Quotes about cheer (560 quotes, page 5)

“In no time at all his cheerful face appeared at the door of the spring dusk. In the street among peaceable strangers he did a handstand. Then easy and impervious, in full control, he cartwheeled eastward into the source of night.”

Grace Paley (1922–2007) American writer and activist

"The Pale Pink Roast" (1959)

Spring , Appearance , Time , Night

“The most manifest sign of wisdom is a continual cheerfulness; her state is like that in the regions above the moon, always clear and serene.”

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

Book I, Ch. 26
Attributed
Variant: The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness.

Wisdom

“What a duty it is to cultivate a pleasant manner! how many a meeting does it make cheerful which would otherwise have been stupid and formal! We do not mean by this the mere routine of polite observance, but we mean that general cheerfulness which, like the sunshine lights up whatever it touches, that attention to others which discovers what subject is most likely to interest them, and that information which, ready for use, is easily laid under contribution by the habit of turning all resources to immediate employ. In short, a really pleasant manner grows out of benevolence, which can be as much shown in a small courtesy as in a great service.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

Traits and Trials of Early Life (1836)

Stupidity , Light

“Then with a glad cheer our Lord looked unto His Side and beheld, rejoicing. With His sweet looking He led forth the understanding of His creature by the same wound into His Side within. And then he shewed a fair, delectable place, and large enough for all mankind that shall be saved to rest in peace and in love. And therewith He brought to mind His dearworthy blood and precious water which he let pour all out for love. And with the sweet beholding He shewed His blessed heart even cloven in two.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

The Tenth Revelation, Chapter 24

Love , Peace , Understanding , Water

“… my watchword if I were in office at this moment would be summed up in one single word— the word "efficiency." (Cheers.) If we have not learned from this war that we have greatly lagged behind in efficiency we have learned nothing, and our treasure and our lives are thrown away unless we learn the lesson which the war has given us… last, and, perhaps, greatest of all, there comes a question that underlies the efficiency of our nation… I mean education (loud cheers), in which we are lagging sadly, and with which we shall have peacefully to fight other nations with weapons like the bow and arrow if we do not progress. We have nothing like a national system, but a great chaos of almost haphazard arrangement.”

Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery (1847–1929) British politician

Speech at Chesterfield (16 December 1901), reported in The Times (17 December 1901), p. 10.

War , Education , Question , Learning

“A scrip on my back, and a staff in my hand,
I march on in haste through an enemy's land;
The road may be rough, but it cannot be long;
And I'll smooth it with hope, and I'll cheer it with song.”

Henry Francis Lyte (1793–1847) Anglican priest, hymn-writer and poet

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 49.

Hope

“Give, and thou shalt receive. Give thoughts of cheer,
Of courage and success, to friend and stranger.
And from a thousand sources, far and near,
Strength will be sent thee in thy hour of danger.”

Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850–1919) American author and poet

Give
Poetry quotes, New Thought Pastels (1913)

Courage , Success

“The war plan was incompetent in its rejection of the advice from military professionals and the analysis of the intelligence was incompetent in its conclusion that our soldiers would be welcomed with garlands of flowers and cheering crowds. Thus we would not need to respect the so-called Powell doctrine of overwhelming force.
There was also in Rumsfeld's planning a failure to provide security for nuclear materials, and to prevent widespread lawlessness and looting.
Luckily, there was a high level of competence on the part of our soldiers even though they were denied the tools and the numbers they needed for their mission.”

Al Gore (1948) 45th Vice President of the United States

Quotes, NYU Speech (2004)

War , Intelligence , Flowers , Failure

“That conversation may answer the ends for which it was designed, the parties who are to join in it must come together with a determined resolution to please and to be pleased. If a man feels that an east wind has rendered him dull and sulky, he should by all means stay at home till the wind changes, and not be troublesome to his friends: for dulness is infectious, and one sour face will make many, as one cheerful countenance is productive of others. If two gentlemen desire to quarrel, it should not be done in a company met to enjoy the pleasures of conversation.”

George Horne (1730–1792) English churchman, writer and university administrator

George Horne " On Conversation http://books.google.com/books?id=ZEwEAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA183" in: The Orthodox churchman's magazine; or, A Treasury of divine and useful knowledge, 1804, p. 183; As quoted in Allibone (1880)

Pleasure , Feeling , Home , Change

“Some men are born old, and some never seem so. If we keep well and cheerful we are always young, and at last die in youth, even when years would count us old.”

Tryon Edwards (1809–1894) American theologian

Source: A Dictionary of Thoughts, 1891, p. 385.

Men , Youth

“What comfort there is in a cheerful spirit! how the heart leaps up to meet a sunshiny face, a merry tongue, an even temper, and a heart which either naturally, or, what is better, from conscientious principle, has learned to take all things on their bright side, believing that the Giver of life being all-perfect Love, the best offering we can make to Him is to enjoy to the full what He sends of good, and bear what He allows of evil!”

Dinah Craik (1826–1887) English novelist and poet

Source: A Woman's Thoughts About Women (1858), Ch. 10

Love , Life , Nature , Learning

“He [the artist in general] ought to have 'these powerful organs of expression' — colour and chiaroscuro — entirely at his command, that he may use them in every possible form, as well as that he may do with the most perfect freedom; therefore, whether he wishes to make the subject of a joyous, solemn, or meditative character, by flinging over it the cheerful aspect which the sun bestows, by a proper disposition of shade, or by the appearances that beautify its arising or its setting, a true "General Effect" should never be lost sight of.”

John Constable (1776–1837) English Romantic painter

Text for the 'Old Sarum', print in 'English Landscape' 1835/36, as quoted in Leslie Parris and Ian Fleming-Williams, Constable (Tate Gallery Publications, London, 1993), p. 380
1830s

Freedom , Appearance , Sun , Perfection

“He who kills the cheer springs for beer.”

Jim Butcher book Day Off

The Dresden Files short stories, Day Off

Spring , Beer

“I find that trials help very much in detaching us from this earth. They make us look higher than this world. Here below, nothing can satisfy us. We cannot enjoy a little rest except in being ready to do God's will. [-] Truly, life isn't cheerful. It is very difficult to be attached to it. Au revoir, dear Pauline, my Confidante.”

