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
The joy late coming late departs.
LEWIS J. BATES
Some Sweet Day
Nothing brings joy as does a
tamed, controlled, attended and restrained heart.
This heart brings joy.
GAUTAMA BUDDHA
Anguttara Nikaya
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", Poems from the Pickering Manuscript
They hear a voice in every wind,
And snatch a fearful joy.
THOMAS GRAY
Ode in a Distant Prospect of Eton College
Joy flees from the selfish, it deserts the quarrelsome; it is hidden from the impure.
JAMES ALLEN
Morning and Evening Thoughts
Joy is good--the angel's food.
CAROLINE SPENCER
"The Old Is Better"
Life's joys and sorrows meet us every day,
But some are blinded by their tears of sorrow
And see no joy.
S. MOORE
"Sonnet"
For sudden Joys, like Griefs, confound at first.
DANIEL DEFOE
Robinson Crusoe
Joy may be a miser,
But Sorrow’s purse is free.
RICHARD HENRY STODDARD
Persian Song
Joy is what happens when we see that God's plan is perfect and we're already starring in the perfect show.
MARIANNE WILLIAMSON
A Woman's Worth
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
Desert Solitaire
For trash and toys,
And grief-engend'ring joys,
What torment seems too sharp for flesh and blood;
What bitter pills,
Compos'd of real ills,
Men swallow down to purchase one false good!
FRANCIS QUARLES
Emblems
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
"A Strange Singer"
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
Go Tell It on the Mountain
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
attributed, Day's Collacon
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
"De Daumier-Smith's Blue Period"
Joy is circulatory. There is the joy. Then disbelief that says you must be dreaming. Then the mental pause or step back to give the universe a chance to wake you. Then the return to see if the joy is still there--and there is the joy again, insanely real and undeservedly all yours.
GLEN DUNCAN
Talulla Rising
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
Popular Works
Joy, rather than happiness, is the goal of life, for joy is the emotion which accompanies our fulfilling our natures as human beings.
ROLLO MAY
Man's Search For Himself