The joy late coming late departs.
LEWIS J. BATES
Some Sweet Day
They hear a voice in every wind,
And snatch a fearful joy.
THOMAS GRAY
Ode in a Distant Prospect of Eton College
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
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"
Men are not put into this world to be everlastingly played on by the harping fingers of joy.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
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
That side of our existence whose direction is towards the infinite seeks not wealth, but freedom and joy.
RABINDRANATH TAGORE
Sadhana
Troubles loom up big when they're ahead,
And joys seem always sweeter when they're past.
EDGAR GUEST
"The Present"
The bitterness of joy lies in the knowledge that it cannot last. Nor should joy last beyond a certain season, for, after that season, even joy would become merely habit.
TANITH LEE
Delusion's Master
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
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"
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
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
Joy may be a miser,
But Sorrow’s purse is free.
RICHARD HENRY STODDARD
Persian Song
Joy flees from the selfish, it deserts the quarrelsome; it is hidden from the impure.
JAMES ALLEN
Morning and Evening Thoughts
Man was made for joy and woe,
And when this we rightly know
Through the world we safely go.
WILLIAM BLAKE
"Auguries of Innocence", Poems from the Pickering Manuscript
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
For sudden Joys, like Griefs, confound at first.
DANIEL DEFOE
Robinson Crusoe
Joy's recollection is no longer joy,
While Sorrow's memory is a sorrow still.
LORD BYRON
Marino Faliero