all the ills that have been, or may be. Ella Wheeler Wilcox
• Whoever has loved once, knows all that life contains of sorrow and of joy. George Sand
• The joys of love…last only a moment. The sorrows of love last all the life long. Madeleine L’Engle
• True joy doth need no song to praise it, silence for love’s delight is best. Emanuel Geibel
• Two words: Love leads. Listen to that ring of love within. If we follow that leading of love we’ll be guaranteed an adventurous, positive, joyful life. Richard Bach
• Joy rul’d the day, and Love the night. John Dryden
• Love begets love. This torment is my joy. Theodore Roethke
• Love is spontaneous and craves expression through joy, through beauty, through truth, even through tears. Leo Buscaglia
• Love isn’t only passion and joy. It’s also sacrifice. Cynthia Leitich Smith
• This is the very ecstasy of love. William Shakespeare
• Love leads to present rapture,-then to pain; But all through Love in time is healed again. Charles Godfrey Leland
• Pain,   Grief,   Sadness

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To be full of joy is to be full of love

• Love is joy and joy is love. Nirmala Srivastava
• He who is full of joy is full of love. Baal Shem Tov
• Joy is an attitude; it is the presence of love – for self and others. It comes from a feeling of inner peace, the ability to give and receive, and appreciation of the self and others. It is a state of gratitude and compassion, a feeling of connection to your higher self. Sanaya Roman
• Joy is the highest expression of love. Abraham-Hicks
• There is no real and true Joy if that Joy is not imbued with love. Love cannot exist without Joy. Saraydarian
• Love is nothing but joy accompanied with the idea of an eternal cause. Baruch Spinoza
• Bliss is not a feeling but a state of being. In the state of bliss, everything is loved. Deepak Chopra

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Love for the joy of loving

• Be brave, be capable of loving, even if love seems a terrible and treacherous thing. Find joy in love. Find joy in victory. Follow the dictates of your heart. Paulo Coelho
• There is only one sin – lack of love. Be brave, be capable of loving, even if love seems a terrible and treacherous thing. Find joy in love. Find joy in victory. Follow the dictates of your heart. Paulo Coelho
• Love for the joy of loving, and not for the offerings of someone else’s heart. Marlene Dietrich
• Let openness, trust and love be your first response. This is the secret to everlasting joy, peace and contentment. Mooji
• Blessings upon your mind and heart. Let openness, trust and love be your first response. This is the secret to everlasting joy, peace and contentment. Mooji
• Choosing love will bring you great joy and great happiness – that happiness is a choice you make. Gabrielle Bernstein

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Falling in love brings joy

• One of the great joys of falling in love is the feeling that the most extraordinary person in the entire world has chosen you. Gretchen Rubin
• Ten long trips around the sun since I last saw that smile, but only joy and thankfulness that on a tiny world in the vastness, for a couple of moments in the immensity of time, we were one. Ann Druyan
• Love fundamentally is the most powerful ecstasy of consciousness, and even if a person goes blind, there is no question when you are in love. Harbhajan Singh Yogi
• love, be moderate, allay thy ecstasy, In measure rain thy joy, scant this excess! William Shakespeare
• However, when given the chance, many people choose cocaine over love. I wouldn’t say that’s a bad choice. The endorphins released during infatuation are similar to heroin. OxyContin, “the cuddling hormone,” most often found in new mothers and newlyweds, is like ecstasy; every touch tingles. I think I read that somewhere. Love exists in powder. Love exists in pills. We are all addicts. Pete Wentz
• Not the bee upon the blossom, In the pride o’ sunny noon; Not the little sporting fairy, All beneath the simmer moon; Not the poet, in the moment Fancy lightens in his e’e, Kens the pleasure, feels the rapture, That thy presence gi’es to me. Robert Burns
• A lover exists only in fragments, a dozen or so if the romance is new, a thousand if we’re married to him, and out of those fragments our heart constructs an entire person. What we each create, since whatever is missing is filled by our imagination, is the person we wish him to be. The less we know him, of course, the more we love him. And that’s why we always remember that first rapturous night when he was a stranger, and why this rapture returns only when he’s dead. Andrew Sean Greer
• A man had given all other bliss, And all his worldly worth for this To waste his whole heart in one kiss Upon her perfect lips. Alfred Lord Tennyson
• Another flashing chance at bliss Another kiss, another kiss. Jim Morrison
• Romance

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Self-love and self-acceptance bring joy

• Accept yourself. Love yourself just as you are. Your finest work, your best moments, your joy, peace, and healing come when you love yourself. You give a great gift to the world when you do that. You give others permission to do the same: to love themselves. Revel in self love. Roll in it. Bask in it, as you would the sunshine. Melody Beattie
• I accept that today may be imperfect… I accept that I may be as well. What I don’t accept is that imperfection should be the crutch I use to excuse myself from participating in joy. Shane Koyczan
• When you learn to love your physical body, every activity can become a ritual of gratitude where you fully express the joy to be alive! Miguel Angel Ruiz
• Are we treating our body kindly by the way we eat, by the way we drink, by the way we work? Are we treating ourselves with enough joy and tenderness and peace? Or are we feeding ourselves with toxins that we get from the market – the spiritual, intellectual, entertainment market? Nhat Hanh
• Every child, every person needs to know that they are a source of joy; every child, every person, needs to be celebrated. Only when all of our weaknesses are accepted as part of our humanity can our negative, broken self-images be transformed. Jean Vanier
• You are a child of the universe, “fearfully and wonderfully made.” In the history of creation, there has never been anyone like you. Accept this reality about yourself- that you are a special, unique human being who has a place on this earth that no one else can fill. Acknowledge yourself as a glorious expression of your loving Creator. This healthy self-love will form the foundation of a joyful and satisfying life. Then, as you love and accept yourself, your inner light will shine outward to bless and heal your fellow human beings. Douglas Bloch
• Our sense of self-worth is the single most important determinant of the health, abundance, and joy we allow into our lives. Dan Millman
• When we rejoice in our fullness, then we can part with our fruits with joy. Rabindranath Tagore
• Love yourself and feel worth it. Attend to your joy! Prentice Mulford
• Love yourself. See the good. Be calm. Find joy. Give thanks. Mary Davis
• To create the life of your dreams, the time has come for you to love You. Focus on Your joy. Do all the things that make You feel good. Love You, inside and out. Rhonda Byrne
• If you flatter yourself properly you will be better able to enjoy yourself. Stretch your joy so that others enjoy you too. Willis Regier
• Self-approbation, when founded in truth and a good conscience, is a source of some of the purest joys known to man. Charles Simmons
• The full and joyful acceptance of the worst in oneself may be the only sure way of transforming it. Henry Miller
• Self-love,   Self-acceptance

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Forgiveness brings joy

• After grief for sin there should be joy for forgiveness. Arthur W. Pink
• Carrying a grudge is a heavy burden. As you forgive, you will feel the joy of being forgiven. Henry B. Eyring
• He may look on death with joy, who can look on forgiveness with faith. Thomas Watson
• If you can forgive the person you were, accept the person you are, and believe in the person you will become, you are headed for joy. So celebrate your life. Barbara Johnson
• Watch out for each other. Love everyone and forgive everyone, including yourself. Forgive your anger. Forgive your guilt. Your shame. Your sadness. Embrace and open up your love, your joy, your truth, and most especially your heart. Jim Henson
• The ineffable joy of forgiving and being forgiven forms an ecstasy that might well arouse the envy of the gods. Elbert Hubbard
• There is unspeakable joy… for the person who knows release from guilt and the relief of forgiveness. Stuart Briscoe
• As I forgive, I set myself free and experience the bliss of inner peace. Louise Hay
• Forgiveness

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Kindness brings joy

• All worldly joys are less than that one joy of doing kindnesses. John Wesley
• If you have not often felt the joy of doing a kind act, you have neglected much, and most of all yourself. A. Neilen
• Without kindness there can be no true joy. Thomas Carlyle
• Kindness is an inner desire that makes us want to do good things even if we do not get anything in return. It is the joy of our life to do them. When we do good things from this inner desire, there is kindness in everything we think, say, want, and do. Emanuel Swedenborg
• True kindness presupposes the faculty of imagining as one’s own the suffering and joys of others. Andre Gide
• Kindness

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Compassion brings joy …

• Compassion has nothing to do with achievement at all. It is spacious and very generous. When a person develops real compassion, he is uncertain whether he is being generous to others or to himself because compassion is enviromental generosity, without direction, without ” for me” and without ” for them”. It is filled with joy, spontaneously existing joy, constant joy in the sense of trust, in the sense that joy contains tremendous wealth, richness. Chogyam Trungpa
• Compassion is one of the principal things that make our lives meaningful. It is the source of all lasting happiness and joy. The Dalai Lama
• Compassionate people are geniuses in the art of living, more necessary to the dignity, security, and joy of humanity than the discoverers of knowledge. Albert Einstein
• Let us subdue the ravages of the baser-self, and aspire to the higher calling of exalting joy through compassion, for that is the one true purpose of humanity. Bryant H. McGill
• The joy that compassion brings is one of the best-kept secrets of humanity. It is a secret known only to a very few people, a secret that has to be rediscovered over and over again. Henri Nouwen
• When you are in Joy, you are compassionate. When you are in Joy, you are considerate and caring. Rhonda Byrne
• The work I do to let go of my suffering diminishes the suffering of the whole universe. When I have room for my own pain, I have room for the pain of others. Only then can I be transformed into joy. As I heal, the Earth heals. Christiane Northrup
• Compassion has been advocated by all the great faiths because it has been found to be the safest and surest means of attaining enlightenment. It dethrones the ego from the center of our lives and puts others there, breaking down the carapace of the selfishness that holds us back from an experience of the sacred. And it gives us ecstasy, broadening our perspectives and giving us a larger, enhanced vision. Karen Armstrong
• Compassion

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… by allowing us to feel the sufferings and joys of others as our own …

• There is little that separates humans from other sentient beings – we all feel joy, we all deeply crave to be alive and to live freely, and we all share this planet together. Mahatma Gandhi
• No matter how you look, we all hurt the same, cry the same, and feel joy the same. Paula Patton
• If each man or woman could understand that every other human life is as full of sorrows, or joys, or base temptations, of heartaches and of remorse as his own . . . how much kinder, how much gentler he would be. William Allen White
• If we are at all sensitive to the life around us, to one another’s pains and joys, to the beauty and fragility of the Earth, it is all about being broken open, allowing ourselves to step out from out hardened veneers and expose our core, allowing ourselves to be vulnerable in our emotional response to the world. And how can we not respond? This is what I mean by being ‘broken open.’ To engage. To love. Any one of these actions of the heart will lead to a personal transformation that bears collective gifts.Terry Tempest Williams
• Compassion is sometimes the fatal capacity for feeling what it is like to live inside somebody else’s skin. It is the knowledge that there can never really be any peace and joy for me until there is peace and joy finally for you too. Frederick Buechner
• Without an awareness of our feelings we cannot experience compassion. How can we share the sufferings and the joys of others if we cannot experience our own? Gary Zukav
• Compassion gives us ecstasy, broadening our perspectives and giving us a larger, enhanced vision. Karen Armstrong

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… although some argue we can never truly understand the joy of another

• No one really understands the grief or joy of another. We always imagine that we are approaching some other, but our lines of travel are actually parallel. Franz Schubert
• What are the sorrows of other men to us, and what their joy? Daniel Defoe

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Empathy brings joy

• Empathy is forgetting oneself in the joys and sorrows of another, so much so that you actually feel that the joy or sorrow experienced by another is your own joy and sorrow. Empathy involves complete identification with another. Dada Vaswani
• Empathy is the faculty to resonate with the feelings of others. When we meet someone who is joyful, we smile. When we witness someone in pain, we suffer in resonance with his or her suffering. Matthieu Ricard
• Suffering and joy teach us, if we allow them, how to make the leap of empathy, which transports us into the soul and heart of another person. William Fritz
• Empathy

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Self-compassion is to make room for one’s own sorrow and joy

• Having compassion starts and ends with having compassion for all those unwanted parts of ourselves. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy. Pema Chodron
• Self-compassion

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Service brings joy …

• After all the years of spiritual work, … I’ve realized this: that everything and everyone is precious beyond words. Everything and everyone is holy. And the point of our being on this sweet planet is to be of service to all of it. And when we understand this truth in our bones, joy fills our hearts. Geri Larkin
• Find your joy not in what’s missing in your life but in how you can serve. Wayne Dyer
• Great things are wrought through simple and small things. Like the small flecks of gold that accumulate over time into a large treasure, our small and simple acts of kindness and service will accumulate into a life filled with love… , and a sense of peace and joy each time we reach out to one another. M. Russell Ballard
• I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy. Rabindranath Tagore
• I think that people will find a tremendous joy and fulfillment in service to other human beings, and that often this is what is missing in their lives. Ram Dass
• If you really want to receive joy and happiness, then serve others with all your heart. Lift their burden, and your own burden will be lighter. Ezra Taft Benson
• Joy arises only in creating joy for others; there is no other way. The more people you can make happy, the more you will feel happy. This is the real meaning of service. Rajneesh
• Joy can only be real if people look upon their life as a service and have a definite object in life outside themselves and their personal happiness. Leo Tolstoy
• Just as soon as any conviction of important truth becomes central and vital, there comes the desire to utter it – a desire which is immediate and irresistible. Sacrifice is gladness, service is joy, when such an idea becomes a commanding power. R. S. Storrs
• My joy will be in serving. Walter Russell
• No joy can equal the joy of serving others. Sai Baba
• Service can have no meaning unless one takes pleasure in it. When it is done for show or for fear of public opinion, it stunts the man and crushes his spirit. Service which is rendered without joy helps neither the servant nor the served. Mahatma Gandhi
• Service is the joy-giving factor in daily life. It is as spontaneous as light, as subtle as electricity, as exhilarating as sunshine. It exists primarily as a spiritual attitude. It lies in the constant recognition of the brotherhood of humanity toward each and all with whom we come in contact. Lilian Whiting
• Service which is rendered without joy helps neither the servant nor the served. But all other pleasures and possessions pale into nothingness before service which is rendered in a spirit of joy. Mahatma Gandhi
• The real joy in life comes from giving. It comes from service. It comes from doing things for other people. That is what is so powerful about this. Nothing will make you happier than giving. Marc Benioff
• Whoever renders service to many puts himself in line for greatness – great wealth, great return, great satisfaction, great reputation, and great joy. Jim Rohn
• Life is a place of service and in that service one has to suffer a great deal that is hard to bear, but more often to experience a great deal of joy. But that joy can be real only if people look upon their life as a service, and have a definite object in life outside themselves and their personal happiness. Lev Tolstoy
• The greatest joy comes from giving and serving, so replace your habit of focusing exclusively on yourself and what’s in it for you. When you make the shift to supporting others in your life, without expecting anything in return, you’ll think less about what you want and find comfort and joy in the act of giving and serving. Wayne Dyer
• What if your purpose is to take impeccable care of yourself so that you have the energy and joy to serve others? Kris Carr
• Service

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… helping others …

• There are few things in life that bring as much joy as the joy that comes from assisting another improve his or her life. Richard G. Scott
• There is great joy in doing something for somebody else with no thought in receiving anything in return. John Wooden
• The heart that goes out of itself, gets large and full of joy. This is the great secret of the inner life. We do ourselves the most good doing something for others. Horace Mann
• For strength to bear is found in duty alone, and he is blest indeed who learns to make the joy of others cure his own heartache. Drake
• Help someone in distress and you lighten your own burden; the very joy of alleviating the sorrow of another is the lessening of one’s own. Fulton J. Sheen
• Only those who have learned the power of sincere and selfless contribution experience life’s deepest joy: true fulfillment. What great thing would you attempt if you knew you could not fail? Robert H. Schuller
• Our deepest need is for the joy that comes with knowing we are of genuine use to others. Eknath Easwaran
• Selfishness corrodes. Unselfishness ennobles, satisfies. Don’t put off the joy derivable from doing helpful, kindly things for others. B. C. Forbes
• Helpfulness

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… especially when you serve from your own sense of joy and purpose

• Serve the world with your joy. Danielle LaPorte
• What power there is in our service when our actions line up with our mission, skills and joy. Mary Anne Radmacher
• Without self-expression, life lacks spontaneity and joy. Without service to others, it lacks meaning and purpose. Laurence Boldt
• You can not have significance in this life if it is all about you. You get your significance, you find your joy in life through service and sacrifice – it’s pure and simple. Paul Tudor Jone
• Sacrifice that causes pain is no sacrifice at all. True sacrifice is joy-giving and uplifting. Mahatma Gandhi
• We shall serve for the joy of serving, prosperity shall flow to us and through us in unending streams of plenty. Charles Fillmore
• The ideal man takes joy in doing favors for others. Aristotle
• To serve is beautiful, but only if it is done with joy and a whole heart and a free mind. Pearl S. Buck
• Purpose

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Joy is released in us by bringing it to others

• The joy you experience will be the joy you bring. If you are waiting for joy to be brought to you, you do not understand what you are doing here. Neale Donald Walsch
• Release the joy that is inside of another, and you release the joy that is inside of you. Neal Donald Walch
• All the joy the world contains has come through wishing happiness for others. All the misery the world contains has come through wanting pleasure for oneself. Shantideva
• You increase your joy by increasing the pure joy of others. Torkom Saraydarian
• There is the joy of being healthy and fair, but there is overall the beauty, the immense joy of being useful. Gabriela Mistral

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Giving and receiving bring joy

• Lasting joy is found not in what you get, but in what you give. Oprah Winfrey
• When I feel the joy of receiving a gift my heart nudges me to join creation’s ballet, the airy dance of giving and receiving, and getting and giving again. Lewis B. Smedes
• Discover the joy of giving and you will discover the reason for living. Mark Victor Hansen
• Generosity brings happiness at every stage of its expression. We experience joy in forming the intention to be generous. We experience joy in the actual act of giving something. And we experience joy in remembering the fact that we have given. Gautama Buddha
• Giving means extending one’s love with no conditions, no expectations and no boundaries. . . Peace of minds occurs, therefore, when we put all our attention into giving and have no desire to get anything from, or to change, another person. . . The giving motivation leads to a sense of inner peace and joy that is unrelated to time. Gerald Jampolsky
• What flows away from you flows back magnified: Become a joyful giver. Mike Todd
• Great gift-giving involves three things: you feel what the other feels; you give freely; and you count sacrifice a bargain… those gifts are truly great which are given simply for the joy they bring to another heart. Henry B. Eyring
• If you are a taker of happiness you get misery, if you are a giver of happiness you get joy and love. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
• Joy is a sign of generosity. When you are full of joy, you move faster and you want to go about doing good to everyone. Mother Teresa
• Joy must be one of the pivots of our life. It is the token of a generous personality. Sometimes it is also a mantle that clothes a life of sacrifice and self-giving. A person who has this gift often reaches high summits. He or she is like sun in a community. Mother Teresa
• You find true joy and happiness in life when you give and give and go on giving and never count the cost. Eileen Caddy
• Yes, there truly is a joy to giving. Charles Bronfman
• When you give, give with joy and smiling. Joseph Joubert
• There’s a great joy in my giving. It’s thrilling. It’s exhilarating. It’s important to be a part of sharing. It is my love. It is my joy. W. Clement Stone
• One thing that I ask of you: Never be afraid of giving. There is a deep joy in giving, since what we receive is much more than what we give. Mother Teresa
• Philanthropy is the rent we pay for the joy and privilege we have for our space on this earth. Jerold Panas
• Since you get more joy out of giving joy to others, you should put a good deal of thought into the happiness that you are able to give. Eleanor Roosevelt
• The essential difference between the unhappy, neurotic type person and him of great joy is the difference between get and give. Erich Fromm
• The fullness of life comes from an identity built on giving and on joy. Mary Pipher
• The intention behind our giving and receiving is the most important thing. When the act of giving is joyful, when it is unconditional and from the heart, then the energy behind the giving increases many times over. But if we give grudgingly, there is no energy behind that giving. If we feel we have lost something through the act of giving, then the gift is not truly given and will not cause increase. Deepak Chopra
• The joy of a self-giving life Can neither be measured Nor be expounded. Sri Chinmoy
• The momentary thrill of getting rarely equals the lasting joy of giving. William Arthur Ward
• The more you give yourself to others, the more joy and peace will flow into your own life. Thomas Kinkade
• The most successful givers aren’t doing it because they’re being told to. They do it because doing it is fun. It gives them joy. Seth Godin
• There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward. Khalil Gibran
• The giving and receiving of pleasure is a need and an ecstasy. Khalil Gibran
• Give and Take… For to the bee a flower is a fountain if life And to the flower a bee is a messenger of love And to both, bee and flower, the giving and the receiving is a need and an ecstasy. Khalil Gibran
• If we want to find happiness, let’s stop thinking about gratitude or ingratitude and give for the inner joy of giving. Dale Carnegie
• Giving,   Generosity

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Sharing brings joy

• There is no joy in life like the joy of sharing. Billy Graham

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Doing good deeds brings joy

• Joy bursts in our lives when we go about doing the good at hand and not trying to manipulate things and times to achieve joy. C. S. Lewis
• A good deed, “said the prophet Mohammed, “is one that brings a smile of joy to the face of another.” Why will doing a good deed every day produce such astounding efforts on the doer? Because trying to please others will cause us to stop thinking of ourselves: the very thing that produces worry and fear and melancholia. Dale Carnegie
• Joy is a “reflection” of good deeds. The Kabbalah
• Increase your joy by doing the good you wish to have done to you. Daisaku Ikeda
• Know the joy of life by piling good deed on good deed until no rift or cranny appears between them. Marcus Aurelius
• Nothing else in all life is such a maker of joy and cheer as the privilege of doing good. J.R. Miller
• The “supreme good” and its attainment — that is happiness. And joy is: response to happiness. Josef Pieper
• The criterion for what is good is based on whether it relieves someone, brings joy, or soothes a distress. Bert Hellinger
• The perfection of joyful determination is defined as taking delight or feeling joy in doing something positive or virtuous. If you are very joyful about doing negative things or about being busy with meaningless activities, this is not called joyful exertion from a Buddhist point of view. This kind of attitude is actually a form of laziness, an attachment to frivolous activities. Such a person would not be considered diligent at all. But if you are joyful and determined to perform good actions, then as a result, you discover and learn many new things that you didn’t know about before. Geshe Gyeltsen
• To a good man, God gives not only wisdom and knowledge, but joy. Matthew Henry
• Goodness

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Right action brings joy

• Do right! and thou hast naught to fear; Right hath a power that makes thee strong. The night is dark, but light is near; The grief is short, the joy is long. Thomas Cogswell Upham
• Right action

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Virtue brings joy

• The belief that we can rely on shortcuts to happiness, joy, rapture, comfort, and ecstasy, rather than be entitled to these feelings by the exercise of personal strengths and virtues, leads to legions of people who, in the middle of great wealth, are starving spiritually. Martin Seligman
• The surest step toward joy in the morning is virtue in the evening. Russell M. Nelson
• The belief that we can rely on shortcuts to happiness, joy, rapture, comfort, and ecstasy, rather than be entitled to these feelings by the exercise of personal strengths and virtues, leads to legions of people who, in the middle of great wealth, are starving spiritually. Martin Seligman
• Souls that have lived in virtue are in general happy, and when separated from the irrational part of their nature, and made clean from all matter, have communion with the gods and join them in the governing of the whole world. Yet even if none of this happiness fell to their lot, virtue itself, and the joy and glory of virtue, and the life that is subject to no grief and no master are enough to make happy those who have set themselves to live according to virtue and have achieved it. Sallust
• A man who lives a virtuous life and in the pursuit of knowledge, may have great joy with only coarse rice to eat, water to drink, and his bended arm for a pillow. Confucius
• Virtue

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A clear conscience brings joy

• The foundation of the true joy is in the conscience. Seneca the Younger
• Conscience

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Gratitude brings joy

• When joy and prayer are married, their first-born child is gratitude. Charles Spurgeon
• It is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that make us joyful. David Steindl Rast
• Gratitude is the seedbed of joy. Peter Kreeft
• There is no joy without gratitude. Brené Brown
• Joy is the simplest form of gratitude. Karl Barth
• I will practice gratitude to access joy. Brené Brown
• There can be no joy without gratitude. Richard Paul Evans
• When you are a thankful person it releases joy. Joyce Meyer
• Social scientists have found that the fastest way to feel happiness is to practice gratitude. Chip Conley
• I learned that gratitude is the best feeling I would ever have, the ultimate joy of living. Lewis B. Smedes
• Whenever we are appreciative, we are filled with a sense of well- being and swept up by the feeling of joy. M.J. Ryan
• In moments of surprise we catch at least a glimpse of the joy to which gratefulness opens the door. David Steindl-Rast
• The more we seek gratitude, the more reason the angels will give us for gratitude and joy to exist in our lives. Terry Taylor
• Gratitude is a soil on which joy thrives. Berthold Auerbach
• As long as thanks is possible, then joy is always possible. Ann Voskamp
• There is a calmness to a life lived in gratitude, a quiet joy. Ralph Blum
• Gratitude changes the pangs of memory into a tranquil joy. Dietrich Bonhoeffer
• Being grateful. That is the first step on the path to Joy. Sarah Ban Breathnach
• We’re a nation hungry for more joy: Because we’re starving from a lack of gratitude. Brené Brown
• Gratitude produced the most purely joyful moments that have been known to man. Gilbert K. Chesterton
• Gratitude is the richest, most joyful feeling humans are privileged to experience. Susan Wittig Albert
• Joy is what happens when we allow ourselves to recognize how good things really are. Marianne Williamson
• True love does not consist in trying to correct others, but in feeling joy that things are better than we expected. Paulo Coelho
• The root of joy is gratefulness…It is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful. David Steindl-Rast
• Being grateful is what makes you… Being joyful isn’t what makes you grateful. Being grateful is what makes you joyful. Ann Voskamp
• What I have come to believe is that joy is the twin sister of gratitude. I am most joyful when I am most grateful. Katherine Paterson
• Spiritual joy is what you experience when you choose to give thanks to God no matter what happens-even when things go wrong. Jim George
• At each level of gratitude our soul’s capacity deepens, starting with contentment to meaningfulness, and finally, to pure joy. M. J. Ryan
• I believe a joyful life is made up of joyful moments, gracefully strung together by trust, gratitude, inspiration, and faith. Brené Brown
• When you express your gratitude, you will bring joy to others lives.When others know joy, your life will be filled with happiness. Arthur Dobrin
• Gratitude helps you to grow and expand; gratitude brings joy and laughter into your life and into the lives of all those around you. Eileen Caddy
• Gratitude places you in the energy field of plentitude. Glow with gratitude and see how awe and joy will make their home in you. Michael Beckwith
• My day begins with gratitude and joy. I look forward with enthusiasm to the adventures of the day, knowing that in my life, All is good. Louise Hay
• Gratitude has a big job to do in us and our hearts. It is one of the chief ways that God infuses joy and resilience into the daily struggle of life. Nancy Leigh DeMoss
• Some people have a wonderful capacity to appreciate again and again, freshly and naively, the basic goods of life, with awe, pleasure, wonder, and even ecstasy. Abraham Maslow
• Man is fond of counting his troubles, but he does not count his joys. If he counted them up as he ought to, he would see that every lot has enough happiness provided for it. Fyodor Dostoevsky
• For the joy of ear and eye, for the heart and mind’s delight, for the mystic harmony, linking sense to sound and sight; Lord of all, to thee we raise this our hymn of grateful praise. Folliott Sandford Pierpoint
• As your awareness of the riches available to you in your everyday life grows, you are on the way to becoming the laughing Buddha. Life is joyous. Life is Light. Life is happy. You are awake at last. Susan Jeffers
• Gratitude helps us to return to our natural state of joyfulness, where we notice what’s right instead of what’s wrong. It makes us feel complete, that we have everything we need, at least in this moment. M. J. Ryan
• Bliss can only come through gratitude, only through enlarging your heart with gratitude. Bliss is the reward of gratitude – the gratitude which is not just wordly or just spoken lip service, but is from the heart – the gratitude of the heart. Nirmala Srivastava
• Being thankful for life itself is a way of making life better. When we look away from our problems, even for a short time, and generate joy in our hearts, we find that the world seems to change a bit. John Harricharan
• Fill your heart with gratefulness. A gladness will flower that you have never known before. Then you have something to give to the world: your gratefulness, your gladness, your joy. The world needs them. A Course in Miracles
• Living with this gratitude elevates you… You become a more joyful person. You become a kinder and more compassionate person. You become a calmer and more peaceful person. You become a person who lives in greater harmony with others. Zelig Pliskin
• I never talk about gratitude and joy separately, for this reason. In 12 years, I’ve never interviewed a single person who would describe their lives as joyful, who would describe themselves as joyous, who was not actively practicing gratitude. Brené Brown
• Gratitude is a mark of a noble soul and a refined character. We like to be around those who are grateful. They tend to brighten all around them. They make others feel better about themselves. They tend to be more humble, more joyful, more likable. Joseph B. Wirthlin
• I wonder if gratefulness is the bridge from sorrow to joy, spanning the chasm of our anxious striving. Freed from the burden of unbridled desires, we can enjoy what we have, celebrate what we’ve attained, and appreciate the familiar. For if we can’t be happy now, we’ll likely not be happy when. Philip Gulley
• Gratitude is the state of mind of thankfulness. As it is cultivated, we experience an increase in our “sympathetic joy,” our happiness at another’s happiness. Just as in the cultivation of compassion, we may feel the pain of others, so we may begin to feel their joy as well. And it doesn’t stop there. Stephen Levine
• To start with, you should have an attitude of gratitude. Without an attitude of gratitude, neither prosperity nor pleasure, joy nor happiness means anything, and it works this way: to those who have an attitude of gratitude and who do it with innocence, Mother Nature brings all the wealth, health, and happiness. Harbhajan Singh Yogi
• Gratitude is the confidence in life itself… As gratitude grows it gives rise to joy. We experience the courage to rejoice in our own good fortune and in the good fortune of others… We can be joyful for people we love, for moments of goodness, for sunlight and trees, and for the very breath within our lungs. Like an innocent child, we can rejoice in life itself, in being alive. Jack Kornfield
• Gratitude goes beyond the ‘mine’ and ‘thine’ and claims the truth that all of life is a pure gift. In the past I always thought of gratitude as a spontaneous response to the awareness of gifts received, but now I realize that gratitude can also be lived as a discipline. The discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and have is given to me as a gift of love, a gift to be celebrated with joy. Henri Nouwen
• There are two words that, when spoken, have the most unfathomable power to completely change your life. Two words which, when they pass your lips, will be the cause of bringing absolute joy and happiness to you. Two words that will create miracles in your life. Two words that will wipe out negativity. Two words that will bring you abundance in all things. Two words which, when uttered and sincerely felt, will summon all the forces and vibrations in the Universe to move all things for you. The only thing standing between you, happiness, and the life of your dreams is two words THANK YOU! Rhonda Byrne
• I got sick and tired of a joyless existence, and so have thought a lot in the past few years about how to bring more joy into my life. The more I think about it, the more I believe that joy and gratitude are inseparable. Joy is defined in the dictionary as an “emotion evoked by well-being, success, or good fortune or by the prospect of possessing what one desires,” while gratitude is that “state of being appreciative of benefits received.” In other words, whenever we are appreciative, we are filled with a sense of well-being and swept up by the feeling of joy. M.J. Ryan
• Gratitude

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Appreciation brings joy

• Whenever we are appreciative, we are filled with a sense of well- being and swept up by the feeling of joy. M.J. Ryan
• I wonder if gratefulness is the bridge from sorrow to joy, spanning the chasm of our anxious striving. Freed from the burden of unbridled desires, we can enjoy what we have, celebrate what we’ve attained, and appreciate the familiar. For if we can’t be happy now, we’ll likely not be happy when. Philip Gulley
• Some people have a wonderful capacity to appreciate again and again, freshly and naively, the basic goods of life, with awe, pleasure, wonder, and even ecstasy. Abraham Maslow
• Appreciation

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Counting your blessings brings joy

• Joy isn’t the natural response to blessings – joy is what comes from acknowledging them. Richard Paul Evans
• To multiply your joy, count your blessings. J. B. Priestley
• Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgivings, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings. William Arthur Ward
• Counting our blessings can transform melancholy into cheerful mass; laughter and joy are expressions of praise and thanksgiving for life’s glories. When looking at the glass that symbolizes our life, we can view it as half full or half empty. The choice is ours… The more joyful we are, the more attractive we become. When we feel gratitude for our experiences, it becomes easier to see the good that always exists. When we give a smile to someone else, we are likely to receive one in return, and that smile reflects a happy heart that is open and receptive to what the good life has in store. John Templeton

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Contemplating beauty creates joy

• A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness; but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing. John Keats
• A thing of beauty is a joy till sunrise. Harvey Fierstein
• The contemplation of beauty in nature, in art, in literature, in human character, diffuses through our being a soothing and subtle joy, by which the heart’s anxious and aching cares are softly smiled away. Edwin Percy Whipple
• Beauty comes first. Victory is secondary. What matters is joy. Socrates
• Beauty is not a concept. It is the animal joy of the mind. Peter Schjeldahl
• Beauty is the experience that gives us a sense of joy and a sense of peace simultaneously. Rollo May
• Beauty is whatever gives joy. Edna St. Vincent Millay
• Beauty, the splendour of truth, is a gracious presence when the imagination contemplates intensely the truth of its own being or the visible world, and the spirit which proceeds out of truth and beauty is the holy spirit of joy. These are realities and these alone give and sustain life. James Joyce
• Every cell in your body is seeking fulfillment through joy, beauty, love and appreciation. Deepak Chopra
• Everything in the world is beautiful, but Man only recognizes beauty if he sees it either seldom or from afar. Listen, today we are gods! Our blue shadows are enormous! We move in a gigantic, joyful world! Vladimir Nabokov
• If your eyes were open to all the beauty in the world, you would be overwhelmed with joy. Marianne Williamson
• It is one of the prodigious privileges of art that the horrific, artistically expressed, becomes beauty, and that sorrow, given rhythm and cadence, fills the spirit with a calm joy. Charles Baudelaire
• Oh who can tell the range of joy or set the bounds of beauty? Sara Teasdale
• The joy sometimes is in the simple beauty. Frank Deford
• The very first discovery of beauty strikes the mind with an inward joy, and spreads a cheerfulness and delight through all its faculties. Joseph Addison
• This world in which we live needs beauty in order not to sink into despair. Beauty, like truth, brings joy to the human heart, and is that precious fruit which resists the erosion of time, which unites generations and enables them to be one in admiration. And all this through the work of your hands . . . Remember that you are the custodians of beauty in the world. Pope Benedict XVI
• Intelligence and capability are not enough. There must be the joy of doing something beautiful. Govindappa Venkataswamy
• Beauty is an ecstasy; it is as simple as hunger. There is really nothing to be said about it. It is like the perfume of a rose: you can smell it and that is all. Somerset Maugham
• Beauty is an expression of that rapture of being alive. Bill Moyers
• What is beautiful? Whatever is perceived joyfully is beautiful. Bliss is the essence of beauty. Nisargadatta Maharaj
• Beauty

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Being connected to a sense of purpose brings joy

• This is the true joy in life: Being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one, being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it what I can. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations. George Bernard Shaw
• The joy in life is to be used for a purpose. I want to be used up when I die. George Bernard Shaw
• If you would find happiness and joy, lose your life in some noble cause. A worthy purpose must be at the center of every worthy life. Jack H. Goaslind
• Ask to know what you are born to do. Follow the compass of joy. Barbara Marx Hubbard
• Be someone who lives with joy, with purpose, as your own light brightly shines. Be, in every moment, the special someone you are truly meant to be. Ralph Marston
• When people are deeply happy they bring a sense of purpose with them wherever they go, whatever circumstances they are in. So if they’re changing the oil in the car, they bring a sense of joyful purpose even to that. Marci Shimoff
• We won’t fully experience joy until we’ve answered life’s biggest question: Why am I here? John C. Maxwell
• The real joy in life comes from finding your true purpose and aligning it with what you do every single day. Tony Robbins
• The things that bring you the greatest joy are in alignment with your purpose. Jack Canfield
• This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one. George Bernard Shaw
• Vocation is the place where the world’s greatest need and a person’s greatest joy meet. Frederick Buechner
• Listen to the clues. The next time you feel real joy, stop and think. Pay attention. Because joy is the universe’s way of knocking on your mind’s door. Hello in there. Is anyone home? Can I leave a message? Yes? Good! The message is that you are happy, and that means that you are in touch with your purpose. Steve Chandler
• Everyone has a purpose in life… a unique gift or special talent to give to others. And when we blend this unique talent with service to others, we experience the ecstasy and exultation of our own spirit, which is the ultimate goal of all goals. Deepak Chopra
• When we align our thoughts, emotions, and actions with the highest part of ourselves, we are filled with enthusiasm, purpose, and meaning . . . . We are joyously and intimately engaged with our world. This is the experience of authentic power. Gary Zukav
• Purpose