Thérèse of Lisieux (1873–1897) French Discalced Carmelite nun

March 18(?), 1888
General Correspondence

Life , God , World , Help

“it is a cheering thought to think
that god is on the side of the best digestion”

Don Marquis (1878–1937) American writer

the big bad wolf
archy does his part (1935)

God , Thinking

“They are not your friends, but they are your enemies in fact, though not in intention, who teach you to look to the Legislature for the radical removal of the evils that afflict human life…It is the individual mind and conscience, it is the individual character, on which mainly human happiness or misery depends. (Cheers.) The social problems that confront us are many and formidable. Let the Government labour to its utmost, let the Legislature labour days and nights in your service; but, after the very best has been attained and achieved, the question whether the English father is to be the father of a happy family and the centre of a united home is a question which must depend mainly upon himself. (Cheers.) And those who…promise to the dwellers in towns that every one of them shall have a house and garden in free air, with ample space; those who tell you that there shall be markets for selling at wholesale prices retail quantities—I won't say are imposters, because I have no doubt they are sincere; but I will say they are quacks (cheers); they are deluded and beguiled by a spurious philanthropy, and when they ought to give you substantial, even if they are humble and modest boons, they are endeavouring, perhaps without their own consciousness, to delude you with fanaticism, and offering to you a fruit which, when you attempt to taste it, will prove to be but ashes in your mouths.”

William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) British Liberal politician and prime minister of the United Kingdom

Cheers.
Speech at Blackheath (28 October 1871), quoted in The Times (30 October 1871), p. 3.
1870s

Life , Family , Home , Question

“Music is the great cheer-up in the language of all countries.”

Clifford Odets (1906–1963) Playwright, screenwriter, director, actor

Mr. Bonaparte, in Golden Boy (1937), Act I, sc. ii

Music , Country

“I'm going to say to you what the angels said to every character in the Bible that they encountered, except for Mary, the mother of Jesus. They said "Don't be afraid." We've got a little while to go yet in this life, and it's a scary thing, but don't be afraid. Be of good cheer. He has overcome the world. And He has chosen to dwell within us. And we ain't all that big a deal, but our Savior is. He will walk with us through this life, and when it's over, He will raise us up again, and take us to be where He is. Not because of what we've done, but because of who He is. Because of the love He has for us.”

Rich Mullins (1955–1997) American christian musician

Anderson, Indiana http://www.kidbrothers.net/words/concert-transcripts/anderson-indiana-nov1695.html (November 16, 1995)
In Concert

Love , Life , World , Angels

“Some of the acting is better than the film deserves. Make that all of the acting. Actually, the film stock itself is better than the film deserves. You know when sometimes a film catches fire inside a projector? If it happened with this one, I suspect the audience might cheer.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/revolver-2007 of Revolver (7 December 2007)
Reviews, Half-star reviews

“We planted our crops in the spring, and they came up, and were looking nicely, and we were cheered with the hopes of having a very abundant harvest. But alas! it very soon appeared as if our crops were going to be swallowed up by a vast horde of crickets, that came down from these mountains-crickets very different to what I used to be acquainted with in the State of New York. They were crickets nearly as large as a man's thumb. They came in immense droves, so that men and women with brush could make no headway against them; but we cried unto the Lord in our afflictions, and the Lord heard us, and sent thousands and tens of thousands of a small white bird. I have not seen any of them lately. Many called them gulls, although they were different from the seagulls that live on the Atlantic coast. And what did they do for us? They went to work, and by thousands and tens of thousands, began to devour them up, and still we thought that even they could not prevail against so large and mighty an army. But we noticed, that when they had apparently filled themselves with these crickets, they would go and vomit them up, and again go to work and fill themselves, and so they continued to do, until the land was cleared of crickets, and our crops were saved. There are those who will say that this was one of the natural courses of events, that there was no miracle in it. Let that be as it may, we esteemed it as a blessing from the hand of God; miracle or no miracle, we believe that God had a hand in it, and it does not matter particularly whether strangers believe or not.”

Orson Pratt (1811–1881) Apostle of the LDS Church

Journal of Discourses 21:276-277 (June 20,1880)
Pratt describes the event in which seagulls disposed of swarms of crickets that were destroying their crops.
Miracle of the seagulls and crickets

Women , Men , God , Hope

“Be glad you're fifty — and
That you got there while things were nice,
In a world worth looking at twice.
So here's wishing you many more years,
But not all that many. Cheers!”

Kingsley Amis (1922–1995) English novelist, poet, critic, teacher

"Ode to Me", (p. 134)
Collected Poems, 1944-1979 (1979)

World

“He who walks through a great city to find subjects for weeping, may, God knows, find plenty at every corner to wring his heart; but let such a man walk on his course, and enjoy his grief alone — we are not of those who would accompany him. The miseries of us poor earthdwellers gain no alleviation from the sympathy of those who merely hunt them out to be pathetic over them. The weeping philosopher too often impairs his eyesight by his woe, and becomes unable from his tears to see the remedies for the evils which he deplores. Thus it will often be found that the man of no tears is the truest philanthropist, as he is the best physician who wears a cheerful face, even in the worst of cases.”

Charles Mackay book Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds

Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (1841)

God , Tear , Evil , Heart

“I have always been — I think any student of history almost inevitably is — a cheerful pessimist.”

