“Resistance is the secret of joy!”

Of Parents and Children
Essays (1625)
Context: The joys of parents are secret; and so are their griefs and fears. They cannot utter the one; nor they will not utter the other.

Joy: Share it! p.54.
Joy: Share it! (2017)

Source: House Made of Dawn

The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. Verulam Viscount St. Albans (1625), Of Parents and Children

The Joy of Children (1966)

The Shared Patio (2005)
Context: I pretended that I was pausing before telling him about the secret feeling of joy that I hide in my chest, waiting, waiting, waiting for someone to notice that I rise each morning seemingly with nothing to live for, but I do rise, and it is only because of this secret joy, God's love, in my chest. I looked down from the sky and into his eyes and I said, It wasn't your fault. I excused him for the cover and for everything else. For not yet being a New Man. We fell into silence then; he did not ask me any more questions. I was still happy to sit there beside him, but that is only because I have very, very low expectations of most people, and he had now become Most People.

Desire, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).