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… by serving the world with your talents …

• Being excited about what we do every day and sharing our gifts with the world is how we cultivate joy and energy. Deepak Chopra
• To be granted some kind of usable talent and to be able to use it to the fullest extent of which you are capable – this, to me, is a kind of joy that is almost unequaled. Lawrence Welk
• Balance, peace, and joy are the fruit of a successful life. It starts with recognizing your talents and finding ways to serve others by using them. Thomas Kinkade
• The meaning of life is to serve the force that sent you into the world. Then life becomes a joy Leo Tolstoy
• Joy can be real only if people look upon their lives as a service and have a definite object in life outside themselves and their personal happiness. Leo Tolstoy
• To the extent that your work takes into account the needs of the world, it will be menaingful; to the extent that through it you express your unique talents, it will be joyful. Laurence Boldt
• Talents,    Strength

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… by doing what feels worthwhile

• What brings me real joy is the experience of being fully engaged in whatever I’m doing. Phil Jackson
• Real joy comes not from ease or riches or from the praise of men, but from doing something worthwhile. Wilfred T. Grenfell
• The root of joy, as of duty, is to put all one’s powers towards some great end. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
• True joy, as it turns out, comes only to those who have devoted their lives to something greater than personal happiness. John Ortberg
• Joy is realized as the natural by-product of the passionate pursuit of something other than happiness. Marc Gafni

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Work brings joy …

• Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. The joy and moral stimulation of work must no longer be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits. Theodore Roosevelt
• We honor life when we work. The type of work is not important: the fact of work is. All work feeds the soul if it is honest and done to the best of our abilities and if it brings joy to others. Matthew Fox
• All the sorrow, all the bitterness, all the sadness, I forget them and ignore them in the joy of working. Camille Pissarro
• Man, being essentially active, must find in activity his joy, as well as his beauty and glory; and labor, like every thing else that is good, is its own reward. Henry Benjamin Whipple
• Do the work. Do the analysis. But feel your run. Feel your race. Feel the joy that is running. Kara Goucher
• There can be no richer man or woman than the individual who has found his or her labor of love. Personal fulfillment through the virtue of work is the highest form of desire. Work is the conduit between the supply and the demand of all human needs, the forerunner of human progress, and the medium by which the imagination is given the wings of action. A labor of love is exalted because it provides joy and self-expression to those who perform it. Dennis Kimbro
• There is joy in work. There is no happiness except in the realization that we have accomplished something. Henry Ford
• To find joy in work is to discover the fountain of youth. Pearl S. Buck
• Work and leisure are complementary parts of the same living process and cannot be separated without destroying the joy of work and the bliss of leisure. E. F. Schumacher
• Work, look for peace and calm in work: You will find it nowhere else. Pleasures flit by — they are only for yourself; work leaves a mark of long-lasting joy, work is for others. Dmitri Mendeleev
• I get quiet joy from the observation of anyone who does his job well. William Feather
• Labour without joy is base. Joy without labour is base. John Ruskin
• Taste the joy that springs from labor. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
• Things won are done, joy’s soul lies in the doing. William Shakespeare
• What is the good of life if its chief element, and that which must always be its chief element, is odious? No, the only true economy is to arrange so that your daily labor shall be itself a joy. Edward Carpenter
• In activity we must find our joy as well as glory; and labor, like everything else that is good, is its own reward. Edwin Percy Whipple
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… especially work well done …

• There is a wild, splendid, intoxicating joy that follows work well done. Elbert Hubbard
• The secret of joy in work is contained in one word – excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it. Pearl S. Buck
• One of the great undiscovered joys of life comes from doing everything one attempts to the best of one’s ability. The smallest task, well done, becomes a miracle of achievement. Og Mandino
• Joyful is the accumulation of good work. Gautama Buddha
• There is no joy equal to that of being able to work for all humanity and doing what you’re doing well. R. Buckminster Fuller
• A great deal of the joy of life consists in doing perfectly, or at least to the best of one’s ability, everything which one attempts to do. There is a sense of satisfaction, a pride in surveying such a work, a work which is rounded, full, exact, complete in all its parts-which the superficial man, who leaves his work in a slovenly, slipshod, half-finished condition can never know. It is this conscientious completeness which turns work into art. The smallest thing, well done, becomes artistic. William Matthews
• The heart of human excellence often begins to beat when you discover a pursuit that absorbs you, frees you, challenges you, or gives you a sense of meaning, joy, or passion. Terry Orlick
• The only lifelong, reliable motivations are those that come from within, and one of the strongest of those is the joy and pride that grow from knowing that you’ve just done something as well as you can do it. Lloyd Dobyns
• True happiness comes from the joy of deeds well done, the zest of creating things new. Antoine de Saint-Exupery
• Happiness cannot come to any man capable of enjoying true happiness unless it comes as the sequel to duty well and honestly done. To do that duty you need to have more than one trait. From the greatest to the smallest, happiness and usefulness are largely found in the same soul, and the joy of life is won in its deepest and truest sense only by those who have not shirked life’s burdens. Theodore Roosevelt
• Great work comes from great joy. Jack White
• Excellence,    Quality

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… and especially when the work is a labour of love

• Taking a job for the cash is not as important as taking a job for the joy. Simon Sinek
• When your fulfillment and sense of self are no longer dependent on the future outcome, joy flows into whatever you do. You do what you do because the action itself is fulfilling. Whatever you do or create in that state is of high quality. This is because it is not a means to an end, and so a loving care flows into your doing. Eckhart Tolle
• A labor of love is exalted because it provides joy and self-expression to those who perform it. Dennis Kimbro
• You will know your vocation by the joy that it brings you. You will know. You will know when it’s right. Dorothy Day
• Is that what they call a vocation, what you do with joy as if you had fire in your heart, the devil in your body? Josephine Baker
• When work is a pleasure, life is a joy! When work is a duty, life is slavery. Maxim Gorky

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Doing what we love brings joy …

• What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what gets you out if bed in the mornings, what you do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything. Pedro Arrupe
• The soul’s joy lies in doing. Percy Bysshe Shelley
• When you follow your bliss you live in a constant space of joy. You open yourself to the abundance of the Universe. Lisa Nichols
• Do what you love. Do what makes your heart sing. And NEVER do it for the money, Go to work to spread joy. Marianne Williamson
• Happiness happens when you fit with your life, when you fit so harmoniously that whatsoever you are doing is your joy. Then suddenly you will come to know: meditation follows you. If you love the work that you are doing, if you love the way you are living, then you are meditative. Rajneesh
• Do what you love

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… the joy of passion

• You implanted your highest goal into the heart of those passions: then they became your virtues and joys. Friedrich Nietzsche
• Joy and satisfaction show up more frequently and on time when you have passion Wayne Dyer
• Passion is a feeling that tells you: this is the right thing to do. Nothing can stand in my way. It doesn’t matter what anyone else says. This feeling is so good that it cannot be ignored. I’m going to follow my bliss and act upon this glorious sensation of joy. Wayne Dyer
• The more we’re doing to ensure we’re following our joy and passion, that’s when we really start to put the gas in our lives. Joshua Mohr
• You can only feel creative when there is joy. When there is a sense of passion. Andreas Moritz
• Great passions may give us a quickened sense of life, ecstasy and sorrow of love, the various forms of enthusiastic activity, disinterested or otherwise, which comes naturally to many of us. Walter Pater
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Vulnerability bring joy

• I spent a lot of years trying to outrun or outsmart vulnerability by making things certain and definite, black and white, good and bad. My inability to lean into the discomfort of vulnerability limited the fullness of those important experiences that are wrought with uncertainty: love, belonging, trust, joy, and creativity, to name a few. Brené Brown
• When we lose our tolerance for vulnerability, joy becomes foreboding. Brené Brown
• Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity. It is the source of hope, empathy, accountability, and authenticity. If we want greater clarity in our purpose or deeper and more meaningful spiritual lives, vulnerability is the path. Brené Brown
• Vulnerability is the core of shame and fear and our struggle for worthiness, but it appears that it’s also the birthplace of joy, of creativity, of belonging, of love. Brené Brown
• We’re never so vulnerable than when we trust someone-but paradoxically, if we cannot trust, neither can we find love or joy. Walter Inglis Anderson
• Vulnerability

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Intimacy brings joy

• The joy of intimacy is the reward of commitment. Joshua Harris
• Two things I do value a lot, intimacy and the capacity for joy, didn’t seem to be on anyone else s list. Richard Bach
• When a person realizes he has been deeply heard, his eyes moisten. I think in some real sense he is weeping for joy. It is as though he were saying, “Thank God, somebody heard me. Someone knows what it’s like to be me”. Carl Rogers
• When love is accompanied with deep intimacy, it raises us to the highest level of human experience. In this exalted space, we can surrender our egos, become vulnerable and know levels of joy and well-being unique among life experiences. We attain a glimpse of the rapture that can be ours. Boundaries are blurred, there are no limitations and we rejoice in union. We become one and, at the same time, both. Leo Buscaglia
• Intimacy

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Sex brings joy

• For me, physical love has always been bound to an irresistible feeling of innocence and joy. Thus, I cannot love in tears but in exaltation. Albert Camus
• Nobody leaves a house where there is peace, joy and good sex. Laura Schlessinger
• Self-consciousness is the destroyer of erotic joy. Ian Mcewan
• Sex is a game, a weapon, a toy, a joy, a trance, an enlightenment, a loss, a hope. Sallie Tisdale
• The human being places sexual intercourse above all other joys, but leaves it out of his heaven. Mark Twain
• Only the united beat of sex and heart together can create ecstasy. Anaïs Nin
• Sex means nothing–just the moment of ecstasy, that flares and dies in minutes. Philip Larkin
• Passion begins where your bodies unite and ends where your souls dance. When your spirits can join together at the same time as your bodies become one, then all of you will be making love. There will be nothing left between you that is not love. This is sacred communion. This is ecstasy. Barbara De Angelis
• And that night we knew that to hold the body of women in our arms in neither ugly nor shameful, but the one ecstasy granted to the race of men. Ayn Rand
• It amazes me that organs that piss Can give human beings such perfect bliss. Irving Layton
• Sexuality

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Companionship and human connection bring joy

• A man would have no pleasures in discovering all the beauties of the universe, even in heaven itself, unless he had a partner to whom he might communicate his joys. Marcus Tullius Cicero
• Oh, how miserable it is to have no one to share your sorrows and joys, and, when your heart is heavy, to have no soul to whom you can pour out your woes. Frederic Chopin
• Connecting with the people who are meant to be part of your own North Star is much more important than any aspect of business. It’s the essence of happiness, the full realization of your potential for joy. Martha Beck
• We all find joy and radiance and a reason to move on even in the most dire of circumstances. Even in chaos and madness, theres still a beauty that comes from just the vibrancy of another human spirit. Ishmael Beah
• The most wonderful of all things in life, I believe, is the discovery of another human being with whom one’s relationship has a glowing depth, beauty, and joy as the years increase. Hugh Walpole
• And I leave you now, not with sadness but with satisfaction and joy that we came together and walked, arm in arm, through this brief moment of eternity. Who could ask for more? Og Mandino
• The soul has no other wish than to have an unlimited number of fearless, joyful playmates on the journey home. Penney Peirce
• Her joy with him was like nothing she had ever experienced. His love for her felt like a miracle. Elizabeth Chandler
• Holding someone’s hand was always my idea of joy. Clarice Lispector
• It is the color which love wears, and cheerfulness, and joy–these three. It is the light in the window of the face by which the heart signifies to father, husband, or friend that it is at home and waiting. Henry Ward Beecher
• It’s all well and good saying you avoid pain by avoiding relationships, but what about the wonderful things you’re avoiding as well? What about the joy and the intimacy and the trust that come with finding someone you love? Jane Green
• When we’re in a human body, we don’t care about universal collapse – instead, we care only about a meeting of the eyes, a glimpse of bare flesh, the caressing tones of a loved voice, joy, love, light, the orientation of a house plant, the shade of a paint stroke, the arrangement of hair. David Eagleman
• We wish the joy of love, the joy of companionship, of being in the company of, in the presence of the person we love, of living a common life with that person, perhaps ultimately the joy of perfect union. Mortimer Adler
• If you were all alone in the universe with no one to talk to, no one with which to share the beauty of the stars, to laugh with, to touch, what would be your purpose in life? It is other life; it is love, which gives your life meaning. This is harmony. We must discover the joy of each other, the joy of challenge, the joy of growth. Mitsugi Saotome
• Life seems somehow less shocking, painful, and lonely – and more hopeful, agreeable, and beautiful – when our experiences are confirmed by those of others. Although each of us is unique, there are familiar responses and doubts and joys that let us know we have kin. We are not, after all, too strange to live. Rosalie Maggio
• Our greatest joy and our greatest pain comes in our relationships with others. Stephen Covey
• The primary joy of life is acceptance, approval, the sense of appreciation and companionship of our human comrades. Many men do not understand that the need for fellowship is really as deep as the need for food, and so they go through life accepting many substitutes for genuine, warm, simple. Joshua L. Liebman
• There is no hope of joy except in human relations. Antoine de Saint-Exupery
• There is no human reason to be here, except for the sheer ecstasy of being crowded together. Jean Baudrillard
• Connection

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Friendship brings joy

• Friendship improves happiness and abates misery, by the doubling of our joy and the dividing of our grief. Marcus Tullius Cicero
• Friendship is one of the sweetest joys of life. Many might have failed beneath the bitterness of their trial had they not found a friend. Charles Spurgeon
• Friendship is only friendship when it is real. Passionate and relentless. Forgiving and joyful. Don’t forget today to have real moments with your friends. Not a text, or a tweet, an Instagram– that’s all deceit. Hold real hands, kiss genuine lips, be a truly strong human force. Lady Gaga
• Friendship multiplies joy and divides sorrow. Nicky Gumbel
• Friendship redoubleth joys, and cutteth griefs in half. Francis Bacon
• Friendships multiply joys and divide griefs. Thomas Fuller
• Happiness, laughter and joy abound, when friends, family, and lovers are around. Amy Davis
• Friendship is the unspeakable joy and blessing that result to two or more individuals who from constitution sympathize. Such natures are liable to no mistakes, but will know each other through thick and thin. Between two by nature alike and fitted to sympathize, there is no veil, and there can be no obstacle. Who are the estranged? Two friends explaining. Henry David Thoreau
• Flowers are lovely; love is flower-like; Friendship is a sheltering tree; Oh the joys that came down shower-like, Of friendship, love, and liberty, Ere I was old! Samuel Taylor Coleridge
• I am sensible, that, according to the past experience of mankind, friendship is the chief joy of human life and moderation the only source of tranquillity and happiness. David Hume
• I cannot even imagine where I would be today were it not for that handful of friends who have given me a heart full of joy. Let’s face it, friends make life a lot more fun. Charles R. Swindoll
• I don’t think life offers any greater experience than the joyful sense of recognition when one finds in a new acquaintance a real friend, or when an old relationship deepens into friendship, or when one finds an old friendship intact despite the passage of years and many absences. Abigail McCarthy
• Nothing opens the heart like a true friend, to whom you may impart griefs, joys, fears, hopes…and whatever lies upon the heart. Francis Bacon
• A real friend, on the other hand, exults in his friend’s happiness, rejoices in all his joys, and is ready to afford him the best advice. Herodotus
• Real friends are our greatest joy and our greatest sorrow. It were almost to be wished that all true and faithful friends should expire on the same day. Francois Fenelon
• To want friendship is a great fault. Friendship ought to be a gratuitous joy, like the joys afforded by art or life. Simone Weil
• Words cannot express the joy which a friend imparts. Saint John Chrysostom
• Perfect friendship is rarely achieved, but at its height it is an ecstasy. Stephen Ambrose
• The very society of joy redoubles it; so that whilst it lights upon my friend it rebounds upon myself, and the brighter his candle burns the more easily will it light mine. Robert Sout
• Friendship

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Marriage brings joy

• Marriage halves our griefs, doubles our joys, and quadruples our expenses. Gilbert K. Chesterton
• Marriage is not a static state between two unchanging people. Marriage is a psychological and spiritual journey that begins in the ecstasy of attraction, meanders through a rocky stretch of self-discovery, and culminates in the creation of an intimate, joyful, lifelong union. Harville Hendrix
• Never say that marriage has more of joy than pain. Euripides
• Two persons who have chosen each other out of all the species with a design to be each other’s mutual comfort and entertainment have, in that action, bound themselves to be good-humored, affable, discreet, forgiving, patient, and joyful, with respect to each other’s frailties and perfections, to the end of their lives. Joseph Addison
• Marriage hath in it less of beauty but more of safety, than the single life; it hath more care, but less danger, it is more merry, and more sad; it is fuller of sorrows, and fuller of joys; it lies under more burdens, but it is supported by all the strengths of love and charity, and those burdens are delightful. Jeremy Taylor
• Marriage provides the solace of worked-on friendship and the joy of being known profoundly. Imogen Stubbs
• Marriage can be more an exultant ecstasy than the human mind can conceive. This is within the reach of every couple, every person. Spencer W. Kimball
• My whole working philosophy is that the only stable happiness for mankind is that it shall live married in blessed union to woman-kind – intimacy, physical and psychical between a man and his wife. I wish to add that my state of bliss is by no means perfect. H. Lawrence
• Marriage

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Family brings joy

• A daughter is the happy memories of the past, the joyful moments of the present, and the hope and promise of the future. Bruce Barton
• Happiness, laughter and joy abound, when friends, family, and lovers are around. Amy Davis
• To maintain a joyful family requires much from both the parents and the children. Each member of the family has to become, in a special way, the servant of the others. Pope John Paul II
• The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other’s life. Richard Bach
• The deepest joys and blessings in life are associated with family, parenthood, and sacrifice. Ezra Taft Benson
• The family is where most of our joy comes from. Aidan Quinn
• There is no day more joyful in my life than when I see all my family around me. That’s the best it gets. Mitt Romney
• Family

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Children and being a parent bring joy

• One of the greatest joys in life is watching a child laugh. Demi Lovato
• The instant of birth is exquisite. Pain and joy are one at this moment. Ever after, the dim recollection is so sweet that we speak to our children with a gratitude they never understand. Madeline Tiger Bass
• No joy in nature is so sublimely affecting as the joy of a mother at the good fortune of a child. Charles Francis Richter
• Of all the joys that lighten suffering earth, what joy is welcomed like a new born child? Caroline Norton
• One of the joys of being a grandparent is getting to see the world again through the eyes of a child. David Suzuki
• The joy and happiness it gives you or the emotions you go through when you hold your child in your arms for the first time are indescribable! I really thought that there was going be this moment when a ray of light from heaven would come pouring in, background music would start playing with angels singing, but none of that happens! Abhishek Bachchan
• The joy and smile of even one child is worth more than the prancing intellects of a thousand men. Bryant H. McGill
• For some reason people say such negative things about having a baby – you won’t sleep, the stress, the crying. Nonsense. It’s a total joy so cherish every second. James Mullinger
• Words can not express the joy of new life. Hermann Hesse
• Until you have a son of your own . . . you will never know the joy, the love beyond feeling that resonates in the heart of a father as he looks upon his son. Kent Nerburn
• Raising kids is part joy and part guerilla warfare. Ed Asner
• The joy in motherhood comes in moments. There will be hard times and frustrating times, but amid the challenges there are shining moments of joy and satisfaction. M. Russell Ballard
• The power of this experience [fatherhood] can never be explained. It is one of those joyful codings that rumbles in the species far below understanding. When it is experienced it makes you one with all men in a way that fills you with warmth and harmony. Kent Nerburn
• If a child is too keep alive his inborn sense of wonder … he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement, and mystery of the world we live in. Rachel Carson
• Occasionally the child, too, is a pleasure, though mostly she is a joy, which means in fact she gives us not much pleasure at all, but rather that strange admixture of terror, pain, and delight that I have come to recognise as joy, and now must find some way to live with daily. Zadie Smith
• Raising children,   Parenting

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Creative expression brings joy …

• What the artist or creative scientist feels is not anxiety or fear; it is joy. I use the word in contrast to happiness or pleasure. The artist, at the moment of creating, does not experience gratification or satisfaction… Rather, it is joy, joy defined as the emotion that goes with heightened consciousness, the mood that accompanies the experience of actualizing one’s own potentialities. Rollo May
• If I pull from places of faith, joy and gratitude, then I have the wind of creativity behind me. And, my work in the world is much more effective. Elizabeth Lesser
• Why should we all use our creative power? Because there is nothing that makes people so generous, joyful, lively, bold and compassionate, so indifferent to fighting and the accumulation of objects and money. Brenda Ueland
• Joy is but the sign that creative emotion is fulfilling its purpose. Charles Du Bos
• Creative activity is not a superimposed, extraneous task against which the body, or brain protests, but an orchestration of … joyful doing. Gyorgy Kepes
• Creativity is an ode to life. It is not a form of entertainment. It is a form of joy. Wynn Bullock
• Creativity is connected to your passion, that light inside you that drives you. That joy that comes when you do something you love. That small voice that tells you, ‘I like this. Do this again. You are good at it. Keep going.’ That is the juicy stuff that lubricates our lives and helps us feel less alone in the world. Amy Poehler
• Creativity is essential to any kind of joyful living. Sometimes I act, sometimes I draw, I paint, I write poems. I can’t imagine living without it. Zephyr Teachout
• Creativity is the joy of not knowing it all. Ernie J Zelinski
• The highest prize we can receive for creative work is the joy of being creative. Creative effort spent for any other reason than the joy of being in that light filled space, love, god, whatever we want to call it, is lacking in integrity. Marianne Williamson
• Human happiness, true prosperity and joyful living can only emerge from a life of elegant simplicity, embedded in the arts and crafts. Satish Kumar
• You can only feel creative when there is joy. When there is a sense of passion. Andreas Moritz
• The simple joy of taking an idea into one’s own hands and giving it proper form, that’s exciting. George Nelson
• There is the happiness which comes from creative effort. The joy of dreaming, creating, building, whether in painting a picture, writing an epic, singing a song, composing a symphony, devising new invention, creating a vast industry. Henry Miller
• There is a curiously sharp sense of joy – or perhaps better expressed, a sense of mild ecstasy – that comes when you find the particular form required by your creation. Rollo May
• True happiness comes from the joy of deeds well done, the zest of creating things new. Antoine de Saint-Exupery
• We have to create new things to keep our joy. If there is no newness, how can we have enthusiasm? And if there is no enthusiasm, do we make any progress? Sri Chinmoy
• Creativeness is liberation from slavery. Man is free when he finds himself in a state of creative activity. Creativeness leads to ecstasy of the moment. The products of creativeness are within time, but the creative act itself lies outside time. Nikolai Berdyaev
• Where there is joy there is creation. Upanishads
• Creativity,   Creative expression

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… and the creative process brings joy …

• Ecstasy is the accurate term for the intensity of consciousness that occurs in the creative act. Rollo May
• Creativity is the process of bringing something new into being. Creativity requires passion and commitment. It brings to our awareness what was previously hidden and points to new life. The experience is one of heightened consciousness: ecstasy. Rollo May
• The joy is in creating, not maintaining. Vince Lombardi
• The joy is in the creation. Rob Bell
• What is central to business is the joy of creating. Peter Robinson
• There is no joy other than the joy of creating. There is no man who is truly alive other than one who is creating. All others are just shadows on the earth with nothing to do with being alive. The joy of living, whether it is love or action, is the joy of creating. Romain Rolland
• The joy of the creative process, minute by minute, hour after hour, day by day, is the sublime path to true happiness. George Lois
• There is no greater joy in life than the joy of creating something. Abhay Kumar
• There is no greater joy than that of feeling oneself a creator. The triumph of life is expressed by creation. Henri Bergson
• The joy is in the creation. So I’ve never had a target audience, it’s always been about being true to the work as it emerges. Rob Bell
• Creation is a sustained period of bliss, even though the subject can still be very sad. Because there’s the triumph of coming through and understanding that you have, and that you did it the way only you could do it. You didn’t do it the way somebody told you to do it. You did it just the way you had to do it, and that is what makes us us. Alice Walker

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… which leads to beautiful, joyful art …

• Art is an expression of joy and awe. It is not an attempt to share one’s virtues and accomplishments with the audience, but an act of selfless spirit. David Mamet
• Art is man’s expression of his joy in labor. Henry A. Kissinger
• Art is the distillate of life, the winnowed result of the experience of a people, the record of the joyous adventure of the creative spirit in us toward a higher world; a world in which all ideas, thoughts, and forms are pure and beautiful and completely clear, the world Plato held to be perfect and eternal. All works that have in them an element of joy are records of this adventure. Lawren Harris
• Art is the only thing that helps people stay alive, and it is the only thing that has allowed people to create joy in this insane, suppressive universe. And art is the only thing that they can’t get rid of. They’ve tried, but ultimately they can’t stamp it out. Juliette Lewis
• Art made by the people for the people, as a joy to the maker and the user. William Morris
• Artists know that you can take an advertising sign and make something joyful with it. It’s sometimes hard for people who don’t make things to understand labor and joy and attention and whimsy. Ellen Gallagher
• Why is joy not considered a fit subject for an artist? Eugene Manlove Rhodes
• Paint with joy – with the same joy that you would make love to a woman. Pierre-Auguste Renoir
• The adventurous state of mind is a high house… The joy of adventure is unaccountable. This is the attractiveness of artwork. It is adventurous, strenuous and joyful. Agnes Martin
• Geometry is moribund. I want a lilt and joy to art. Ellsworth Kelly
• I cannot see that art is anything less than a way of making joys perpetual. Rebecca West
• I do think that there’s art that is tortured, but I prefer art that has the joy in it. Josh Ritter
• I have touched with a sense of art some people-they felt the love and the life. Can you offer me anything to compare to that joy for an artist? Mary Cassatt
• I once heard some idiot on the radio saying that all great art has suffering as its dominant theme, and that the greatest artists are only able to create because they suffer immensely in their own lives. What a bunch of bullshit. Look at Van Gogh’s paintings: there’s as much joy in them as there is pain. Suffering is only a single color, and by itself it’s boring. Bart Yates
• It is extraordinary to see how the discovery of one single free stroke of paint can fill you with such joy and amazement. Michele Cassou
• May those who have touched our canvas with their eyes and hearts grow knowing the joy and wonder of an artist of life. Robert Regis Dvorak
• To me, art is not a solitary delight. It is a means of stirring the greatest number of men by providing them with a privileged image of our common joys and woes. Albert Camus
• The joy of painting lies precisely in the challenge of memory and the challenge of translation from the lived experience to the two-dimensional or three-dimensional symbol. Paul Kane
• Thought that can merge wholly into feeling, feeling that can merge wholly into thought – these are the artist’s highest joy. Thomas Mann
• Performance art is about joy, about making something that’s so full of kind of a wild joy that you really can’t put into words. Laurie Anderson
• The great works are produced in such an ecstasy of love that they must always be unworthy of it, however great their worth otherwise. Friedrich Nietzsche
• Art is the communication of ecstasy. D. Ouspensky
• Art

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… allowing the viewer to share in the joy of the artist

• Art awakens a sense of real by establishing an intimate relationship between our inner being and the universe at large, bringing us a consciousness of deep joy. Rabindranath Tagore
• No matter what is happening in life or in the world – war, natural disaster, poor health, pain, the death of loved ones – if existence is filled with art, music and literature, life will be fulfilling, a joy. Karen DeCrow
• To me, it’s our job as artists. You must bring joy. Bobby McFerrin
• Art postulates communion, and the artist has an imperative need to make others share the joy which he experiences himself. Igor Stravinsky
• For art and joy go together, with bold openness, and high head, and ready hand – fearing naught and dreading no exposure. James Whistler

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Babies are inherently joyful

• Spend some time observing babies. They don’t work; they poop in their pants, and they have no goals other than to expand, grow and explore this amazing world. Be like that baby you once were, in terms of being joyful. Wayne Dyer
• Just watch babies. They’re in a constant state of love. How could they possibly be so joyful? Because they’re in harmony with the source. Some call that source God or soul or spirit or consciousness. They have no resistance to being joyful – unlike adults. You didn’t come forth into this world to suffer, to be anxious, fearful or depressed. Remember, your thoughts, not your world, cause you stress. And you can change your thoughts. Wayne Dyer
• It is the nature of babies to be in bliss. Deepak Chopra
• Joy is in fact your natural state of being. Babies enter this state very easily because they are fully in the present moment. They do not seek themselves in the past or future. Steve Pavlina

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Children are inherently joyful

• ..they string our joys, like jewels bright, upon the thread of years. Edgar Guest
• Adult characters are all the things they’ve encountered over time. But kids haven’t accumulated all the life experience, all the regrets. They tend to be more in the moment, more willing to play, to be joyful. Viggo Mortensen
• When we look at a child, we see that sense of fullness, of intrinsic aliveness, of joy in being, is not the result of something else. There is value in just being oneself, it is not because of something one does or doesn’t do. It is there in the beginning, when we are children, but slowly it gets lost. A. H. Almaas
• Up to one’s last breath, one may retain the simple joys of childhood, the poetic ecstasies of the young person, the enthusiasms of maturity. Right to the end, one may intoxicate one’s spirit with flowers, with beauty and with smiles. Eliphas Levi
• Children at once accept joy and happiness with quick familiarity, being themselves naturally all happiness and joy. Victor Hugo
• It is possible to be happy and joyful most of the time. You just have to look at little children and see their natural joy. You may say that little children are free and don’t have anything to worry about, but you are free too! You are free to choose worry or to choose joy, and whatever you choose will attract exactly that. Worry attracts more worry. Joy attracts more joy! Rhonda Byrne
• The cooperative, creative, and flexible parts of your children reside in the joyful part of their brain. Bill Crawford
• Just imagine becoming the way you used to be as a very young child, before you understood the meaning of any word, before opinions took over your mind. The real you is loving, joyful, and free. The real you is just like a flower, just like the wind, just like the ocean, just like the sun. Miguel Angel Ruiz
• Pressing the shutter has remained a moment of joyful recognition, comparable to the delight of a child balancing on tiptoe and suddenly, with a small cry of delight, stretching out a hand toward a desired object. Inge Morath
• The heavy armor becomes the light dress of childhood; the pain is brief, the joy unending. Arthur Schopenhauer
• From a boy I gloated on existence. Earth to me Seemed all-sufficient and my sojourn there One trembling opportunity for joy. Alan Seeger
• I remember, when I was young, How easily my mood changed from sad to gay. … But now that age comes, A moment of joy is harder and harder to get. Bai Juyi
• Up to one’s last breath, one may retain the simple joys of childhood, the poetic ecstasies of the young person, the enthusiasms of maturity. Right to the end, one may intoxicate one’s spirit with flowers, with beauty and with smiles. Eliphas Levi
• Be like a joyous child living gloriously in the ever present Now without a single worry or concern about even the next moment of time. Eileen Caddy
• Small children are powerful in an unconscious (that is to say, in a self-un-important) way. Their power radiates from them as joy, innocence, spontaneity, and a magic which is powerful enough to bring monarchs to their knees. Imagine the President picking up a two year old. Who do you suppose will play by whose rules? Roger Stephens
• Those who rhapsodize about the ease and joy of childhood have perhaps forgotten what it’s like to be 12 years old. Joyce Maynard
• With childhood comes a brief grace period of ignorant bliss — when you’re not aware of the pain around you. That is the most special, truly unique time. It is the core of adult lament. Barry Privett
• Childhood

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Youth and joy are finely woven

• I’ve never understood why people consider youth a time of freedom and joy. It’s probably because they have forgotten their own. Margaret Atwood
• A lively retrospect summons back to us once more our youth, with vivid reflex of its early joys and unstained pleasures. Alfred de Musset
• Youth’s the season made for joys. John Gay
• Youth, with swift feet, walks onward in the way; the land of joy lies all before his eyes. Edward Bulwer-Lytton
• People are always talking about the joys of youth-but, oh, how youth can suffer! May Sarton
• The joy of the young is to disobey. Jean Cocteau
• To most teenagers, life is a strange uncharted land filled with a mixture of new joys, intensely felt, and painful confusions for which they know no anodyne. Eleanor Roosevelt
• Life is islands of ecstasy in an ocean of ennui, and after the age of thirty land is seldom seen. Luke Rhinehart
• Curiosity, earnest research to learn the hidden laws of nature, gladness akin to rapture, as they unfolded to me, are among the earliest sensations I can remember. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
• Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive But to be young was very heaven. William Wordsworth
• There are moments when I wish I could roll back the clock and take all the sadness away, but I have the feeling that if I did, the joy would be gone as well. Nicholas Spark
• Youth

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We lose touch with this joy as we grow older

• And then there is the universal role of adult. When you play that role, you take yourself and life very seriously. Spontaneity, lightheartedness, and joy are not part of that role. Eckhart Tolle
• While we are born with curiosity and wonder and our early years full of the adventure they bring, I know such inherent joys are often lost. I also know that, being deep within us, their latent glow can be fanned to flame again by awareness and an open mind. Sigurd F. Olson
• When a man or a woman holds fast to youth, even if successfully, there is something of the pitiful and the tragic involved. It is the everlasting struggle of the soul to retain the joy of earth, whose fleeing distinguishes it from heaven, and whose retention is not accomplished without an inner knowledge of its futility. Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
• I think it would be great if more adults were able to maintain that joyful creativity that we all experience as children. Adam Rubin
• Do not lose joy in life as you grow old in years. Let not your ‘joie de vivre be crushed under the weight of years. Zoroaster
• I think play and joy and feeling good deserve more of our time. I don’t see why adults are supposed to grow out of those things. Bobby McFerrin
• An adult is one who has lost the grace, the freshness, the innocence of the child, who is no longer capable of feeling pure joy, who makes everything complicated, who is afraid of being happy, and who, because it is easier to bear, has gone back to sleep. The wise man is a happy child. Arnaud Desjardins
• Growing older

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Being truly yourself brings joy

• May I be I is the only prayer–not may I be great or good or beautiful or wise or strong today… may I be me….five foot eleven, brown hair/eyed, smart, serious, happy, frustrated, impatient, joyful, running, sleeping, smiling, eating, trying, believing, listening, being and becoming. E. E. Cummings
• Mindfully practicing authenticity during our most soul-searching struggles is how we invite grace, joy and gratitude into our lives. Brené Brown
• May we all soon go about as our real selves and take joy in it, saying, yes, yes, to whatever we are. Carol Emshwiller
• A joyful life is an individual creation that cannot be copied from a recipe. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
• Be yourself. If you water yourself down to please people or to fit in or to not offend anyone, you lose the power, the passion, the freedom and the joy of being uniquely you. It’s much easier to love yourself when you are being yourself. Don Coppersmith
• People can be happy in only one way, and that is if they are authentically themselves. Then the springs of happiness start flowing, they become more alive, they become a joy to see, a joy to be with; they are a song, they are a dance. Osho
• Every morning when I wake up, I experience an exquisite joy – the joy of being Salvador Dalí – and I ask myself in rapture: What wonderful things this Salvador Dalí is going to accomplish today? Salvador Dali
• Finding joy is probably tantamount to finding yourself and being comfortable in your own skin. Morgan Freeman
• I think we each have a personal sweet spot as well. It’s the state of mind in which we experience the most joy and satisfaction in being ourselves. And from that place of pleasure and joy in being ourselves, energy arises to flow out into our day bringing with it the depth and resonance of our own beingness, bringing with it blessing. David Spangler
• Persons of high self-esteem are not driven to make themselves superior to others; they do not seek to prove their value by measuring themselves against a comparative standard. Their joy is being who they are, not in being better than someone else. Nathaniel Branden
• The more you create authentic power, the more the characteristics of authentic power become yours, and the more meaning, purpose and joy enter your life. Gary Zukav
• There is nothing of which we are more ashamed than of not being ourselves. And there is nothing which brings us greater joy and happiness than to think, feel, and say what is ours. Erich Fromm
• Being yourself

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Living in alignment with your values brings joy

• Happiness is a state of non-contradictory joy–a joy without penalty or guilt, a joy that does not clash with any of your values and does not work for your own destruction, not the joy of escaping from your mind, but of using your mind’s fullest power, not the joy of faking reality, but of achieving values that are real, not the joy of a drunkard, but of a producer. Ayn Rand
• Joy springs from a life lived with eternity’s values in view. Charles R. Swindoll
• The joy of life consists in the inevitable, continual triumph of new values. Wassily Kandinsky
• Integrity is about being integrated with the spiritual values of the Universe. It is also about being happy, because happiness and joy mean that you’re coming into integrity with your soul. Michael Beckwith
• What I know for sure is that you feel real joy in direct proportion to how connected you are to living your truth. Oprah Winfrey
• Values,   Integrity

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Living life on your own terms brings joy

• And for a moment―for a split second―everything else falls away, the whole pattern and order of my life, and a huge joy crests in my chest. I am no one, and I owe nothing to anybody, and my life is my own. Lauren Oliver
• Follow your own path