Jacques Barzun (1907–2012) Historian

Quoted in "Jacques Barzun '27: Columbia Avatar" http://www.college.columbia.edu/cct/jan06/cover.php by Thomas Vinciguerra, Columbia Today (January 2006)

History , Thinking

“It's all about the atmosphere of nature, for sure, but I want the painting to arouse clarity, cheerfulness. When it is finished, then I have to live with it, that's why it must become a pleasant thing. Sun. Clarity. Never white-black, because there are so many shades in between! (translation from Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018)”

Gerrit Benner (1897–1981) Dutch painter

version in original Dutch (citaat van Gerrit Benner, in het Nederlands:) Het gaat om de sfeer van de natuur, zeker, maar ik wil dat het schilderij klaarte, vrolijkheid opwekt. Als zo'n ding af is, dan moet ik ermee leven, daarom moet het prettig zijn. Zon. Klaarte. Nooit wit-zwart, want daar zijn zoveel tinten tussen!
quoted by Hans Redeker (before 1967), in Gerrit Benner; Meulenhoff, Amsterdam, 1967; as cited by Susan van den Berg in 'Benner en Bregman', website 'de Moanne' http://www.demoanne.nl/benner-en-bregman/, 1 Sept. 2008, note xx
1950 - 1980

Nature , Sun , Painting

“According to some of the pious writers of antiquity, they made large fires, which might be seen at a great distance, upon the vigil of this saint [John], in token that he was said in holy writ to be "a shining light." Others, agreeing with this, add also, these fires were made to drive away the dragons and evil spirits hovering in the air; and one of them gravely says, in some countries they burned bones, which was called a bone-fire; for "the dragons hattyd nothyng mor than the styncke of brenyng bonys." This, says another, habent ex gentilibus, they have from the heathens. The author last cited laments the abuses committed upon thes occasions. "this vigil," says he, "ought to be held with cheerfulness and piety, but not with such merriment as is shewn by the profane lovers of this world, who make great fires in the streets, and indulge themselves with filthy and unlawful games, to which they add glotony and drunkenness, and the commission of many other shameful indecencies."”

Joseph Strutt (1749–1802) British engraver, artist, antiquary and writer

pg. 360
The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England (1801), Bonfires

World , Game , Lovers , Light

“Fill every beaker up, my men, pour forth the cheering wine:
There’s life and strength in every drop,—thanksgiving to the vine!”

Albert Gorton Greene (1802–1868) American judge

The Baron's last Banquet, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Life , Men , Wine

“But hark! what shriek of death comes in the gale,
And in the distant ray what glimmering sail
Bends to the storm?—Now sinks the note of fear!
Ah? wretched mariners!—no more shall day
Unclose his cheering eye to light ye on your way!”

Ann Radcliffe book The Mysteries of Udolpho

The Mysteries of Udolpho, Shipwreck; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 704.
Attributed

Death , Fear , Way , Light

“A man to whom despotism is the savior and liberty the destroyer of society, who, during the last twenty years, in every contest between liberty and oppression, uniformally and promptly took sides with the oppressor; who regarded every extension of the right of suffrage, even to white men in his own country, as shooting Niagara; who gloated over deeds of cruelty, and talked of applying to the backs of men the beneficent whip, to the great delight of many of the slaveholders of America in particular, could have but little sympathy with our emancipated and progressive Republic, or with the triumph of liberty any where. But the American people can easily stand the utterances of such a man. They however have a right to be impatient and indignant at those among ourselves who turn the most hopeful portents into omens of disaster, and make themselves the ministers of despair, when they should be those of hope, and help cheer on the country in the new grand career of justice upon which it has now so nobly and bravely entered.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

1860s, Our Composite Nationality (1869)

Men , People , Justice , Hope

“Nelson wonders why, no matter how cheerful and blameless the day's activities have been, when you wake in the middle of the night there is guilt in the air, a gnawing feeling of everything being slightly off, wrong – you in the wrong, and the world too, as if darkness is a kind of light that shows us the depth we are about to fall into.”

John Updike book Rabbit Remembered

Rabbit Remembered (2000)

World , Feeling , Light , Night

“I burn to set the imprison'd wranglers free,
And give them voice and utterance once again.
Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,
Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,
And while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn
Throws up a steamy column, and the cups
That cheer but not inebriate wait on each,
So let us welcome peaceful evening in.”

William Cowper The Task

Source: The Task (1785), Book IV, The Winter Evening, Line 34.

Peace , Waiting

“The man who feels that he must be hopeful and cheerful to get along ignores the careers of some pretty successful misanthropes.”

Henry S. Haskins (1875–1957)

Source: Meditations in Wall Street (1940), p. 103

Hope , Feeling , Success

“I'm not allowed to say how many planes joined the raid, but I counted them all out, and I counted them all back. Their pilots were unhurt, cheerful and jubilant, giving thumbs up signs.”

Brian Hanrahan (1949–2010) British journalist and television presenter

BBC News 20 December 2010 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12037973

“He reacts to many things bitterly, this pleasant, smiling young man, who is 32 years old, married now, with two sons, a sports hero here and back home in Puerto Rico. Clemente reacts to things bitterly because he is an honest man, and a feeling one. Baseball has become a game of automatons performing in mechanical ways. Scoreboards now tell you when to cheer. The words "Go-go-go" light up, and you obediently recite, "Go-go-go." A bugle sounds, and reflexively you murmur, "Charge!" Roberto Clemente is a throwback, as are many of his Latin cohorts—which means he has his flaws. Anger can twist him almost helpless with rage. But it has also made him not only a leader of men—automatons are poor leaders—but also a spokesman for his people. He spoke out, during 1966, in an Associated Press dispatch of August 23…”

Arnold Hano (1922) American writer

From "Roberto Clemente: A Flame in Pittsburgh," in Baseball Stars of 1967 (April 1967), edited by Ray Robinson, p. 51
Other Topics

Men , People , Smile , Way

“The first sign that you are becoming religious is that you are becoming cheerful.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Pearls of Wisdom

“It may be supposed that I led a miserable life but I did not I was very far indeed from being miserable at this time when my wife came home at night, we had always something to talk about, we were pleased to see each other, our reliance on each other was great indeed, we were poor, but we were young, active cheerful and although my wife at times doubted that we would get on in the world, I had no such misgivings.”

Francis Place (1771–1854) English social reformer

Source: The Autobiography of Francis Place: 1771-1854, 1972, p. 7; Cited in: Jeremy Wickins. " An Overview of Francis Place's Life, 1771-1854 http://www.historyhome.co.uk/people/place2.htm," historyhome.co.uk, last edited 12 january 2016.

Life , World , Home , Time

“No chord in populism reverberates more strongly than the notion that the robust common sense of an unstained outsider is the best medicine for an ailing polity. Caligula doubtless got big cheers from the plebs when he installed his horse as proconsul.”

