Quotes about joy
page 6

“There is both joy and suffering on planet Earth because this beautiful world is a world of duality - a world of opposites. There is an opposite side to everything.”

Rhonda Byrne (1951) Australian writer and producer

Source: Hero

World, Beauty, Suffering

“None will ever be a true Parisian who has not learned to wear a mask of gaiety over his sorrows and one of sadness, boredom, or indifference over his inward joy.”

Gaston Leroux book The Phantom of the Opera

Source: The Phantom of the Opera

Sadness, Learning, Indifference

“And her joy was nearly like sorrow.”

John Steinbeck book The Grapes of Wrath

Source: The Grapes of Wrath

“There are moments when i wish i could roll back the clock and take all the sadness away, but i have a feeling that if i did, the joy would be gone as well. So i take the memories as they come, accepting them all, letting them guide me whenever i can.”

Nicholas Sparks book Dear John

Source: Dear John

Sadness, Feeling, Memory

“Whoever has loved knows all that life contains of sorrow and joy.”

George Sand (1804–1876) French novelist and memoirist; pseudonym of Lucile Aurore Dupin

Love, Life

“If you have a dog, you will most likely outlive it; to get a dog is to open yourself to profound joy and, prospectively, to equally profound sadness.”

Marjorie Garber (1944) American academic

Sadness, Dogs

“There are moments when I wish I could roll back the clock and take all the sadness away, but I have the feeling that if I did, the joy would be gone as well.”

Nicholas Sparks book A Walk to Remember

Source: A Walk to Remember

Sadness, Feeling, Sad, Depressing

“Love is the expression of one's values, the greatest reward you can earn for the moral qualities you have achieved in your character and person, the emotional price paid by one man for the joy he receives from the virtues of another.”

Ayn Rand (1905–1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher

Love, Personality

“The highest prize we can receive for creative work is the joy of being creative. Creative effort spent for any other reason than the joy of being in that light filled space, love, god, whatever we want to call it, is lacking in integrity…”

Marianne Williamson (1952) American writer

Love, God, Effort, Light

“Know that joy is rarer, more difficult, and more beautiful than sadness. Once you make this all-important discovery, you must embrace joy as a moral obligation.”

André Gide (1869–1951) French novelist and essayist

Sadness, Beauty

“When you feel someone else's pain and joy as powerfully as if it were your own, then you know you really loved them.”

Ann Brashares book Girls in Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood

Variant: Live, laugh, love.

When you can feel someone else's pain and joy as if it's your own, thats when you know you really love them - Tina Lowell
Source: Girls in Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood

Love, Pain, Feeling

“In the sky there are always answers and explanations for everything: every pain, every suffering, joy and confusion.”

Ishmael Beah book A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier

Source: A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier

Pain, Suffering

“Cooking is at once child's play and adult joy. And cooking done with care is an act of love.”

Craig Claiborne (1920–2000) Journalist and book author

Love, Cooking

“There are in this world blessed souls, whose sorrows all spring up into joys for others; whose earthly hopes, laid in the grave with many tears, are the seed from which spring healing flowers and balm for the desolate and the distressed.”

Harriet Beecher Stowe book Uncle Tom's Cabin

Source: Uncle Tom's Cabin

World, Hope, Soul, Spring

“Elena gasped back, "I can touch the ground!"
"I can see you touching it!", Bonnie exclaimed with tears of joy.”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Source: Dark Reunion

Tear

“No matter what all your teeth and wet fingers anticipated, there was no accounting for the way that simple joy could shake you.”

Toni Morrison book Beloved

Source: Beloved

Way

“it is this broken road with pitfalls and sharp turns and unexpected traverses that has brought me joy and adventure.”

Alice Walker (1944) American author and activist

“I know that when he has sex he laughs like the world is a perfect place. And when he did that, my hands curled into fists because I thought about touching his face like maybe I could catch joy in my hands and hold it.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Iced

World, Sex, Perfection

“What seems nasty, painful, evil can become a source of beauty, joy, and strength, if faced with an open mind.”

Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist

Pain, Beauty, Evil

“Ah, life is a gate, a way, a path to Paradise anyway, why not live for fun and joy and love or some sort of girl by a fireside, why not go to your desire and LAUGH…”

Jack Kerouac book Big Sur

Big Sur (1962)

Love, Life, Way, Girl

“2 November. This morning, for the first time in a long time, the joy again of imagining a knife twisted in my heart.”