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Truth brings joy …

• Truth is the mother of joy. Truth civilizes, ennobles and purifies. The grandest ambition that can enter the soul is to know the truth. Robert Green Ingersoll
• The ideals which have always shone before me and filled me with the joy of living are goodness, beauty, and truth. Albert Einstein
• In all perception of the truth there is a divine ecstasy, an inexpressible delirium of joy, as when a youth embraces his betrothed virgin. Henry David Thoreau
• Inspiration is that state in which mind and heart are connected. When you feel inspired you find yourself thrust into a world where ordinary objects and events are full of light, as if illuminated from within. This inner light is truth, and when you suddenly see the truth, we gain insight, clarity, and joy. Deepak Chopra
• Joy and truth both have a way of peeking through any dark curtain. Margarita Engle
• Yes, all my illusions will burn into illumination of joy, and all my desires ripen into fruits of love. Rabindranath Tagore
• To the scientist there is the joy in pursuing truth which nearly counteracts the depressing revelations of truth. H. P. Lovecraft
• What one wishes is to be touched by truth and to be able to interpret that truth so that one may use what one is feeling and experiencing, be it despair or joy, in a way that will add meaning to one’s life and will hopefully touch others as well. Michael Jackson
• The joy of suddenly learning a former secret and the joy of suddenly discovering a hitherto unknown truth are the same to me – both have the flash of enlightenment, the almost incredibly enhanced vision, and the ecstasy and euphoria of released tension. Paul Halmos
• The joy which is caused by truth and noble thoughts shows itself in the words by which they are expressed. Joseph Joubert
• Truth illuminates and gives joy; and it is by the bond of joy, not of pleasure, that men’s spirits are indissolubly held. Matthew Arnold
• Truth brings bliss, truth brings celebration. Rajneesh
• Truth

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… and being fully aware of reality

• Human beings have illusions. The enlightened don’t have illusions. They see things as they are, and in that seeing, they see ecstasy and joy. They see the play of life. Frederick Lenz
• Joy is being fully aware of reality. Simone Weil
• I have always postulated that we have to find a new way to deal with reality. It’s not so much facts that interest me, but a deeper truth in them – an ecstasy of truth, an ecstatic truth that illuminates us. That’s what I’ve been after. Werner Herzog
• Reality is only possible if you are in the realm of joy. Nirmala Srivastava
• Reality

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Understanding and insight bring joy

• The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding. Leonardo da Vinci
• The joy in what I do is mostly creativity. I think creativity is an ecstatic impulse that we all have. And there’s nothing more joyful than having a moment of creative insight and actually creating, or rather manifesting or incarnating your creative insight into actual, physical reality. Deepak Chopra
• There’s no one there to understand, there’s just understanding, which flourishes in you as peace, joy and contentment. Mooji
• Being able to “go beyond the information” given to “figure things out” is one of the few untarnishable joys of life. Jerome Bruner
• The only thing that really teaches one what life’s about the joy of understanding, the joy of coming in contact with what life really signifies – is suffering, affliction. Malcolm Muggeridge
• During periods of relaxation after concentrated intellectual activity, the intuitive mind seems to take over and can produce the sudden clarifying insights which give so much joy and delight. Fritjof Capra
• We are an intelligent species and the use of our intelligence quite properly gives us pleasure. In this respect the brain is like a muscle. When we think well, we feel good. Understanding is a kind of ecstasy. Carl Sagan
• Understanding,   Insight

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Science brings joy

• There is so much wonder and joy in science, about understanding how the world works and why the world is the way it is. Dallas Campbell
• In the temple of science are many mansions, and various indeed are they that dwell therein and the motives that have led them thither. Many take to science out of a joyful sense of superior intellectual power; science is their own special sport to which they look for vivid experience and the satisfaction of ambition; many others are to be found in the temple who have offered the products of their brains on this altar for purely utilitarian purposes. Albert Einstein
• Knowing how contented, free, and joyful is life in the world of science, one fervently wishes that many would enter its portals. Dmitri Mendeleev
• Our task as we grow older in a rapidly advancing science, is to retain the capacity of joy in discoveries which correct older ideas, and to learn from our pupils as we teach them. Hans Zinsser
• People think that if you are a scientist you have to give up that joy of discovery, that passion, that sense of the great romance of life. I say thats completely opposite of the truth. Ann Druyan
• Scientific understanding is our joy. Henry A. Wallace
• Scientists have discovered that the small, brave act of cooperating with another person, of choosing trust over cynicism, generosity over selfishness, makes the brain light up with quiet joy. Natalie Angier
• Science

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Philosophy brings joy

• Philosophical discussions habitually make men happy and joyful not frowning and sad. Michel de Montaigne
• Philosophy

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Learning brings joy

• From the freedom to explore comes the joy of learning. E. O. Wilson
• It is only when the mind is free from the old that it meets everything anew, and in that there is joy. Jiddu Krishnamurti
• We teach what we like to learn and the reason many people go into teaching is vicariously to reexperience the primary joy experienced the first time they learned something they loved. Stephen Brookfield
• Learning a new thing is a shortcut to joy and informs your area of mastery. Sara Genn
• Learning itself is a fulfilling adventure at all points in the process. In fact, psychologists have listed learning as one of the basic, universal joys of human experience. William Westney
• People are born with intrinsic motivation, self-esteem, dignity, curiosity to learn, joy in learning. W. Edwards Deming
• Real learning, attentive, real learning, deep learning, is playful and frustrating and joyful and discouraging and exciting and sociable and private all the time, which is what makes it great. Eleanor Duckworth
• The joy of learning is as indispensable in study as breathing is in running. Simone Weil
• Learning

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Growth brings joy

• Embracing conflict can become a joy when we know that irritation and frustration can lead to growth and fascination. Thomas Crum
• We must discover the joy of each other, the joy of challenge, the joy of growth. Mitsugi Saotome
• The joy of life consists in the exercise of one’s energies, continual growth, constant change, the enjoyment of every new experience. To stop means simply to die. The eternal mistake of mankind is to set up an attainable ideal. Aleister Crowley
• Growth is a greater mystery than death. All of us can understand failure, we all contain failure and death within us, but not even the successful man can begin to describe the impalpable elations and apprehensions of growth. Norman Mailer
• Growth

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Transcendence of our limits brings joy …

• When everything goes wrong, what a joy to test your soul and see if it has endurance and courage! Nikos Kazantzakis
• Perfection is something we should all strive for. It’s a duty and a joy to perfect one’s nature. R. D. Laing
• We frail humans are at one time capable of the greatest good and, at the same time, capable of the greatest evil. Change will only come about when each of us takes up the daily struggle ourselves to be more forgiving, compassionate, loving, and above all joyful in the knowledge that, by some miracle of grace, we can change as those around us can change too. Mairead Corrigan
• Conquering any difficulty always gives one a secret joy, for it means pushing back a boundary-line and adding to one’s liberty. Henri Frederic Amiel
• Don’t be afraid to expand yourself, to step out of your comfort zone. That’s where the joy and the adventure lie. Herbie Hancock
• Don’t ever believe that you are going to be peaceful-life is not like that. When you are changing all the time, you’ve got to continue to keep adjusting to change, which means that you are going to be constantly facing new obstacles. That’s the joy of living. And once you are involved in the process of becoming, there is no stopping. Leo Buscaglia
• Transcendence

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… and being all we can be

• Joy, rather than happiness, is the goal of life, for joy is the emotion which accompanies our fulfilling our natures as human beings. It is based on the experience of one’s identity as being of worth and dignity. Rollo May
• Joy comes from using your potential. Will Schultz
• Joy is the effect which comes when we use our powers. Rollo May
• You must…know that you are great. Never forget that. It is where true joy lies. Gurumayi Chidvilasananda
• The butterfly lures us not only because he is beautiful, but because he is transitory. The caterpillar is uglier, but in him we can regard the better joy of becoming. Cynthia Ozick
• To be granted some kind of usable talent and to be able to use it to the fullest extent of which you are capable – this, to me, is a kind of joy that is almost unequaled. Lawrence Welk
• Imagine how high you could soar if you were to clear away all those inhibitions that come between you and the sky. Oprah Winfrey
• Possibility,   Potential

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Striving brings joy

• Be it jewel or toy, not the prize gives the joy, but the striving to win the prize. Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton
• Finally, there is more genuine joy in climbing the hill of success, even though sweat may be spent and toes may be stubbed, than in aimlessly sliding down the path to failure. If a straight, honorable path has been chosen, the gaining of the summit yields lasting satisfaction. The morass of failure, if through laziness, indifference or other avoidable fault, yields nothing but ignominy and sorrow for self and family and friends. B. C. Forbes
• Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb. Winston Churchill
• For me, half the joy of achieving has been the struggle and the fight, the pitting myself against the world and all its competition – and winning. Conrad Veidt
• In the end you get what you deserve, the amount of effort you put in determines the amount of joy that you receive. Leon Brown
• It is not the victory that makes the joy of noble hearts; but the combat. Charles Forbes Rene de Montalembert
• It’s not about perfection; it’s about the joy of striving. Thomas Keller
• You will succeed if you persevere; and you will find joy in overcoming obstacles. Helen Keller
• In very truth it is the unattained which gives zest to the commonplace and brims the cup of our daily life with keenest joy. Margaret Elizabeth Sangster
• I get boundless joy and satisfaction just from trying! Sri Chinmoy
• Striving

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There is joy in the struggle

• Always maintain a joyful mind. Appreciate the struggles as opportunities to wake up. Jeff Bridges
• Struggle so that all may live this rich, overflowing life. And be sure that in this struggle you will find a joy greater than anything else can give. Peter Kropotkin
• She comprehended the perversity of life, that in the struggle lies the joy. Maya Angelou
• What a joy it is that the road ahead is an uphill climb. For where it leads is all the way to the top. Ralph Marston
• The marvelous richness of human experience would lose something of rewarding joy if there were no limitations to overcome. The hilltop hour would not be half so wonderful if there were no dark valleys to traverse. Helen Keller
• The struggle which is not joyous is the wrong struggle. The joy of the struggle is not hedonism and hilarity, but the sense of purpose, achievement and dignity. Germaine Greer
• The summit is believed to be the object of the climb. But its true object–the joy of living–is not in the peak itself, but in the adversities encountered on the way up. Eiji Yoshikawa
• There is no great fun, satisfaction, or joy derived from doing something that’s easy. John Wooden
• Life is difficult but worthwhile

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Achievement brings joy

• Dream big; at least you will have the joy of reaching for the stars instead of living in a box filled with unopened gifts. David Robinson
• If there had been no fear of failure, neither would there be any joy in success. Paul Tournier
• The joy of accomplishment is the greatest joy there is. R. G. LeTourneau
• There is always joy in achieving ,but the greater satisfaction lies in sharing the achievement. Kipchoge Keino
• There is joy in work. There is no happiness except in the realization that we have accomplished something. Henry Ford
• Jump for joy as we accomplish the dreams we adore. Patch Adams
• Achievement,    Success

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Victory and triumph bring joy …

• Defeat is for the valiant. Only they will know the honor of losing and the joy of winning. Paulo Coelho
• Have courage, be capable of loving…. Be happy in love. Be joyful in victory. Follow the dictates of your heart. Paulo Coelho
• I have to confess that I have so rarely experienced triumph that I cannot claim to know it well enough to judge, but it seems to be at best a momentary joy followed instantly by sadness, and, then, of necessity, by wariness. Mark Helprin
• I like winning. There’s also a certain joy in it. I feel fulfilled by it. Carl Icahn
• I’ve grown to realize the joy that comes from little victories is preferable to the fun that comes from ease and the pursuit of pleasure. Lawana Blackwell
• In a moment comes either death or joyful victory. Horace
• Joy is of the will which labours, which overcomes obstacles, which knows triumph. William Butler Yeats
• Winning has a joy and discrete purity to it that cannot be replaced by anything else. A. Bartlett Giamatti
• When people doubt your abilities, the greatest joy on earth is making them eat their words. Zacky Vengeance
• This so much joy! This so much joy! If I should fail, what poverty! And yet, as poor as I Have ventured all upon a throw; Have gained! Yes! Hesitated so this side the victory! Emily Dickinson
• To the winner, there is 100-percent elation, 100-percent fun, 100-percent laughter; and yet the only thing left to the loser is resolution and determination. Vince Lombardi
• Victory,   Winning

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… and the path to victory

• It is not the victory that makes the joy of noble hearts; but the combat. Charles Forbes Rene de Montalembert
• Joy lies in the fight, in the attempt, in the suffering involved, not in the victory itself Mahatma Gandhi
• Winning is important to me, but what brings me real joy is the experience of being fully engaged in whatever I’m doing. Phil Jackson
• Life is a journey

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Losing can bring joy in the right state of mind

• When you win and the other fellow loses, what do you see? A losing face. There is great joy in losing and making the other person win and have a happy face. Who will be the happiest person? The one who brings happiness to others. Swami Satchidananda
• The rapture of pursuing is the prize the vanquished gain. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
• Losing

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Being and presence brings joy

• All cravings are the mind seeking salvation or fulfillment in external things and in the future as a substitute for the joy of Being. Eckhart Tolle
• Being, not doing, is my first joy. Theodore Roethke
• Beingness is just joy. Mooji
• Thought began to take over and obscured the simple yet profound joy of connectedness with being. Eckhart Tolle
• In today’s rush we all think too much, seek too much, want too much and forget about the joy of just Being. Eckhart Tolle
• Health is the greatest possession. Contentment is the greatest treasure. Confidence is the greatest friend. Non-being is the greatest joy. Lao Tzu
• How will you become free? With a quiet mind Come into that empty house, your heart, And feel the joy of the way Beyond the world. Look within – The rising and the falling. Gautama Buddha
• All the things that truly matter, beauty, love, creativity, joy and inner peace arise from beyond the mind. Eckhart Tolle
• It is the Divine Presence that gives value to life. This Presence is the source of all peace, all joy, all security. Find this Presence in yourself and all your difficulties will disappear. Mirra Alfassa
• There’s something in our makeup and in our bodies that really wants to luxuriate more in just the joy of being alive and not always consuming, creating, building. There’s something inside of us that wants desperately to stop and experience and just be – not just always do. Elizabeth Lesser
• Being,   Presence
• The Joy of Being (Eckhart Tolle)

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Embracing the now brings joy

• Learning to live in the present moment is part of the path of joy. Sarah Ban Breathnach
• Ask yourself: Is there joy, ease and lightness in what i’m doing? If there isn’t then time is covering up the present moment, and life is perceived as a burden or a struggle. Eckhart Tolle
• If we can just let go and trust that things will work out the way they’re supposed to, without trying to control the outcome, then we can begin to enjoy the moment more fully. The joy of the freedom it brings becomes more pleasurable than the experience itself. Goldie Hawn
• Just pausing for two to three breaths is a perfect way to stay present. This is a good use of our life. Indeed, it is an excellent, joyful use of our life. Instead of getting better and better at avoiding, we can learn to accept the present moment as if we had invited it, and work with it instead of against it, making it our ally rather than our enemy. Pema Chodron
• Each moment is magical, precious and complete and will never exist again. We forget that now is the moment we are in, that the next one isn’t guaranteed. And if we are blessed with another moment, any joy, creativity or wisdom it brings will ensue from the way we live in the present one. Susan L. Taylor
• Find joy and peace in this very moment. Nhat Hanh
• Focus on where you are instead of where you wish you were. The joy will follow. John Bingham
• Joy results from total acceptance of your present moment. Whenever you project your consciousness away from the present moment and seek happiness in another time or place, you leave joy behind. When all parts of your being fully embrace where you are right now, you can’t help but feel joyful. Steve Pavlina
• Here, start living moment to moment totally and intensely, joyfully and playfully — and you will see that nothing goes out of control; that your intelligence becomes sharper; that you become younger; that your love becomes deeper. And when you go out into the world, wherever you go, spread life, playfulness, joy, as far away as possible — to every nook and corner of the earth.Nothing else in all life is such a maker of joy and cheer as the privilege of doing good. J.R. Miller
• When we are mindful, deeply in touch with the present moment, our understanding of what is going on deepens, and we begin to be filled with acceptance, joy, peace and love. Nhat Hanh
• When the past has passed from you at last, let go. Then climb down and begin the rest of your life. With great joy. Elizabeth Gilbert
• Making peace with one’s truth is to live in one’s own moment, moving passionately forward in joy. Michelle Cruz
• Our cares are all To-day, our joys are all To-day; And in one little word, our life, what is it but Today? Martin Farquhar Tupper
• Peace is present right here and now, in ourselves and in everything we do and see. Every breath we take, every step we take, can be filled with peace, joy, and serenity. The question is whether or not we are in touch with it. We need only to be awake, alive in the present moment. Nhat Hanh
• Whatever you have committed wrong in the past or whatever you used to think of the future, the present becomes divine. And that divine present is the ocean of joy of which you are the part and particle. Just enjoy that. Nirmala Srivastava
• The only joy in the world is to begin. It is good to be alive because living is beginning, always, every moment. Cesare Pavese
• The past is gone, the future is not here, now I am free of both. Right now, I choose joy. Deepak Chopra
• Think about a piece of music – some great symphony – we don’t expect it to get better as it develops, or that its whole purpose is to reach the final crescendo. The joy is found in listening to the music in each moment. Alan Watts
• Tomorrow contains more joy than any yesterday you recall. Mike Murdock
• Living in the now

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Joy exists only in the present

• Joy is never tomorrow it’s always now! Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
• Joy and life exist nowhere but the present. Maxine Hong Kingston
• Paradise is here or nowhere: you must take your joy with you or you will never find it. Orison Swett Marden
• Present joys are more to flesh and blood Than a dull prospect of a distant good. John Dryden
• Wisdom and joy arise when you learn to exist now rather than in the nonexistent past or future. Nhat Hanh
• You’re worried about how you’re going to feel at the end of your life? What about right now? Live. Right this minute. That’s where the joy is at. Abigail Thomas

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Meditation brings joy

• When you sit in meditation, feel the joy in your soul. Ma Jaya
• The Divine rejoices in your being happy. God, or the Creation, is so happy when you are happy. When you dance, sing, and jump up and down happily, that is true prayer, that is true meditation. Meditation is a fountain of joy, an ecstasy; and Divine enjoys that more. Divine is not fond of your suffering. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
• When joy and prayer are married, their first born child is gratitude. Charles Spurgeon
• Prayer can assume very different forms, from quiet, blessed contemplation of God, in which eye meets eye in restful meditation, to deep sighs or sudden exclamations of wonder, joy, gratitude or adoration. Ole Hallesby
• Meditate, become more aware and then you will see: choices disappear, a choicelessness arises. And it is such a tremendous joy to have a choiceless spontaneity. It is such a freedom. Choice is such a burden. Rajneesh
• By practicing meditation we establish love, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity as our home. Sharon Salzberg
• The soul loves to meditate, for in contact with the Spirit lies its greatest joy. If, then you experience mental resistance during meditation, remember that reluctance to meditate comes from the ego; it doesn’t belong to the soul. Paramahansa Yogananda
• All creativity is a deep suffering, unless your creativity does not come out of the mind, but out of meditation. When it comes out of meditation, creativity is sharing the joy, sharing the blissfulness that you have. Mind has no joy – it is really a wound, very painful. Rajneesh
• Every cell in our body has the capacity to hold infinity. Let us tap the full potential that nature has bestowed on us, the potential to hold infinity in every cell of the body. For that, we must practice meditation regularly. Then our physiology undergoes a change and every cell in the body is filled with prana – life force. As the level of prana in the body rises, we bubble with joy. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
• Follow not after the vain, understand the ills of sense pleasures. One who is vigilant and meditative, obtains deep joy. Gautama Buddha
• If you want to simplify your life, meditation is the answer. If you want to fulfil your life, meditation is the answer. If you want to have joy and offer joy to the world at large, then meditation is the only answer. Sri Chinmoy
• To be aflame with silence, with joy, is wisdom. It is not through logic but through love. It is not through words but through a wordless state called meditation or a state of no-mind, satori, samadhi. Rajneesh
• Meditation is just a strategy to take away your personality, your thoughts, your mind, your identity with the body, and leave you absolutely alone inside, just a living fire. And once you have found your living fire, you will know all the joys and all the ecstasies that human consciousness is capable of. Rajneesh
• Real happiness is something most people never know. What we experience in deep meditation, that ecstasy is beyond what human beings call happiness Frederick Lenz
• Because truth is exceedingly subtle and serene, the bliss of the Self can manifest only in a mind rendered subtle and steady by assiduous meditation. Ramana Maharshi
• Meditation

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Awareness and attention bring joy

• All happiness comes from awareness. The more we are conscious the deeper the joy. Acceptance of pain, non-resistance, courage and endurance – these open deep and perennial sources of real happiness, true bliss. Nisargadatta Maharaj
• As your awareness of the riches available to you in your everyday life grows, you are on the way to becoming the laughing Buddha. Life is joyous. Life is Light. Life is happy. You are awake at last. Susan Jeffers
• Joy is being fully aware of reality. Simone Weil
• The necessary condition for the existence of peace and joy is the awareness that peace and joy are available. Nhat Hanh
• To become mindful … present … is really the invitation to work with the joys and the sorrows of the world, and to do so with this gift, this capacity of loving awareness, of attention that actually can be present for the whole dance. Jack Kornfield
• We can shift from time-bound awareness into timeless awareness . . . to the ecstasy that can only be found in the present moment. Deepak Chopra
• Even in rapture, part of the mind watches. Mason Cooley
• There is ecstasy in paying attention. Anne Lamott
• The highest ecstasy is the attention at its fullest. Simone Weil
• Bliss follows witnessing – and that is going to be your meditation. Witness your body as separate, witness your mind as separate. Remain rooted in witnessing: “I am only a watcher.” That is going to transform your whole life, it is going to give you the ultimate. Rajneesh
• The present moment is filled with joy and happiness. If you are attentive, you will see it. Thich Nhat Hanh
• Awareness,   Attention,    Mindfulness

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Acceptance brings joy

• If you patiently accept what comes, you will always pray with joy. Evagrius Ponticus
• Gratitude to God is to accept everything, even my problems, with joy. Mother Teresa
• The best way to show your gratitude to God and people is to accept everything with joy….We may not be able to give much but we can always give the joy that springs from a heart that is in love with God. All over the world people are hungry and thirsty for God’s love. We meet that hunger by spreading joy. Joy is one of the best safeguards against temptation. Mother Teresa
• Body tension will always be present if our good feeing is just ordinary, self-centered happiness. Joy has no tension in it, because joy accepts whatever is as it is. Joko Beck
• Joy is being willing for things to be as they are. Joko Beck
• To long for everything: sorrow; to accept everything: joy. Katherine Mansfield
• Today I will simply accept. I will relinquish the need to be in resistance to myself and my environment in any way. I will move forward in joy by accepting where I am right now. Melody Beattie
• We learn in our guts, not just in our brain, that a life of joy is not in seeking happiness, but in experiencing and simply being with the circumstances of our life as they are; not in fulfilling personal wants, but in fulfilling the needs of life. Charlotte Joko Beck
• When pain is accepted for what it is, a lesson and a warning, and deeply looked into and heeded, the separation between pain and pleasure breaks down, both become just experience – painful when resisted, joyful when accepted. Nisargadatta Maharaj
• Acceptance

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Freedom from the world, through non-attachment, brings joy

• The world does not yield to changing. By its very nature it is painful and transient. See it as it is and divest yourself of all desire and fear. When the world does not hold and bind you, it becomes an abode of joy and beauty. You can be happy in the world only when you are free of it. Nisargadatta Maharaj
• As any good Buddhist will tell you, the only way to find permanent joy is by embracing the fact that nothing is permanent. Martha Beck
• Health, contentment, and trust are your greatest possessions. And freedom your greatest joy. Gautama Buddha
• Joy only can be achieved through complete detachment, the detachment which is egoless and superegoless. Nirmala Srivastava
• When you drop your unnecessary things, you finally can swoop and fly in vast space. It is so blue, so bright, and so nice, so airy and fresh. You can stretch your wings and breathe the air. You can do anything you want. You have experienced cheerfulness and joy, and finally the bliss of freedom occurs in you. Chogyam Trungpa
• Our joy ends where love of the world begins. Charles Spurgeon
• To be wise was to be above joy and sorrow, fear and pity, ambition and humiliation. It was to hate nothing and to love nothing, and above all to be utterly indifferent to the love and hate of others. Michael Ende
• The way to infinite joy is through the elimination of desire, – no attachments, no aversions. Lester Levenson
• Freedom,   Non-attachment

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Letting go brings joy

• Life teaches you the art of letting go in every event. When you have learnt to let go, you will be joyful and as you start being joyful, more will be given to you. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
• One thing I’ve learned about life is that if you really let go, it’s just a joy ride. Ricky Williams
• So let the world go, but hold fast to joy. May Sarton
• The movement of the heart as we practice generosity in the outer world mirrors the movement of the heart when we let go of conditioned views about ourselves on our inner journey. Letting go creates a joyful sense of space in our minds Sharon Salzberg
• To enjoy anything, we cannot be attached to it… What we usually try to do is capture any joy that comes our way before it can escape… We try to cling to pleasure, but all we succeed in doing is making ourselves frustrated because, whatever it promises, pleasure simply cannot last. But if I am willing to kiss the joy as it flies, I say, “Yes, this moment is beautiful. I won’t grab it. I’ll let it go. Eknath Easwaran
• If you want to reach a state of Bliss – make a decision to relinquish the need to control, the need to be approved and the need to judge. Deepak Chopra
• Letting go

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Contentment brings a quiet joy

• Admit to your contentment so it can tip over into joy. Danielle LaPorte
• Contentment gives peace and joy in our minds and hearts, which is the reward of living God’s way. Charles L. Allen
• Joy was more than just an absence of discomfort. Brandon Sanderson
• One should be either sad or joyful. Contentment is a warm sty for eaters and sleepers. Eugene O’Neill
• One has to go beyond the mind to experience the spiritual bliss of desirelessness. Meher Baba
• Joy of life seems to me to arise from a sense of being where one belongs. . . of being foursquare with the life we have chosen. All the discontented people I know are trying sedulously to be something they are not, to do something they cannot do. David Grayson
• Contentment,   Fulfilment

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Stillness and calm brings joy

• A happy life must be to a great extent a quiet life, for it is only in an atmosphere of quiet that true joy can live. Bertrand Russell
• Be still, and the world is bound to turn herself inside out to entertain you. Everywhere you look, joyful noise is clanging to drown out quiet desperation. Barbara Kingsolver
• Joy draws its nourishment from quietness and from the unfathomable. Dietrich Bonhoeffer
• When our mind is calm, we’re better able to find peace of mind and live a joyful life. The Dalai Lama
• Meditation, stillness, time simply to ‘be’, to do nothing at all and to do it with joy Margaret Silf
• Silence is the perfect herald of joy. William Shakespeare
• Space and silence are synonymous. Joy, fulfillment brings the silence. Desire brings noise. Silence is the cure, because in silence you come back to the source, and that creates joy. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
• The greater the level of calmness of our mind, the greater our peace of mind, the greater our ability to enjoy a happy and joyful life. The Dalai Lama
• The mind is the world and the no-mind is freedom from the world. The mind is misery and no-mind is the end of misery and the beginning of ecstasy. Rajneesh
• It is through the cracks in our brains that ecstasy creeps in. Logan Pearsall Smith
• When the mind is in a passive and receptive state, absolutely still and in silence, the Essence or Buddhata is liberated from the mind, and ecstasy arrives. Samael Aun Weor
• Bring your mind to noble silence. Unify your mind in noble silence. Concentrate your mind in noble silence… Enter into rapture and pleasure born of silence derived of concentration and awareness that is free from thought and fabrication. Gautama Buddha
• The quiet mind is richer than a crown….Such sweet content, such minds, such sleep, such bliss beggars enjoy when princes oft do miss. Robert Greene
• Still the bubbling mind; herein lies freedom and bliss eternal. Sivananda
• Purpose of words is to create silence. Purpose of action is to bring deep rest. Purpose of deep rest is to bring you fulfillment. In fulfillment you find joy, bliss Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
• Stillness,   Calm

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Peace brings joy

• Make peace with the universe. Take joy in it. It will turn to gold. Resurrection will be now. Every moment, a new beauty. Rumi
• In life, choose peace instead of happiness. Happiness may give you a joy for a very short time but peace will give you a joy forever. So make a wise choice. Dhyaanguru
• Joy is peace dancing and peace is joy at rest. F. B. Meyer
• Peace is joy at rest. Joy is peace on its feet. Anne Lamott
• Peace

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Solitude brings joy

• She was not accustomed to taste the joys of solitude except in company. Edith Wharton
• The ecstasy of solitude comes when you are not frightened to be alone no longer belonging to the world or attached to anything. Then, like that dawn that came up this morning, it comes silently, and makes a golden path in the very stillness, which was at the beginning, which is now, and which will be always there. Jiddu Krishnamurti
• Discover that we are capable of solitary joy and having experienced it, know that we have touched the core of self. Barbara Ascher
• Alone let him constantly meditate in solitude on that which is salutary for his soul, for he who meditates in solitude attains supreme bliss. Guru Nanak
• That inward eye/ Which is the bliss of solitude. William Wordsworth
• Solitude

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Patience brings joy

• Patience is the key to joy. Rumi
• Patience is the mother of joy. William Logan
• Patience

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God is pure joy and is the source of all joy

• We should, to begin with, think that God leads a very interesting life, and that he is full of joy. Undoubtedly he is the most joyous being in the universe. The abundance of his love and generosity is inseparable from his infinite joy. All of the good and beautiful things from which we occasionally drink tiny droplets of soul-exhilarating joy, God continuously experiences in all their breadth and depth and richness. Dallas Willard
• Where others see but the dawn coming over the hill, I see the soul of God shouting for joy. William Blake
• God is not an obligation or burden. God is the joy of my life! Mychal Judge
• God is the Source of real love, joy, peace, wisdom and everything else we all need to be the people He has created us to be. Joyce Meyer
• God’s gift to his sorrowing creatures is a joy worthy of their destiny. Johann Sebastian Bach
• God’s peace is joy resting. His joy is peace dancing. F. F. Bruce
• Whatever is your greatest joy and treasure, that is your god. Charles Spurgeon
• God is the ultimate experience of silence, of beauty, of bliss, a state of inner celebration. Rajneesh
• God

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Prayer brings joy …

• Joy is prayer. Joy is strength. Joy is love. Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls. God loves a cheerful giver. She gives most who gives with joy. Mother Teresa
• If you patiently accept what comes, you will always pray with joy. Evagrius Ponticus
• Prayer gives you opportunity to praise God and to request His divine intervention in your life and/or the lives of others. Prayer allows you to glorify His Name and also provides an avenue for you to be filled with joy. John C. Broger
• The joy which answers to prayer give, cannot be described; and the impetus which they afford to the spiritual life is exceedingly great. George Muller
• My personal prayer is simply my joy to be alive, and to live in gratitude and generosity. Miguel Angel Ruiz
• Prayer is an exchange. We leave our burdens, worries and sin in the hands of God. We come away with oil of joy and the garment of praise. F.B. Meyer
• Prayer is a universal phenomenon in the soul-life of man. It is the soul’s reaction to the terrors and joys, the uncertainties and dreams of life. Joseph Hertz
• Joy is the grace we say to God. Ray Bradbury
• Joy and patience are far above our strength… We must persevere in prayer that he may not permit our hearts to faint… Prayer and perseverance are necessary in our daily conflicts. The best remedy to the weariness is diligence in prayer. John Calvin
• Prayer need not be a burdensome duty. It is meant to be a joyful and creative privilege. Hannah Hurnard
• The real end of prayer is not so much to get this or that single desire granted, as to put human life into full and joyful conformity with the will of God. Charles Bent
• Prayer is the means that God has ordained for the supply of grace that is necessary to be joyful in hope. Alistair Begg
• Simply to ask a blessing upon one’s circumstances, whatever they are, is somehow to improve them, and to tap some mysterious source of energy and joy. Marjorie Holmes
• Prayer

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… prayer in both times of joy and sorrow …

• This conversion into prayer of our everyday joys, sorrows, hopes and desires is at first a conscious labor, but after a while it becomes second nature, so that converse with God becomes inextricably and wonderfully woven into the fabric of our lives. Sheila Cassidy
• For me, prayer is an upward leap of the heart, an untroubled glance towards heaven, a cry of gratitude and love which I utter from the depths of sorrow as well as from the heights of joy. Therese of Lisieux
• When joy and prayer are married, their first born child is gratitude. Charles Spurgeon
• It seemed to me that where others had prayed before to their God, in their joy or in their agony, was of itself a sacred place. Elizabeth Gaskell
• Prayer is a universal phenomenon in the soul-life of man. It is the soul’s reaction to the terrors and joys, the uncertainties and dreams of life. Joseph Hertz
• Love of God is pure when joy and suffering inspire an equal degree of gratitude. Simone Weil
• The greater our present trials, the louder will our future songs be, and the more intense our joyful gratitude. Charles Spurgeon

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… especially prayers of gratitude and celebration

• Prayer is the fruit of joy and thankfulness. Evagrius Ponticus
• Joy and thanksgiving expressed in prayer and praise according to the Word of God are the heart of the Church’s worship. John Calvin
• Spiritual joy is what you experience when you choose to give thanks to God no matter what happens-even when things go wrong. Jim George
• My personal prayer is simply my joy to be alive, and to live in gratitude and generosity. Miguel Angel Ruiz
• Holy joy lies in the habit of murmuring thanks to God for the smallest of graces. Ann Voskamp
• If we think we will have joy only by praying and singing psalms, we will be disillusioned. But if we fill our lives with simple good things and constantly thank God for them, we will be joyful, that is, full of joy. Richard J. Foster
• Gratitude is our most direct line to God and the angels. If we take the time, no matter how crazy and troubled we feel, we can find something to be thankful for. The more we seek gratitude, the more reason the angels will give us for gratitude and joy to exist in our lives. Terry Taylor
• Gratitude is the joy that arises in response to God’s good will toward us in all his gifts. John Piper
• The discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and have is given to me as a gift of love, a gift to be celebrated with joy. Henri Nouwen
• In the deepest night of trouble and sorrow God gives us so much to be thankful for that we need never cease our singing. With all our wisdom and foresight we can take a lesson in gladness and gratitude from the happy bird that sings all night, as if the day were not long enough to tell its joy. Samuel Taylor Coleridge
• Summer is a prodigal of joy. The grass Swarms with delighted insects as I pass, And crowds of grasshoppers at every stride Jump out all ways with happiness their guide; And from my brushing feet moths flit away In safer places to pursue their play. In crowds they start. I marvel, well I may, To see such worlds of insects in the way, And more to see each thing, however small, Sharing joy’s bounty that belongs to all. And here I gather, by the world forgot, Harvests of comfort from their happy mood, Feeling God’s blessing dwells in every spot And nothing lives but owes him gratitude. John Clare
• Celebration,    Gratitude

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Connecting to God brings joy

• There is no God, but there is certainly a quality I call godliness. It comprises compassion, love, friendship, joy, creativity. It brings you new songs, it brings you new dances. It brings you the truth, and the immersion of you into the truth. Rajneesh
• Joy is the echo of God’s life within us. Joseph Marmion
• A life of intimacy with God is characterized by joy. Oswald Chambers
• I know who I am, and the thing about power for me is that it’s connected to a source that’s obviously greater than myself. Any time you can connect to the source and understand that that’s where all of your energy, your creativity, your joy and your triumph come from, I consider that to be authentic power. Oprah Winfrey
• When a soul has advanced so far on the spiritual road as to be lost to all the natural methods of communing with God; when it seeks Him no longer by meditation, images, impressions, nor by any other created ways, or representations of sense, but only by rising above them all, in the joyful communion with Him by faith and love, then it may be said to have found God of a truth, because it has truly lost itself as to all that is not God, and also as to its own self. John of the Cross
• Be rightly related to God, find your joy there, and out of you will flow rivers of living water. Oswald Chambers
• I am a glorious child of God. I am joyful, serene, positive, and loving. Marianne Williamson
• Confidence brings joy when we let God be God. Charles R. Swindoll
• Deep, contended joy comes from a place of complete security and confidence in God – even in the midst of trial. Charles R. Swindoll
• Desire to see God, be fearful of losing Him, and find joy in everything that can lead to Him. If you act in this way, you will always live in great peace. Teresa of Avila
• Enjoy the joy of being enjoyed by God. Sam Storms
• Joy isn’t grounded in our circumstances; it is grounded in the unchanging character of God. Carolyn Custis James
• Man loves because he is Love. He seeks Joy, for he is Joy. He thirsts for God for he is composed of God and he cannot exist without Him. Sathya Sai Baba
• We need God in ways we do not know. Don’t limit your experience of God to what you can think to ask. Ask for the unknown joy. John Piper
• We have God’s joy in our blood. Frederick Buechner
• We make a god out of whatever we find most joy in. So find your joy in God and be done with all idolatry. John Piper
• The real sign of His blessings is if you can have more and more happiness inside. Learn always to be happy; to be happy with the happiness of God. Even- minded and cheerful. This is the fastest route to divine bliss. Goswami Kriyananda