Alexander Cockburn (1941–2012) Leftist journalist and writer

"Obama's Speech; McCain's Palinomy," http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn08302008.html CounterPunch (August 30 -31, 2008).

Sense , Horse

“Let us take short views. If we look over the precipices, we shall grow dizzy. If we look too far ahead, we shall grow discouraged. Let us rather put our weak hands into Christ's strong, loving grasp, and all the time listen to His cheering words, "Fear not; only trust."”

Theodore L. Cuyler (1822–1909) American minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 592.

Love , Fear , Strong , Time

“If you are cheerful, and wish to remain so, leave the study of astronomy alone. Of all the sciences, it alone deserves the character of the terrible.”

Thomas Hardy book Two on a Tower

Two on a Tower (1882), vol 1, ch. 4 (Swithin St Cleeve speaking to Viviette Constantine)

Study , Science

“Gentlemen, ideas outlive men; ideas outlive all earthly things. You who fought in the war for the Union fought for immortal ideas, and by their might you crowned the war with victory. [Great applause. ] But victory was worth nothing except for the truths that were under it, in it, and above it. We meet tonight as comrades to stand guard around the sacred truths for which we fought. [Loud and prolonged cheers. ] And while we have life to meet and grasp the hand of a comrade, we will stand by the great truths of the war. ["Good," "good," and loud cheers. ] Many convictions have sunk so deep into our hearts that we can never forget them. Think of the elevating spirit of the war itself. We gathered the boys from all our farms and shops and stores and schools and homes, from all over the Republic. They went forth unknown to fame, but returned enrolled on the roster of immortal heroes. [Great applause. ] They went in the spirit of the soldiers of Henry at Agincourt, of whom he said. 'For he today that sheds his blood with me. Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile. This day shall gentle his condition.'”

James A. Garfield (1831–1881) American politician, 20th President of the United States (in office in 1881)

1880s, Speech to the 'Boys in Blue' (1880)

Life , Men , War , Truth

“The place that the Lord sat on was simple, on the earth, barren and desert, alone in wilderness; his clothing was ample and full seemly, as falleth to a Lord; the colour of his cloth was blue as azure, most sad and fair. his cheer was merciful; the colour of his face was fair-brown, — with full seemly features; his eyes were black, most fair and seemly, shewing full of lovely pity, and, within him, an high Regard, long and broad, all full of endless heavens. And the lovely looking wherewith He looked upon His Servant continually, — and especially in his falling, — methought it might melt our hearts for love and burst them in two for joy. The fair looking shewed of a seemly mingledness which was marvellous to behold: the one was Ruth and Pity, the other was Joy and Bliss. The Joy and Bliss passeth as far Ruth and Pity as Heaven is above earth: the Pity was earthly and the Bliss was heavenly.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

Summations, Chapter 51

Love , Sadness , Heart , Joy

“If you are looking for a story about cheerful youngsters spending a jolly time at boarding school, look elsewhere. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire are intelligent and resourceful children, and you might expect that they would do very well at school. Don't. For the Baudelaires, school turns out to be another miserable episode in their unlucky lives.”

Daniel Handler book The Austere Academy

The Austere Academy (2000)

Children , School , Intelligence , Time

“Within a few days I will go to the papal Legate [Pucci], and if he shall open a conversation on the subject as he did before, I will urge him to warn the Pope not to issue an excommunication [against Luther], for which I think would be greatly against him [the Pope]. For if it be issued I believe the Germans will equally despise the Pope and the excommunication. But do you be of good cheer, for our day will not lack those who will teach Christ faithfully, and who will give up their lives for Him willingly, even though among men their names shall not be in good repute after this life…So far as I am concerned I look for all evil from all of them: I mean both ecclesiastics and laymen. I beseech Christ for this one thing only, that He will enable me to endure all things courageously, and that He break me as a potter's vessel or make me strong, as it pleased Him. If I be excommunicated I shall think of the learned and holy Hilary, who was exiled from France to Africa, and of Lucius, who though driven from his seat at Rome returned again with great honour. Not that I compare myself with them: for as they were better than i so they suffered what was a greater ignominy. And yet if it were good to flory I would rejoice to suffer insult for the name of Christ. But let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. Lately I have read scarcely any thing of Luther's; but what I have seen of his hitherto does not seem to me to stray from gospel teaching. You know - if you rememeber - that what I have always spoken of in terms of the highest commendation in him is that he supports his position with authoritative witness.”

Huldrych Zwingli (1484–1531) leader of the Protestant Reformation in Switzerland, and founder of the Swiss Reformed Churches

As cited in Huldreich Zwingli, the Reformer of German Switzerland, 1484-1531 by Samuel Macauley Jackson, John Martin Vincent, Frank Hugh Foster, p.148-149

Life , Men , Courage , Support

“Piping down the valleys wild,
Piping songs of pleasant glee,
On a cloud I saw a child,
And he laughing said to me:
"Pipe a song about a Lamb."
So I piped with merry cheer;
"Piper, pipe that song again."”

William Blake Songs of Innocence

So I piped; he wept to hear.
Introduction, st. 1–2
Songs of Innocence (1789–1790)

“For other things mild Heav'n a time ordains,
And disapproves that care, though wise in show,
That with superfluous burden loads the day,
And, when God sends a cheerful hour, refrains.”

John Milton (1608–1674) English epic poet

To Cyriack Skinner (1646–1647)

God , Time

“She was a Phantom of delight
When first she gleamed upon my sight;
A lovely Apparition, sent
To be a moment's ornament;
Her eyes as stars of twilight fair,
Like twilights too her dusky hair,
But all things else about her drawn
From May-time and the cheerful dawn.”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

Stanza 1.
She Was a Phantom of Delight http://www.bartleby.com/145/ww259.html (1804)

Love , Star , Time

“Although we must leave you,
Fair Castle of Mey,
We shall never forget,
Nor will never repay,
A meal of such splendour,
Repast of such zest,
It will take us to Sunday,
Just to digest.
To leafy Balmoral,
We are now on our way,
But our hearts will remain
At the Castle of Mey.
With your gardens and ranges,
And all your good cheer,
We will be back again soon
So roll on next year.”

