quotations about joy
In Heaven (if there is one), we are held accountable for every joy we failed to taste.
DOUGLAS CARLTON ABRAMS
interview, goodreads
Through the loveliest scenes the joy-train of our lives rushes swiftly. At the petty wayside stations, we are able but to touch hands with cherished friends, and behold! we are off again; but if we have grief for our engine-driver, care for the stoker, how we creep along the lines.
MRS. F. G. TRAFFORD
attributed, Day's Collacon
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
Good Housekeeping, Dec. 2008
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
The Anthologist
Joy, when it is excessive, overcomes as much as grief.
VITTORIO ALFIERI
Agamemnon
In this world, full often, our joys are only the tender shadows which our sorrows cast.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
We all need joy, and we can all receive joy in only one way, by adding to the joy of others.
EKNATH EASWARAN
The End of Sorrow
If I dream I have you, I have you,
For, all our joys are but fantastical.
JOHN DONNE
The Dream
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
The Everything Self-Esteem Book
We should plague everyone with joy.
SWAMI SATCHIDANANDA
The Yoga Sutras
It is the sum of the million little unconscious dispositions that go to make life joyful or painful.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Is it that they fear the pain of death, or could it be they fear the joy of life?
TOAD THE WET SPROCKET
Pray Your Gods
Joy and grief are things of great hazard and danger in the life of man: The one breaks the heart; the other intoxicates the head.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
Joy is good--the angel's food.
CAROLINE SPENCER
"The Old Is Better"
He who binds to himself a joy
Does the wingèd life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity's sunrise.
WILLIAM BLAKE
"He Who Binds"
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
interview, Beautifully Said Magazine, Jul. 2012
Joy steals upon me, such joy as calls forth tears.
AESCHYLUS
Agamemnon
What matters an eternity of damnation to someone who has found in one second the infinity of joy?
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
"Le Mauvais Vitrier"
Nothing brings joy as does a
tamed, controlled, attended and restrained heart.
This heart brings joy.
GAUTAMA BUDDHA
Anguttara Nikaya
Joys are bubble-like--what makes them bursts them too.
PHILIP JAMES BAILEY
Festus