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) author

Source: Diaries of Franz Kafka

Imagination, Time, Heart

“Faith is what makes life bearable, with all its tragedies and ambiguities and sudden, startling joys.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Source: Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art

Life, Faith, Faith

“Art always serves beauty, and beauty is the joy of possessing form, and form is the key to organic life since no living thing can exist without it.”

Borís Pasternak book Doctor Zhivago

Source: Doctor Zhivago

Life, Beauty, Art, Beauty

“And then, if you make it to bedtime, you feel the joy of cheating death out of one more day," she said. "Do you see?”

Suzanne Collins book Gregor the Overlander

Source: Gregor the Overlander

Death, Feeling, Cheating

“There's a difference between playing and playing games. The former is an act of joy, the latter — an act.”

Vera Nazarian (1966) American writer

Source: The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

Game

“Reading has always been the largest and most irreplaceable pleasure for Vincent; reading about other people's successes and failures, joys and sufferings seemed to bury his own failures.”

Irving Stone book Lust for Life

Source: Lust for Life

People, Pleasure, Failure, Suffering

“It was strange, I reflected, as we went out into the golden evening of the Byzantine streets, that even in the weirdest circumstances, the most troubling episodes of one’s life, the greatest divides from home and familiarity, there were these moments of undeniable joy.”

Elizabeth Kostova book The Historian

Source: The Historian (2005), Ch. 37

Life, Home

“It is one of the great joys of home ownership to fire a pistol in one's own bedroom”

Alfred Jarry (1873–1907) French writer

Home

“I tell you, deep inside you is a fountain of bliss, a fountain of joy. Deep inside your center core is truth, light, love, there is no guilt there, there is no fear there. Psychologists have never looked deep enough.”

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (1956) spiritual leader

Love, Truth, Fear, Light

“JOY goes against the foundations of mathematics: it multiplies when we divide.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Mathematics

“It's not enough to have lived. We should be determined to live for something. May I suggest that it be creating joy for others, sharing what we have for the betterment of personkind, bringing hope to the lost and love to the lonely.”

Leo Buscaglia (1924–1998) Motivational speaker, writer

LOVE (1972)

Love, Hope

“My principle anguish and the source of all my joys and sorrows from my youth onward has been the incessant, merciless battle between the spirit and the flesh.”

Nikos Kazantzakis book The Last Temptation of Christ

Source: The Last Temptation of Christ

Youth

“Season of Joy:
She asked me when the season of joy was supposed to end & I said I didn't really think there was an exact date, so we left the tree up till June that year.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

Thinking, Tree, Season

“The first sip [of tea] is joy, the second is gladness, the third is serenity, the fourth is madness, the fifth is ecstasy.”

Jack Kerouac book The Dharma Bums

Source: The Dharma Bums (1958)
Context: "Now you understand the Oriental passion for tea," said Japhy. "Remember that book I told you about; the first sip is joy, the second is gladness, the third is serenity, the fourth is madness, the fifth is ecstasy."

Tea, Madness

“If she know how strongly he felt, she'd have run out the door. He wasn't used to the possessive, or the savage joy she brought to his heart. It ate at his control, so he turned his attention to the music. He understood music.”

Patricia Briggs book Cry Wolf

Source: Cry Wolf

Music, Heart

“We have hands; we can stand on them if we want to. That's our privilege. That's the joy of a mortal body. And that's why God needs us. Because God loves to feel things through our hands.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

Love, God, Feeling

“It is a disaster that wisdom forbids you to be satisfied with yourself and always sends you away dissatisfied and fearful, whereas stubbornness and foolhardiness fill their hosts with joy and assurance.”

Michel De Montaigne (1533–1592) (1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, statesman

Source: The Complete Essays

Wisdom, Fear

“He knew she was there by the joy and fear that overwhelmed his heart.”

Leo Tolstoy book Anna Karenina

Pt. I, ch. 9
Source: Anna Karenina (1875–1877; 1878)

Fear, Heart

“The true joy of a moonlit night is something we no longer understand. Only the men of old, when there were no lights, could understand the true joy of a moonlit night.”

Yasunari Kawabata book Palm-of-the-Hand Stories

Source: Palm-of-the-Hand Stories

Men, Understanding, Light, Night

“A thing of beauty is a joy forever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness”

John Keats Endymion

Bk. I, l. 1
Endymion (1818)
Context: A thing of beauty is a joy forever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

Beauty, Beauty