Isabel II do Reino Unido (1926–2022) queen of the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and head of the Commonwealth of Nations

Ode to the Castle of Mey, recorded in the visitors' book at the Castle of Mey, in Caithness, during a visit to the Queen Mother, 1993. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/3049709.stm

Way , Heart , Forgetting

“At the word I turned hastily to another column and found the news that had stirred him. And even in the midst of world-shaking events it stirred me too. For a brief moment I forgot the war and was back in that cheerful world where we used to be happy, where we greeted the rising sun with light hearts and saw its setting without fear. In that cheerful world I can hardly recall a time when a big man with a black beard was not my King … I owe more undiluted happiness to him than to any man that ever lived. For he was the genial tyrant in a world that was all sunshine.”

Alfred George Gardiner (1865–1946) British journalist and writer

On being told in 1915 that W. G. Grace had died. From Pebbles on the Shore (1916)

War , World , Fear , Light

“A happy woman is one who has no cares at all; a cheerful woman is one who has cares but doesn't let them get her down.”

Beverly Sills (1929–2007) opera soprano

As quoted in The Quotable Woman (1978) by Elaine Partnow, p. 399

Happiness

“Turn, gentle Hermit of the Dale,
And guide my lonely way
To where yon taper cheers the vale
With hospitable ray.”

Oliver Goldsmith book The Vicar of Wakefield

Source: The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), Ch. 8, The Hermit (Edwin and Angelina), st. 1.

Way

“His love was like the liberal air,—
Embracing all, to cheer and bless;
And every grief that mortals share
Found pity in his tenderness.”

William Winter (1836–1917) American writer

I. H. Bromley, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Love

“I endeavor to take things as they come with cheerfulness, and when I cannot get a dinner to suit my taste, I endeavor to get a taste to suit my dinner.”

Washington Irving (1783–1859) writer, historian and diplomat from the United States

Letter to William Irving, Jr., about his positive attitude acquired while traveling in Europe.
Source: Washington Irving to William Irving Jr., September 20, 1804, Works 23:90.

“There is more of power to sanctify, elevate, strengthen, and cheer in the word Jesus (Jehovah-Saviour) than in all the utterances of man since the world began.”

Charles Hodge (1797–1878) American Presbyterian theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 87.

World

“"You couldn't have a beastie, a snake-thing, on an island this size," Ralph explained kindly. "You only get them in big countries, like Africa, or India."
Murmur; and the grave nodding of heads.
"He says the beastie came in the dark."
"Then he couldn't see it!"
Laughter and cheers.
"Did you hear that? Says he saw the thing in the dark—"
"He still says he saw the beastie. It came and went away again an' came back and wanted to eat him."
"He was dreaming."
Laughing, Ralph looked for confirmation round the ring of faces. The older boys agreed; but here and there among the little ones was the doubt that required more than rational assurance.
"He must have had a nightmare. Stumbling about among all those creepers."
More grave nodding. They knew about nightmares.
"He says he saw the beastie, the snake-thing, and will it come back tonight?"
"But there isn't a beastie!"
"He says in the morning it turned into them things like ropes in the trees and hung in the branches. He says will it come back again tonight?"
"But there isn't a beastie!"
There was no laughter at all now and more grave watching. Ralph pushed both hands through his hair and looked at the little boy in mixed amusement and exasperation.”

William Golding book Lord of the Flies

Source: Lord of the Flies (1954), Ch. 2: Fire on the Mountain

Dreams , Boy , Laughter , Tree

“Punk: Hey, Jeff. Jeff, aren't you nervous sitting way up there so… high? Especially in the condition you're in, and by "condition", I mean that you're probably drunk right now, just like all these people here tonight. (Crowd boos) Yeah, that's something to be proud of, I mean, you'd have to be under the influence to stomach this "live in the moment" crap that you spew. What's living in the moment gotten you, Jeff? I know it got you a night in a hospital, and for what? The adulation of these people? One brief moment of attention? (Crowd chants "Hardy") You know, I don't know what's more pathetic—all these people hanging on your every word, waiting for the next pitiful example for you to set that they can lead, or you and your egotistical addiction to their cheers and support and adulation. Listen, listen to them, Jeff. They actually believe that you can beat me at SummerSlam. (Crowd cheers)
Jeff: So do I.
Punk: So does our general manager. Teddy Long's the guy that said TLC is your match. It's Jeff Hardy's match, everybody. They're right, it is your match. This TLC is your last match. I know what I have to accomplish to get everything I want. When I beat you at SummerSlam and I take back my World Heavyweight Title, it will validate everything I've said in the past. I will prove once and for all, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that straight edge is the right way, that straight edge means I'm better than you. Jeff, I have to get rid of you to teach these people the difference between right and wrong. I have to get rid of you to teach them how to say, "just say no." I have to get rid of you so they stop living in your moment, and they wake up, and they start living in my reality. Make no mistake about it, Jeff; there's no turning back from this point on. You can talk about the space from the top of that ladder to this mat, but from here on out, there's nothing left. At SummerSlam, I will hurt you, and I will remove you and the stain of all your bad examples from the WWE forever.
Jeff: Punk, you can't destroy me, you can't destroy what I've created over my ten years here. Kansas City's not gonna listen to you. You won't beat me at SummerSlam, Punk. I will prove that I'm better than you in my specialty: Tables, Ladders, & Chairs.
Punk: You're right, Jeff. You know what, you wouldn't be here if it wasn't for them, because you need them to enable you. You need them to justify your reckless behavior with their support and their cheers, just like they need you to somehow justify their reckless behavior, with their smoking and their drinking and their use of prescription medication. They try in vain to live vicariously through a man who, by way of his lifestyle, thinks he can fly.”

Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist

Interrupting Jeff Hardy's promo from the top of a ladder. August 21, 2009.
Friday Night SmackDown

People , World , Way , Guy

“It is said that the Queen has come to love the Commonwealth, partly because it supplies her with regular cheering crowds of flag-waving picaninnies; and one can imagine that Blair, twice victor abroad but enmired at home, is similarly seduced by foreign politeness. They say he is shortly off to the Congo. No doubt the AK47s will fall silent, and the pangas will stop their hacking of human flesh, and the tribal warriors will all break out in Watermelon smiles to see the big white chief touch down in his big white British taxpayer-funded bird.”

