Joy

"Just as there are Laws of Conservation of Matter and Energy, so there are in fact Laws of Conservation of Pain and Joy. Neither can ever be created or destroyed. But one can be converted into the other."

"Joy. The thing like pleasure that you feel when you've done a good thing or passed up a real tempting chance to do a bad thing. Or when the unfolding of the universe just seems especially apt. It's nowhere near as flashy and intense as pleasure can be. Believe me! But it's got something going for it. Something that can make you do without pleasure, or even accept a lot of pain, to get it."

"Shared pain is lessened; shared joy, increased — thus do we refute entropy."

"It matters not the name, the land; my joy in all the gods abides: Even in the cricket in the grass some dimness of me smiles and hides."

"On the laugh of a child I am borne to the joy of the King."

"A thousand ages onward led Their joys and sorrows to that hour; No wisdom weighed, no word was said, For only what we were had power."

"Forgive me, Spirit of my spirit, for this, that I have found it easier to read the mystery told in tears and understood Thee better in sorrow than in joy; that, though I would not, I have made the way seem thorny, and have wandered in too many byways, imagining myself into moods which held Thee not."

"During the darkest days of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, when Republicans and religious conservatives controlled the federal government and were doing everything in their power to harm the sick and dying, queers organized and protested and volunteered and mourned. We also made music and theater and art. We took care of each other, and we danced and loved and fucked. Embracing joy and art and sex in the face of fear and uncertainty made us feel better—it kept us sane—and it had the added benefit of driving our enemies crazy. They couldn’t understand how we could be anything but miserable, given the challenges we faced—their greed, their indifference, their bigotry—but we created and experienced joy despite their hatred and despite this awful disease. We turned to each other—we turned to our lovers and friends and sometimes strangers—and said, "Fuck them. Now fuck me.""

"Joy, thou spark from Heav'n immortal, Daughter of Elysium! Drunk with fire, toward Heaven advancing Goddess, to thy shrine we come. Thy sweet magic brings together What stern Custom spreads afar; All men become brothers Where thy happy wing-beats are."

"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."

"Joy from truth's own glass of fire Sweetly on the searcher smiles; Lest on virtue's steeps he tire, Joy the tedious path beguiles. High on faith's bright hill before us, See her banner proudly wave! Joy, too, swells the angels' chorus,— Bursts the bondage of the grave!"

"Pain is short, and joy is eternal."

"For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy."

"My plenteous joys, Wanton in fulness, seek to hide themselves In drops of sorrow."

"'Tis safer to be that which we destroy Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy."

"I wish you all the joy that you can wish."

"Joy is not the same as pleasure or happiness. A wicked and evil man may have pleasure, while any ordinary mortal is capable of being happy. Pleasure generally comes from things, and always through the senses; happiness comes from humans through fellowship. Joy comes from loving God and neighbor. Pleasure is quick and violent, like a flash of lightning. Joy is steady and abiding, like a fixed star. Pleasure depends on external circumstances, such as money, food, travel, etc. Joy is independent of them, for it comes from a good conscience and love of God."

"I have drunken deep of joy, And I will taste no other wine to-night."

"What we felt in those years, the hope, the joy, the possibilities, the sense that anything might happen no matter who we were, will always be a part of us. After all, people said the Beatles would never last, and they were right... except of course they did."

"In the joy of your heart may you feel the living joy that sang one spring morning, sending its glad voice across a hundred years."

"Compulsion is not indeed the final appeal to man, but joy is. And 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; in fighting evils; in dying for gains we never can share. Joy is there everywhere; it is superfluous, unnecessary; nay, it very often contradicts the most peremptory behests of necessity. It exists to show that the bonds of law can only be explained by love; they are like body and soul. 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."

"That side of our existence whose direction is towards the infinite seeks not wealth, but freedom and joy."

"Love is the ultimate meaning of everything around us. It is not a mere sentiment; it is truth; it is the joy that is at the root of all creation."

"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."

