Emotions

"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."

"'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."

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

"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."

"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."

"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!"

"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."

"Pain is short, and joy is eternal."

"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."

"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."

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

"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.""

"For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy."

"Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore."

"The expression of joy also makes the ego more resilient, less fearful, less resentful of diverse conditions when they occur. The emotion itself is an automatic signal that unites the conscious and subconscious in shared experience."

"The joy we feel has little to do with the circumstances of our lives and everything to do with the focus of our lives."

"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."

"Our innermost being, our common foundation, experiences dreams with profound pleasure and joyful necessity."

"The mother of excess is not joy but joylessness."

"The secret for harvesting from existence the greatest fruitfulness and greatest enjoyment is — to live dangerously."

"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."

"It is so great a thing to be an infinitesimal part of this immeasurable orchestra the music bursts the heart, And from this tiny plosion all the fragments join: Joy orders the disunity until the song is one."

"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 a being of worth and dignity, who is able to affirm his being, if need be, against all other beings and the whole inorganic world."

"I have never served a work as I would like to, but I do try, with each book, to serve to the best of my ability, and this attempt at serving is the greatest privilege and the greatest joy that I know."

"The joys of heaven are not the joys of passive contemplation, of dreamy remembrance, of perfect repose; but they are described thus: "They rest not day nor night. His servants serve Him, and see His face.""

"An infinite question is often destroyed by finite answers. To define everything is to annihilate much that gives us laughter and joy."

"A blossom full of promise is life's joy, That never comes to fruit; hope, for a time, Suns the young floweret in its gladsome light, And it looks flourishing—a little while, Tis past, we know not whither, but 'tis gone—"

"When a child who has been conceived in love is born to a man and a woman, the joy of that birth sings throughout the universe. The joy of writing or painting is much the same, and the insemination comes not from the artist himself but from his relationship with those he loves, with the whole world."

"If you want to know what it means to be happy, look at a flower, a bird, a child; they are perfect images of the kingdom. For they live from moment to moment in the eternal now with no past and no future. So they are spared the guilt and anxiety that so torment human beings and they are full of the sheer joy of living, taking delight not so much in persons or things as in life itself. As long as your happiness is caused or sustained by something or someone outside of you, you are still in the land of the dead. The day you are happy for no reason whatsoever, the day you find yourself taking delight in everything and in nothing, you will know that you have found the land of unending joy called the kingdom."

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

"The essence of our God is STRUGGLE. Pain, joy, and hope unfold and labor within this struggle, world without end."

"I keep my heart flaming, courageous, restless. I feel in my heart all commotions and all contradictions, the joys and sorrows of life. But I struggle to subdue them to a rhythm superior to that of the mind, harsher than that of my heart — to the ascending rhythm of the Universe."

"From every joy and pain a hope leaps out eternally to escape this pain and to widen joy. And again the ascent begins — which is pain — and joy is reborn and new hope springs up once more. The circle never closes. It is not a circle, but a spiral which ascends eternally, ever widening, enfolding and unfolding the triune struggle."

"Verily it is the most joy that may be, as to my sight, that He that is highest and mightiest, noblest and worthiest, is lowest and meekest, homeliest and most courteous: and truly and verily this marvellous joy shall be shewn us all when we see Him."

"Few have written about the joy of political life, the sense of comradeship and achievement. As activists we need to believe in vision and imagination; communicate a sense of possibility. Bleakness is not the whole story, and escape is not the only alternative. Change is possible."

"Joy! Joy! I did not know that all this world is so much part of me, that we are all one army, that windflowers and stars struggle to right and left of me and do not know me; but I turn to them and hail them."

"They hear a voice in every wind, And snatch a fearful joy."

"Those redeemed by Jehovah will return and come to Zion with a joyful cry. Unending joy will crown their heads. Exultation and rejoicing will be theirs, And grief and sighing will flee away."

"Who is the happiest of men? He who values the merits of others, And in their pleasure takes joy, even as though 'twere his own."

"And, e'en while fashion's brightest arts decoy, The heart, distrusting, asks if this be joy."

"The kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field."

"There is something terribly callous in such a view of life, to murder in cold blood all the joy in life for everyone who does not have money. This is indeed what the monied person does, for it is at least his view that without money there is no joy in life."

"Our joy is dead, and only smiles on us."

"We all need joy, and we can all receive joy in only one way, by adding to the joy of others."

"I will fight for you, yes, and you will fight for me. And if you have sacrificed joy and courage and beauty and wisdom for my sake, I will give them all to you again; and yet you must also give them to me, for they are things in which without you I am wanting. But together we can make them."

"Anguish and grief, like darkness and rain, may be depicted; but gladness and joy, like the rainbow, defy the skill of pen or pencil."

"Joy rul'd the day, and Love the night."