Boris Johnson (1964) British politician, historian and journalist

Daily Telegraph 10 January 2002
2000s, 2002

Love , Smile , Home , Imagination

“Shall we then, I ask you, even for a moment, be hopeless of our great cause? I feel almost ashamed even to argue it to such a meeting as this. I call to mind where I am, and who are those whom I see before me. Am I not in the town of Birmingham—England's central capital; and do not these eyes look upon the sons of those who, not thirty years ago, shook the fabric of privilege to its base? Not a few of the strong men of that time are now white with age. They approach the confines of their mortal day. Its evening is cheered with the remembrance of that great contest, and they rejoice in the freedom they have won. Shall their sons be less noble than they? Shall the fire which they kindled be extinguished with you? I see your answer in every face. You are resolved that the legacy which they bequeathed to you, you will hand down in an accumulated wealth of freedom to your children. As for me, my voice is feeble. I feel now sensibly and painfully that I am not what I was. I speak with diminished fire; I act with a lessened force; but as I am, my countrymen and my constituents, I will, if you will let me, be found in your ranks in the impending struggle.”

John Bright (1811–1889) British Radical and Liberal statesman

Speech in Birmingham (27 October 1858) referring to the Reform Crisis, quoted in G. M. Trevelyan, The Life of John Bright (London: Constable, 1913), pp. 272-273.
1850s

Men , Children , Age , Feeling

“There's no chance of cheering him up, sir. He likes being miserable, so he does, and the bastard will get over it.”

Bernard Cornwell (1944) British writer

Sergeant Patrick Harper to Lieutenant Robert Knowles, regarding Captain Sharpe's grumpy attitude, p. 9
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Gold (1981)

Chance

“My first essay at making a steam engine was when I was fifteen. I then made a real working; steam-engine, 1 3/4 diameter cylinder, and 8 in. stroke, which not only could act, but really did some useful work; for I made it grind the oil colours which my father required for his painting. Steam engine models, now so common, were exceedingly scarce in those days, and very difficult to be had; and as the demand for them arose, I found it both delightful and profitable to make them; as well as sectional models of steam engines, which I introduced for the purpose of exhibiting the movements of all the parts, both exterior and interior. With the results of the sale of such models I was enabled to pay the price of tickets of admission to the lectures on natural philosophy and chemistry delivered in the University of Edinburgh. About the same time (1826) I was so happy as to be employed by Professor Leslie in making models and portions of apparatus required by him for his lectures and philosophical investigations, and I had also the inestimable good fortune to secure his friendship. His admirably clear manner of communicating a knowledge of the fundamental principles of mechanical science rendered my intercourse with him of the utmost importance to myself. A hearty, cheerful, earnest desire to toil in his service, caused him to take pleasure in instructing me by occasional explanations of what might otherwise have remained obscure.”

James Nasmyth (1808–1890) Scottish mechanical engineer and inventor

James Nasmyth in: Industrial Biography: Iron-workers and Tool-makers https://books.google.nl/books?id=ZMJLAAAAMAAJ, Ticknor and Fields, 1864. p. 337

Friendship , Pleasure , Communication , Nature

“I believe the time is coming when this question must be laid hold of by a Government, and that Parliament will feel that it dare not treat it in future as it has treated it in the past. These great meetings, as Mr. Mill very justly said, were not meetings so much for discussion as they were meetings for demonstration of opinion, and, if you like, I will add for exhibition of force. (Cheers.) Such exhibitions, if they be despised and disregarded may become exhibitions of another kind of force…I have been insulted in past times…that I was in favour of peace at any price…I believe that however much any of us may abhor the thought that political questions in any country should ever again be settled by force, yet there is something in the constitution of our nature that when these evils are allowed to run on beyond a certain period unredressed, that the most peace-loving of men are unable to keep the peace. (Hear, hear.) And bear this in mind,—that, however much we may wish political questions to be settled by moral means, yet it is no more immoral for a people to use force in the last resort for the obtaining and the securing of freedom than it is for a Government by force to suppress and deny that freedom.”

John Bright (1811–1889) British Radical and Liberal statesman

Loud cheers, the audience rising.
Speech in Manchester (25 September 1866), quoted in The Times (26 September 1866), p. 9.
1860s

Love , Men , People , Peace

“Violet said…"We've never known anyone who could remain so cheerful, no matter what terrible things occurred.”

Daniel Handler book The Grim Grotto

The Grim Grotto (2004)

“There have been keen agonies, sore heart-aches, but they have been short, and a sweet peace abides. Can it be His peace? Is it possible that to such a weak, sinful creature as I, the Comforter has indeed come? I must believe this, and that it is His presence that cheers me.”

Arthur Kenney (1776–1855) Irish dean

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 446.

Peace , Heart

“It was as if he were watching a tall stranger with a wand pointing to the embarrassed phantom that was himself, and ruthlessly exposing its frailties! And yet that pitiless showman was himself too — himself as he wanted to be, cheerful, brave, resourceful, indomitable.”

John Buchan book Huntingtower

Source: Huntingtower (1922), Ch. 6

“Seraphs and saints with one great voice
Welcomed that soul that knew not fear.
Amazed to find it could rejoice,
Hell raised a hoarse, half-human cheer.”

John Davidson (1857–1909) Scottish poet

"A Ballad of Hell", p. 85
Ballads and Songs (1894)

Fear , Soul , Hell

“By experience; by a sense of human frailty; by a perception of "the soul of goodness in things evil;" by a cheerful trust in human nature; by a strong sense of God's love; by long and disciplined realization of the atoning love of Christ; only thus can we get a free, manly, large, princely spirit of forgiveness.”

Frederick William Robertson (1816–1853) British writer and theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 252.