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Contemplating God brings joy

• Begin now, as you read these words, as you sit in your chair, to offer your whole selves, utterly and in joyful abandon, in quiet, glad surrender to Him who is within. In secret ejaculations of praise, turn in humble wonder to the Light, faint though it may be. Thomas Raymond Kelly
• All I know is “make a joyful noise unto the Lord”, and I do that whatever opportunity I get. Robert Hood
• So great was my joy in God that I took no heed of looking at the angels and the saints, because all their goodness and all their beauty was from Him and in Him. Angela of Foligno
• At the immortal touch of thy hands my little heart loses its limits in joy and gives birth to utterance ineffable. Rabindranath Tagore
• I know in whom all my highest hopes and dearest joys are centered. I know in whom my whole heart can rest — so sweetly and so surely. Joshua Chamberlain
• A little quiet reflection will remind me that yes to God always leads in the end to joy. Elisabeth Elliot
• There is more healing joy in five minutes of true worship than in five nights of revelry. Aiden Wilson Tozer
• Ecstasy is a glimpse of the infinite; horror is full disclosure. Kirk J. Schneider
• There is no joy in the finite; there is joy only in the Infinite. The Upanishads
• Let the power come. Let ecstasy erupt. Allow your heart to expand and overflow with adoration for this magnificent creation and for the love, wisdom and power that birthed it all. Rapture is needed now – rapture, reverence and grace. Ann Mortifee
• Contemplation

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To be aware of the presence of God brings joy …

• Joy is the infallible sign of the presence of God. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
• Joy is not necessarily the absence of suffering, it is the presence of God. Sam Storms
• Joy and laughter are the gifts of living in the presence of God and trusting that tomorrow is not worth worrying about. Henri Nouwen
• I have felt a presence that disturbs me with the joy of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime of something far more deeply interfused, whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, and the round ocean, and the living air, and the blue sky, and in the mind of man. William Wordsworth
• To see Him and know Him and be in His presence is the soul’s final feast. Beyond this there is no quest. Words fail. We call it pleasure, joy, delight. But these are weak pointers to the unspeakable experience. John Piper
• We should fix ourselves firmly in the presence of God by conversing all the time with Him…we should feed our soul with a lofty conception of God and from that derive great joy in being his. We should put life in our faith. We should give ourselves utterly to God in pure abandonment, in temporal and spiritual matters alike, and find contentment in the doing of His will,whether he takes us through sufferings or consolations. Brother Lawrence
• Having your spiritual radar up in constant anticipation of His presence- even in the midst of the joyful chaos and regular rhythms of your everyday living- is paramount in hearing God, because sometimes the place and manner you find Him is the least spectacular you’d expect. Priscilla Shirer
• The goal of prayer is to live all of my life and speak all of my words in the joyful awareness of the presence of God. Prayer becomes real when we grasp the reality and goodness of God’s constant presence with ‘the real me.’ John Ortberg
• God is a God of the present. God is always in the moment, be that moment hard or easy, joyful and painful. Henri Nouwen
• Happy is the person who not only sings, but feels God’s eye is on the sparrow, and knows He watches over me. To be simply ensconced in God is true joy. Alfred Armand Montapert
• In joy or sorrow, feebleness or might, Peace or commotion, be thou, Father, my delight. George MacDonald
• Joy is the sheer evidence of God. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
• Our joy in Him may be a fluctuating thing: His joy in us knows no change. Hudson Taylor
• The fullness of Joy is to behold God in everything. Julian of Norwich
• The ecstasy and completion of absorption in God is so fantastic that you can’t possibly have lost anything because all the things you’ve always loved and always experienced came forth from there and exist there and are always there. Frederick Lenz
• As the witnessing deepens, you start becoming drunk with the divine. This is what is called ecstasy. Rajneesh
• The joy of God is so exquisite that any sacrifice is worth the effort and seeming pain. David R. Hawkins
• A new day rose upon me. It was as if another sun had risen into the sky; the heavens were indescribably brighter, and the earth fairer; and that day has gone on brightening to the present hour. I have known the other joys of life, I suppose, as much as most men; I have known art and beauty, music and gladness; I have known friendship and love and family ties; but it is certain that till we see God in the world–God in the bright and boundless universe–we never know the highest joy. It is far more than if one were translated to a world a thousand times fairer than this; for that supreme and central Light of Infinite Love and Wisdom, shining over this world and all worlds, alone can show us how noble and beautiful, how fair and glorious they are. Orville Dewey

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… and to feel God within us

• Innately within us, resides the Spirit which wants to enlighten you, to give the peace, the bliss and the joy of our being. Nirmala Srivastava
• The surest sign that God is alive in you is joy. Robert Barron
• Joy is God in the marrow of our bones. Eugenia Price

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Surrendering to the will of God brings joy

• There is only one way to bring peace to the heart, joy to the mind, and beauty to the life; it is to accept and do the will of God. William Barclay
• The soul of one who serves God always swims in joy, always keeps holiday, is always in her palace of jubilation, ever singing with fresh ardor and fresh pleasure a new song of joy and love. John of the Cross
• Fullness of joy is discovered only in the emptying of will. Ann Voskamp
• There is only one basic desire that motivates the spiritual seeker-to make the experience of God, of divine bliss and joy, the center of the life experience. We are spiritual beings living in a material universe, and as such, our first priority is to nurture that eternal part of us. The eleventh step of AA’s twelve-step program states it beautifully: “Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him, praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out.” Douglas Bloch
• Do not be afraid of what God asks of you! It is worth saying ‘yes’ to God. In him we find joy. Pope Francis
• Everything if given to God can become your gateway to joy. Elisabeth Elliot
• If your actions are motivated by selfish interests rather than God, you are mortgaging tomorrow’s joy. T. B. Joshua
• Love aright and you will never be sad. Embrace God’s will and you will be filled with joy and peace. Rose Philippine Duchesne
• Peace, joy, and happiness can come only through an acceptance of God’s revealed plan of life. Theodore M. Burton
• To bear adversity with meek submission to the will of God; to endure chastisement with all long-suffering and joyfulness; to appear cheerful amid surrounding gloom, hopeful amidst desponding circumstances, happy in God when there is nothing else to make us happy; he who does this has indeed made great advances in the divine life. John Angell James
• Joy is the settled assurance that God is in control of all the details of my life, the quiet confidence that ultimately everything is going to be all right, and the determined choice to praise God in all things. Kay Warren
• Joy is what happens when we see that God’s plan is perfect and we’re already starring in the perfect show. Marianne Williamson
• Surrender

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Love of God brings joy

• At the center of care for the heart is the love of God. This must be the joyful aim of our life. Dallas Willard
• A joyful heart is like the sunshine of God’s love, the hope of eternal happiness. Mother Teresa
• A Deity believed, is joy begun; A Deity adored, is joy advanced; A Deity beloved, is joy matured. Each branch of piety delight inspires. Edward Young
• Divine love is perfect peace and joy, it is a freedom from all disquiet, it is all content and happiness; and makes everything to rejoice in itself. William Law
• Joy emanates out of the abiding sense of God’s fierce love for us. Margaret Feinberg
• Love is the overflow of joy in God that meets the needs of others. John Piper
• Devotion is the spark that can fire up your chemistry and energy to such a level that it creates an explosion of ecstasy within you. Jaggi Vasudev
• Praise is the mode of love which always has some element of joy in it. C. S. Lewis
• God’s purpose for man is to acquire a seeing eye and an understanding heart.” “God gave you life and bestowed upon you his attributes; eventually you will return to him.” “The rewards of life and devotion to God are love and inner rapture, and the capacity to receive the light of God. Rumi
• Divine love

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Trust of God brings joy

• If you’re missing joy and peace, you’re not trusting God. Joyce Meyer
• Trust in divine order, Trust in God

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Obedience to God brings joy

• In the spiritual life only one thing produces genuine joy and that is obedience. Richard J. Foster
• The key of joy is disobedience. Aleister Crowley
• Obedience out of love is joy. Heidi Baker
• Obedience is the pathway to blessing. It’s the means of protection. It’s the means of joy. It’s the means to finding God’s best in our lives. Nancy Leigh DeMoss
• Obedience to the will of God is the pathway to perpetual honor and everlasting joy. Charles Spurgeon

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God wants joy for us

• God wants us to be in joy, God wants us to be happy. Because of this extraordinary consciousness and this great ability for wonder and marvel, and without denying any of the terrors and horrors of the world, we also have an obligation toward joy and toward miracle and excitement. Elizabeth Gilbert
• God is not a killjoy; he just opposes what kills joy. John Piper
• I need to learn. Joy is at the heart of God’s plan for human beings. The reason for this is worth pondering awhile: Joy is at the heart of God himself. We will never understand the significance of joy in human life until we understand its importance to God. I suspect that most of us seriously underestimate God’s capacity for joy. John Ortberg

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Religion should be about joy

• Religion without joy–it is no religion. Theodore Parker
• Since religion was so much a part of my life as a child, and since my childhood was so happy and so full of laughter and joy, I associate the two. Even my concept of Jesus goes along with this association of happiness and religion. Minnie Pearl
• A church ought to express the joy of religion as well as its majesty. Barbara Mertz
• A joyful congregation is an attractive congregation. T. B. Joshua
• When the affections so kindly break loose, Joy, is another name for Religion. Laurence Sterne
• The trouble with many men is that they have got just enough religion to make them miserable. If there is not joy in religion, you have got a leak in your religion. Billy Sunday
• We must be bright and cheerful. Long faces do not make religion. Religion should be the most joyful thing in the world, because it is the best. Swami Vivekananda
• Art and Religion are, then, two roads by which men escape from circumstance to ecstasy. Between aesthetic and religious rapture there is a family alliance. Art and Religion are means to similar states of mind. Clive Bell
• A joyless Catholic is the devil’s best tool. A joyful Catholic is God’s greatest instrument. Scott Hahn
• A true religious instinct never deprived man of one single joy; mournful faces and a sombre aspect are the conventional affectations of the weak-minded. Hosea Ballou
• Religion

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Spirituality should be about joy

• Always remember, joy is not incidental to spiritual quest. It is vital. Nachman of Breslov
• All human beings have a right, and duty, to be joyful. Anything that thwarts this spiritual human right goes against the very purpose of human being. Spirituality mandates us to wage a relentless war to eradicate these forces of oppression and disempowerment. Agnivesh
• God is always joking. Look at your own life – it is a joke! Look at other people’s lives, and you will find jokes and jokes and jokes. Seriousness is illness; seriousness has nothing spiritual about it. Spirituality is laughter, spirituality is joy, spirituality is fun. Rajneesh
• I teach you joy, not sadness. I teach you playfulness, not seriousness. I teach you love and laughter, because to me there is nothing more sacred than love and laughter, and there is nothing more prayerful than playfulness. I don’t teach you renunciation, as it has been taught down the ages. I teach you: Rejoice, rejoice, and rejoice again! Rejoicing should be the essential core of my sannyasins. Rajneesh
• I think joy and sweetness and affection are a spiritual path. We’re here to know God, to love and serve God, and to be blown away by the beauty and miracle of nature. You just have to get rid of so much baggage to be light enough to dance, to sing, to play. You don’t have time to carry grudges; you don’t have time to cling to the need to be right. Anne Lamott
• In the spiritual life one becomes just like a little child, without resentment, without attachment, full of life and joy. Paramahansa Yogananda
• Joy is the triumph of life; it is the sign that we are living our true life as spiritual beings. William Ralph Inge
• Man cannot live without joy; therefore when he is deprived of true spiritual joys it is necessary that he become addicted to carnal pleasures. Thomas Aquinas
• Spirituality lies in regarding existence merely as a vehicle for contemplation, and contemplation merely a vehicle for joy. George Santayana
• Spiritually, life is a festival, a celebration. Joy is of the essence of life. Agnivesh
• The aim of spiritual life is to awaken a joyful freedom, a benevolent and compassionate heart in spite of everything. Jack Kornfield
• When you approach spirituality as an adventure of being alive, you start as you would any adventure–with a sense of mystery and not-knowing. Instead of searching for answers that make you feel safe, you set out into the vastness of life and death, with a willingness to continually grow. You open up to the possibility that your ordinary life is an extraordinary adventure, and that your joys and sorrows have meaning. Spiritual practice becomes your rudder, offering direction and insight and discretion as you venture into the unknown. Elizabeth Lesser
• Spirituality

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Cultivating joy is essential to spiritual growth …

• I believe joy is a spiritual practice we have to work at. Brené Brown
• Learning to celebrate joy is one of the great practices of the spiritual life. Joan D. Chittister
• Always remember, joy is not incidental to the spiritual quest. It is vital. Rebbe Nachman
• Assume that your drive to experience pleasure isn’t a barrier to your spiritual growth, but is in fact essential to it. Proceed on the hypothesis that cultivating joy can make you a more ethical and compassionate person. Imagine that feeling good has something important to teach you every day. What might you do differently from what you do now? Rob Brezsny
• A spiritual partnership is between people who promise themselves to use all of their experiences to grow spiritually. They use their emotions to show them how to create constructive and healthy and joyful consequences instead of destructive and unhealthy and painful consequences. Gary Zukav
• A really spiritual person will live life as an art, will create a deep harmony between the body and the consciousness. And this is the greatest art there is. His life will be a joy to see. And he will be fragrant, for the sheer reason that there is no split in his being. The very unity makes him organic; the wound of division is healed. Rajneesh
• At the soul level, we get precisely what we need in our lives for our spiritual growth. How we judge what we get determines whether we experience life as painful or joyful. Colin Tipping
• And the world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles, no matter how long, but only by a spiritual journey, a journey of one inch, very arduous and humbling and joyful, by which we arrive at the ground at our own feet, and learn to be at home. Wendell Berry
• Submit to a daily practice. Your loyalty to that is a ring at the door. Keep knocking, and the joy inside will eventually open a window and look out to see who’s there. Rumi

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… as important as pain and difficulty

• It is a grave misconception to regard the mystical progress as passing mostly through ecstasies and raptures. On the contrary, it passes just as much through broken hearts and bruised emotions, through painful sacrifices and melancholy renunciations. Paul Brunton

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Laughter brings joy

• A laugh, to be joyous, must flow from a joyous heart, for without kindness, there can be no true joy. Thomas Carlyle
• All the keys to joy can be reduced to these two. Laugh but at no one’s expense and love but without expectation. Pat McBride
• Although a lot can be learned from adversity, most of the same lessons can be learned through laughter and joy. Peter McWilliams
• Because when you’re laughing, there is no other emotion in that moment except for joy. Robert Schimmel
• Breathing becomes really easy when you’re laughing. It kick starts that feeling of joy. Erykah Badu
• Grace creates liberated laughter. The grace of God…is beautiful, and it radiates joy and awakens humor. Karl Barth
• How wonderful is it that we laugh because our bodies cannot contain the joy?
• I hope that I will never forget the salvific power of joyful laughter. Madeleine L’Engle
• Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful though you have considered all the facts. Wendell Berry
• Let there be more joy and laughter in your living. Eileen Caddy
• The only universal language I know of that wraps up joy and gratitude and love is laughter. Brené Brown
• Without love and laughter there is no joy; live amid love and laughter. Horace
• You have to find a way to laugh a little bit each day despite everything, or your heart will simply run out of the joy that makes it go. Daoud Hari
• You’re drinking in the joy of life,’ Bear told her when she tried to explain why she was laughing. ‘There’s so much opportunity for drinking deeply of it, and we very rarely do it. When you do, it makes you feel alive all over. Regina Doman
• There is nothing more joyful to me than hearing a live audience laugh. Especially when I planned it that way! Kelly Bishop
• Laughter

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Humor brings joy

• The joy of joys is the person of light but unmalicious humor. Emily Post
• The secret source of humor is not joy but sorrow. Mark Twain
• Humor is the fastest, fleetest way of giving -it can change pain to joy in a mere millisecond. Stephen G. Post
• A sense of humor… is needed armor. Joy in one’s heart and some laughter on one’s lips is a sign that the person down deep has a pretty good grasp of life. Hugh Sidey
• Humor

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Smiling brings joy

• Sometimes you have to smile by faith. If you’ll smile by faith, soon the joy will follow. Joel Osteen
• Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy. Nhat Hanh
• We can never know the impact a simple smile has on another. Smiling is one of the easiest things we can do. Is there a simpler, more effortless way to give everyone you meet a moment of joy, even a sense of worth? Steve Goodier
• Always behold not only your own smile but also the smile of someone else’s joy. Mario
• Have a smile for breakfast, you’ll be shitting joy by lunch. Joe Abercrombie
• Smiling

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Tears bring joy and vice versa

• The clouds that gather round the setting sun do take a sober colouring from an eye that hath kept watch o’er man’s mortality; another race hath been, and other palms are won. Thanks to the human heart by which we live, thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears, to me the meanest flower that blows can give thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears. William Wordsworth
• Tears of joy are like the summer rain drops pierced by sunbeams. Hosea Ballou
• The wise healer endures the pain. Cry. Tears bring joy. Erykah Badu
• Joy’s smile is much closer to tears than laughter. Victor Hugo
• Tears

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Harmony of body, mind and spirit brings joy

• Joy is a return to the deep harmony of body, mind, and spirit that was yours at birth and that can be yours again. That openness to love, that capacity for wholeness with the world around you, is still within you. Deepak Chopra
• Empowerment is the inner joy of knowing that external force isn’t necessary to be at harmony with oneself. Wayne Dyer
• With an eye made quiet by the power of harmony, and the deep power of joy, we see into the life of things. William Wordsworth
• The more in harmony with yourself you are, the more joyful you are, and the more faithful you are. Faith is not to disconnect you from reality, it connects you to reality. Paulo Coelho
• Harmony,    Harmony of body, mind, soul

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Moderation and temperance brings joy

• Be moderate in order to taste the joys of life in abundance. Epicurus
• Boredom, if fully experienced, can bring to joy
• Bliss – a-second-by-second joy and gratitude at the gift of being alive, conscious – lies on the other side of crushing, crushing boredom. Pay close attention to the most tedious thing you can find (Tax Returns, Televised Golf) and, in waves, a boredom like you’ve never known will wash over you and just about kill you. Ride these out, and it’s like stepping from black and white into color. Like water after days in the desert. Instant bliss in every atom. David Foster Wallace
• The sweetest pleasures soonest cloy, And its best flavour temperance gives to joy. Juvenal
• An element of abstention, of restraint, must enter into all finer joys. Vida Dutton Scudder
• Moderation,    Temperance

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Self-belief brings joy

• Lay your wishes aside for a spell, and look deep into what you believe about yourself. Make sure your beliefs about your own life are anchored in greatness, in holiness, in worth, in grace, in joy, in excitement -in internal certainties rather than external circumstances. Because that belief? That’s where you’re heading, no matter what it may look like on the outside. Elizabeth Gilbert
• Self-belief

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Positivity brings joy

• Being joyful is about staying positive when everything else seems to fail. Alex Gonzaga
• Change your inner thoughts to the higher frequencies of love, harmony, kindness, peace, and joy, and you’ll attract more of the same. Wayne Dyer
• Today’s circumstances are out of your control but you CAN control your response. Don’t let a negative outlook kill your joy today. LeCrae
• The highest thought is always a thought which contains joy. Neale Donald Walsch
• When you are joyful, when you say yes to life and have fun and project positivity all around you, you become a sun in the center of every constellation, and people want to be near you. Shannon L. Alder
• Positivity

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Positive thinking brings joy

• You are free to think thoughts of worry or joy, and whatever you choose will attract the same kind back to you. Worry attracts worry. Joy attracts joy. Rhonda Byrne
• So much of your present experience is based on your previous thought. Thought leads to experience, which leads to thought, which leads to experience. This can produce constant joy when the Sponsoring Thought is joyous. It can, and does, produce continual hell when the Sponsoring Thought is hellatious. Neale Donald Walsch
• Your joy comes from how you think, the choices that we make in life. Joyce Meyer
• Instead of dwelling on negative thoughts, cause your mind to dwell on peace and joy. Ernest Holmes
• The substance of mind is the substance of heaven. A joyful thought is an auspicious star or a felicitous cloud. An angry thought is a thunderstorm or a violent rain. A kind thought is a gentle breeze or a sweet dew. A stern thought is a fierce sun or an autumn frost. Which of these can be eliminated? Just let them pass away as they arise, open and unresisting, and your mind merges with the spacious sky. Zicheng Hong
• Positive thinking

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Positive and expanded perception brings joy

• How we feel about ourselves, the joy we get from living, ultimately depends directly on how the mind filters and interprets everyday experiences. Whether we are happy depends on inner harmony, not on the controls we are able to exert over the great forces of the universe. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
• In my world, everything has the potential to be funny. Joyful things, painful things… It’s all about how you view it and if you’re able to take an objective stance on the situation. Jink Monsoon
• Today’s circumstances are out of your control but you CAN control your response. Don’t let a negative outlook kill your joy today. LeCrae
• There are two ways to look at life and the world. We can see the good or the bad, the beautiful or the ugly. Both are there, and what we focus on and choose to see is what brings us feelings of joy or feelings of despair. Lloyd D. Newell
• We all have need to be trained to see, and to have our eyes opened before we can take in the joy that is meant for us in this beautiful life. Charlotte Mason
• Sometimes I feel like I’m seeing it all at once and it’s too much. My heart fills up like a balloon that’s about to burst. Alan Ball
• The joy we feel has little to do with the circumstances of our lives and everything to do with the focus of our lives. Russel M. Nelson
• Perception, Interpretation

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Wandering and seeking brings joy

• The old wanderlust had gotten into his blood, the joy of the unbound life, the joy of seeking, of hoping without limit. Upton Sinclair
• Travel

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Discovery brings joy …

• No one can take from us the joy of the first becoming aware of something, the so-called discovery. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• The real world has beauty, poetry, love and the joy of honest discovery. Isn’t that enough? John Stossel
• From the very beginning of his education, the child should experience the joy of discovery. Alfred North Whitehead
• If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement, and mystery of the world we live in. Rachel Carson
• Discovery is joy. Adam Haslett
• One of the advantages of being disorganized is the joy of discovery. A. A. Milne
• One of the greatest joys known to man is to take a flight into ignorance in search of knowledge. Robert Staughton Lynd
• Our task as we grow older in a rapidly advancing science, is to retain the capacity of joy in discoveries which correct older ideas, and to learn from our pupils as we teach them. Hans Zinsser
• People think that if you are a scientist you have to give up that joy of discovery, that passion, that sense of the great romance of life. I say thats completely opposite of the truth. Ann Druyan
• The joy of discovery is certainly the liveliest that the mind of man can ever feel. Claude Bernard
• Those who do not know the torment of the unknown cannot have the joy of discovery. Claude Bernard
• A discovery is like falling in love and reaching the top of a mountain after a hard climb all in one, an ecstasy not induced by drugs but by the revelation of a face of nature that no one has seen before and that often turns out to be more subtle and wonderful than anyone had imagined. Max Perutz
• The joy of suddenly learning a former secret and the joy of suddenly discovering a hitherto unknown truth are the same to me – both have the flash of enlightenment, the almost incredibly enhanced vision, and the ecstasy and euphoria of released tension. Paul Halmos
• Discovery

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… especially the discovery of our inner power

• As you begin to understand the immense power and love you hold inside, you will find an unending surge of joy, light and love that will nourish and support you all the days of your life. Susan Jeffers
• Helped are those who are content to be themselves; they will never lack mystery in their lives and the joys of self-discovery will be constant. Alice Walker
• Humanity has been sleeping-and still sleeps-lulled within the narrowly confining joys of its little closed loves. In the depths of the human multitude there slumbers an immense spiritual power which will manifest itself only when we have learnt how to break through the dividing walls of our egoism and raise ourselves up to an entirely new perspective, so that habitually and in a practical fashion we fix our gaze on the universal realities. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
• Power

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Awakening brings joy

• The Seven Factors of Awakening are mindfulness, investigation of phenomena, diligence, joy, ease, concentration, and letting go. Nhat Hanh
• Awakening

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Variety brings joy

• The joy of life is variety; the tenderest love requires to be rekindled by intervals of absence. Samuel Johnson
• Variety’s the source of joy below, From whence still fresh-revolving pleasures flow, In books and love the mind one end pursues, And only change the expiring flames renews. John Gay
• Multiplicity without strife is joy. Nisargadatta Maharaj
• The joy of life is variety. Samuel Johnson
• Variety

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Taking part brings joy

• Don’t let your fear of failing triumph over the joy of participating. Marilyn Monroe

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Being proactive brings joy

• Turn wishful thinking into positive action. Those who take a proactive stance in their lives tend to have an ample supply of joy and pleasure. Cheryl Saban
• Proactiveness

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Spontaneity brings joy

• There are very few joys in life greater than spontaneity. Spontaneity means to be in the moment; it means acting out of your awareness, not acting according to your old conditionings. Rajneesh
• Spontaneity is one of the joys of existence, especially if you prepare for it in advance. Alan Dean Foster
• Spontaneity

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Forgetting oneself brings joy

• Joy’s a subtle elf, I think man’s happiest when he forgets himself. Cyril Tourneur
• Self-consciousness is the destroyer of erotic joy. Ian Mcewan
• The really wonderful moments of joy in this world are not the moments of self-satisfaction, but self-forgetfulness. Standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon and contemplating your own greatness is pathological. At such moments we are made for a magnificent joy that comes from outside ourselves. John Piper
• There is joy in self-forgetfulness. So I try to make the light in others’ eyes my sun, the music in others’ ears my symphony, the smile on others’ lips my happiness. Helen Keller
• Ecstasy is from the contemplation of things vaster than the individual and imperfectly seen perhaps, by all those that still live. William Butler Yeats
• Joy can be real only if people look upon their lives as a service and have a definite object in life outside themselves and their personal happiness. Leo Tolstoy
• Get yourself out of the way, and let Joy have more space. Rumi
• Ironically, often the thing that keeps me from experiencing joy is my preoccupation with self. The very selfishness that keeps me from pouring myself out for the joy of others also keeps me from noticing and delighting in the myriad small gifts God offers each day. This is why Walker Percy describes boredom as “the self stuffed with the self.” John Ortberg
• When pride disappears, real joy appears. Sri Chinmoy

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Curiosity and wonder at the universe bring joy

• Cultivate Curiosity. If you really want to grow in your lifetime, learn to be as inquisitive as a child. Curious people are never bored, and for them life becomes an unending study of joy. Tony Robbins
• How necessary it is to cultivate a spirit of joy. It is a psychological truth that the physical acts of reverence and devotion make one feel devout. The courteous gesture increases one’s respect for others. To act lovingly is to begin to feel loving, and certainly to act joyfully brings joy to others which in turn makes one feel joyful. I believe we are called to the duty of delight. Dorothy Day
• I don’t think anyone ‘finds’ joy. Rather, we cultivate it by searching for the preciousness of small things, the ordinary miracles, that strengthen our hearts so we can keep them open to what is difficult: delight in taking a shower or a slow walk that has no destination, in touching something soft, in noticing the one small, black bird who sings every morning from the top of the big old pine tree … I need to give my attention to the simple things that give me pleasure with the same fervor I have been giving it to the complex things with which I drive myself crazy. Dawna Markova
• Joy in the universe, and keen curiosity about it all – that has been my religion. John Burroughs
• Wonder and despair are two sides of a spinning coin. When you open yourself to one, you open yourself to the other. You discover a capacity for joy that wasn’t in you before. Wonder is the promise of restoration: as deeply as you dive, so may you rise. Christina Baldwin
• Praised be the fathomless universe, for life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious. Walt Whitman
• Joy and amazement of the beauty and grandeur of this world of which man can just form a faint notion. Albert Einstein
• The wonder is not that there should be obstacles and sufferings in this world, but that there should be law and order, beauty and joy, goodness and love. Victor Gollancz
• Some people have a wonderful capacity to appreciate again and again, freshly and naively, the basic goods of life, with awe, pleasure, wonder, and even ecstasy. Abraham Maslow
• Curiosity,   Wonder,   Awe

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Self-discipline brings joy

• A vital part of the happiness formula is self-discipline. Whoever conquers himself knows deep happiness that fills the heart with joy. Norman Vincent Peale
• Discipline brings us effort, sacrifice and suffering. Later it brings us something of an inestimable value: something of which those who live only for pleasure, profit or amusement will always be deprived. This peculiar indefinable joy which one must have felt oneself to understand is the sign with which life marks its moment of triumph. Alexis Carrel
• When discipline is sown, like a good seed, it yields a harvest of things that fulfill and satisfy us-things that make us happy and release peace and joy in our lives. Joyce Meyer
• The joy of discipline or the pain of regret, which will it be today? Tony Horton
• There is no real joy that does not involve self-denial and self-discipline. Joseph B. Wirthlin
• Until you have the inner discipline that brings calmness of mind, external facilities and conditions will never bring the joy and happiness you seek. On the other hand, if you possess this inner quality, calmness of mind, a degree of stability within, even if you lack the various external factors that you would normally require to be happy, it will still be possible to live a happy and joyful life. The Dalai Lama
• Self-discipline

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Sacrifice brings joy

• Sacrifice is the ecstasy of giving the best we have to the One we love most. Oswald Sanders
• To attain eternal happiness one must suffer. He who has reached the state of self-sacrifice has true joy. Temporal joy will vanish. Abdu’l-Bahá
• In life’s work, bliss and sacrifice are two sides of the same coin, complementary opposites. Laurence Boldt

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Adventure brings joy

• The joy of living is his who has the heart to demand it. Life is a great adventure, and I want to say to you, accept it in such a spirit. Theodore Roosevelt
• The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun. Christopher McCandless
• The world that we must seek is a world in which the creative spirit is alive, in which life is an adventure full of joy and hope, based rather upon the impulse to construct than upon the desire to retain what we possess or to seize what is possessed by others. Bertrand Russell
• Adventure

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Humility brings joy

• Your life is pure joy, pure ecstasy, when you live in humility. Frederick Lenz
• Humility, however deep it be, neither disquiets nor troubles nor disturbs the soul; it is accompanied by peace, joy and tranquillity. Teresa of Avila
• Humility accepts the very nature of a human being is complete, unadulterated, ecstatic joy. Frederick Lenz
• Humility can weep over other men’s weaknesses, and joy and rejoice over their graces. Thomas Brooks
• It’s when I let myself get little that I tumble head over heels into joy. Thomas Kinkade
• From self-knowledge flows the stream of humility, which never seizes on mere report, nor takes offense at anything, but bears every insult, every loss of consolation, and every sorry, from whatever direction they may come, patiently, with joy. St. Catherine of Siena
• Humility

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Anticipation brings joy

• One of the greatest things in human life is the ability to make plans. Even if they never come true-the joy of anticipating is irrevocably yours. That way one can live many more than just one life. Maria von Trapp
• People prone to joyful anticipation, skilled at obtaining pleasure from looking forward and imagining future happy events, are especially likely to be optimistic and to experience intense emotions. Sonja Lyubomirsky
• Waiting is not always a bad thing; it can bring its own joy -the thrill of anticipation. David Jeremiah
• Anticipation

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Purity brings joy

• Our life is shaped by our mind; we become what we think. Suffering follows an evil thought as the wheels of a cart follow the oxen that draws it. Our life is shaped by our mind; we become what we think. Joy follows a pure thought like a shadow that never leaves. Gautama Buddha
• Your true nature is purity, peace and joy. Sathya Sai Baba
• Perfect purity, fullness of joy, everlasting freedom, perfect rest, health and fruition, complete security, substantial and eternal good. Hannah More
• We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves. Gautama Buddha
• At the root of all this is purity. Where there is purity there love grows. When purity and love come together, there is bliss. Sathya Sai Baba
• Joy comes and fills the self-emptied heart; it abides with the peaceful; its reign is with the pure. James Allen
• Purity

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Originality brings joy

• To do something, say something, see something, before anybody else — these are things that confer a pleasure compared with which other pleasures are tame and commonplace, other ecstasies cheap and trivial. Mark Twain
• Originality

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Simplicity brings joy

• Simplicity, clarity, singleness: These are the attributes that give our lives power and vividness and joy as they are also the marks of great art. They seem to be the purpose of God for his whole creation. Richard Holloway
• Simplicity is a bliss that makes one comprehend. Criss Jami
• Find joy in simplicity, self-respect, and indifference to what lies between virtue and vice. Love the human race. Follow the divine. Marcus Aurelius
• Simplicity

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Simple living brings joy

• The trouble with simple living is that, though it can be joyful, rich, and creative, it isn’t simple. Doris Janzen Longacre
• There is a joy in going without things, a fine tang in eliminating the superfluous. Elbert Hubbard
• Live simply. Deepest joy is like a flower…. beautiful in essence. Tony Samara
• Simple living

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Holiness brings joy

• Only those who walk in holiness experience true joy. Jerry Bridges
• Many people falsely believe that if you want to be holy, you are not allowed to enjoy life…Holiness brings us to life. It refines every human ability. Holiness doesn’t dampen our emotions; it elevates them. Those who respond to God’s call to holiness are the most joyful people in history. They have a richer, more abundant experience of life, and they love more deeply than most people can every imagine. They enjoy life, all of life. Matthew Kelly
• Ecstasy, I think, is a soul’s response to the waves holiness makes as it nears. Annie Dillard

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Imagination brings joy

• Our griefs, as well as our joys, owe their strongest colors to our imaginations. There is nothing so grievous to be borne that pondering upon it will not make it heavier; and there is no pleasure so vivid that the animation of fancy cannot liven it. Jane Porter
• Imagination

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Faith brings joy

• An attitude of philosophic doubt, of suspended judgment, is repugnant to the natural man. Belief is an independent joy to him. William Minto
• He who sows, even with tears, the precious seed of faith, hope, and love, shall doubtless come again with joy, bringing his sheaves with him, because it is the very nature of that seed to yield a joyful harvest. Richard Cecil
• As believers, our joy and peace are not based in doing and achieving, but in believing. Joyce Meyer
• Faith gives us living joy and dying rest. Dwight L. Moody
• Faith is born and sustained by the Word of God, and out of faith grows the flower of joy. John Piper
• Indeed, the opposite of joy is not sorrow. The opposite of joy is unbelief. Leslie Weatherhead
• Joy bubbles on a fountain of doubt. Alison Croggon
• Where humanity sowed faith, hope, and unity, joy’s garden blossomed. Aberjhani
• When the faith is strong enough, it is sufficient just to be. Its a journey towards simplicity, towards quietness, towards a kind of joy that is not in time. Its a journey that has taken us from primary identification with our body and our psyche, on to an identification with God, and ultimately beyond identification. Ram Dass
• Real faith has perfect peace and joy and a shout at any time. It always sees the victory. Smith Wigglesworth
• Sometimes you have to smile by faith. If you’ll smile by faith, soon the joy will follow. Joel Osteen
• Faith

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Hope brings joy

• Cynicism is fear posing as confidence; joy is hope let off the leash. Bob Goff
• Hope changes everything. It changes winter into summer, darkness into dawn, descent into ascent, barrenness into creativity, agony into joy. Daisaku Ikeda
• Hope elevates, and joy brightens his crest. John Milton
• Hope is the belief, more or less strong, that joy will come. Sydney Smith
• Hope strengthens. Fear kills. That simple adage is master of every situation, every choice. Each morning we wake up, we get to choose between hope and fear and apply one of those emotions to everything we do. Do we greet things that come our way with joy? Or suspicion? Karen Marie Moning
• Hope, in its stronger forms, is a great deal more powerful stimulant to life than any sort of realized joy can ever be. Man must be sustained in suffering by a hope so high that no conflict with actuality can dash it – so high, indeed, that no fulfilment can satisfy it: a hope reaching out beyond this world. Friedrich Nietzsche
• In dire times you can lose joy, but you can’t lose hope. Hope is your guide. Paulo Coelho
• It is not the end of joy that makes old age so sad, but the end of hope. Jean Paul
• Where humanity sowed faith, hope, and unity, joy’s garden blossomed. Aberjhani
• True joy is only hope put out of fear. Sir Fulke Greville
• Hope fills the afflicted soul with such inward joy and consolation, that it can laugh while tears are in the eye, sigh and sing all in a breath; it is called “the rejoicing of hope”. William Gurnall
• Hope