"Pleasure is always derived from something outside you, whereas joy arises from within... The very thing that gives you pleasure today will give you pain tomorrow, or it will leave you, so its absence will give you pain."

"Cravings are the mind seeking salvation or fulfillment in external things and in the future as a substitute for the joy of Being. p. 24"

"Joy to the world! the Lord is come; Let earth receive her King. Let every heart prepare Him room, And heav'n and nature sing, And heaven and nature sing, And heaven, and heaven, and nature sing."

"Joy to the world! the Saviour reigns; Let men their songs employ; While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains Repeat the sounding joy."

"Joyful, all ye nations, rise. Join the triumph of the skies. With th'angelic hosts proclaim "Christ is born in Bethlehem!""

"She gave me eyes, she gave me ears; And humble cares,and delicate fears; A heart, the fountain of sweet tears; And love, and thought, and joy."

"Like an army defeated The snow hath retreated, And now doth fare ill On the top of the bare hill; The Ploughboy is whooping— anon— anon! There's joy in the mountains: There's life in the fountains; Small clouds are sailing, Blue sky prevailing; The rain is over and gone."

"Hail to thee, far above the rest In joy of voice and pinion! Thou, linnet! in thy green array, Presiding spirit here to-day, Dost lead the revels of the May; And this is thy dominion."

"Surprised by joy — impatient as the Wind."

"'Tis her privilege, Through all the years of this our life, to lead From joy to joy: for she can so inform The mind that is within us, so impress With quietness and beauty, and so feed With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues, Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men, Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all The dreary intercourse of daily life, Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb Our cheerful faith that all which we behold Is full of blessings."

"Joys season'd high, and tasting strong of guilt."

"I dote on myself, there is that lot of me and all so luscious, Each moment and whatever happens thrills me with joy, I cannot tell how my ankles bend, nor whence the cause of my faintest wish, Nor the cause of the friendship I emit, nor the cause of the friendship I take again."

"To feed the remainder of life with one hour of fulness and freedom! With one brief hour of madness and joy."

"Though the live-oak glistens there in Louisiana solitary in a wide flat space, Uttering joyous leaves all its life without a friend a lover near, I know very well I could not."

"Passing stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you, You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking, (it comes to me as of a dream,) I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you…"

"My spirit to yours dear brother, Do not mind because many sounding your name do not understand you, I do not sound your name, but I understand you, I specify you with joy O my comrade to salute you, and to salute those who are with you, before and since, and those to come also…"

"Thee as another equally needed sun, radiant, ablaze, swift-moving, fructifying all, Thee risen in potent cheerfulness and joy, in endless great hilarity, Scattering for good the cloud that hung so long, that weigh'd so long upon the mind of man, The doubt, suspicion, dread, of gradual, certain decadence of man"

"Now trumpeter for thy close, Vouchsafe a higher strain than any yet, Sing to my soul, renew its languishing faith and hope, Rouse up my slow belief, give me some vision of the future, Give me for once its prophecy and joy."

"O glad, exulting, culminating song! A vigor more than earth's is in thy notes, Marches of victory — man disenthral'd — the conqueror at last, Hymns to the universal God from universal man — all joy! A reborn race appears — a perfect world, all joy! Women and men in wisdom innocence and health — all joy! Riotous laughing bacchanals fill'd with joy! War, sorrow, suffering gone — the rank earth purged — nothing but joy left! The ocean fill'd with joy — the atmosphere all joy! Joy! joy! in freedom, worship, love! joy in the ecstasy of life! Enough to merely be! enough to breathe! Joy! joy! all over joy!"

"Who thinks the amplest thoughts? for I would surround those thoughts, And who has made hymns fit for the earth? for I am mad with devouring ecstasy to make joyous hymns for the whole earth."

"The joy late coming late departs."

"There's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away."

"Oh, frabjous day! Callooh. Callay! He chortled in his joy."

"Sing out my soul, thy songs of joy; Such as a happy bird will sing, Beneath a Rainbow's lovely arch, In early spring."

"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."

"There's a hope for every woe, And a balm for every pain, But the first joys of our heart Come never back again!"