Love , God , Soul , Forgiveness

“No pure delight cheers the farmer whose mind is intent on the price he shall get for his crops rather than on the joy there is in tilling them and seeing them grow and ripen: for such an one does not love the land nor his home nor any of the most beautiful and sacred things, but tends to become like the brute that eats and sleeps and dies. His thoughts are with what feeds the animal, and that which nourishes the human is hidden from him.”

John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) Catholic bishop

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 168

Love , Beauty , Home , Sleep

“I think we all carry a depressive streak in us but most people just hide it. A lot of people think that entertainment has to be something loud, cheerful and happy. I don't buy into it. Depression can be very inspiring. At least for me it can be. The quiet aspects of life are very important, because let's face it, life is pretty difficult.”

Chris Cornell (1964–2017) American singer-songwriter, musician

NYROCK: Interview with Chris Cornell, October 1, 1999 https://web.archive.org/web/20030919022841/http://www.nyrock.com/interviews/1999/cornell_int.asp,
On depression and suicide

Life , People , Thinking , Happiness

“Peel delivered the best speech I ever heard in Parliament. It was truly a magnificent speech, sustained throughout, thoroughly with us, and offering even to pass the immediate [repeal of the Corn Laws], if the House are willing. Villiers, Gibson, and myself cheered continually, and I never listened to any human being speaking in public with so much delight.”

John Bright (1811–1889) British Radical and Liberal statesman

Letter to his sister Priscilla (16 February 1846), quoted in G. M. Trevelyan, The Life of John Bright (London: Constable, 1913), p. 147.
1840s

Law , Housing

“This is his [Marcus Aurelius Antoninus'] conclusion (II. 17): "What then is that which is able to conduct a man? One thing and only one, Philosophy. But this consists in keeping the divinity within a man free from violence and unharmed, superior to pains and pleasures, doing nothing without a purpose nor yet falsely and with hypocrisy, not feeling the need of another man's doing or not doing anything; and besides, accepting all that happens and all that is allotted, as coming from thence, wherever it is, from whence he himself came; and, finally, waiting for death with a cheerful mind as being nothing else than a dissolution of the elements of which every living being is compounded. But if there is no harm to the elements themselves in each continually changing into another, why should a man have any apprehension about the change and dissolution of all the elements [himself]? for it is according to nature; and nothing is evil that is according to nature."”

George Long (1800–1879) English classical scholar

The Philosophy of Antoninus

Death , Pain , Pleasure , Feeling

“England was merry England, when
Old Christmas brought his sports again.
‘Twas Christmas broach’d the mightiest ale;
‘Twas Christmas told the merriest tale;
A Christmas gambol oft could cheer
The poor man’s heart through half the year.”

Walter Scott Marmion

Canto VI, introduction, st. 3.
Marmion (1808)

Sport , Heart , Christmas

“I was not trying to be smart when I did that. I was trying to tell them that they could do whatever they want. The fans of Pittsburgh have cheered me a lot through the years. There’s always a first time for booing. But I don’t say to hell with the fans because of this. I am not swinging the bat the way I should. It is just one of those things. I am not the way I should be. I do not feel sure when I swing. I am trying to adjust so that I will swing well even though my shoulder still hurts. If a player doesn’t try hard, he deserves to be booed. I try hard. Maybe I was booed today because I have not played that bad before.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

As quoted in “Clemente Still Loves Pirate Fans” https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=kWwqAAAAIBAJ&sjid=VlAEAAAAIBAJ&pg=3630%2C5689009 by Bill Christine, in The Pittsburgh Press (Monday, April 14, 1969), p. 32
Baseball-related, <big><big>1960s</big></big>, <big>1969</big>

Way , Feeling , Hell , Time

“"Is that true," I asked, "that song?"
"It is a metaphor," said Mrs. Davis, "it has metaphorical truth."
"And the end of the mechanical age," I said, "is that a metaphor?"
"The end of the mechanical age," said Mrs. Davis, "is in my judgment an actuality straining to become a metaphor. One must wish it luck, I suppose. One must cheer it on. Intellectual rigor demands that we give these damned metaphors every chance, even if they are inimical to personal well-being and comfort. We have a duty to understand everything, whether we like it or not–a duty I would scant if I could." At that moment the water jumped into the boat and sank us.”

Donald Barthelme book Sixty Stories

"At The End Of The Mechanical Age".
Sixty Stories (1981)

Truth , Age , Understanding , Water

“Lost in the solitude of his immense power, he began to lose direction. He was bothered by the people who cheered him in neighboring villages, and he imagined that they were the same cheers they gave the enemy. Everywhere he met adolescents who looked at him with his own eyes, who spoke to him with his own voice, who greeted him with the same mistrust with which he greeted them, and who said they were his sons. He felt scattered about, multiplied, and more solitary than ever. He was convinced that his own officers were lying to him. He fought with the Duke of Marlborough. "The best friend a person has," he would say at that time, "is one who has just died."”

Gabriel García Márquez book One Hundred Years of Solitude

Source: One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), p. 166

People , Imagination , Lying , Solitude

“There was ease in Casey's manner as he stepped into his place,
There was pride in Casey's bearing and a smile on Casey's face,
And when responding to the cheers he lightly of his hat,
No stranger in the crowd could doubt, 't was Casey at the bat.”

Ernest Thayer Casey at the Bat

Source: Casey at the Bat, Lines 21-24.

Smile

“[S]egments of the Right, who denounced phrases like “economic patriotism” when it passed Barack Obama’s lips but nod and cheer when similar phrases come out of the mouths of “nationalists.” They see the state as the key to fostering a new social solidarity because it alone speaks for their new idol — or “strong god” — of the Nation. Passionate nationalists, like passionate socialists, ultimately believe that the State can love you, and if the right people take it over, the divisions that are inevitable in a free society will be knitted together by some government initiative. But that is not love, it is lust. It is a lust for power and victory for your vision over all others.”