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Play brings joy

• All this world is but a play… be thou the joyful player. Robin Williamson
• The true creator-self is a light at heart and free child, who accesses destiny as a simple act of joyful play. Bryant H. McGill
• Play becomes joy, joy becomes work, work becomes play. Johannes Itten
• Whatsoever you can be you are. There is no goal. And we are not going anywhere. We are simply celebrating here. Existence is not a journey, it is a celebration. Think of it as a celebration, as a delight, as a joy! Don’t turn it into a suffering, don’t turn it into a duty, a work. Let it be play. Rajneesh
• Each one of us has the ability to play the game of life with balance, harmony and joy, but we need to know the rules and the principles. Robert Anthony
• The real joy of life is in its play. Play is anything we do for the joy and love of doing it, apart from any profit, compulsion, or sense of duty. It is the real joy of living. Walter Rauschenbusch
• Play is a universal language. It gives a sense of joy in being alive. It is one of the healthiest things we have in our culture. Louise Hart
• Sacred space and sacred time and something joyous to do is all we need. Almost anything then becomes a continuous and increasing joy. What you have to do, you do with play. I think a good way to conceive of sacred space is as a playground. If what you’re doing seems like play, you are in it. But you can’t play with my toys, you have to have your own. Your life should have yielded some. Older people play with life experiences and realizations or with thoughts they like to entertain. In my case, I have books I like to read that don’t lead anywhere. Joseph Campbell
• Play: It is an an activity which proceeds within certain limits of time and space, in a visible order, according to rules freely accepted, and outside the sphere of necessity or material utility. The play-mood is one of rapture and enthusiasm, and is sacred or festive in accordance with the occasion. A feeling of exaltation and tension accompanies the action. Johan Huizinga
• The real joy of life is in its play. Play is anything we do for the joy and love of doing it, apart from any profit, compulsion, or sense of duty. It is the real living of life with the feeling of freedom and self-expression. Play is the business of childhood, and its continuation in later years is the prolongation of youth. Walter Rauschenbusch
• Play

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Taking risks brings joy

• You must take chances. If you do nothing, you reduce the possibilities you have for greater joy. Walter Inglis Anderson
• Risk-taking, trust, and serendipity are key ingredients of joy. Without risk, nothing new ever happens. Without trust, fear creeps in. Without serendipity, there are no surprises. Rita Gelman
• It’s always nerve wracking to put yourself out there. But it’s the root of joy. Ann Brashares
• Risk taking,   Boldness

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Following our impulses brings joy

• Joy and growth come from following our deepest impulses, however foolish they may seem to some, or dangerous, and even though the apparent outcome may be defeat. A. J. Muste

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Freedom brings joy

• Freedom is dearer than bread or joy. Jessie Sampter
• Freedom is the world of joy. Nachman of Breslov
• Free will, though it makes evil possible, also makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. C. S. Lewis
• Days come and ages pass, and it is ever he who moves my heart in many a name, in many a guise, in many a rapture of joy and of sorrow. Deliverance is not for me in renunciation. I feel the embrace of freedom in a thousand bonds of delight. Rabindranath Tagore
• Freedom

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Not needing to know brings joy

• The art of living is to enjoy what we can see and not complain about what remains in the dark. When we are able to take the next step with trust that we will have enough light for the step that follows, we can walk through life with joy and be surprised at how far we go. Henri Nouwen
• Letting go of the need to know

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Embracing uncertainty brings joy

• Would anything but a madman complain of uncertainty? Uncertainty and expectation are joys of life; security is an insipid thing; and the overtaking and possessing of a wish discovers the folly of the chase. William Congreve
• Uncertainty,   The unknown

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Mystery brings joy

• If you deny mystery-even in the guise of death-then you deny life, and you will walk like a ghost through your days, never knowing the secrets of the extremes. The deep sorrows, the absolute joys. Lucius Shepard
• Love’s over brimming mystery joins death and life. It has filled my cup of pain with joy. Rabindranath Tagore
• Joy bubbles on a fountain of doubt. Alison Croggon
• Mystery

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Possibility brings joy

• Those whose lives are fruitful to themselves, to their friends, or to the world are inspired by hope and sustained by joy: they see in imagination the things that might be and the way in which they are to be brought into existence. Bertrand Russell
• Possibility

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Enjoyment brings joy

• The more we allow ourselves to enjoy, the more reasons we find to be joyful. Marianne Williamson
• Enjoyment

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Having fun brings joy

• Joy is overwhelming fun – fun so big that it overflows your mind, heart, body – as if all of life and love were spilling into you and you were spilling out. Bernie De Koven
• Joy is to fun what the deep sea is to a puddle. It’s a feeling inside that can hardly be contained. Terry Pratchett
• There’s a need for a ritual and for real joy and real bliss. Real fun. Jerry Garcia
• Fun

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Memories can bring joy …

• And often, glad no more, We wear a face of joy because We have been glad of yore. William Wordsworth
• When Time who steals our years away Shall steal our pleasures too, The mem’ry of the past will stay, And half our joys renew. Thomas Moore
• Memory can glean, but can never renew. It brings us joys faint as is the perfume of the flowers, faded and dried, of the summer that is gone. Henry Ward Beecher
• Memory, bosom-spring of joy. Samuel Taylor Coleridge
• Night is the time to weep,To wet with unseen tears Those graves of memory where sleep The joys of other years. James Montgomery
• memory, thou bitter sweet,–both a joy and a scourge! Madame de Stael
• See your later years as becoming your treasure years. Sit quietly and think of all the times you were joyful, and let your body feel this joy. Louise Hay
• The greatest joys of life are happy memories. Your job is to create as many of them as possible. Brian Tracy
• The present joys of life we doubly taste, By looking back with pleasure to the past. Martial
• He shook his head, absorbed in one of his feats of memory, those brief periods of scholastic rapture where he lost touch with the world around him, absorbed completely in conjuring up knowledge from all its sources. Diana Gabaldon
• Bliss in possession will not last; Remembered joys are never past. James Montgomery
• Memories

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… but joyful memories can also bring pain

• There is no pain so great as the memory of joy in present grief. Aeschylus
• Either the memory of past bliss is the anguish of to-day; or the agonies which are have their origins in ecstasies which might have been. Edgar Allan Poe
• Of joys departed, not to return, how painful the remembrance. Robert Blair
• Our tears fatten upon our memories of joy. John Updike
• Why are our joys remembered more bitter than our woes? Marceline Desbordes-Valmore
• Joy’s recollection is no longer joy, While Sorrow’s memory is a sorrow still. Lord Byron
• Pain,   Suffering

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More paths to joy

• Following the basic laws of the Universe leads us to a life of total and complete joy in every moment. Arnold Patent
• I suppose sometimes it takes getting lost to enjoy the joy of being found Tricia Goyer
• The joys of theory are the sweetest intellectual pleasures of life Ludwig Feuerbach
• The key to knowing joy is being easily pleased. Mark Nepo
• The myriad things are complete in us. There is no greater joy than to reflect on ourselves and become sincere. Mencius
• The pain of parting is nothing to the joy of meeting again. Charles Dickens
• Then there’s the joy of getting your desk clean, and knowing that all your letters are answered, and you can see the wood on it again. Lady Bird Johnson
• There are no happier people on this planet than those who decide that they want something, define what they want, get hold of the feeling of it even before its manifestation and then joyously watch the unfolding as, piece by piece by piece, it begins to unfold. That’s the feeling of your hands in the clay. Esther Hicks
• The only joy in the world is to begin. It is good to be alive because living is beginning, always, every moment. Cesare Pavese
• This is my real secret to being a joyful person: I make my life easy. I spend more time being grateful for what I have instead of focusing on what isn’t working. I no longer believe that people have to do things my way and that I have to be perfect. Salle Redfield

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Life is a mosaic of joy and sorrow …

• All present life is but an interjection, An’Oh!’or ‘Ah!’of joy or misery, Or a ‘Ha! ha!’or ‘Bah!’a yawn or ‘Pooh!’ Of which perhaps the latter is most true. Robert Byron
• All societies are evil, sorrowful, inequitable; and so they will always be. So if you really want to help this world, what you will have to teach is how to live in it. And that no one can do who has not himself learned how to live in it in the joyful sorrow and sorrowful joy of the knowledge of life as it is. Joseph Campbell
• As I observe my daily life and that of others, I have come to the conclusion that genuine joy is a potent mixture of harsh reality, and the realization that life can be funny. Tone Bell
• Each moment is a miracle encompassing everything: the joy and sorrow, the failure and success, the disappointment and happiness, the celebration and grief. Kazuaki Tanahashi
• Half my life is full of sorrow, Half of joy, still fresh and new; One of these lives is a fancy, But the other one is true. Adelaide Anne Procter
• I am the lover’s gift; I am the wedding wreath; I am the memory of a moment of happiness; I am the last gift of the living to the dead; I am a part of joy and a part of sorrow. Khalil Gibran
• I can get sad, I can get frustrated, I can get scared, but I never get depressed – because there’s joy in my life. Michael J. Fox
• If there was an abundance of misery in the world, there was also sufficient joy, yes – as long as one knew where to look for it. Rohinton Mistry
• In this crazy world, there’s an enormous distinction between good times and bad, between sorrow and joy. But in the eyes of God, they’re never separated. Where there is pain, there is healing. Where there is mourning, there is dancing. Where there is poverty, there is the kingdom. Henri Nouwen
• Life brings sorrows and joys alike. It is what a man does with them – not what they do to him – that is the true test of his mettle. Theodore Roosevelt
• Life is a tragedy full of joy. Bernard Malamud
• Life is like that – twenty minutes of misery for every two seconds of joy. Virginia C. Andrews
• My joy, my grief, my hope, my love, Did all within this circle move! Edmund Waller
• Our life is a time in which sadness and joy kiss each other at every moment. Henri Nouwen
• Sometimes sorrow, sometimes joy. But beneath it all remember the innate perfection of your life unfolding. That is the secret of unreasonable happiness. Dan Millman
• Stop trying to distinguish the joy of meditation from the messiness of life. Begin to see the divine in everything. She is in the joy just as much as the misery. Rod Stryker
• The studying, the books, exams, arguments, theories. The jokes and pints, laughter, kisses and songs. Life was like running, ninety percent sweat and toil, ten per cent joy. Siobhan Dowd
• These joys were so trifling as to be as imperceptible as grains of gold among the sand, and in moments of depression she saw nothing but the sand; yet there were brighter moments when she felt nothing but joy, saw nothing but the gold. Leo Tolstoy
• This is not to say that joy is a compensation for loss, but that each of them, joy and loss, exists in its own right and must be recognised for what it is … So joy can be joy and sorrow can be sorrow, with neither of them casting either light or shadow on the other. Marilynne Robinson
• And maybe that was how it was supposed to be…Joy and sadness were part of the package; the trick, perhaps,was to let yourself feel all of it, but to hold on to the joy just a little more tightly. Kristin Hannah
• Each present joy or sorrow seems the chief. William Shakespeare
• The fable runs that the gods mix our pains and pleasure in one cup, and thus mingle for us the adulterate immortality which we alone are permitted here to enjoy. Voluptuous raptures, could we prolong these at pleasure, would dissipate and dissolve us. A sip is the most that mortals are permitted from any goblet of delight. Amos Bronson Alcott
• It is the sum of the million little unconscious dispositions that go to make life joyful or painful. Henry Ward Beecher
• Man was made for joy and woe, And when this we rightly know Through the world we safely go. William Blake
• Grief,   Sadness

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… a combination of joy and pain

• To me, the human experience does involve a great deal of anguish. It’s joyful, but it’s bittersweet. I just think that’s life. Amy Grant
• There is no such thing as happiness. Life bends joy and pain, beauty and ugliness, in such a way that no one may isolate them. No one should want to. Perfect joy, or perfect pain, with no contrasting element to define them, would mean a monotony of consciousness, would mean death. Jean Toomer
• Over the years I have come to believe that life is full of unchosen circumstances, that being human has to do with the evolution of our individual consciousness and with it, responsibilities for choice. Pain and joy both come with life. I believe that how we respond to what happens to us and around us shapes who we become and has to do with the psyche or the soul’s growth. Jean Shinoda Bolen
• Life justified itself. It might be cruel, treacherous, ironic, but it was life, and pain was as much a part of it as joy. Sheila Kaye-Smith
• What was time itself but the bloom, the sheath enfolding experience? Within time, and with time alone, there was life – the gleam, the quiver, the heartbeat, the immeasurable joy and anguish of being. Ellen Glasgow
• If we aren’t capable of being hurt we aren’t capable of feeling joy. Madeleine L’Engle
• LIFE is a mosaic of pleasure and pain – grief is an interval between two moments of joy. Peace is the interlude between two wars. You have no rose without a thorn; the diligent picker will avoid the pricks and gather the flower. There is no bee without the sting; cleverness consists in gathering the honey nevertheless. Sathya Sai Baba
• I too have experienced the extreme pain of living, but I have also experienced some of its remarkable ecstasy. Frederick Lenz
• Pain,   Suffering

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For joy to exist, there has to be its opposite

• Perhaps there could be no joy on this planet without an equal weight of pain to balance it out on some unknown scale. Stephenie Meyer
• Certainly, I think being depressed is absolutely part of the human condition, it has to be, if there’s joy there’s its opposite, and it’s something you ride if you possibly can. Bob Geldof
• Darkness was and darkness was good. As with light. Light and Darkness dancing together, born together, born of each other, neither preceding, neither following, both fully being, in joyful rhythm. Madeleine L’Engle
• It’s the sorrow you feel that allows you to crave love. Without the suffering, there would be no true pleasure. Without tears, no joy. Without deficiency, no longing. This is the secret of the human heart, Rom. Ted Dekker
• Now, I believe in life, and I believe in the joy of human existence, but these things cannot be experienced except as we also face the despair, also face the anxiety that every human being has to face if he lives with any creativity at all. Rollo May
• The sad truth is that man’s real life consists of a complex of inexorable opposites – day and night, birth and death, happiness and misery, good and evil. We are not even sure that one will prevail against the other, that good will overcome evil, or joy defeat pain. Life is a battleground. It always has been and always will be; and if it were not so, existence would come to an end. Carl Jung
• I believe you can’t feel real joy unless you’ve felt heartache. Kelly Cutron
• Why do we protect children from life? It’s no wonder that we become afraid to live. We’re not told what life really is. We’re not told that life is joy and wonder and magic and even rapture, if you can get involved enough. We’re not told that life is also pain, misery, despair, unhappiness, and tears. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to miss any of it. I want to embrace life, and I want to find out what it’s all about. I wouldn’t want to go through life without knowing what it is to cry. Leo Buscaglia
• Polarity

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Both joy and pain have their roles to play

• Trust life, and it will teach you, in joy and sorrow, all you need to know. James A. Baldwin
• Only by joy and sorrow does a person know anything about themselves and their destiny. They learn what to do and what to avoid. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• We could never learn to be brave and patient, if there were only joy in the world. Helen Keller
• Joy and sorrow are the light and shade of life; without light and shade, no picture is clear. Inayat Khan
• We say: mad with joy. We should say: wise with grief. Marguerite Yourcenar
• There is a wide world out there, full of pain, but filled with joy as well. The former keeps you on the path of growth and the latter makes the journey tolerable. R. A. Salvatore
• Real joy is becoming exceedingly rare among artists of any kind. And I have an idea that those who can and do communicate it are always people who have had a hard time. Then the joy has no smugness or self-righteousness in it, is inclusive not exclusive, and comes close to prayer. May Sarton
• Without dark clouds in our lives, we would never know the joy of sunshine. We can become callous and unteachable if we do not learn from pain. Billy Graham
• God, take all our sorrows and use them to show us the nature of our joy. Leslie Weatherhead
• The body grows by food and work, the mind by use, and the soul through joy and pain. Myrtle Reed
• Pain and foolishness lead to great bliss and complete knowledge, for Eternal Wisdom created nothing under the sun in vain. Khalil Gibran
• Darkness can bring us joy by reminding us of light. Swami Kriyananda

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What value would there be in joy without the pain?

• What is joy without sorrow? Mark Twain
• One must have sorrow to truly appreciate joy. Megan Hart
• The creation itself is full of griefs. How can one understand joy if there is no sorrow? And how can everyone be happy at the same time? Sarada Devi
• There is no joy without hardship. If not for death, would we appreciate life? If not for hate, would we know the ultimate goal is love? At these moments you can either hold on to negativity and look for blame, or you can choose to heal and keep on loving. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
• We can laugh from either joy or happiness, but we weep only from grief or joy…Without the pain of farewell, there is no joy in reunion…without the pain of captivity, we don’t experience the joy of freedom. George Vaillant
• You need to see a bit of hell now and then. That, and great joy. Barry Hannah
• Life is the coexistence of all opposite values. Joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain, up and down, hot and cold, here and there, light and darkness, birth and death. All experience is by contrast, and one would be meaningless without the other. Deepak Chopra
• I have learned there is no joy without hardship. There is no pleasure without pain. Would we know the comfort of peace without the distress of war? Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
• Without pain, how could we know joy?’ This is an old argument in the field of thinking about suffering and its stupidity and lack of sophistication could be plumbed for centuries but suffice it to say that the existence of broccoli does not, in any way, affect the taste of chocolate. John Green

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Our joys often lie close to our greatest pains …

• What seems nasty, painful, evil can become a source of beauty, joy, and strength, if faced with an open mind. Henry Miller
• The sources of our greatest joys lying awkwardly close to those of our greatest pains. Alain de Botton
• The most fulfilling human projects appeared inseparable from a degree of torment, the sources of our greatest joys lying awkwardly close to those of our greatest pains. Alain de Botton
• There is darkness in light, there is pain in joy, and there are thorns on the rose. Cate Tiernan
• There was pain, but there was also joy. It was in the tension between the two that life happened. Imperfect as it was, this world was real. Illusion was no substitute. I’d rather live a hard life of fact than a sweet life of lies. Karen Marie Moning
• Try to see the joyful side of life. One must see the pain of life with clear eyes, and help all he can; but there is also lots of joy, and on should see that, too. Norman Vincent Peale

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… for joy and sorrow are finely woven

• Joy and sorrow are inseparable. . . together they come and when one sits alone with you . . remember that the other is asleep upon your bed. Khalil Gibran
• Joy and sorrow are like milk and cookies. That’s how well they go together. Neil Gaiman
• Joy and sorrow in this world pass into each other, mingling their forms and their murmurs in the twilight of life as mysterious as an overshadowed ocean, while the dazzling brightness of supreme hopes lies far off, fascinating and still, on the distant edge of the horizon Joseph Conrad
• Joy and woe are woven fine, A clothing for the soul divine. Under every grief and pine Runs a joy with silken twine. William Blake
• Man was made for joy and woe, and when this we rightly know through the world we safely go. Joy and woe are woven fine, a clothing for the soul to bind. William Blake
• Rapture’s self is three parts sorrow. Amy Lowell
• Joy is hidden in sorrow and sorrow in joy. If we try to avoid sorrow at all costs, we may never taste joy, and if we are suspicious of ecstasy, agony can never reach us either. Joy and sorrow are the parents of our spiritual growth. Henri Nouwen
• Everywhere across whatever sorrows of which our life is woven, some radiant joy will gaily flash past. Nikolai Gogol
• Joy’s smile is much closer to tears than laughter. Victor Hugo
• Pools of sorrow, waves of joy are drifting thorough my open mind possessing and caressing me. John Lennon
• The brooding is better than the joy because even if the heart fills with happiness, it still mourns. Irving Stone
• The depth of my sorrow is the height of my joy. Genevieve
• When great depths of unrelenting sorrow are punctuated by great peaks of joy and liberation, the result is delicious. Georges St-Pierre
• What’s mysterious, ambiguous, inexplicable. What doesn’t fit into a story, what doesn’t have a story. Glint of brightness on a barely-there chain. Patch of sunlight on a yellow wall. The loneliness that separates every living creature from every other living creature. Sorrow inseparable from joy. Donna Tartt
• We pick our own sorrows out of the joys of other men, and from their sorrows likewise we derive our joys. Owen Feltham
• The rose and thorn, the treasure and dragon, joy and sorrow, all mingle into one. Saadi
• The truth is life is full of joy and full of great sorrow, but you can’t have one without the other. Andre Dubus
• We do not choose suffering simply because we are told to, but because the one who tells us to describes it as the path to everlasting joy. John Piper
• Joy and grief are never far apart. In the same street the shutters of one house are closed, while the curtains of the next are brushed by shadow of the dance. A wedding-party returns from church, and a funeral winds to its door. The smiles and the sadness of life are the tragi-comedy of Shakespeare. Gladness and sighs brighten and dim the mirror he beholds. Robert Aris Willmott
• For if joyful is the fountain that rises in the sun, its springs are in the wells of sorrow unfathomable at the foundations of the Earth. J. R. R. Tolkien
• In this world, full often, our joys are only the tender shadows which our sorrows cast. Henry Ward Beecher
• All recurring joy is pain refined. Amy Lowell
• The bringers of joy have always been the children of sorrow. Hazrat Inayat Khan

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Some say that a joyful life consists of the absence of pain

• The happiest is he who suffers the least pain; the most miserable, he who enjoys the least pleasure. Henri Rousseau
• What I sometimes mistake for ecstasy is simply the absence of grief. Sarah Kane

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However, the truth is that to live a full and fulfilled life, we must experience both joy and sorrow

• Merely to live without a pain Is little gladness, little gain, Ah, welcome joy tho’ mixt with grief– The thorn-set flower that crowns the leaf. Dan Simmons
• What if pleasure and displeasure were so tied together that whoever wanted to have as much as possible of one must also have as much as possible of the other — that whoever wanted to learn to “jubilate up to the heavens” would also have to be prepared for “depression unto death”? Friedrich Nietzsche
• Life consists of two sides … light and dark. Joy and sorrow. Without a balance, one cannot fully experience a full and well-rounded life. JoAnn Ross
• Life’s about a hell of a lot more than being happy. It’s about feeling the full range of stuff: happiness, sadness, anger, grief, love, hate. If you try to shut one of those off, you shut them all off. I don’t want to be happy. I know I won’t live happily ever after. I want more than that, something richer. I want to go right up close to the beauty and the ugliness. I want to see it all, know it all, understand it all. The richness and the powerty, the joy and the cruelty, the sweetness and the sadness. That’s the best way I can honour my friends who died. John Marsden
• Too indifferent to experience joy and too cold to express sorrow, they are neither dead nor alive; they merely exist. Martin Luther King, Jr.
• You have the choice: either as little displeasure as possible, painlessness in brief … or as much displeasure as possible as the price for the growth of an abundance of subtle pleasures and joys that have rarely been relished yet? If you decide for the former and desire to diminish and lower the level of human pain, you also have to diminish and lower the level of their capacity for joy. Friedrich Nietzsche
• We learn in our guts, not just in our brain, that a life of joy is not in seeking happiness, but in experiencing and simply being the circumstances of our life as they are; not in fulfilling personal wants, but in fulfilling the needs of life; not in avoiding pain, but in being pain when it is necessary to do so. Too large an order? Too hard? On the contrary, it is the easy way. Charlotte J. Beck

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Some say we should smother grief and sorrow

• A man may manifest and communicate his joy, but he should conceal and smother his grief as much as possible. Robert E. Lee
• As long as Faith gives me strength I will always be joyful. Sadness ought to be banished from Catholic souls… the purpose for which we have been created shows us the path; even if strewn with many thorns, it is not a sad path. It is joyful even in the face of sorrow. Pier Giorgio Frassati

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However, the truth is we cannot feel joy unless we allow ourselves to feel our pain

• Love, joy, and peace cannot flourish until you have freed yourself from mind dominance. But they are not what I would call emotions. They lie beyond the emotions, on a much deeper level. So you need to become fully conscious of your emotions and be able to feel them before you can feel that which lies beyond them. Emotion literally means “disturbance. Eckhart Tolle
• I believe you can’t feel real joy unless you’ve felt heartache. Kelly Cutron
• The secret of joy is the mastery of pain. Anaïs Nin
• When we numb hard feelings, we numb joy, we numb gratitude, we numb happiness. Brené Brown
• Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding… And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy. Khalil Gibran
• Being a good steward of your pain. . . . It involves being alive to your life. It involves taking the risk of being open, of reaching out, of keeping in touch with the pain as well as the joy of what happens because at no time more than at a painful time do we live out of the depths of who we are instead of out of the shallows. Frederick Buechner
• He who has not looked on Sorrow will never see Joy. Khalil Gibran
• If you evade suffering you also evade the chance of joy. Pleasure you may get, or pleasures, but you will not be fulfilled. You will not know what it is to come home. Ursula K. Le Guin
• You are the love and joy beneath the pain. Eckhart Tolle
• Without the suffering, there would be no true pleasure. Without tears, no joy. Without deficiency, no longing. This is the secret of the human heart. Ted Dekker
• How do I wake up to joy and grace and beauty and all that is the fullest life when I must stay numb to losses and crushed dreams and all that empties me out? Ann Voskamp
• Feeling emotions mindfully

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By numbing and resisting pain, we numb our joy

• When you numb your pain you also numb your joy. Brené Brown
• If we try to deny and suppress our darker emotions, we will only succeed in numbing ourselves emotionally. If you anesthetize yourself against pain, how will you feel joy? Amanda Harvey
• Joy and pain, they are but two arteries of the one heart that pumps through all those who don’t numb themselves to really living. Ann Voskamp
• To shut down the ability to feel pain means you shut down all emotions, joy included. It makes our hearts feel small, it robs us of our joy, and really keeps us no safer. Jewel
• The walls we build around us to keep sadness out also keeps out the joy. Jim Rohn
• Pain is a byproduct of life. That’s the truth. Life sometimes sucks. That’s true for everyone. But if you don’t face the pain and the suck, you don’t ever get the other things either. Laughter. Joy. Love. Pain passes, but those things are worth fighting for. Worth dying for. Jim Butcher
• You missed a lot of heartache, sure. But David, you missed a lot of joy. Kim Edwards
• It is precisely because we resist the darkness in ourselves that we miss the depths of the loveliness, beauty, brilliance, creativity, and joy that lie at our core. Thomas Moore
• Elation and pain are experiences that make you realize youre alive. Thank God you feel them; otherwise you’d be numb. Darren Hayes
• Non-resistance

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It is possible to feel joy in spite of pain

• I discovered that joy is not the negation of pain, but rather acknowledging the presence of pain and feeling happiness in spite of it. Lupita Nyong’o
• Do not be afraid that joy will make the pain worse; it is needed like the air we breathe. Goran Persson
• Don’t be concerned about being disloyal to your pain by being joyous. Hazrat Inayat Khan
• What is beautiful is a joy for all seasons. Oscar Wilde

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Sadness deeply felt often turns to joy

• Experiencing deep sadness can, sometimes, heighten your ability to feel joy. Markéta Irglová
• Our present tears here, not our present laughter Are but the handsells of our joys hereafter. Robert Herrick
• As we have said, robust souls are sometimes almost, but not entirely, overthrown by strokes of misfortune….Despair has steps leading upward. From total depression we rise to despondency, from despondency to affliction, from affliction to melancholy. Melancholy is a twilight state in which suffering transmutes into a somber joy….Melancholy is the enjoyment of being sad. Victor Hugo
• There are in this world blessed souls, whose sorrows all spring up into joys for others; whose earthly hopes, laid in the grave with many tears, are the seed from which spring healing flowers and balm for the desolate and the distressed. Harriet Beecher Stowe
• By changing our inner state of mind, we can change any suffering or hardship into a source of joy, regarding it as a means for forging and developing our lives. To turn even sorrow into a source of creativity – this is the way of life of a Buddhist. Daisaku Ikeda
• I believe if we can wait long enough that every honorable sorrow will become a kind of joy. Corra May Harris
• I’m filled with a new joy mixed with old grief. Sandra Cisneros
• It’s the great mystery of human life that old grief passes gradually into quiet tender joy. Fyodor Dostoevsky
• It is only after the deepest darkness that the greatest light can come; it is only after extreme grief that the greatest joy can come. Malcolm X
• Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how. James Russell Lowell
• Your sorrow itself shall be turned into joy. Not the sorrow to be taken away, and joy to be put in its place, but the very sorrow which now grieves you shall be turned into joy. God not only takes away the bitterness and gives sweetness in its place, but turns the bitterness into sweetness itself. Charles Spurgeon
• Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. Khalil Gibran
• Life is a chain of small sorrows that lead to a great joy. Siddharth Katragadda
• There is a day of sunny rest For every dark and troubled night; And grief may hide an evening guest, But joy shall come with early light. William C. Bryant
• There is a sweet joy that comes to us through sorrow. Charles Spurgeon
• There is an alchemy in sorrow. It can be transmuted into wisdom, which, if it does not bring joy, can yet bring happiness. Pearl S. Buck
• Sadness

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Suffering not resisted turns to joy

• Suffering cheerfully endured, ceases to be suffering and is transmuted into an ineffable joy. Mahatma Gandhi
• You must submit to supreme suffering in order to discover the completion of joy. John Calvin
• Suffering is a short pain and a long joy. Henry Suso
• Suffering, if it is accepted together, borne together, is joy. Mother Teresa
• The wound is the portal of entry to inner joy. Ross Mellick
• When pain is accepted for what it is, a lesson and a warning, and deeply looked into and heeded, the separation between pain and pleasure breaks down, both become just experience – painful when resisted, joyful when accepted. Nisargadatta Maharaj
• Joy to hearts which have suffered long is like the dew on the ground after a long drought; both the heart and the ground absorb that beneficent moisture falling on them, and nothing is outwardly apparant. Alexandre Dumas
• Joy came always after pain. Guillaume Apollinaire
• If thou do ill, the joy fades, not the pains. If well, the pain doth fade, the joy remains. George Herbert
• Joy never feasts so high as when the first course is of misery. John Suckling
• Perhaps the day may come when we shall remember these sufferings with joy. Virgil
• The hurt you embrace becomes joy. Rumi
• The most important lesson that man can learn from life, is not that there is pain in this world, but that it is possible for him to transmute it into joy. Rabindranath Tagore
• The path to joy leads through despair. Alexander Lowen
• The unendurable is the beginning of the curve of joy. Djuna Barnes
• The wise healer endures the pain. Cry. Tears bring joy. Erykah Badu
• We mortals with immortal minds are only born for sufferings and joys, and one could almost say that the most excellent receive joy through sufferings. Ludwig van Beethoven
• Suffering,    Non-resistance

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Sorrow and suffering carve out our capacity for joy

• Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the same well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears. And how else can it be? The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven? And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives? Khalil Gibran
• Your joy can fill you only as deeply as your sorrow has carved you. Khalil Gibran
• Although it may not seem like it, this isn’t a story about darkness. It’s about light. Kahlil Gibran says Your joy can fill you only as deeply your sorrow has carved you. If you’ve never tasted bitterness, sweet is just another pleasant flavor on your tongue. One day I’m going to hold a lot of joy. Karen Marie Moning
• Only the soul that knows the mighty grief can know the mighty rapture. Sorrows come to stretch out spaces in the heart for joy. Edwin Markham
• Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place. It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow. Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place. Rumi
• Only the soul that knows the mighty grief can know the mighty rapture. Sorrows come to stretch out spaces in the heart for joy. Edwin Markham
• Only a man who has felt ultimate despair is capable of feeling ultimate bliss. Alexandre Dumas
• The suffering of adversity does not degrade you but exalts you. Human tribulation teaches you; it does not destroy you. The more we are afflicted in this world, the greater is our assurance for the next. The more we sorrow in the present, ..the greater will be our joy in the future. Isidore of Seville
• Faint is the bliss, that never past through pain. Colley Cibber

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Joy conquers sadness in the end …

• Joy runs deeper than despair. Corrie Ten Boom
• Darkness is a lower energy than light, and when you bring light to the presence of darkness you don’t have to warn it, you don’t have to tell it that it has to get away. It can’t survive. Light dissolves darkness. And so does love dissolve hate and so does joy dissolve sadness and so does faith dissolve doubt and so on. Wayne Dyer
• No grief has a right to immortality. That ground belongs to joy, to hope, to faith. Henry Ward Beecher

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… for joy is more powerful than pain

• Pain is short, and joy is eternal. Friedrich Schiller
• Pain, sorrow, ignorance are all illusory; they cannot live. Bliss, joy, knowledge are true; they cannot die. Sivananda
• Pain can only feed on pain. Pain cannot feed on joy. It finds it quite indigestible. Eckhart Tolle
• Find the place inside where there is joy, and the joy will burn out the pain. Joseph Campbell
• One moment may with bliss repay Unnumbered hours of pain. Thomas Campbell
• Joy may be a miser, But Sorrow’s purse is free. Richard Henry Stoddard
• Notes of joy have a special STP solvent in them that dissolves all the gluey engine deposits of heartache. War and woe don’t have anything like the range and reach that notes of joy do. Nicholson Baker
• What matters an eternity of damnation to someone who has found in one second the infinity of joy? Charles Baudelaire
• Joy, when it is excessive, overcomes as much as grief. Vittorio Alfieri

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Keep your perspective during both joy and sorrow

• Whatever happens in your life, joyful or painful, do not be swept away by reactivity. Be patient with yourself and don’t lose your sense of perspective. Pema Chodron
• We’re in a freefall into future. We don’t know where we’re going. Things are changing so fast, and always when you’re going through a long tunnel, anxiety comes along. And all you have to do to transform your hell into a paradise is to turn your fall into a voluntary act. It’s a very interesting shift of perspective and that’s all it is… joyful participation in the sorrows and everything changes. Joseph Campbell
• We can experience joy in adverse circumstances by holding God’s benefits in such esteem that the recognition of them and meditation upon them shall overcome all sorrow. John Calvin
• Perspective

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Fully embrace all experiences, both joyful and painful

• Whether joy or sorrow, pain or pleasure; whatsoever may befall thee, accept it serenely with an unvanquished heart. Rabindranath Tagore
• Whether it is suffering or joy, going through experiences in life is not so much of a karma. Depriving yourself of any experience is the big karma. Jaggi Vasudev
• To love means to open ourselves to the negative as well as the positive – to grief, sorrow, and disappointment as well as to joy, fulfillment, and an intensity of consciousness we did not know was possible before Rollo May
• The idea of the Bodhisattva is the one who out of his realization of transcendence participates in the world. The imitation of Christ is joyful participation in the sorrows of the world. Joseph Campbell
• Allow yourself to experience fully every step of the journey, both the joy and the pain. You’re alive. Greet the moment at hand with a grateful heart. Eleanor Brown
• Like the ocean that remains calm in its depths even when waves rage over its surface, and like the sun that continues shining on high even during storms, we can at each moment create value and develop our state of life, enjoying our existence to the fullest in times of both suffering and joy. Daisaku Ikeda
• A passionately lived life is not always comfortable. Going for it involves being open to all of life – the joys, the sorrows, the mundane as well and the magic, the splendid victories, the most abject defeats. You might even stop closing your eyes during the scary parts of the movie. Nicholas Lore
• I am learning how to be angry and sad and lonely and joyful and excited and afraid and happy. Laurie Halse Anderson
• I came to a clear conclusion, and it is a universal one: To live, to struggle, to be in love with life–in love with all life holds, joyful or sorrowful–is fulfillment. The fullness of life is open to all of us. Betty Smith
• Suffer what there is to suffer. Enjoy what there is to enjoy. Regard both suffering and joy as facts of life. Nichiren
• Take the joy and bear the sorrow, looking past your hopes and fears: learn to recognize the measured dance that orders all our years. Archilochus
• Cherish every season of life; for without coldness, there is no comfort in warmth, and without darker days, there is no joy in light. Wes Fesler
• In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider. Solomon
• But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires: To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night. To know the pain of too much tenderness. To be wounded by your own understanding of love; And to bleed willingly and joyfully. Khalil Gibran
• Embrace all experiences

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Seek joy even in sad places and difficult times

• To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget. Arundhati Roy
• Difficult times are the greatest opportunities in disguise. When we face difficult times we have to put in determined work to get ourselves into joy. Difficult times are your greatest opportunity to practice yourself into joy! Rhonda Byrne
• Difficulties, opposition, criticism-these things are meant to be overcome, and there is a special joy in facing them and in coming out on top. It is only when there is nothing but praise that life loses its charm and I begin to wonder what I should do about it. Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit
• Discontents are sometimes the better part of our life. I know not well which is the most useful; joy I may choose for pleasure, but adversities are the best for profit; and sometimes those do so far help me, as I should, without them, want much of the joy I have. Owen Feltham
• My advice to the person suffering from lack of time and from apathy is this: Seek out each day as many as possible of the small joys. Hermann Hesse
• Sometimes sorrow, sometimes joy. But beneath it all remember the innate perfection of your life unfolding. That is the secret of unreasonable happiness. Dan Millman
• Adversity,    Challenge

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Turn hindrances and sorrows into joys

• Let every hindrance to joy become the soil out of which joy blossoms. Elizabeth George
• Man’s freedom is never in being saved from troubles, but it is the freedom to take trouble for his own good, to make the trouble an element in his joy. Rabindranath Tagore
• Mistakes are joyful, truth infernal. Albert Camus
• Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world. We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy. Joseph Campbell
• For every negative that is a disappointment, there is one that is a joy. Edward S. Curtis

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Turn problems into joys

• Just as stars shine brightest in the darkest night, your joy blazes brilliantly through life’s problems when you count them as joy. Elizabeth George
• Solving problems should be a joy, a welcome challenge to our creativity. Deepak Chopra
• When I’m creatively solving problems, I’m in my sweet spot, and nothing can take me out of that joyful present. Maria Semple
• Problem-solving

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Turn failures and mistakes into joy

• You must be as joyful when you fail again and again as you are joyful when you succeed. It is often when you fail that you move toward the goal without being aware of it. You must feel joy even when you have not fully succeeded but only moved toward achievement of your goal. B.K.S. Iyengar
• Mistakes are joyful, truth infernal. Albert Camus
• Failure,    Mistakes

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Earthly joys come and go

• All earthly joy begins pleasantly, but at the end it gnaws and kills. Thomas a Kempis
• All my joys resemble more a momentary intoxication than the real gold of happiness. It was all but an illusion. Richard von Krafft-Ebing
• It is our human lot, it is heaven’s will, that sorrow follow joy. Plautus

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Joyful moments pass …

• Nothing wonderful lasted forever. Joy was as fleeting as a shooting star that crossed the evening sky, ready to blink out at any moment. Nicholas Sparks
• Joy is not a constant. It comes to us in moments – often ordinary moments. Sometimes we miss out on the bursts of joy because we’re too busy chasing down the extraordinary moments. Other times we’re so afraid of the dark we don’t dare let ourselves enjoy the light. A joyful life is not a floodlight of joy. That would eventually become unbearable. I believe a joyful life is made up of joyful moments gracefully strung together by trust, gratitude and inspiration Brené Brown
• Joys do not stay, but take wing and fly away. Martial
• To be truthful i am not entirely sure what people mean when they talk of happiness. There are moments of joy and laughter, the comfort of friendship, but enduring happiness? If it exists i have not found it. David Gemmell
• If you’re in a painful place, be there, feel it, but don’t stay stuck there. Do what you’ve got to do to get out of there. And if you’re in a really joyful place, believe that that’s not going to last either. Pegi Young
• Wisdom views with an indifferent eye all finite joys, all blessings born to die. Hannah More
• No joy so great but runneth to an end, No hap so hard but may in fine amend. Robert Southwell
• Sometimes they rose up inside her, these moments of fierce happiness, kindling out of their own substance like a spark igniting a mound of grass. It was a joy to be alive, a strange and savage joy, and she stood there in the warmth and destruction of it knowing it could not last. Kevin Brockmeier
• The bitterness of joy lies in the knowledge that is cannot last. Nor should joy last beyond a certain season, for, after that season, even joy would become merely habit. Tanith Lee
• The bloom fell off my branches and joy did cast off its flower Samuel Rutherford
• What win I, if I gain the thing I seek? A dream, a breath, a froth of fleeting joy. William Shakespeare
• What joy can the years bring half so sweet as the unhappiness they’ve taken away? Logan Pearsall Smith
• The latter end of joy is woe. Geoffrey Chaucer
• Troubles loom up big when they’re ahead, And joys seem always sweeter when they’re past. Henry Ward Beecher
• We age inevitably: The old joys fade and are gone: And at last comes equanimity and the flame burning clear. James Oppenheim
• It is our human lot, it is heaven’s will, that sorrow follow joy. Plautus
• The joy of life is born from feeling, whether it be joy or grief, always of short duration. Umberto Eco
• There is no harbor of peace from the changing waves of joy and despair. Euripides
• Joy and sorrow equally pass away. Saadi
• The ecstasy is so short but the forgetting is so long. Walt Whitman
• Change follows change in us, almost without transition; we pass from blissful rapture to sobbing woe; a single step divides our sublimest ecstasies from the darkest depth of spiritual despondency. Ignacy Jan Paderewski
• Whatever bliss we think we’re going to find, we may find it in brief flashes, fleeting moments that come and go. There’s an impossibility to nailing down any good feeling. Harold Ramis
• How quick the old woe follows a little bliss! Petrarch
• Troubles loom up big when they’re ahead, And joys seem always sweeter when they’re past. Edgar Guest
• Impermanence

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… but trust that joy will return

• Joy and sadness come by turns. Walker Percy
• I love being the age I am, because if there’s enough pain or grief, I have enough experience now to realize that there’s joy coming around the corner. Sara Gilbert
• Loss leaves us empty – but learn not to close your heart and mind in grief. Allow life to replenish you. When sorrow comes it seems impossible – but new joys wait to fill the void. Pam Brown
• Do not grieve over any joy that has gone forever, for it will return to you in another form, know that for sure. Rumi
• Everything passes. Joy. Pain. The moment of triumph; the sigh of despair. Nothing lasts forever – not even this. Paul Stewart
• The night is past,-joy cometh with the morrow. Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
• Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. Psalm 30:5
• After the rain, the sun will reappear. There is life. After the pain, the joy will still be here. Walt Disney
• Trust,    Trust in God

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Kiss each joy while it flies …

• He who binds to himself a joy Does the winged life destroy; But he who kisses the joy as it flies Lives in eternity’s sun rise. William Blake
• We laugh and laugh, and nothing can ever be sad, no one can be lost, or dead, or far away: right now we are here, and nothing can mar our perfection, or steal the joy of this perfect moment. Audrey Niffenegger
• A million tomorrows shall all pass away ‘ere I forget all the joy that is mine, today. Randy Sparks
• Lose what? A man only has a soul to be won or lost; apart from his life, he has nothing. Past or future lives do not matter – at the moment you are living this one, and you should do so with silent comprehension, joy and enthusiasm. What you must not lose is your enthusiasm. Paulo Coelho
• The very best gift… is that anyone can experience those unexpected twinkles of joy that make a magical moment. At these moments, you feel true, deep joy because of a great new insight, a beautiful prospect, or a glimpse into the radiance of another soul. They are the magic moments when life seems better than you ever realized. Richard M. Eyre
• All human joys are swift of wing, For heaven doth so allot it; That when you get an easy thing, You find you haven’t got it Eugene Field
• Joy cannot be held at heel: it must be let go. Pope Francis
• Let a joy keep you. Reach out your hands and take it when it runs by. Carl Sandburg
• Life is too short, Harry. And there’s nowhere near enough joy in it. If you find it, grab it. Before it’s gone. Jim Butcher
• People come and go, pain comes and goes. But so does joy. And if our hearts are closed because we don’t want to suffer, they won’t be open enough to recognize the joy as it flies by. Geneen Roth

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… in this sacred moment of now

• The idea of the past is as useless as the idea of the future. Both could be invoked by anybody about anything. There is never any more beauty than there is now. There is no more joy or wonder or sorrow than there is now, nor perfection, nor any more evil nor any more good than there is now. Richard Flanagan
• Joyful let the soul be in the present, let it disdain to trouble about what is beyond and temper bitterness with a laugh. Nothing is blessed forever. Horace
• Through loyalty to the past, our mind refuses to realize that tomorrow’s joy is possible only if today’s makes way for it; that each wave owes the beauty of its line only to the withdrawal of the preceding one. Andre Gide
• Any joy, creativity or wisdom our next moment brings will ensue from the way we live our present one. Susan L. Taylor
• Live in the moment

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Joy is something we choose …

• The past is gone, the future is not here, now I am free of both. Right now, I choose joy. Deepak Chopra
• At every moment of our life, we have an opportunity to choose joy. Henri J.M. Nouen
• Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day. It is a choice based on the knowledge that we belong to God and have found in God our refuge and our safety and that nothing, not even death, can take God away from us. Joy is the experience of knowing that you are unconditionally loved and that nothing– sickness, failure, emotional distress, oppression, war, or even death– can take that love away. Henri Nouwen
• It isn’t what happens to us in life that creates our joy, but rather how we respond to what happens in our lives. Debra Ford
• We can be unhappy about many things, but joy can still be there… It is important to become aware that at every moment of our life we have an opportunity to choose joy… It is in the choice that our true freedom lies, and that freedom is, in the final analysis, the freedom to love. Henri Nouwen
• Joy springs from within. No one makes you joyous; you choose joyfulness.
• Being joyful is a choice. Jonathan Jackson
• Busy is a choice. Stress is a choice. Joy is a choice. Choose well.
• You are the cause of your own joy or your own misery. You hold that power. You are your own friend and your own enemy. Swami Satchidananda
• Joy is a decision, a really brave one, about how you are going to respond to life. Wess Stafford
• We have a choice at every moment. We can engage in sadness, anger or fear or we can choose joy, love, and peace. Jude Bijou
• Pain comes like the weather, but joy is a choice. Rodney Crowell
• Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world. We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy. Joseph Campbell
• What are the proper grounds for joy? Is it circumstance which will determine the stature of my spirit? Ah, no. It is choice. It is always a choice – in the face of any event – for joy. Mary Anne Radmacher
• Today I choose life. Every morning when I wake up I can choose joy, happiness, negativity, pain… To feel the freedom that comes from being able to continue to make mistakes and choices – today I choose to feel life, not to deny my humanity but embrace it. Kevyn Aucoin
• We can’t choose our lives, but we can decide what to do with the joys or griefs we’re given. Paulo Coelho
• We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them. Kahlil Gibran
• Our destiny and ultimate fate depend upon our daily decisions. . . .Tomorrow’s joy or tomorrow’s despair has its roots in decisions we make today. Joseph B. Wirthlin
• The world we live in is the world we choose to live in, whether consciously or unconsciously. If we choose bliss, that’s what we get. If we choose misery, we get that, too. Tony Robbins
• Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world. We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy. Joseph Campbell
• There is no need to ever wait for joy. My joy does not depend on reaching or achieving certain goals. I don’t have to graduate from college to feel joy, nor do I need to be married to feel joy. I needn’t postpone my joy until I’ve retired or reached a certain level of success. Joy is a state of mind, arising from realization and gratitude, accessible to me at all times. I never wait for joy. I choose joy in this very moment.
• Choice,   Attitude

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… and depends especially on what we choose to pay attention to

• Your joy, your happiness, your satisfaction and your ability to dance with life, depends solely on what you pay attention to. Susan Jeffers
• Whatever we focus our attention on will expand in our experience. If we focus on cultivating the higher qualities of love, compassion, joy and peace, they will expand – not only in our own lives, but also into the world beyond. Deepak Chopra
• Attention

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Be joyful

• Be a dynamo of irrepressible joy! Babaji
• Joy is very infectious; therefore, be always full of joy. Mother Teresa
• May your walls know joy, may every room hold laughter, and every window open to great possibility. Mary Anne Radmacher
• Be joyful and experience pleasurable lives. Christiane Northrup
• Every breath we take, every step we make, can be filled with peace, joy and serenity. Nhat Hanh
• The best thing that you can do to this world is to be joyous. Being joyful, is the greatest offering you can make to the world. Jaggi Vasudev
• Be joyful because it is humanly possible. Wendell Berry
• Get yourself out of the way, and let Joy have more space. Rumi
• The problem is, you can’t tell people these things. They’ll think you’re crazy. And I say to myself: What can I do with this life inside me? I’d like to give it … to make a present of it … to go up to people and tell them: You need to be joyful! You know? You have to play at being pirates … to build cities of marble … to laugh … to set off firecrackers. Roberto Arlt
• If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. Mary Oliver
• If we are not happy and joyous at this season, for what other season shall we wait and for what other time shall we look? Abdu’l-Bahá
• Learn how to feel joy. Seneca the Younger
• Move in space with minimum waste and maximum joy. Sade Adu

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Practice joy

• Think joy, talk joy, practice joy, share joy, saturate your mind with joy, and you will have the time of your life today and every day all your life. Norman Vincent Peale
• Lead yourself. If you must follow someone, follow the genuinely joyful. Joy is evidence that something is working. Eileen Lighthawk
• Do not let the past disturb you, just leave everything in the Sacred Heart and begin again with joy. Mother Teresa
• Drink deeply. Live in serenity and joy. Gautama Buddha
• Bring joy into every nook and cranny of your existence. Behram
• Always practice the Art of Peace in a vibrant and joyful manner. Morihei Ueshiba
• Get rid of anything that isn’t useful, beautiful or joyful. Regina Brett
• Hold up your head! You were not made for failure, you were made for victory. Go forward with a joyful confidence. George Eliot
• I know for sure that’s what we’re here to do: Keep the joy thing going for all seasons. Oprah Winfrey
• It’s your life… why not fill it with as much joy as possible? Bonnie St. John
• Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. To these I commit my day. Max Lucado
• Know that joy is rarer, more difficult, and more beautiful than sadness. Once you make this all-important discovery, you must embrace joy as a moral obligation. Andre Gide
• Know that you are part of a joyful Universe. Allow your romantic, ecstatic, blissful emotions to appear more frequently in your daily life. When you feel joy, experience it and express it! As the New Testament says, ‘Joy is the fruit of the Spirit.’ Wayne Dyer
• Listen for silence in noisy places; feel at peace in the midst of disturbance; awaken joy when there is no reason. Sivaya Subramuniyaswami
• Make joy and happiness the center of your world. Louise Hay
• No matter what comes your way, don’t lose your joy. Joel Osteen
• Pay attention to how you are feeling, and keep your compass heading set for JOY! Jack Canfield
• Sleep in peace, and wake in joy. Walter Scott
• Spread joy. Chase your wildest dreams. Patch Adams
• The gloom of the world is but a shadow; behind it, yet within our reach, is joy. Take joy. Giovanni Giocondo
• Simply be who you are, do what you do best, be where you are called by joy, and let life work its magic on your behalf. Alan Cohen
• Rejoicing in our joy, not suffering over our suffering, makes someone a friend. Friedrich Nietzsche
• How necessary it is to cultivate a spirit of joy. It is a psychological truth that the physical acts of reverence and devotion make one feel devout. The courteous gesture increases one’s respect for others. To act lovingly is to begin to feel loving, and certainly to act joyfully brings joy to others which in turn makes one feel joyful. I believe we are called to the duty of delight. Dorothy Day

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Embrace the joy of life

• There is nothing in life to take seriously except the joy of life. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
• The joy in life is his who has the heart to demand it. Theodore Roosevelt
• Seize from every moment its unique novelty, and do not prepare your joys. Andre Gide
• Right now is the time for you to visualize and create your future. Make it as healthy and bright and joyful as you can. It’s your life, and you’re going to live it. Louise Hay
• Fill your life with as many moments and experiences of joy and passion as you humanly can. Start with one experience and build on it. Marcia Wieder
• There are lots of ways to bring joy, happiness, peace, laughter, hope and comfort into your life, and they cost absolutely nothing. Sandra Magsamen
• This day and your life are God’s gift to you – so give thanks and be joyful always. James M. Beggs
• Go forth into the busy world and love it. Interest yourself in its life, mingle kindly with its joys and sorrows. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Every day is a gift. Remember to unwrap it with joy and gratitude. Katrina Mayer
• A life of adventure is ours for the taking, whether we’re seven or seventy. Life for the most part is what me make it. We have been given a responsibility to live it fully, joyfully, completely, and richly, in whatever span of time God grants us on this earth. Luci Swindoll
• A life of short duration…could be so rich in joy and love that it could contain more meaning than a life lasting eighty years. Viktor E. Frankl
• Engage your life with enthusiasm; grasp your life aggressively and squeeze from it every drop of excitement, satisfaction, and joy. Felix Baumgartner
• Every morning, when we wake up, we have twenty-four brand-new hours to live. What a precious gift! We have the capacity to live in a way that these twenty-four hours will bring peace, joy, and happiness to ourselves and others. Nhat Hanh
• Stretch out your hand and receive the world’s wide gift of joy, appreciation and beauty. Corinne Roosevelt Robinson
• Find ecstasy in life; the mere sense of living is joy enough. Emily Dickinson
• Life is a joyful expression of love, praise and thanksgiving instead of a hopeless struggle which eventually ends in death. Giving thanks in every circumstance, we forego the logic and reason which asks, “Why me?” and open our hearts and learn to trust. Every obstacle becomes an occasion for rejoicing. We put love at the center of our universe and we are lifted beyond the world of limitation, doubt, and fear into the realm of love, hope, and eternal happiness. Robert Scheid
• Live life fully today

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Live in joy

• Live in joy and love even among those who hate; live in joy and peace even among the troubled. Gautama Buddha
• Live in joy, in love, even among those who hate. Jack Kornfield
• Let there be more joy and laughter in your living. Eileen Caddy
• We live from day to day and get as much joy out of experiencing as we can. Shelley Duvall
• We’re all here to live a fabulous life… a life of love, truth, and joy.We have the power to wake up to that. We have the power to say “I’m not just here to survive, I’m here to live the greatest life that can be lived”. Marci Shimoff
• Life is not just something to be endured. It is to be lived in joy, in a fullness without limit. Ernest Holmes
• Live in joy, luminosity, and peace even among the troubles of the world. Remember who you are. Jack Kornfield
• Make the upcoming hour overflow with joy, and let pleasure drown the brim. William Shakespeare
• When we experience moments of ecstasy—in play, in art, in sex—they come not as an exception, an accident, but as a taste of what life is meant to be. . . Ecstasy is an idea, a goal, but it can be the expectation of every day. Those times when we’re grounded in our body, pure in our heart, clear in our mind, rooted in our soul, and suffused with the energy, the spirit of life, are our birthright. It’s really not that hard to stop and luxuriate in the joy and wonder of being. Children do it all the time. It’s a natural human gift that should be at the heart of our lives. Gabrielle Roth

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Create joy

• Life will bring you pain all by itself. Your responsibility is to create joy. Milton H. Erickson
• Be a source of joy. And let haters complain about the world. Paulo Coelho

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Trust joy

• Allow yourself to trust joy and embrace it. You will find you dance with everything. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Trust all joy. Erica Jong

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Let your joy be unrestrained

• I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human. Oriah Mountain Dreamer
• Let joy be unconfined. Lord Byron

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Light the candle of joy daily

• Remember to light the candle of joy daily and all the gloom will disappear from your life. Djwhal Khul
• Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day. Henri Nouwen
• May all beings learn how to nourish themselves with joy each day. Thich Nhat Hanh

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Seek and find joy …

• Your work is to go forth into this physical environment looking for things that are a vibrational match to joy, connecting to Source Energy, and then following with the inspired action. Esther Hicks
• You have to sniff out joy. Keep your nose to the joy trail. Buffy Sainte-Marie
• Each human being has the right to seek out joy, joy being understood as something which makes one content – not necessarily that which makes others content. Paulo Coelho
• Endure pain, find joy, and make your own meaning, because the universe certainly isn’t going to supply it. Lois McMaster Bujold
• Every real thing is a joy, if only you have eyes and ears to relish it, a nose and tongue to taste it. Robert Farrar Capon
• Find joy in everything you choose to do. Every job, relationship, home… it’s your responsibility to love it, or change it. Chuck Palahniuk
• Find joy in the ordinary. Max Lucado
• Go find your joy. It’s what you’re going to remember in the end. Sandra Bullock
• Look for joy in your life; it’s not always easy to find. Charles Kuralt
• You cannot instill joy. You can only find where it lives and bring it forth. Alan Cohen

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… where you are …

• How many joys are crushed under foot because people look up at the sky and disregard what is at their feet? Katharina Elisabeth Goethe

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… knowing joy is everywhere

• You are wrong if you think Joy emanates only or principally from human relationships. God has placed it all around us. It is in everything and anything we might experience. We just have to have the courage to turn against our habitual lifestyle and engage in unconventional living. Jon Krakauer
• Look at the trees, look at the birds, look at the clouds, look at the stars-and if you have eyes you will be able to see that the whole existence is joyful. Rajneesh
• Pleasures lie thickest where no pleasures seem: There’s not a leaf that falls upon the ground But holds some joy of silence or of sound, Some spirits begotten of a summer dream. Samuel Laman Blanchard
• Surely joy is the condition of life. Henry David Thoreau
• The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within our reach is joy. There is radiance and glory in the darkness could we but see – and to see we have only to look. Giovanni Giocondo
• The sun does not shine for a few trees and flowers, but for the wide world’s joy. Henry Ward Beecher
• We fail to see the opportunity for joy that is right in front of us when we are caught in a belief that happiness should take a particular form. Nhat Hanh
• Joy is everywhere; it is in the earth’s green covering of grass: in the blue serenity of the sky: in the reckless exuberance of spring: in the severe abstinence of grey winter: in the living flesh that animates our bodily frame: in the perfect poise of the human figure, noble and upright: in living, in the exercise of all our powers: in the acquisition of knowledge. . . Joy is there everywhere. Rabindranath Tagore
• You are wrong if you think Joy emanates only or principally from human relationships. God has placed it all around us. It is in everything and anything we might experience. We just have to have the courage to turn against our habitual lifestyle and engage in unconventional living. Jon Krakauer (Into the Wild)
• Most of us wait our entire lives for the appearance of a mythical kind of happiness, all the while missing the potential joy that was everywhere around us. Greg Baer

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Realise joy is in the journey…

• Find joy in the journey. Thomas S. Monson
• Let us relish life as we live it, find joy in the journey, and share our love with family and friends. Thomas S. Monson
• You are the grim, goal-oriented ones who will not believe that the joy is in the journey rather than the destination no matter how many times it has been proven to you. Stephen King
• Let your joy be in your journey, not in some distant goal. Tim Cook
• Remember that some of the secret joys of living are not found by rushing from point A to point B, but by inventing some imaginary letters along the way. Douglas Pagels
• Seeker, empty the boat, lighten the load, be free of craving and judgment and hatred, and feel the joy of the way. Gautama Buddha
• Sometimes we become so focused on the finish line, that we fail to find joy in the journey. Dieter F. Uchtdorf
• The joy is in the getting there. Barbara Corcoran
• The joy is in the journey, not the destination. We have a better chance of seeing where we are when we stop trying to get somewhere else. John Bingham
• The point of the journey is not just healing. It’s also recovering the truest, most spontaneous, joyful, and creative core of ourselves. Gloria Steinem
• There is no such joy in the tavern as upon the road thereto. Cormac McCarthy
• There’s no destination. The journey is all that there is, and it can be very, very joyful. Srikumar Rao
• Joy makes the longest journey too short. John Wooden
• Once you realize that the road is the goal and that you are always on the road, not to reach a goal, but to enjoy its beauty and its wisdom, life ceases to be a task and becomes natural and simple, in itself an ecstasy. Nisargadatta Maharaj
• Most successful people find out that the attainment of their goals doesn’t necessarily bring them the happiness and joy they assumed; their happiness is short-lived. Frederick Lenz
• Life is a journey

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Focus on joy and what brings it

• Your destiny is to fulfill those things upon which you focus most intently. So choose to keep your focus on that which is truly magnificent, beautiful, uplifting and joyful. Your life is always moving toward something. Ralph Marston
• You can change your emotion immediately .. by thinking of something joyful, or singing a song, or remembering a happy experience. Rhonda Byrne
• When that which I have chosen to focus upon in this moment evokes love or joy or appreciation, I am, in that moment, offering my greatest value to myself, to my current object of attention and to All-That-Is. Esther Hicks
• We break off obsession by laughing at ourselves, by learning to be funny, by just seeing the joy in life and by having a terrific love for this world. Frederick Lenz
• Just follow your joy. Always. I think that if you do that, life will take you on the course that it’s meant to take you. Jonathan Groff
• There are two ways to look at life and the world. We can see the good or the bad, the beautiful or the ugly. Both are there, and what we focus on and choose to see is what brings us feelings of joy or feelings of despair. Lloyd D. Newell
• Things in which we do not take joy are either a burden upon our minds to be got rid of at any cost; or they are useful, and therefore in temporary and partial relation to us, becoming burdensome when their utility is lost; or they are like wandering vagabonds, loitering for a moment on the outskirts of our recognition, and then passing on. A thing is only completely our own when it is a thing of joy to us. Rabindranath Tagore
• Life is all business. Spend your energy to get joy, happiness, evolution, and to gain more ability to enjoy. In this field we spend our energy. We never use our time, energy, speech, or ability to do something that doesn’t help us grow and improve our life. It’s not worth it. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
• The joy we feel has little to do with the circumstances of our lives and everything to do with the focus of our lives. Russel M. Nelson

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Do what fuels your joy

• Your vocation lies in the intersection of the world’s deep need and your deep joy. Frederick Buechner
• What gives you pleasure and joy? Let those be the things that lead you forward in life. Julianne Moore
• We should all do what, in the long run, gives us joy, even if it is only picking grapes or sorting the laundry. E. B. White
• What you’re shooting at doesn’t matter, the real question is: ‘Does it give you joy?’ Jay Maisel
• If you follow your dreams and spend your life doing what brings you joy, you are more likely to find success Richard Branson
• Where our joy is, there should our work be. Tertullian
• Don’t expect your genius to be discovered; do what you must do because it gives you joy. Paulo Coelho
• A very good career choice would be to gravitate toward those activities and to embrace those desires that harmonize with your core intentions, which are freedom and growth – and joy. Make a ‘career’ of living a happy life rather than trying to find work that will produce enough income that you can do things with your money that will then make you happy. When feeling happy is of paramount importance to you – and what you do ‘for a living’ makes you happy – you have found the best of all combinations. Esther Hicks
• Figure out what fuels your joy, then do lots of that Bob Goff
• Do what you do for the sheer joy of it, Do what you choose,not what someone else chooses for you. Neale Donald Walsch
• Don’t go to work to make money; go to work to spread joy. Marianne Williamson
• The way to find your happiness joy is to make a list of all the things that are fun for YOU to do. Then do some of those things everyday. Anita Moorjani
• It’s a shame to be caught up in something that doesn’t absolutely make you tremble with joy. Julia Child
• Find what brings you joy and go there. Jan Phillips
• Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors where there were only walls. Joseph Campbell

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Work with joy

• Don’t go to work to make money; go to work to spread joy. Marianne Williamson
• Even if you have a lot of work to do, if you think of it as wonderful, and if you feel it as wonderful, it will transform into the energy of joy and fire, instead of becoming a burden. Tulku Thondup
• There can be no joy in living without joy in work. Thomas Aquinas
• If your dominant intent is to feel joy while you are doing the work, your triad of intentions – freedom, growth and joy – will come quickly and easily into alignment. See your “career” as one of creating a joyful life experience. You are not a creator of things or a regurgitator of what someone else has created or a gatherer of stuff. You are a creator, and the subject of your creation is your joyful life experience. That is your mission. That is your quest. That is why you are here. Esther Hicks
• In the broader sense, work is the means to achieve happiness, prosperity. and salvation. When work and duty and joy are commingled, then man is at his best. J. Richard Clarke
• Innovation comes from people who take joy in their work. W. Edwards Deming
• Joy in one’s work is the consummate tool. Phillips Brooks
• Play becomes joy, joy becomes work, work becomes play. Johannes Itten
• Spring work is going on with joyful enthusiasm. John Muir
• The poet’s labors are a work of joy, and require peace of mind. Ovid
• Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy. Khalil Gibran
• Work without joy is drudgery. Drudgery does not produce champions, nor does it produce great organizations. John Wooden
• Work

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Do things for the joy of it

• Do anything, but let it produce joy. Do anything, but let it yield ecstasy. Henry Miller
• Do few things but do them well, simple joys are holy. Francis of Assisi
• Do it for joy and you can do it forever. Stephen King
• Do anything, but let it produce joy. Do anything, but let it yield ecstasy. Henry Miller
• The soul’s joy lies in doing. Percy Bysshe Shelley
• Things won are done, joy’s soul lies in the doing. William Shakespeare
• Do what you love

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Let your actions be inspired by joy

• Action that is inspired from aligned thought is joyful action. Action that is offered from a place of contridicted thought is hard work that is not satisfying and does not yield good results. When you really feel like jumping into action, that is a clear sign that your vibration is pure and you are not offering contridicting thoughts to your own desire. When you are having a hard time making yourself do something, or when the action you offer does not produce the results you are seeking, it is always because you are offering thoughts in opposition to your desire. Esther Hicks
• You will know the joy of action only when you are blissful by your own nature. Jaggi Vasudev

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Allow yourself to be surprised by joy

• Be surprised by joy, be surprised by the little flower that shows its beauty in the midst of a barren desert, and be surprised by the immense healing power that keeps bursting forth like springs of fresh water from the depth of our pain. Henri Nouwen
• The joy of living, its beauty, is all bound up in the fact that life can surprise you. Frank Herbert
• Surprise is the secret of joy. Gilbert K. Chesterton
• Talk about the joys of the unexpected, can they compare with the joys of the expected, of finding everything delightfully and completely what you knew it was going to be? Elizabeth Bibesco
• Not by appointment do we meet delight Or joy; they heed not our expectancy; But round some corner of the streets of life They of a sudden greet us with a smile. Gerald Massey
• We seldom meet with joy and delight by appointment, but unexpectedly they smile on us their sudden welcome round some odd corner of life. Miss Palmer
• Surprise

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Leap for joy

• When you jump for joy, beware that no one moves the ground from beneath your feet. Stanislaw Jerzy Lec
• Jump for joy as we accomplish the dreams we adore. Patch Adams
• Showing joy by jumping up and down and clapping goes away at some point between pre-school and being old enough to go to orgies. Dana Gould
• Love flies, runs, leaps for joy; it is free and unrestrained. Thomas a Kempis

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Never delay your joy

• Don’t put off joy and happiness. Strive to live each day to its fullest, squeezing all the joy you can out of each moment. Instead of measuring your life’s value by your progress toward a single goal, remember that the direction you’re headed in is more important than temporary results. Tony Robbins
• Don’t postpone joy until you have learned all of your lessons. Joy is your lesson. Alan Cohen
• For sudden Joys, like Griefs, confound at first. Daniel Defoe
• The only thing you can’t afford to postpone is joy. Alan Cohen
• The habit of always putting off an experience until you can afford it, or until the time is right, or until you know how to do it is one of the greatest burglars of joy. Be deliberate, but once you’ve made up your mind–jump in. Charles R. Swindoll

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Never sacrifice your joy

• When you’re tempted to be upset, ask yourself ‘Is this worth giving up my joy?’ Joel Osteen

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Never let anyone or anything steal your joy

• In life, we will always encounter difficult people. Don’t allow them to frustrate you or steal your joy. Victoria Osteen
• Make sure that you always follow your heart and your gut, and let yourself be who you want to be, and who you know you are. And don’t let anyone steal your joy. Jonathan Groff

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Feel the joy of being conscious and alive

• Oh the wild joys of living! The leaping from rock to rock … the cool silver shock of the plunge in a pool’s living waters. Robert Browning
• Bliss is a-second-by-second joy and gratitude at the gift of being alive, conscious David Foster Wallace
• My greatest joy is just to be alive! Miguel Angel Ruiz
• The Art of Fulfilment is the ability to experience not only the thrill of the chase, but also the magic of the moment, the unbridled joy of feeling truly alive. Tony Robbins
• Put down your cell phones, put everything away, and feel your blood pulsing in you, feel your creative impulse, feel your own spirit, your heart, your mind. Feel the joy of being alive and free. Patti Smith
• There’s something in our makeup and in our bodies that really wants to luxuriate more in just the joy of being alive and not always consuming, creating, building. There’s something inside of us that wants desperately to stop and experience and just be – not just always do. Elizabeth Lesser
• Movement should be approached like life – with enthusiasm, joy and gratitude – for movement is life, and life is movement, and we get out of it what we put into it. Ron Fletcher
• No matter our circumstances, no matter our challenges or trials, there is something in each day to embrace and cherish. There is something in each day that can bring gratitude and joy if only we will see and appreciate it. Dieter F. Uchtdorf
• What kind of thoughts make you feel good? Thoughts of love, appreciation, gratitude, joyful childhood experiences? Thoughts in which you rejoice that you’re alive and bless your body with love? Do you truly enjoy this present moment and get excited about tomorrow? Thinking these kinds of thoughts is an act of loving yourself, and loving yourself creates miracles in your life. Louise Hay
• A joyful life isn’t about others; it’s about the brightness that is associated with being alive. Your path to it is through anything that replaces thinking with pure flight, pure joy. Martha Beck
• 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
• Don’t hanker for the other world. Live this world, and live it with intensity, with passion. Live it with totality, with your whole being. And out of that whole trust, out of that life of passion, love, and joy, you will become able to go beyond. Rajneesh
• Had they known at these moments to be quietly joyful? Most likely not. People mostly did not know enough when they were living life that they were living it. Elizabeth Strout
• It is the experiences, the memories, the great triumphant joy of living to the fullest extent in which real meaning is found. Jon Krakauer
• Never forget that life can only be nobly inspired and rightly lived if you take it bravely and gallantly, as a splendid adventure in which you are setting out into an unknown country, to face many a danger, to meet many a joy, to find many a comrade, to win and lose many a battle. Annie Besant
• Nothing has to happen for me to feel good! I feel good because I’m alive! Life is a gift, and I revel in it. Tony Robbins
• There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comes when one is most alive, and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive. Jack London
• I was running back to the house in Mayaguez with a melting ice cone we called a piraqua running sweet and sticky down my face and arms, the sun in my eyes, breaking through clouds and glinting off the rain-soaked pavement and dripping leaves. I was running with joy, an overwhelming joy that arose simply from gratitude for the fact of being alive. Along with the image, memory carried these words from a child’s mind through time: I am blessed. In this life I am truly blessed. Sonia Sotomayor
• You have no cause for anything but gratitude and joy. Gautama Buddha
• We’re so engaged in doing things to achieve purposes of outer value that we forget the inner value, the rapture that is associated with being alive, is what it is all about. Joseph Campbell
• We’re all seeking…the rapture of being alive. Joseph Campbell
• Let all of life be an unfettered howl. Like the crowd greeting the gladiator. Don’t stop to think, don’t interrupt the scream, exhale, release life’s rapture. Vladimir Nabokov
• There are thousands of books on the joy of gardening and cooking. Alas, there are only few on the joy of living. Robert Muller
• I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, wracked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing. Agatha Christie
• Being fully alive

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… both the joy and the sorrow …

• Allow yourself to experience fully every step of the journey, both the joy and the pain. You’re alive. Greet the moment at hand with a grateful heart. Eleanor Brown
• Like the ocean that remains calm in its depths even when waves rage over its surface, and like the sun that continues shining on high even during storms, we can at each moment create value and develop our state of life, enjoying our existence to the fullest in times of both suffering and joy. Daisaku Ikeda
• The idea of the Bodhisattva is the one who out of his realization of transcendence participates in the world. The imitation of Christ is joyful participation in the sorrows of the world. Joseph Campbell
• To love means to open ourselves to the negative as well as the positive – to grief, sorrow, and disappointment as well as to joy, fulfillment, and an intensity of consciousness we did not know was possible before. Rollo May
• Whether it is suffering or joy, going through experiences in life is not so much of a karma. Depriving yourself of any experience is the big karma. Jaggi Vasudev
• Whether joy or sorrow, pain or pleasure; whatsoever may befall thee, accept it serenely with an unvanquished heart. Rabindranath Tagore

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… without getting lost in anticipation of heaven’s joys …

• There is a great deal too much in the world, of the “heavenly-mindedness” which expends itself in the contemplation of the joys of paradise, which performs no duty which it can shirk, and whose constant prayer is to be lifted in some overwhelming flood of Divine grace, and be carried, amidst the admiration of men and the jubilance of angels, to the very throne of God. Henry Clay Trumbull
• A great thing shall I make hereof in Heaven of endless worship and everlasting joys. Julian of Norwich
• Let is walk … joyously, dear souls, among the difficulties of this passing life … These pains will have an end when our life ends, after which there will be only joy, only contentment, only eternal consolation. Saint Francis de Sales
• The perfect joys of heaven do not satisfy the cravings of nature. William Hazlitt
• … without getting lost in anticipation of the joys of heaven …
• Believers have a genuine, unfailing hope of a future reunion with loved ones. We can find joy in anticipating our future reunion. Paul P. Enns
• Despair is the damp of hell, as joy is the serenity of heaven. John Donne
• Heaven is a place of unparalleled and indescribable joy. John Piper
• Joy is the serious business of heaven. C. S. Lewis
• Why should we postpone our joy to another world? Let us get all we can of the good between the cradle and the grave, all that we can of the truly dramatic. If, when death comes, that is the end, we have at least made the best of this life. Robert Green Ingersoll
• Life is only a dream: soon, we shall awaken. And what joy! The greater our sufferings, the more limitless our glory. Therese of Lisieux
• Now suppose both death and hell were utterly defeated. Suppose the fight was fixed. Suppose God took you on a crystal ball trip into your future and you saw with indubitable certainty that despite everything — your sin, your smallness, your stupidity — you could have free for the asking your whole crazy heart’s deepest desire: heaven, eternal joy. Would you not return fearless and singing? What can earth do to you, if you are guaranteed heaven? To fear the worst earthly loss would be like a millionaire fearing the loss of a penny — less, a scratch on a penny. Peter Kreeft
• People, when they are frustrated with worldly desires, start changing the object: they start making otherworldly objects of desire – heaven, paradise, and all the joys of heaven. But it is the same trick, the mind is again befooling you. This is not the way of the intelligent person, this is the way of the stupid. Rajneesh
• The joys of heaven will surely compensate for the sorrows of earth. Charles Spurgeon
• The sweetness of reunion is the joy of heaven. Richard Paul Evans
• There are worlds beyond anything you can imagine; there are joys beyond anything you have experienced. There are ecstasies that are undreamed of, I assure you. Frederick Lenz
• To regret the exchange of earthly pleasures for the joys of Heaven, is as if the grovelling caterpillar should lament that it must one day quit the nibbled leaf to soar aloft and flutter through the air, roving at will from flower to flower, sipping sweet honey from their cups, or basking in their sunny petals. Anne Bronte
• If there’s another world, he lives in bliss; if there is none, he made the best of this. Robert Burns
• Heaven,    Anticipation,    The future

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… or grasping for the joy of some future state of enlightenment

• According to Vedanta, there are only two symptoms of enlightenment, just two indications that a transformation is taking place within you toward a higher consciousness. The first symptom is that you stop worrying. Things don’t bother you anymore. You become light hearted and full of joy. The second symptom is that you encounter more and more meaningful coincidences in your life, more and more synchronicities. And this accelerates to the point where you actually experience the miraculous. Deepak Chopra
• All the joys in all the worlds of all beings who have ever been or will ever be, will never equal the perfection of one moment of absorption into the stillness of nirvana. Frederick Lenz
• The attainment of enlightenment makes you happy forever. It frees you from the mental and emotional pains that human beings experience every day. You live in a condition of ecstasy, brightness and joy all of the time. Frederick Lenz
• The pathway to enlightenment is joyful. It may sound harsh. I suggest just the opposite. It is rather easy compared to the possibilities of staying in pain and illusion. Frederick Lenz
• Nirvana is a state of perpetual bliss and ecstasy, unaffected by the transient ups and downs of its own creations. Frederick Lenz
• Rapture is the gateway to nirvana. Sharon Salzberg
• Enlightenment

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Express your joy

• Speak of your joy often. Danielle LaPorte
• We reveal our joys and successes, we conceal our pain. Jesse Jackson
• The most beautiful moments in life are moments when you are expressing your joy, not when you are seeking it. Jaggi Vasudev
• Talking about our problems is our greatest addiction. Break the habit. Talk about joys. Rita Schiano
• Joy is a flame which association alone can keep alive, and which goes out unless communicated. Alphonse de Lamartine

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Share your joy with others…

• Shared joys make a friend, not shared sufferings. Friedrich Nietzsche
• To have joy, one must share it. Lord Byron
• Share your joy with everyone in your world. Louise Hay
• I don’t miss the obligation to be opinionated, but I do regret the chance to share a joy. Adam Gopnik
• I think that it’s a universal urge to have our pain not be felt alone and to have our joys not be felt alone. John Green
• Joy is a freedom. It helps a person to find his/her own liberation. The person who is joyous takes responsibility for the time he/she takes up and the space that he/she occupies. You share it! Some of you have it … you share it! That is what joy is! When you continue to give it away you will still have so much more of it. Maya Angelou
• Our material possessions, like our joys, are enhanced in value by being shared. George D. Prentice
• The sharing of joy, whether physical, emotional, psychic, or intellectual, forms a bridge between the sharers which can be the basis for understanding much of what is not shared between them, and lessens the threat of their difference. Audre Lorde
• Whatever suffering there is in this world, all arises from desiring only myself to be happy. And whatever joy there is in this world, all arises from desiring to share my happiness with everyone. Gautama Buddha
• Joy is more infectious than leprosy. Baba Amte
• We’re like lightbulbs. If bliss starts growing inside you, it’s like a light; it affects the environment. David Lynch
• Sharing

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… and share in the joy of others

• To be able to share in another’s joy, that is the secret of happiness. Georges Bernanos
• When you feel someone else’s pain and joy as powerfully as if it were your own, then you know you really loved them. Ann Brashares

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Spread joy

• Scatter joy. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• To get joy, we must give it and to keep joy, we must scatter it. John Templeton
• There are souls in this world which have the gift of finding joy everywhere and of leaving it behind them when they go. Jean Paul
• The truth is there is more than enough love, creative ideas, power, joy, happiness to go around. Rhonda Byrne
• Joy is portable. Bring it with you.
• A cheerful look brings joy to the heart. William Makepeace Thackeray
• The best use anyone can make of any day is to enjoy it – and then spread that joy to others. John Kremer
• Everything you do right now ripples outward and affects everyone. Your posture can shine your heart or transmit anxiety. Your breath can radiate love or muddy the room in depression. Your glance can awaken joy. Your words can inspire freedom. Your every act can open hearts and minds. David Deida
• We have stopped for a moment to encounter each other, to meet, to love, to share. This is a precious moment, but it is transient. It is a little parenthesis in eternity. If we share with caring, lightheartedness, and love, we will create abundance and joy for each other. And then this moment will have been worthwhile. Deepak Chopra
• When the power of imparting joy is equal to the will, the human soul requires no other heaven. Percy Bysshe Shelley

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Your joy is your gift to the world

• The most important thing in anyone’s life is to be giving something. The quality I can give is fun, joy and happiness. This is my gift. Ginger Roger
• We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. Roger Ebert
• This is the manner of noble souls: they do not want to have anything for nothing; least of all, life. Whoever is of the mob wants to live for nothing; we others, however, to whom life gave itself, we always think about what we might best give in return… One should not wish to enjoy where one does not give joy. Friedrich Nietzsche
• I do not teach children, I give them joy. Isadora Duncan
• When you wish someone joy, you wish them peace, love, prosperity, happiness… all the good things. Maya Angelou
• One should not wish to enjoy where one does not give joy. Friedrich Nietzsche
• Take it upon yourself where you live to make people around you joyful and full of hope. Nelson Mandela
• The joy that you give to others is the joy that comes back to you John Greenleaf Whittier
• Be content with who you are and where you are, and do whatever you can do to bring to others such contentment, and joy, and understanding that you have managed to find yourself. Alexander McCall Smith
• Blessed are the joymakers. Nathaniel Parker Willis
• Do not think only of your own joy, but vow to save all beings from suffering. This is sharing in its highest form and purity beyond all poisons of this world. The Dalai Lama
• Happiness and joy comes to you when it moves through you. There is no other pathway–and that’s the miracle. You will have a number of opportunities in the days just ahead to be a vehicle of happiness and joy for another. Step right into that. Be the source of that. As you bring others to a smile, so, too, will you bring yourself. The method is foolproof. Neale Donald Walsch
• Happiness lies in making others happy, in forsaking self-interest to bring joy to others. Paramahansa Yogananda
• Hopefully, I brought people a certain joy. That will be a wonderful legacy. Julie Andrews
• It’s not enough to have lived. We should be determined to live for something. May I suggest that it be creating joy for others, sharing what we have for the betterment of personkind, bringing hope to the lost and love to the lonely. Leo Buscaglia
• You can be healed of depression if every day you begin the first thing in the morning to consider how you will bring a real joy to someone else. Alfred Adler
• The source of love is deep in us and we can help others realize a lot of happiness. One word, one action, one thought can reduce another person’s suffering and bring that person joy. Nhat Hanh
• Your vocation lies in the intersection of the world’s deep need and your deep joy. Frederick Buechner
• The fine art of Life is to make Another Soul vibrate with a song of joy. Edwin Leibfreed
• Life is a gift

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To express, share and spread joy is love

• Love, what is love? I don’t think you can really put it into words. Love is understanding someone, caring for him, sharing his joys and sorrows. Anne Frank
• That’s love. That’s all it means. It means sharing joy with people. Leo Buscaglia
• The essence of love is that what is ours should belong to someone else. Feeling the joy of someone else as joy within ourselves-that is loving. Emanuel Swedenborg
• The feeling of love is a rich feeling, but the expression of love in word or deed is a joy. Alexander Lowen
• Love

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Expressing and sharing joy magnifies joy

• Grief can take care of itself, but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with. Mark Twain
• As you express joy, you draw it out of those you meet, creating joyful people and joyful events. The greater the joy you express, the more joy you experience. Arnold Patent
• Joy is very infectious; therefore, be always full of joy. Mother Teresa
• All who joy would win must share it. Happiness was born a Twin. Lord Byron
• Are you jealous of the ocean’s generosity? Why would you refuse to give this joy to anyone? Fish don’t hold the sacred liquid in cups! They swim the huge fluid freedom. Rumi
• When two people loved each other they worked together always, two against the world, a little company. Joy was shared; trouble was split. You had an ally. Paul Gallico
• Joy increases as you give it, and diminishes as you try to keep it yourself. In giving it, you will accumulate a deposit of joy greater than you ever believed possible. Norman Vincent Peale
• We could all do with a bit more joy in our lives couldn’t we? The wonderful thing is that when we start spreading joy, we begin to actually experience more joy in our lives too! Steve Goodier
• Find expression for a sorrow, and it will become dear to you. Find expression for a joy, and you will intensify its ecstasy. Oscar Wilde
• Joy is increased by spreading it to others. Robert Murray M’Cheyne
• When you share pain, there’s less of it, and when you share joy, there’s more of it. Spider Robinson
• Joy multiplies when it is shared among friends, but grief diminishes with every division. That is life. R. A. Salvatore
• Pain shared is pain lessened; joy shared is joy increased. Thus do we refute entropy. Spider Robinson
• Shared joy is increased, shared pain is lessened. Spider Robinson
• True joy comes when you inspire, encourage, and guide someone else on a path that benefits him or her. Zig Ziglar
• Joy increases as you give it, and diminishes as you try to keep it for yourself. In giving it, you will accumulate a deposit of joy greater than you ever believed possible. Norman Vincent Peale

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Dividing a joy with another doubles it

• Every man rejoices twice when he has a partner in his joy. He who shares tears with us wipes them away. He divides them in two, and he who laughs with us makes the joy double. Fulton J. Sheen
• A joy shared is a joy doubled. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• A joy that is shared is a joy made double. John Roy
• Shared joy is a double joy; shared sorrow is half a sorrow. Swedish Proverb
• Grief can take care if itself, but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with. Mark Twain
• Lou knew that joy unshared was a halved emotion, just as sadness and loss, when borne alone, were often doubled. Alexander McCall Smith
• Sorrows when shared are less burdensome, though joys divided are increased. Bill Vaughan
• I wanted to know what happened when two people felt it. Would it divide the hurt in two, make it lighter to bear, the way feeling someone’s joy seemed to double it? Sue Monk Kidd
• JOY goes against the foundations of mathematics: it multiplies when we divide. Paulo Coelho
• Joys divided are increased. J. G. Holland
• Shared joy is a doubled joy, shared sorrow is half a sorrow. Swedish proverb

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Unexpressed and unshared joy soon dies

• Such is human psychology that if we don’t express our joy, we soon cease to feel it. Lin Yutang
• The joy that isn’t shared dies young. Anne Sexton
• But life’s joys are only joys if they can be shared. Ravi Zacharias

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Rejoice in the joy of others

• It is the chief joy of all holy beings to witness the joy and happiness of those around them. Ellen G. White
• No matter what the situation may be, I still take pleasure in witnessing the joy of others. Haruki Murakami
• One of the sanest, surest, and most generous joys of life comes from being happy over the good fortune of others. Robert A. Heinlein
• We need to give each other the space to grow, to be ourselves, to exercise our diversity. We need to give each other space so that we may both give and receive such beautiful things as ideas, openness, dignity, joy, healing, and inclusion. Max De Pree
• If you are happy at another’s joy then joy will never leave you. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
• Once as we were sitting together in a doctor’s office, awaiting the lab results of her six-month chemotherapy checkup, I had asked her about her joy in life. Her own life had been so hard. Didn’t she feel envious of others who had things she did not? She had smiled at the thought and shaken her head. “Then what is your secret?” I had asked her, laughing. Suddenly serious, she had replied that it seemed to her that joy was not something personal. When I looked at her, baffled, she explained she has found that if you are genuinely happy for them, people are very generous with their joy and share it with you openheartedly. “When something good happens to the person next to me, I am there to celebrate it with them. Their good luck makes me feel lucky. I rejoice with them about it as fully as if it was happening to me,” she told me. “It makes me really happy.” She paused and looked thoughtful. “Of course, then it is happening to me,” she said with a grin. Rachel Naomi Remen

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Realise the joy of another is your joy

• Your life and my life flow into each other as wave flows into wave, and unless there is peace and joy and freedom for you, there can be no real peace or joy or freedom for me. Frederick Buechner
• Your fervent wishes can only find fulfillment if you succeed in attaining love and understanding of men, and animals, and plants, and stars, so that every joy becomes your joy and every pain your pain. Albert Einstein

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Seeing death for what it truly is brings joy

• From joy people are born; for joy they live; in joy they melt at death. Death is an ecstasy, for it removes the burden of the body and frees the soul of all pain springing from body identification. It is the cessation of pain and sorrow. Paramahansa Yogananda
• Life does not end when we die. Death is a rebirth into a spirit world of light and love, a transition from the physical to the spiritual that is no more frightening or painful than passing between rooms through an open doorway. It is a joyful homecoming to our natural home. Betty Eadie
• My life is ending, I know that well, but every day that is left me I feel how my earthly life is in touch with a new infinite, unknown, but approaching life, the nearness of which sets my soul quivering with rapture, my mind glowing and my heart weeping with joy. Fyodor Dostoevsky
• Our self (Soul), as a form of God’s joy, is deathless. For his joy is amritham, eternal bliss. We know that the life of a Soul, which is finite in its expression and infinite in its principle, must go through the portals of death in its journey to realize the infinite. Rabindranath Tagore
• I have absolutely no fear of death. Why would I? There’s nothing to fear-only joy to experience. Don Piper
• When the shadow of death blots out my joy And erases the face of the sun Give me strength to endure, hope to believe That living and dying are one. William Wallace
• We ourselves can die with comfort and even with joy if we know that death is but a passport to blessedness, that this intellect, freed from all material chains, shall rise and shine. Matthew Simpson
• In every death is a celebration; in every ecstasy, one little death. Norman Mailer
• What delights, what pleasures does your life offer you that outweigh the raptures of death? Novalis
• Death

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The fact that life ends enhances the joy of living

• Impermanence is the very essence of joy-the drop of bitterness that enables one to perceive the sweet. Myrtle Reed
• It is the very joy of this earthly life to think that it will come to an end. Charles Spurgeon
• You may think life is sweet now, but when death is a heartbeat away then life becomes unbearably desirable. And when you survive, everything you do will be enhanced and filled with greater joy: the sunlight, the breeze, a good wine, a woman’s lips, a child’s laughter. David Gemmell
• Balm of the summer night, balm of the ordinary, imperial joy and sorrow of human existence, the dreamed as well as the lived— what could be dearer than this, given the closeness of death? Louise Glück
• I like to remind my friends frequently how short life is. This is the important message of death: not a day to waste, not a day to quarrel, not a day to brood upon yourself. This is not losing the joy of life; this is gaining the joy of life. Eknath Easwaran
• Make fun of death. We are as dead as it gets, and we are fully aware of this joyous experience. We are with you every time you allow it. We are in every singing bird and in every joyful child. We are part of every delicious pulsing in your environment. We are not dead, and neither will you ever be! You will just get up, one day, and get out of the movie. Esther Hicks
• Death is the cradle of our joy of life, the fact that it ends. Stephen Jenkinson
• Although the constant shadow of certain death looms over everyday, the pleasures and joys of life can be so fine and affecting that the heart is nearly stilled in astonishment. Dean Koontz
• Only by living at the edge of death can you understand the indescribable joy of life. James Clavell
• Receive every day as a resurrection from death, as a new enjoyment of life; meet every rising sun with such sentiments of God’s goodness, as if you had seen it, and all things, new-created upon your account: and under the sense of so great a blessing, let your joyful heart praise and magnify so good and glorious a Creator. William Law
• The ascetic remembrance of death is opposed to akedia, to anxiety, to depression, and becomes a powerful reminder of eternity, its joyful nostalgia. Paul Evdokimov
• There is something wonderful about coming to terms with time – that it is finite. You want to have as much joy in your life as possible, and you take responsibility for your own joy. Diane Lane
• To live every day as if it had been stolen from death, that is how I would like to live. To feel the joy of life, as Eve felt the joy of life. To separate oneself from the burden, the angst, the anguish that we all encounter every day. To say I am alive, I am wonderful, I am. I am. That is something to aspire to. Garth Stein
• Life is fleeting

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Overcoming the fear of death is to recover joy

• The conquest of the fear of death is the recovery of life’s joy. One can experience an unconditional affirmation of life only when one has accepted death, not as contrary to life, but as an aspect of life. Life in its becoming is always shedding death, and on the point of death. The conquest of fear yields the courage of life. That is the cardinal initiation of every heroic adventure – fearlessness and achievement. Joseph Campbell
• Amazingly, we take for granted that instinct for survival, fear of death, must separate us from the happiness of pure and uninterpreted experience, in which body, mind, and nature are the same. This retreat from wonder, the backing away like lobsters into safe crannies, the desperate instinct that our life passes unlived, is reflected in proliferation without joy, corrosive money rot, the gross befouling of the earth and air and water from which we came. Peter Matthiessen
• Only those are fit to live who do not fear to die and none are fit to die who have shrunk from the joy of life and the duty of life. Theodore Roosevelt
• There are days we live as if death were nowhere in the background; from joy to joy to joy, from wing to wing, from blossom to blossom to impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom. Li-Young Lee
• This is the fear: death will come and we have not lived yet. We are just preparing to live. Nothing is ready; life has not happened. We have not known the ecstasy which life is; we have not known the bliss life is; we have not known anything. We have just been breathing in and out. We have been just existing. Life has been just a hope and death is coming near. And if life has not yet happened and death happens before it, of course, obviously, we will be afraid because we would not like to die. Rajneesh

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Small, simple things can bring great joys

• Sometimes small things lead to great joys. Shmuel Yosef Agnon
• It is looking for the joys that come in small, precious packages and making the most of them, knowing that big packages of joy are few and far between. Wilferd Peterson
• The essence of life is not in the great victories and grand failures, but in the simple joys. Jonathan Lockwood Huie
• Many people lose the small joys in the hope for the big happiness. Pearl S. Buck
• It is of the small joys and little pleasures that the greatest of our days are built. Mary Anne Radmacher
• Joys come from simple and natural things: mists over meadows, sunlight on leaves, the path of the moon over water. Sigurd F. Olson
• When we recall the past, we usually find that it is the simplest things – not the great occasions – that in retrospect give off the greatest glow of happiness. Bob Hope
• Some people have a wonderful capacity to appreciate again and again, freshly and naively, the basic goods of life, with awe, pleasure, wonder, and even ecstasy. Abraham Maslow
• Joy comes from places you least expect it. Its usually the simple things, like watching my son play basketball or going through Central Park when the blossoms are blooming. Dave Gahan
• Favorite People, Favorite Places, Favorite Memories of the past … These are the joys of a lifetime, Those are the things that last. Henry Van Dyke
• Year by year the complexities of this world grow more bewildering, and so each year we need all the more to seek peace and comfort in joyful simplicities. Sarah Ban Breathnach
• The simplicity of listening to a favorite CD, the calmness of soaking in a hot bath, the ease of resting on a bench at the edge of a garden: these personal spaces feed our souls, allowing us to restore our spirits and enjoy our lives. Chris Casson Madden
• Find is the wrong word. I don’t think anyone “finds” joy. Rather, we cultivate it by searching for the preciousness of small things, the ordinary miracles, that strengthen our hearts so we can keep them open to what is difficult: delight in taking a shower or a slow walk that has no destination, in touching something soft, in noticing the one small, black bird who sings every morning from the top of the big old pine tree that guards this cabin. I need to give my attention to the simple things that give me pleasure with the same fervor I have been giving it to the complex things with which I drive myself crazy. Dawna Markova
• Invite the Sacred to participate in your joy in little things, as well as in your agony over the great ones. There are as many miracles to be seen through a microscope as through a telescope. Start with little things seen through the magnifying glass of wonder, and just as a magnifying glass can focus the sunlight into a burning beam that can set a leaf aflame, so can your focused wonder set you ablaze with insight. Find the light in each other and just fan it. Alice O. Howell
• Don’t overlook life’s small joys while searching for the big ones. H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
• Optimists find joy in small things. They enjoy sunsets, a good conversation with a close friend; and they enjoy life in general. They are more concerned with having many small joys rather than having one huge joy. Robert M. Sherfield
• Simple living,   Savour life’s simple joy

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There is great joy in ordinary and everyday things

• Find joy in the ordinary. Max Lucado
• Joy comes to us in moments–ordinary moments. We risk missing out on joy when we get too busy chasing down the extraordinary. Brené Brown
• If ‘ecstasy’ meant the sudden intrusion of the sacred into the ordinary, then it had just happened to me. Abraham Verghese
• The special life is where the ordinary becomes extraordinary, the natural becomes miraculous, the everyday becomes unique. Finding the magic and wonder within nature is the most assured means by which children rediscover the joy of life. Shmuley Boteach
• Freshness trembles beneath the surface of Everyday, a joy perpetual to all who catch its opal lights beneath the dust of habit. Freya Stark
• The art of being happy lies in the power of extracting happiness from common things. Henry Ward Beecher
• A leaf fluttered in through the window this morning, as if supported by the rays of the sun, a bird settled on the fire escape, joy in the task of coffee, joy accompanied me as I walked. Anaïs Nin
• The Best Things In Life Are Free: Sunshine, songs of birds, the blue heavens, sunrise, the sea air, the field full of flowers, the wonders of nature, the magenta sunset, love, joy, peace of mind, the wonders of nature, the warm rain, the dew of the roses, the love of God, etc., are here for our enjoyment. Alfred Armand Montapert
• Change may be the vitalizing wind blowing through the house of life, but it is not an abiding force. We need permanent things to soak peace into us as well as progress – the beauty of the earth, seedtime and harvest, the smiles of lovers, the joy of the young in being alive, pride in craftsmanship. Why, oh why must we let ourselves forget these lasting treasures in an age of consuming ambition, speed madness and accumulated goods that leave us no chance to live? If we cannot be contented with a little no wealth will ever satisfy us. Helen Keller
• Consider the lilies of the field. Look at the fuzz on a baby’s ear. Read in the backyard with the sun on your face. Learn to be happy. And think of life as a terminal illness because if you do you will live it with joy and passion, as it ought to be lived. Anna Quindlen
• Success is how you collect your minutes. You spend millions of minutes to reach one triumph, one moment, then you spend maybe a thousand minutes enjoying it. If you were unhappy through those millions of minutes, what good is the thousand minutes of triumph? It doesn’t equate… Life is made of small pleasures. Good eye contact over the breakfast table with your wife. A moment of touching a friend. Happiness is made of those tiny successes. The big ones come too infrequently. If you don’t have all those zillions of tiny successes, the big ones don’t mean anything. Norman Lear
• I believe a joyful life is made up of joyful moments, gracefully strung together by trust, gratitude, inspiration, and faith. Brené Brown
• Sometimes people will think, I need to have pre-sanctioned spiritual joy. Getting joy from my contemplative meditation practice or getting joy from reading Thich Nhat Hahn books. Those things can be joyful but I think it’s the small, simple joys of playing with dogs or having sex with someone you love or going for a walk outside, stuff that we tend to ignore. Moby
• There is only one thing about which I shall have no regrets when my life ends. I have savored to the full all the small, daily joys. The bright sunshine on the breakfast table; the smell of the air at dusk; the sound of the clock ticking; the light rains that start gently after midnight; the hour when the family come home; Sunday- evening tea before the fire! I have never missed one moment of beauty, not even taken it for granted. Spring, summer, autumn, or winter. I wish I had failed as little in other ways. Agnes Sligh Turnbull
• Life is in the little things

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Nature brings indescribable joy

• Happy is the man who loves the woods and waters, Brother to the grass and well beloved of Pan; The earth shall be his, and all her laughing daughters. Happy the man. Richard Le Gallienne
• There is nothing more beautiful in the world, enough to lose one’s head. A sunset with a long nose, a starry sky that lies, a river searching for its father, a beautiful blue forest. It makes you laugh, it makes you cry, it’s very mean, generous, magical, universal, a picture of freedom, of unrestrained desire to live, of pain and joy – a joy so powerful and sweet that it restores the souls in every spot on earth. Roberto Benigni
• If the sight of the blue skies fills you with joy, if a blade of grass springing up in the fields has power to move you, if the simple things of nature have a message that you understand, rejoice, for your soul is alive. Eleanora Duse
• All that is sweet, delightful, and amiable in this world, in the serenity of the air, the fineness of seasons, the joy of light, the melody of sounds, the beauty of colors, the fragrancy of smells, the splendor of precious stones, is nothing else but Heaven breaking through the veil of this world. William Law
• True joy of nature is when every drop of water shines like a pearl. Anamika Mishra
• If you are missing out on the natural joy and wisdom of life, it is because you have been taught to ignore it….Reconnecting with nature consists of bringing into your consciousness a sensory way of thinking and relating with which you are born. Michael J Cohen
• If you go out and watch nature closely, you will find something so joyful that it will completely fill you. Marjolein Bastin
• Immerse yourself in nature’s symphony and let your senses burst with joy. Tom Brown, Jr.
• Joy is the mainspring in the whole Of endless Nature’s calm rotation. Joy moves the dazzling wheels that roll In the great Time-piece of Creation. Friedrich Schiller
• Joy, in Nature’s wide dominion, Mightiest cause of all is found; And ’tis joy that moves the pinion When the wheel of time goes round. Friedrich Schiller
• Life is the blossoming of flowers in the spring, the ripening of fruit in the fall, the rhythm of the earth and of nature. Life is the cry of cicadas signalling the end of summer, migratory birds winging south in a transparent autumn sky, fish frolicking in a stream. Life is the joy beautiful music installs in us, the thrilling sight of a mountain peak reddened by the rising sun, the myriad combinations and permutations of visible and invisible phenomena. Life is all things. Daisaku Ikeda
• The lack of power to take joy in outdoor nature is as real a misfortune as the lack of power to take joy in books. Theodore Roosevelt
• When we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy. Hermann Hesse
• I know the joy of fishes in the river through my own joy, as I go walking along the same river. Zhuangzi
• I love the joy of mountains Wandering free with no concerns Every day I find food for this old body There’s leisure for thinking, nothing to do Often I carry an ancient book Sometimes I climb a rock pavilion To look down a thousand foot precipice Overhead are swirling clouds A cold moon chilly cold My body feels like a flying crane. Hanshan
• Joy is everywhere; it is in the earth’s green covering of grass: in the blue serenity of the sky: in the reckless exuberance of spring: in the severe abstinence of grey winter: in the living flesh that animates our bodily frame: in the perfect poise of the human figure, noble and upright: in living, in the exercise of all our powers: in the acquisition of knowledge. . . Joy is there everywhere. Rabindranath Tagore
• May the trees continue to thrive and flourish on this earth, filling our hearts with joy and inspiration. Stephanie Kaza
• What a joy it is to feel the soft, springy earth under my feet once more, to follow grassy roads that lead to ferny brooks where I can bathe my fingers in a cataract of rippling notes, or to clamber over a stone wall into green fields that tumble and roll and climb in riotous gladness! Helen Keller
• Nature best teaches how to pray, and how to reverence all the gifts the Almighty has given us. She is like a vast outspread handkerchief, embroidered with God’s eternal name, on which we may dry alike our tears of sorrow and of joy; she turns weeping into ecstasy, and fills our hearts with speechless, quiet reverence and resignation. Robert Schumann
• There is pleasure in the pathless woods, there is rapture in the lonely shore, there is society where none intrudes, by the deep sea, and music in its roar; I love not Man the less, but Nature more. Lord Byron
• There is eloquence in the tongueless wind, and a melody in the flowing brooks and the rustling of the reeds beside them, which by their inconceivable relation to something within the soul, awaken the spirits to a dance of breathless rapture, and bring tears of mysterious tenderness to the eyes, like the enthusiasm of patriotic success, or the voice of one beloved singing to you alone. Percy Bysshe Shelley
• In nature I find grace tangled in a rapture with violence; I find an intricate landscape whose forms are fringed in death; I find mystery, newness, and a kind of exuberant, spendthrift energy. Annie Dillard
• Spending time in nature will also give you access to the qualities inherent in the field: infinite creativity, freedom, and bliss. Deepak Chopra
• Nature

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Flowers bring joy

• The smell of violets, hidden in the green, Pour’d back into my empty soul and frame The times when I remembered to have been Joyful and free from blame. Alfred Lord Tennyson
• An enchanting harmony of fuchsia, purple and pink undertones, Radiant Orchid inspires confidence and emanates great joy, love and health. It is a captivating purple, one that draws you in with its beguiling charm. Leatrice Eiseman
• A flower blossoms for its own joy. Oscar Wilde
• Look in the perfumes of flowers and of nature for peace of mind and joy of life. Wang Wei
• In joy or sadness, flowers are our constant friends. Okakura Kakuzo
• If someone smells a flower and says he does not understand, the reply to him is: there is nothing to understand, it is only a scent. If he persists, saying: that I know, but what does it all mean? Then one has either to change the subject, or make it more abstruse by saying that the scent is the shape which the universal joy takes in the flower. Rabindranath Tagore
• It is the same life that emerges in joy through the dust of the earth into numberless waves of flowers. Rabindranath Tagore
• There is something inspiring and sublime about the little forget-me-not flower. I hope it will be a symbol of the little things that make your lives joyful and sweet. Dieter F. Uchtdorf
• Flowers

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Birds bring joy and personify joy

• When I rise up, let me rise up joyful like a bird. When I fall, let me fall without regret like a leaf. Wendell Berry
• A bird is joy incarnate. Myrtle Reed
• Then the song of a whitethroat, pure and ethereal, with the dreamy quality of remembered joy. Rachel Carson
• Keep a green tree in your heart and perhaps the singing bird will come. Lois Lowry
• There was some rhythm, some ecstasy in this dance of flight that expressed the fact that happiness which touches depths and rises beyond physical confines is as old as consciousness, yet ever renewed, and is like the glorying flight of the birds Elyne Mitchell
• Keep a green tree in your heart and perhaps the singing bird will come. Lois Lowry
• That’s the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over, lest you should think he never could recapture the first fine careless rapture! Robert Browning
• Joy’s the shyest bird Mortal ever heard; Listen rapt and silent while he sings; Do not seek to see, Less the vision be But a flutter of departing wings. Caroline Spencer
• Birds

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The ocean brings joy

• The ocean stirs the heart, inspires the imagination and brings eternal joy to the soul. Robert Wyland
• Bliss is the ocean, a towel on the sand, the sun out, the chance to swim in waves or walk dragging a stick behind you, a good book, a cold drink. Deb Caletti
• The ocean

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Snow brings joy

• The snow reminded me of the beauty and mystery of creation, of the essential joy that is life. Orhan Pamuk
• One of the very best reasons for having children is to be reminded of the incomparable joys of a snow day. Susan Orlean
• Snow

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Butterflies bring joy

• The joy in catching butterflies is the joy of capturing – for an instant – utter beauty. The satisfaction of being able to let it go is immense. Ruth Rudner
• Butterflies

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The seasons bring joy

• Spring’s greatest joy beyond a doubt is when it brings the children out. Edgar Guest
• When on the breath of Autumn’s breeze, From pastures dry and brown, Goes floating, like an idle thought, The fair, white thistle-down; O, then what joy to walk at will, Upon the golden harvest-hill! Mary Howitt
• There is no season such delight can bring, as summer, autumn, winter and the spring. William Browne
• Life is the blossoming of flowers in the spring, the ripening of fruit in the fall, the rhythm of the earth and of nature. Life is the cry of cicadas signalling the end of summer, migratory birds winging south in a transparent autumn sky, fish frolicking in a stream. Life is the joy beautiful music installs in us, the thrilling sight of a mountain peak reddened by the rising sun, the myriad combinations and permutations of visible and invisible phenomena. Life is all things. Daisaku Ikeda
• When bounteous autumn rears her head, he joys to pull the ripened pear. John Dryden
• While it is February one can taste the full joys of anticipation. Spring stands at the gate with her finger on the latch. Patience Strong
• When on the breath of Autumn’s breeze, From pastures dry and brown, Goes floating, like an idle thought, The fair, white thistle-down; O, then what joy to walk at will, Upon the golden harvest-hill! Mary Howitt
• Snow endures but for a season, and joy comes with the morning. Marcus Aurelius
• Sometimes I get lonesome for a storm. A full blown storm where everything changes. The sky goes through four days in an hour, the trees wail, little animals skitter in the mud and everything gets dark and goes completely wild. But it is really God – playing music in his favourite cathedral in heaven – shattering stained glass – playing a gigantic organ – thundering on the keys – perfect harmony – perfect joy. Joan Baez
• When bounteous autumn rears her head, he joys to pull the ripened pear. John Dryden
• What is beautiful is a joy for all seasons. Oscar Wilde
• There is no season such delight can bring, as summer, autumn, winter and the spring. William Browne
• The seasons

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The rain brings joy

• What happiness it is to listen to rain at night; joyful relief, ease; a lapping-round and hushing and brooding tenderness, all are mingled together in the sound of the fast-falling rain. God, looking down upon the rainy earth, sees how faint are these lights shining in little windows, – how easily put out. Katherine Mansfield
• Even rain and wind and stormy clouds bring joy, just as knowing animals and flowers and where they live. Sigurd F. Olson
• Rain

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The stars bring joy

• There is no greater joy for me than looking at the sky on a clear night with an attention so concentrated that all my other thoughts disappear; then one can think that the stars enter into one’s soul. Simone Weil
• If we believe that the sun and moon hang in the sky for our delight, there will be joy upon the hills and gladness in the fields. Helen Keller
• Filled with rapture, his soul yearned for freedom, space, vastness. Over him the heavenly dome, full of quiet, shining stars, hung boundlessly. From the zenith to the horizon the still-dim Milky Way stretched its double strand. Night, fresh and quiet, almost unstirring, enveloped the earth. The white towers and golden domes of the church gleamed in the sapphire sky. The luxuriant autumn asleep till morning. The silence of the earth seemed to merge with the silence of the heavens and the mystery of the earth touched the mystery of the stars. Fyodor Dostoevsky
• Stars

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Words and language bring joy

• Words cause pain, they evoke anger, they make us hate, they lead us to war. But they also make us laugh, bring us joy, and satisfying our emotional hungers. Marlene Caroselli
• As a poet and writer, I deeply love… words. I love the infinite evidence and change and requirements and possibilities of language; every human use of words that is joyful, or honest or new, because experience is new… June Jordan
• I loved words. I love to sing them and speak them and even now, I must admit, I have fallen into the joy of writing them. Anne Rice
• It is our duty and our joy to communicate our hearts to each other. Words assist us in this task. Kate DiCamillo
• Words can wound or heal. The purpose of speech must always be to create joy in the listener. Deepak Chopra
• Words are tears that have been written down. Tears are words that need to be shed. Without them, joy loses all its brilliance and sadness has no end. Paulo Coelho
• Words are like nets – we hope they’ll cover what we mean, but we know they can’t possibly hold that much joy, or grief, or wonder. Jodi Picoult
• Never before had I known the sudden quiver of understanding that travels from word to brain to heart, the way a new language can move, coil, swim into life under the eyes, the almost savage leap of comprehension, the instantaneous, joyful release of meaning, the way the words shed their printed bodies in a flash of heat and light. Elizabeth Kostova
• The more words I have, the more distinct, precise my perceptions become–and such lucidity is a form of joy. Eva Hoffman
• The Yogic sages say that all the pain of a human life is caused by words, as is all the joy. We create words to define our experience and those words bring attendant emotions that jerk us around like dogs on a leash. We get seduced by our own mantras (I’m a failure I’m lonely I’m a failure I’m lonely) and we become monuments to them. To stop talking for a while, then, is to attempt to strip away the power of words, to stop choking ourselves with words, to liberate ourselves from our suffocating mantras. Elizabeth Gilbert
• Words, Language

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Writing brings joy

• What joy there is in hearing yourself think, and to make that thinking into ink. John Olsen
• I think one of the great joys of being a writer is you can transcend everything, even your own sex, what century you live in, and how you think. Rebecca Miller
• Writing isn’t just a job that stops at six thirty… It’s a mad, sexy, sad, scary, ruthless, joyful, and utterly, utterly personal thing. There’s not the writer and then me; there’s just me. All of my life connects to the writing. All of it. Russell T Davies
• Writing is not a serious business. It’s a joy and a celebration. You should be having fun with it. Ray Bradbury
• Learn from your rejections and polish your craft. Write for the sheer joy of being creative. Jonathan Weeks
• The fact is that writing, like any creative undertaking, carries with it both pain and great joy. The pain is often inherent in the most fertile subject matter; the joy lies in transforming that subject matter and thus moving through it in a way that helps us grow while we create something of value to others. Judith Barrington
• The writer’s joy is the thought that can become emotion, the emotion that can wholly become a thought. Thomas E. Mann
• There is in writing the constant joy of sudden discovery, of happy accident. H. L. Mencken
• The moment of writing is not an escape…it is only an insistence, through the imagination, upon human ecstasy, and a reminder that such ecstasy remains as much a birthright in this world as misery remains a condition of it. Larry Levis
• Writing is my passion. It is a way to experience the ecstatic. The root understanding of the word ecstasy—“to stand outside”—comes to me in those moments when I am immersed so deeply in the act of thinking and writing that everything else, even flesh, falls away. Bell Hooks
• And the idea of just wandering off to a cafe with a notebook and writing and seeing where that takes me for awhile is just bliss. K. Rowling
• Writing

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Reading brings joy

• When literature is discovered, a revelation occurs: the joyful, exultant knowledge that anything can happen. Alberto Manguel
• Reading has always been in the chief joy, a never-ending topic of conversation, and often a lifesaver, in my family. Elizabeth Borton de Trevino
• The joy of reading can take you so many different places. In addition to intelligence and stretching your mind, I just think reading is so crucial in terms of being a well-rounded person. Gayle King
• This nice and subtle happiness of reading, this joy not chilled by age, this polite and unpunished vice, this selfish, serene life-long intoxication. Logan Pearsall Smith
• To read without joy is stupid. John Edward Williams
• Reading is the work of the alert mind, is demanding, and under ideal conditions produces finally a sort of ecstasy. B. White
• … the state of rapture I experience when I read a wonderful book is one of the main reasons I read; but it doesn’t happen every time or even every other time, and when it does happen, I am truly beside myself. Nora Ephron
• Reading is rapture (or if it isn’t, I put the book down meaning to go on with it later, and escape out the side door). William Maxwell
• Sit in a room and read–and read and read. And read the right books by the right people. Your mind is brought onto that level, and you have a nice, mild, slow-burning rapture all the time. Joseph Campbell
• Reading

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Stories bring joy

• That’s how a good story works. It changes how you feel. It brings you to a greater appreciation, a greater joy, of your own existence. Chuck Palahniuk
• I love short stories because I believe they are the way we live. They are what our friends tell us, in their pain and joy, their passion and rage, their yearning and their cry against injustice. Andre Dubus
• I want to remind people of the great and profound joy that can be found in stories, and that stories can connect us to each other, and that reading together changes everybody involved. Kate DiCamillo
• There are few joys to compare with the telling of a well-told tale. Charles de Lint
• Stories

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Quotations bring joy

• Quotation brings to many people one of the intensest joys of living. Bernard Darwin
• Quotations

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Music

• Singing is as much the language of holy joy as praying is of holy desire. John Wesley
• I have the opportunity, once more to right some wrongs, to pray for peace, to plant some trees, and sing more joyful songs. William Arthur Ward
• Music, great music, distends the spirit, arouses profound emotions and almost naturally invites us to raise our minds and hearts to God in all situations of human existence, the joyful and the sad. Music can become prayer. Pope Benedict XVI
• Joy, sorrow, tears, lamentation, laughter — to all these music gives voice. Albert Schweitzer
• Drunk with the joy of singing I forget myself and call thee friend who art my lord. Rabindranath Tagore
• I live my daydreams in music I see my life in terms of music. I get most joy in life out of music. Albert Einstein
• When real music comes to me – the music of the spheres, the music that surpasses understanding – that has nothing to do with me, cause I’m just the channel. The only joy for me is for it to be given to me, and to transcribe it like a medium… those moments are what I live for. John Lennon
• Music expresses longing and love and joy better than any piece of dialogue you can ever write. Marsha Norman
• Music takes me to places of illimitable sensual and insensate joy, accessing points of ecstasy that no angelic lover could ever locate, or plunging me into gibbering weeping hells of pain that no torturer could ever devise”. Stephen Fry
• Music exalts each joy, allays each grief, expels diseases, softens every pain. John Armstrong
• Music expresses first of all sadness rather than joy. Ignacy Jan Paderewski
• Music is my happiness, my joy, and when my body wasn’t right I couldn’t get into my music without being healed, without being healthy. Sharon Jones
• Music making is the most joyful activity possible, the most perfect expression of any emotion. Luciano Pavarotti
• Music was my joy, my home, the one place I felt happy and secure. Lawrence Welk
• Song brings of itself a cheerfulness that wakes the heart of joy. Euripides
• Songs are so all-encompassing; they’re the joys and sorrows and pacing of life. Neil Diamond
• The last song was so deep and raw and pure that I could not escape. It was as if the people were singing in between the notes, weeping and joyful at the same time, and I felt like their voices or something was rocking me in its bosom, holding me like a scared kid, and I opened up to that feeling-and it washed over me. Anne Lamott
• The piano is always true to me. In times of despair, happiness, and joy, its mood is always my own. Bradley Joseph
• Think about a piece of music – some great symphony – we don’t expect it to get better as it develops, or that its whole purpose is to reach the final crescendo. The joy is found in listening to the music in each moment. Alan Watts
• Through music you can become sad, joyful, loving, you can learn. You can learn mathematics, touch, pacing… Oh my God! Ooh… Wow… You can see colors through music. Anything! Nina Simone
• We are all strings in the concert of God’s joy. Jakob Bohme
• It is music that welds spiritual and sensual, that can convey ecstasy free of guilt, faith without dogma, love as homage, and a person at home with nature and the infinite. Yehudi Menuhin
• Music is a means capable of expressing dark dramatism and pure rapture, suffering and ecstasy, fiery and cold fury, melancholy and wild merriment – and the subtlest nuances and interplay of these feelings which words are powerless to express and which are unattainable in painting and sculpture. Dmitri Shostakovich
• Music the fiercest grief can charm, And fate’s severest rage disarm. Music can soften pain to ease, And make despair and madness please; Our joys below it can improve, And antedate the bliss above. Alexander Pope
• Music

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Poetry

• There is some awe mixed with the joy of our surprise, when this poet, who lived in some past world, two or three hundred years ago, says that which lies close to my own soul, that which I also had wellnigh thought and said. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• And the true realism, always and everywhere, is that of the poets: to find out where joy resides, and give it a voice far beyond singing. For to miss the joy is to miss all. Robert Louis Stevenson
• Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary. Khalil Gibran
• One of the springs of poetry is joy. May Sarton
• Joy is a part of my process. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that poetry, as a practice, necessitates a sense of joy. Tracy K. Smith
• Men yearn for poetry though they may not confess it; they desire that joy shall be graceful and sorrow august and infinity have a form. E. M. Forster
• Poetry is in itself strength and joy, whether it be crowned by all mankind, or left alone in its own magic hermitage. John Sterling
• Poetry, at least the kind I write, is written out of immediate need; it is written out of pain, joy, and experience too great to be borne until it is ordered into words. And then it is written to be shared. Madeleine L’Engle
• The joy of poetry is that it will wait for you. Novels don’t wait for you. Characters change. But poetry will wait. I think it’s the greatest art. Sonia Sanchez
• The quietest poetry can be an explosion of joy. James Broughton
• Poems allow us not only to bear the tally and toll of our transience, but to perceive, within their continually surprising abundance, a path through the grief of that insult into joy. Jane Hirshfield
• Poetry for me is as much a spiritual practice as sexual ecstasy is. James Broughton
• You can’t make poetry out of thought; poetry is passion. Linear thought must be seduced by wild mind, by the fires of ecstasy. Jennifer Stone

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Dancing

• In a society that worships love, freedom and beauty, dance is sacred. It is a prayer for the future, a remembrance of the past and a joyful exclamation of thanks for the present. Amelia Atwater-Rhodes
• Joy is as infectious as any disease. When you see a few people dancing, suddenly you feel your feet are ready. You may try to control them, because control has been taught to you, but your body wants to join the dance. Whenever you have an opportunity to laugh, join; whenever you have an opportunity to dance, join; whenever you have an opportunity to sing, sing – and one day you will find you have created your paradise. Rajneesh
• Allow yourself to trust joy and embrace it. You will find you dance with everything. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Any dance of celebration must weave both the sorrows and the blessings into a joyful step….To heal is to let the Holy Spirit call me to dance, to believe again, even amid my pain, that God will orchestrate and guide my life. Henri Nouwen
• Dance expresses joy better than anything else. Bob Fosse
• Dance is a life, everyday. don’t miss it. You’re in bodies, you can move… Where is your joy? Mary Anthony
• Dance is a song of the body. Either of joy or pain. Martha Graham
• Dance is your pulse, your heartbeat, your breathing. It’s the rhythm of your life. It’s the expression in time and movement,in happiness, joy, sadness and envy. Jacques d’Amboise
• Ever since there have been men, man has given himself over to too little joy. That alone, my brothers, is our original sin. I should believe only in a God who understood how to dance. Henri Matisse
• I dance for the joy of surviving, at the edge of the road. Stanley Kunitz
• I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human. Oriah Mountain Dreamer
• I work grief and sadness out of my body when I dance, and I bring in joy and rhythm. Inga Muscio
• Imagine a dolphin dancing in the sky. Let it dance with joy. Think of yourself at the bottom of the ocean watching. Yoko Ono
• Is it not possible that the ultimate end is gaiety and music and a dance of joy? James Stephens
• On with the dance, let the joy be unconfined. Mark Twain
• The dance lives in all mankind as a necessary motor-rhythmic expression of excess energy and the joy of living. Curt Sachs
• The fastest, cleanest, most joyful way to break out of your own box is by dancing. I’m not talking about doing the stand-and-sway. I’m talking about dancing so deep, so hard, so full of the beat that you are nothing but the dance and the beat and the sweat and the heat. Gabrielle Roth
• What a joy it is to dance and sing! Angela Carter
• When it comes to true dance, it’s not about how you look, it’s all about the joy you feel. David Levithan
• When you dance, your purpose is not to get to a certain place on the floor. It’s to enjoy each step along the way. Wayne Dyer
• Women, as well as men, in all ages and in all places, have danced on the earth, danced the life dance, danced joy, danced grief, danced despair, and danced hope. Literally and metaphorically, by their very lives. Margaret Laurence
• You dance love, and you dance joy, and you dance dreams. Gene Kelly
• Don’t move the way fear makes you move. Move the way love makes you move. Move the way joy makes you move. Rajneesh
• We ought to dance with rapture that we should be alive and in the flesh, and part of the living, incarnate cosmos. H. Lawrence
• Dancing

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Color

• Color is joy. One does not think joy. One is carried by it. Ernst Haas
• Colors are light’s suffering and joy Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• The craving for colour is a natural necessity just as for water and fire. Colour is a raw material indispensable to life. At every era of his existence and his history, the human being has associated colour with his joys, his actions and his pleasures. Fernand Leger
• Color

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Photography

• Do not settle for easy. Do not settle for that first image. Craft it, work it, and make something more out of it. And finally, don’t forget that the biggest joy in photography is making pictures of those things in your own life. David Burnett
• Great photos of the great moments always give us a great joy! Mehmet Murat Ildan
• Photography

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Gardening

• Gardening is one of the rewards of middle age, when one is ready for an impersonal passion, a passion that demands patience, acute awareness of a world outside oneself, and the power to keep on growing through all the times of drought, through the cold snows, towards those moments of pure joy when all failures are forgotten and the plum tree flowers. May Sarton
• A day so happy. Fog lifted early. I worked in the garden. Hummingbirds were stopping over honeysuckle flowers. There was no thing on earth I wanted to possess. I know no one worth my envying him. Czeslaw Milosz
• I think that no matter how old or infirm I may become, I will always plant a large garden in the spring. Who can resist the feelings of hope and joy that one gets from participating in nature’s rebirth? Edward Giobbi
• It’s the sheer joy of seeing things grow and helping them to grow, even harvesting the stuff that you’ve grown yourself, no matter how old you are. Peter Cundall
• One of the most perfect and unfailing joys of life is planting. It is the creative joy felt by God. Candace Wheeler
• This very act of planting a seed in the earth has in it to me something beautiful. I always do it with a joy that is largely mixed with awe. Celia Thaxter
• Gardening is a madness and a rapture. Faith Sullivan
• Gardening

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Cooking

• Cooking is at once child’s play and adult joy. And cooking done with care is an act of love. Craig Claiborne
• Cooking

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Eating

• Eating is not merely a material pleasure. Eating well gives a spectacular joy to life and contributes immensely to goodwill and happy companionship. It is of great importance to the morale. Elsa Schiaparelli
• Most seafoods should be simply threatened with heat and then celebrated with joy. Jeff Smith
• Sharing our meals should be a joyful and a trustful act, rather than the cursory fulfillment of our social obligations. M. F. K. Fisher
• There is a joy in the actual taste of vanilla ice cream that does not come from knowing the chemical formula of vanilla. There is a joy, an inherent aliveness in the body that you can experience if you pay attention to your body. But if you live up in your head, in your words all the time, you don’t notice it. Charles Tart
• Food

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Tea

• The first sip [of tea] is joy, the second is gladness, the third is serenity, the fourth is madness, the fifth is ecstasy. Jack Kerouac
• Ecstasy is a glass full of tea and a piece of sugar in the mouth. Alexander Pushkin
• Tea

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Wine

• Joy is the best wine. George Eliot
• A house with a great wine stored below lives in our imagination as a joyful house, fast and splendidly rooted in the soil. George Meredith
• I know that wine is, above all else, a blessing, a gift of nature, a joy as pure and elemental as the soil and vines and sunshine from which it springs. Robert Mondavi
• Fill ev’ry glass, for wine inspires us, And fires us With courage, love and joy. Women and wine should life employ. Is there ought else on earth desirous? John Gay
• I have drunken deep of joy, And I will taste no other wine tonight. Percy Bysshe Shelley
• Wine rejoices the heart of man and joy is the mother of all virtues. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• Wine is inspiring and adds greatly to the joy of living. Napoleon Bonaparte
• Wine has a drastic, an astringent taste. I cannot help wincing as I drink. Ascent of flowers, radiance and heat, are distilled here to a fiery, yellow liquid. Just behind my shoulder-blades some dry thing, wide-eyed, gently closes, gradually lulls itself to sleep. This is rapture. This is relief. Virginia Woolf
• Wine

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Travel

• All my life one of my greatest desires has been to travel-to see and touch unknown countries, to swim in unknown seas, to circle the globe, observing new lands, seas, people, and ideas with insatiable appetite, to see everything for the first time and for the last time, casting a slow, prolonged glance, then to close my eyes and feel the riches deposit themselves inside me calmly or stormily according to their pleasure, until time passes them at last through its fine sieve, straining the quintessence out of all the joys and sorrows. Nikos Kazantzakis
• I sing the joy of wandering and the pleasure of the wanderer’s death. Guillaume Apollinaire
• There is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun. Christopher McCandless
• Travel is a joy, full of surprises. Perhaps some of the most enjoyable times are those where one comes close to disaster: the risks add spice, and make for great stories when you are safely back home again. Jane Wilson-Howarth
• Travel

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Dogs

• A dog wakens your heart to joy and companionship. Pam Brown
• A person can learn a lot from a dog, even a loopy one like ours. Marley taught me about living each day with unbridled exuberance and joy, about seizing the moment and following your heart. John Grogan
• Because of the dog’s joyfulness, our own is increased. It is no small gift. It is not the least reason why we should honor as well as love the dog of our own life, and the dog down the street, and all the dogs not yet born. What would the world be like without music or rivers or the green and tender grass? What would this world be like without dogs? Mary Oliver
• Because of the dog’s joyfulness, our own is increased. It is no small gift. Mary Oliver
• The intuitive connection children feel with animals can be a tremendous source of joy. The unconditional love received from pets, and the lack of artifice in the relationship, contrast sharply with the much trickier dealings with members of their own species. Frans de Waal
• Every time I told my cocker spaniel, Taffy, my very first dog, that we were going for a walk, she would launch into a celebratory dance that ended with her racing around the room, always clockwise, and faster and faster, as if her joy could not be possibly contained. Even as a young boy I knew that hardly any creature could express joy so vividly as a dog. Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson
• Joyful, joyful, joyful, as only dogs know how to be happy with only the autonomy of their shameless spirit. Pablo Neruda
• Dogs

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Sport

• Tennis is for me joy, nothing less than that. Sabine Lisicki
• The individual, by means of the discipline imposed on him by sport, not only plays and finds relaxation from the various compulsions to which he is subjected, but without knowing it trains himself for new compulsions. … Training in sports makes of the individual an efficient piece of apparatus which is henceforth unacquainted with anything but the harsh joys of exploiting his body and winning. Jacques Ellul
• To see Good Tennis! What divine joy Can fill our leisure, or our minds employ? Let other people play at other things; The King of Games is still the Game of Kings. James Kenneth Stephen
• Lessons from sport

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Running

• Run often. Run long. But never outrun your joy of running. Julie Isphording
• It was being a runner that mattered, not how fast or how far I could run. The joy was in the act of running and in the journey, not in the destination. John Bingham
• Do the work. Do the analysis. But feel your run. Feel your race. Feel the joy that is running. Kara Goucher
• The studying, the books, exams, arguments, theories. The jokes and pints, laughter, kisses and songs. Life was like running, ninety percent sweat and toil, ten per cent joy. Siobhan Dowd

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Yoga

• Yoga is the golden key that unlocks the door to peace, tranquility and joy. B.K.S. Iyengar
• Through practice comes Yoga, through Yoga comes knowledge, through knowledge love, and through love bliss. Swami Vivekananda
• Mystical bliss, joy and rapture are part of both yoga and vipassana. When the mind is concentrated, purified, bright, unblemished, free from defects, pliant and steady, this positive joy arises. Amit Ray
• Yoga

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Home, sweet home

• Home joys are blessed of heaven. Seneca the Younger
• Home should be the center of joy, equatorial and tropical. Henry Ward Beecher
• My joy burns brighter when I tend to the glowing hearth fires of home. Thomas Kinkade
• Home

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Christmas

• Christmas is not in tinsel and lights and outward show. The secret lies in an inner glow. It’s lighting a fire inside the heart. Good will and joy a vital part. It’s higher thought and a greater plan. It’s glorious dream in the soul of man. Wilferd Peterson
• Selfishness makes Christmas a burden; Love makes it a delight. The joy of brightening a child’s heart creates the magic of Christmas. William Carey Jones
• Christmas day is a day of joy and charity. May God make you very rich in both. Phillips Brooks
• Christmas is joy, religious joy, an inner joy of light and peace. Pope Francis
• Christmas is the season of joy, of holiday greetings exchanged, of gift-giving,and of families united. Norman Vincent Peale
• Christmas: A warm cheery two-month festival that celebrates the joy of retail merchandise.
• Joy is the true gift of Christmas, and we can communicate this joy simply: with a smile, a kind gesture, a little help, forgiveness. And the joy we give will certainly come back to us. Pope Benedict XVI
• On Christmas morning, our joy or our happiness can be at a very high level, not because of our anticipation of what we might receive but, rather, in anticipation of watching our loved ones open our gifts to them. In fact, if we’re not careful, we can fail to register sufficient excitement and joy upon opening the gifts we receive from others. We must remember that they are happiest at that time and to give them top billing, to stretch their happiness to its full length. Earl Nightingale
• One strain could call up the quivering expectancy of Christmas Eve, childhood, joy and sadness, the lonely wonder of a star. Maud Hart Lovelace
• Still, as Christmas-tide comes round, They remember it again – Echo still the joyful sound “Peace on earth, good-will to men!” Lewis Carroll
• The joy of brightening other lives, bearing each others’ burdens, easing other’s loads and supplanting empty hearts and lives with generous gifts becomes for us the magic of Christmas. William Carey Jones
• One strain could call up the quivering expectancy of Christmas Eve, childhood, joy and sadness, the lonely wonder of a star. Maud Hart Lovelace
• The joy of brightening other lives, bearing each others’ burdens, easing other’s loads and supplanting empty hearts and lives with generous gifts becomes for us the magic of Christmas. William Carey Jones
• Christmas

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Sleep

• I studied, I met with medical doctors, scientists, and I’m here to tell you that the way to a more productive, more inspired, more joyful life is: getting enough sleep. Arianna Huffington
• Sleep

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Fashion

• The joy of dressing is an art. John Galliano

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Excessive and negative thinking kills joy

• The artesian well of joy never runs dry. We clog it with our thoughts. Don Blanding
• Above all, the only thing you have to heal is the present thought. Get that right and the whole picture will change into one of harmony and joy. Eckhart Tolle
• You don’t think your way back to joy; you open to it. Donna Quesada
• If you clean it up, get analytical, all the subtle joy and emotion you felt in the first place goes flying out the window. Andrew Wyeth
• Love, joy, and peace cannot flourish until you have freed yourself from mind dominance. Eckhart Tolle
• The thing that I’ve learned is that there really is no joy, and nothing ever good is going to come from negativity. Those are thoughts that, even if you were presenting an honest version of yourself, there’s just no point in sharing. Stephen Amell
• Just think of any negativity that comes to you as a raindrop falling into the ocean of your bliss. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
• Negativity

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Complaining kills joy

• Sometimes we complain without thinking much of it, but the frightening thing about complaining is that every time we do, a cloud descends over our heart, and our hope, appreciation and joy gradually wane. Daisaku Ikeda
• Complaining

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Excessive labelling and conceptualising kills joy

• An infinite question is often destroyed by finite answers. To define everything is to annihilate much that gives us laughter and joy. Madeleine L’Engle
• The more we try to live in the world of words, the more we feel isolated and alone, the more all the joy and liveliness of things is exchanged for mere certainty and security. Alan Watts
• Let go of the need to label

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Excessive intellectualism kills joy

• Almost all the joyful things of life are outside the measure of IQ tests. Madeleine L’Engle
• Surely education has no meaning unless it helps you understand the vast experience of life with all its subtleties, with its extraordinary beauty, its sorrows and joys. You may earn degrees, you may have a series of letters after your name and land a good job, but then what? What is the point of it all if in the process your mind becomes dull, weary, stupid? Jiddu Krishnamurti

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Comparison kills joy

• Comparison with something that is better is the thief of joy. Comparison with something that is worse is a joy – full of relief and gratitude! Theodore Roosevelt
• Comparison is a thug that robs your joy. But its even more than that – Comparison makes you a thug who beats down somebody – or your soul. Ann Voskamp
• Comparison is the thief of all joy. Eleanor Roosevelt
• When you compare music, you lose the joy of listening to it. John Scofield
• Comparison

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Anger and resentment kills joy

• Anger devours almost all other good emotions. It deadens the soul. It numbs the heart to joy and gratitude and hope and tenderness and compassion and kindness. John Piper
• Anger kills both laughter and joy; What greater foe is there than anger? Thiruvalluvar
• The greatest obstacle to connecting with our joy is resentment. Pema Chodron
• When you understand the roots of anger in yourself and in the other, your mind will enjoy true peace, joy and lightness. Nhat Hanh
• Resentments lodge inside you, causing you to lose touch with your inherent worth, your joy, and – more important – your God-loving heart. Debbie Ford
• Be not too thick with anybody; your joys will be fewer, and so will pains. Martial
• Anger, Resentment

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Bitterness kills joy

• It is a simple but sometimes forgotten truth that the greatest enemy to present joy and high hopes is the cultivation of retrospective bitterness. Robert Menzies

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Belief in a judgemental God kills joy

• Do something for the joy of doing it and pray you won’t be punished. Sammy Cahn

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Hate kills joy

• Hatred is a heavy burden. It sinks the heart deep in the breast, and lies like a tombstone on all joys. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• One filled with joy preaches without preaching. Mother Teresa
• Lack of purpose
• A life without an objective is much like a ship at sea with no port in mind. It drifts with the waves or storms, or with the whim of the captain. They are tempted to ask, amidst the battles of life, “Is the struggle worth-while?” That attitude lessens the joy of living. They who say that there is no purpose in life are not unhappy, but become dangerous to themselves and others, for they have no safe guide for their actions. Indeed, life has not objective save physical satisfactions, it is empty and valueless. John Andreas Widtsoe
• Hate

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Worry kills joy

• Worrying is worthless. When you stop focusing on what has already happened and what may never happen, then you’ll be in the present moment. Then you’ll begin to experience joy in life. Brian L. Weiss
• Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its joy. Leo Buscaglia
• Worry has never done anyone any good, and it is very much worse than mere dissipation of psychic energy, for it substantially curtails the joy and fullness of life. Meher Baba
• Worry about tomorrow steals the joy from today. Barbara Cameron
• The mind is trained from a very young age to think that life moves from one worry to the other or from one pain to another, never from one joy to another. If you feel there is something wrong with what you are seeing, then you should look back in at yourself because what you see outside is only a reflection of what is inside you. Swami Nithyananda
• We have a tendency to obscure the forest of simple joys with the trees of problems. Christiane Collange
• An old man was asked what had robbed him of joy in his life. His reply was, “Things that never happened.” Dale Carnegie
• Worry

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Worrying what others think kills joy

• Sadly, if we are not confident about our choices, we can easily let other peoples’ comments make us feel guilty and ruin the joy we need to experience in life through doing the little things that mean a lot to us. Joyce Meyer
• Approval seeking, Worrying what others think

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Stress kills joy

• Stress isn’t only a joy stealer. The way we respond to it can be sin. Ann Voskamp
• There is no human bliss equal to twelve hours of work with only six hours in which to do it. Anthony Trollope
• Stress

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Fear kills joy …

• Fear is for the old. Lack of it is one of the joys of youth. Helen Van Slyke
• Fear is the strong passion; it is with fear that you must trifle, if you wish to taste the intensest joys of living. Robert Louis Stevenson
• Fear pounds on the door to our heart demanding to be let in. Joy is modest and often comes into our lives like a shy person entering a room; it can take a while to even notice it’s there. Jonathan Carroll
• Fearlessness is not only possible, it is the ultimate joy. When you touch nonfear, you are free. Nhat Hanh
• In emancipation from the fears that beset the slave of circumstance he will experience a profound joy, and through all the vicissitudes of his outward life he will remain in the depths of his being a happy man. Bertrand Russell
• Over-anxiety ultimately banishes every trace of joy from life. Paulo Coelho
• Sometimes grief is a comfort we grant ourselves because it’s less terrifying than trying for joy. Megan Hart
• The dark does not destroy the light; it defines it. It’s our fear of the dark that casts our joy into the shadows. Brené Brown
• Trust your Heart. Value its intuition. Choose to let go of fear, and to open to the true and you will awaken to the freedom, clarity and joy of Being. Mooji
• Fear

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… especially fearing to love …

• Loving can cost a lot but not loving always costs more, and those who fear to love often find that want of love is an emptiness that robs the joy from life. Merle Shain

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… and the fear of joy

• What she wants to say has to do not only with joy but with the penetrating, constant fear that is joy’s other half. Michael Cunningham
• Who bathes in worldly joys, swims in a world of fears. Phineas Fletcher
• Most of us experience a life full of wonderful moments and difficult moments. But for many of us, even when we are most joyful, there is fear behind our joy. Nhat Hanh
• Fear of joy is the darkest of captivities. Phil Kay
• I think people feel safer being sad than they do being joyful. Sark
• Is it that they fear the pain of death, or could it be they fear the joy of life? Toad The Wet Sprocket

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Guilt kills joy

• Guilt is imposed by others on you. It is a strategy of the priests to exploit. It is a conspiracy between the priest and the politician to keep humanity in deep slavery forever. They create guilt in you, they create great fear of sin. They condemn you, they make you afraid, they poison your very roots with the idea of guilt. They destroy all possibilities of laughter, joy, celebration. Their condemnation is such that to laugh seems to be a sin, to be joyous means you are worldly. Rajneesh
• Men are that they might have joy . . . not guilt trips. Russell M. Nelson
• Pride ruined the angels, Their shame them restores; And the joy that is sweetest Lurks in stings of remorse. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Guilt

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Jealousy kills joy

• Jealousy means ego, jealousy means unconsciousness. Jealousy means that you have not known even a moment of joy and bliss; you are living in misery. Jealousy is a by-product of misery, ego, unconsciousness. Rajneesh
• Oh, the jealousy, the greed is the unravelling. It’s the unraveling and it undoes all the joy that could be. Joni Mitchell
• Jealousy

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Idolatry kills joy

• The enemy of joy is not suffering, it is idolatry. Matt Papa

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Stagnation kills joy

• When you stand still, you reject the struggle, and you refuse to change and grow. Ultimately, you reject fulfilment, happiness, the dance for joy and everything else that is eternally good. Matthew Kelly

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Numbing painful feelings kills joy

• When we numb hard feelings, we numb joy, we numb gratitude, we numb happiness. Brené Brown
• The walls we build around us to keep sadness out also keeps out joy. Jim Rohn

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Pursuing joy kills joy

• To pursue joy is to lose it. The only way to get it is to follow steadily the path of duty, without thinking of joy, and then, like sheep, it comes most surely unsought, and we ‘being in the way,’ the angel of God, bright-haired joy, is sure to meet us. Alexander MacLaren
• You can only have bliss if you don’t chase it. Henepola Gunaratana
• Real bliss is the absence of the wanting of bliss. Ramesh S Balsekar

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Selfishness kills joy

• Joy flees from the selfish, it deserts the quarrelsome; it is hidden from the impure. James Allen
• Selfishness corrodes. Unselfishness ennobles, satisfies. Don’t put off the joy derivable from doing helpful, kindly things for others. B. C. Forbes
• Ironically, often the thing that keeps me from experiencing joy is my preoccupation with self. The very selfishness that keeps me from pouring myself out for the joy of others also keeps me from noticing and delighting in the myriad small gifts God offers each day. This is why Walker Percy describes boredom as “the self stuffed with the self.” John Ortberg
• Joy cannot remain with the selfish; it is wedded to Love. James Allen
• Selfishness will never know the joy of oneness. Sri Chinmoy
• Selfishness,    Ego

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Self-absorption kills joy

• We actually love ourselves more than we love joy. Gilbert K. Chesterton
• Life without absorbing occupation is hell; joy consists in forgetting life. Elbert Hubbard

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Excessive productiveness and busyness kill joy

• The cult of productivity has its place, but worshipping at its altar daily robs us of the very capacity for joy and wonder that makes life worth living… Maria Popova
• When busyness goes after joy, it goes after everyone’s joy. Kevin DeYoung
• Busyness,   Haste

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Captivity kills joy

• How can a bird that is born for joy Sit in a cage and sing? William Blake

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Excessive responsibility and seriousness kills joy

• Taking responsibility takes all the joy out of life, and drains a man to dust. Robert Jordan

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Preoccupation with the future kills joy

• The future is merely a shadow which blocks out the joys of the present and emphasizes the miseries of the past. Erica Jong
• The future

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Excess kills joy

• The mother of excess is not joy but joylessness. Friedrich Nietzsche
• One may gain political and social independence, but if one is a slave to his passions and desires, one cannot feel the pure joy of real freedom. Swami Vivekananda
• Excess of joy is harder to bear than any amount of sorrow. Honore de Balzac

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Indifference kills joy

• Too unconcerned to love and too passionless to hate, too detached to be selfish and too lifeless to be unselfish, too indifferent to experience joy and too cold to express sorrow, they are neither dead nor alive; they merely exist. Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Apathy

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Materialism kills joy

• Materialism is the only form of distraction from true bliss. Douglas Horton
• Materialism

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Postponing joy kills joy

• The habit of always putting off an experience until you can afford it, or until the time is right, or until you know how to do it is one of the greatest burglars of joy. Be deliberate, but once you’ve made up your mind-jump in. Charles R. Swindoll
• The only thing you can’t afford to postpone is joy. Alan Cohen
• Live life fully today

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Resisting joy kills joy

• We resist joy on this planet more than we resist war. Marianne Williamson
• The worst sin – perhaps the only sin – passion can commit, is to be joyless. Dorothy L. Sayers
• It is strange what a contempt men have for the joys that are offered them freely. Georges Duhamel
• Resistance

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Buying into the illusion of the ego (being a separate self)

• Ego could be defined as whatever covers up basic goodness. From an experiential point of view, what is ego covering up? It’s covering up our experience of just being here, just fully being where we are, so that we can relate with the immediacy of our experience. Egolessness is a state of mind that has complete confidence in the sacredness of the world. It is unconditional well-being, unconditional joy that includes all the different qualities of our experience. Pema Chodron
• Don’t surrender all your joy for an idea you used to have about yourself that isn’t true anymore. Cheryl Strayed
• Illusion,   Ego

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Excessive ambition kills joy

• You shall have joy, or you shall have power, said God; you shall not have both. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Ambition

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Belief that joy is a sin kills joy

• May we understand that joy is not a sin, sacrifice is not a virtue. Paulo Coelho
• Sin

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Joy surfeited

• Joy surfeited turns to sorrow. Vittorio Alfieri
• Pain is inevitable, but misery is optional. We cannot avoid pain, but we can avoid joy. Tim Hansel
• Postpone joy, it will diminish. Postpone a problem, it will grow. Paulo Coelho
• Are there any punishments in life but our joys turned against us? Elizabeth Bibesco
• Unmediated joy was nowadays unfashionable. Gail Jones

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Closing ourselves to life kills joy

• You cannot create a life of fulfillment, joy, and meaning while you are barricading yourself from others and from the opportunities Life offers you. Gary Zukav
• Say yes to life

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• Our purest form of joy comes when people we envy get hurt. That most genuine form of joy. Chuck Palahniuk
• Next to the joy of the egotist is the joy of the detractor. Agnes Repplier

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• Ask yourself: Is there joy, ease and lightness in what i’m doing? If there isn’t then time is covering up the present moment, and life is perceived as a burden or a struggle. Eckhart Tolle
• When you’re tempted to be upset, ask yourself ‘Is this worth giving up my joy?’ Joel Osteen
• More joy questions

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• Wherever I am, there is joy and laughter! Louise Hay
• I am grateful for being alive today. It is my joy and pleasure to live another wonderful day. Louise Hay
• I am the joy of life expressing and receiving in perfect rhythm. Louise Hay
• I am totally free to choose thoughts of joy. It is my Divine right to do so. Louise Hay
• I now deserve love. romance, and joy – and all the good that Life has to offer me. Louise Hay
• Loving myself and thinking joyful, happy thoughts is the quickest way to create a wonderful life. Louise Hay
• I handle my life with joy and ease. Louise Hay
• I open my heart and sing the joys of love. Louise Hay
• I am a joyful breeze entering a room. Louise Hay
• More joy affirmations

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• A thing of beauty is a joy till sunrise. Harvey Fierstein
• And the first rude sketch that the world had seen was joy to his mighty heart, till the Devil whispered behind the leaves ‘It’s pretty, but is it Art?’ Rudyard Kipling
• Christmas: A warm cheery two-month festival that celebrates the joy of retail merchandise.
• Entertainment is the devil’s substitute for joy Leonard Ravenhill
• Half the joys and half the sorrows of this world are discovered in bed. Kathleen Winsor
• Half the world does not know the joy of wearing cotton underwear. Phil Gramm
• Have a smile for breakfast, you’ll be shitting joy by lunch. Joe Abercrombie
• I too have known joy and sadness, and, on the whole, I prefer joy. Ashleigh Brilliant
• If ignorance is bliss, why aren’t more people jumping up and down for joy?
• In times of joy, all of us wished we possessed a tail we could wag. W. H. Auden
• Joy and sorrow are like milk and cookies. That’s how well they go together. Neil Gaiman
• Love’s pure free joy when it works, but when it goes bad you pay for the good hours at loan-shark prices. David Mitchell
• My grandfather used to make home movies and edit out the joy. Richard Lewis
• One of the advantages of being disorganized is the joy of discovery. A. A. Milne
• Raising kids is part joy and part guerilla warfare. Ed Asner
• Shared joy is a double joy; shared sorrow is half a sorrow. Swedish proverb
• Showing joy by jumping up and down and clapping goes away at some point between pre-school and being old enough to go to orgies. Dana Gould
• Some people bring joy wherever they go, and some people bring joy whenever they go. Mark Twain
• Spontaneity is one of the joys of existence, especially if you prepare for it in advance. Alan Dean Foster
• That’s the difference between me and the rest of the world. Happiness isn’t good enough for me! I demand euphoria! Bill Watterson
• The human being places sexual intercourse above all other joys, but leaves it out of his heaven. Mark Twain
• The only nice thing about being imperfect is the joy it brings to others. Doug Larson
• The preacher will preach his farewell message after which the choir will sing “Break Forth With Joy”. Church Bulletin
• There is nothing in nature quite so joyful as the very young and silly lamb – odd that it should develop into that dull and sober animal the sheep. Esther Meynell
• Those who rhapsodize about the ease and joy of childhood have perhaps forgotten what it’s like to be 12 years old. Joyce Maynard
• Visiting is a pleasure; being visited is usually a mixed or ambivalent joy. … The visitor can always go home; the visitee is already home, trapped like a rat in a drainpipe. Barbara Holland
• Were kisses all the joys in bed one woman would another wed. William Shakespeare
• You have to sniff out joy, keep your nose to the joy-trail. Buffy Sainte-Marie
• Joys are bubble-like–what makes them bursts them too. Philip James Bailey

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