Jonah Goldberg (1969) American political writer and pundit

2010s, 2018, The Government Can’t Love You (2018)

Love , God , People , Strong

“Everybody started cheering but I didn't know why. I didn't know what was going on until I looked at the scoreboard and saw the message. When I singled in the first inning, the second base umpire told me, "If you get another hit it looks like I'll have to give you the ball." I wondered what he was talking about. I have so much bad press in Pittsburgh. Whatever I have done, I have done myself, and with the help of the fans. When somebody like Richie Hebner hits a home run, the press gives him a big build-up. All they say about me is that I am hard-headed and don't get along with anybody.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

As quoted in "Clemente Ties Wagner; Heads Toward 3,000 Hits" https://books.google.com/books?id=FXQDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA49, in Jet (September 21, 1972)
Baseball-related, <big><big>1970s</big></big>, <big>1972</big>

Home , Help

“Bomanz could not get away from the bird, who, if he had been human, would have hung out in taverns masquerading as the world’s foremost authority, armed with an uninformed and ready opinion on every conceivable subject. His cheerful bigotry and who-cares ignorance drove the old man’s temper to its limit.”

Glen Cook book The Silver Spike

Source: The Silver Spike (1989), Chapter 21 (pp. 506-507)

World , Bird

“It's a fact. So why aren't we pumping our fists in the air and cheering about it? Well probably because when we admit we can do something about it, we've got to do something about it. For the first time in history we have the know how, we have the cash, we have the lifesaving drugs, but do we have the will?”

Bono (1960) Irish rock musician, singer of U2

PENN Address (2004)

History , Time

“There are, it seems, two Muses: the Muse of Inspiration, who gives us inarticulate visions and desires, and the Muse of Realization, who returns again and again to say, “It is yet more difficult than you thought.” This is the muse of form. The first muse is the one mainly listened to in a cheap-energy civilization, in which “economic health” depends on the assumption that everything desirable lies within easy reach of anyone. To hear the second muse one must move outside the cheap-energy enclosure. It is the willingness to hear the second muse that keeps us cheerful in our work. To hear only the first is to live in the bitterness of disappointment.”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

Standing by Words: Essays (2011), Poetry and Marriage: The Use of Old Forms (1982)

Health , Disappointment , Dependency

“Ever of thee I'm fondly dreaming,
Thy gentle voice my spirit can cheer.”

George Linley (1798–1865) British writer

Ever of Thee, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Dreams

“First of all, I was having fun. I was with a group of good-humored, cheerful, happy people. We were singing old protest songs and old Sunday school songs and clapping. I felt I had to be cheerful to set the tone. We didn't want any trouble or to do anything non-peaceful. Secondly, when I got arrested and the officers lifted me out I was afraid that America would see my underwear and that tickled me.”

Cindy Sheehan (1957) American antiwar activist

"Why I Was Smiling and Hurricane Rita," Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cindy-sheehan/why-i-was-smiling-and-hur_b_7970.html, September 27, 2005
2005

People , School , Peace , Singing

“I don’t know where I am, what am I doing, where will life take me, how will things go, whom to talk to, what to share, what to cook, how to eat, when to sleep, what to wear, what to do and how to live. All of my known are busy making their CVs look professional and substantial. And I am figuring out the way to make my life normal and less bumpy. Forget about building strong resume. Rest assured, I am okay…I will be alright. Cheers to my life!”

Gaurav Sharma (author) (1992) Author and novelist

Gone are the Days (2016)

Life , Way , Business , Sleep

“Invite all men to happiness and peace,
To faith and justice rear the youthful race,
Till Truth's blest banners, o'er the regions hurl'd,
Shake tyrants from their thrones, and cheer the waking world.”

Joel Barlow (1754–1812) American diplomat

The Conspiracy of Kings (1792)
Context: Lords of themselves and leaders of mankind. On equal rights their base of empire lies,
On walls of wisdom see the structure rise;
Wide o'er the gazing world it towers sublime,
A modell'd form for each surrounding clime.
To useful toils they bend their noblest aim,
Make patriot views and moral views the same,
Renounce the wish of war, bid conquest cease,
Invite all men to happiness and peace,
To faith and justice rear the youthful race,
Till Truth's blest banners, o'er the regions hurl'd,
Shake tyrants from their thrones, and cheer the waking world.

Men , Truth , Youth , World

“Nothing is further from sadism, for example, than the cheerful, optimistic mentality of a Shaw or Wells.”

Colin Wilson (1931–2013) author

Source: The Origins of the Sexual Impulse (1963), p. 158
Context: Sadism is plainly connected with the need for self-assertion. At the same time it cannot be separated from the idea of defeat. A sadist is a man, who, in some sense, has his back to the wall. Nothing is further from sadism, for example, than the cheerful, optimistic mentality of a Shaw or Wells.

“When Cicero was done speaking, people always gave him a standing ovation and cheered, "What a great speech!" When Demosthenes was done, people said, "Let us march," and they did.”

Anthony Robbins book Unlimited Power

Source: Unlimited Power (1986), p. 413; this paraphrases an observation made by Adlai Stevenson while introducing John F. Kennedy in 1960, as quoted in Adlai Stevenson and The World: The Life of Adlai E. Stevenson‎ (1977) by John Bartlow Martin, p. 549:
Context: There were two great orators of antiquity. One was Cicero, and the other Demosthenes. When Cicero was done speaking, people always gave him a standing ovation and cheered, "What a great speech!" When Demosthenes was done, people said, "Let us march," and they did. That's the difference between presentation and persuasion. I hope to be classified in the latter category.

People

“Suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears great calamities with cheerfulness, not through insensibility but through greatness of mind.”

Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy

Widely attributed since the mid to late 19th century, this apparently derives from a gloss or commentary on the following passage from Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (c. 325 BC), Book 1, Ch. XI (Bekker No. 1100b.13–14):
ὅμως δὲ καὶ ἐν τούτοις διαλάμπει τὸ καλόν, ἐπειδὰν φέρῃ τις εὐκόλως πολλὰς καὶ μεγάλας ἀτυχίας, μὴ δι᾽ ἀναλγησίαν, ἀλλὰ γεννάδας ὢν καὶ μεγαλόψυχος. εἰ δ᾽ εἰσὶν αἱ ἐνέργειαι κύριαι τῆς ζωῆς, καθάπερ εἴπομεν, οὐδεὶς ἂν γένοιτο τῶν μακαρίων ἄθλιος
But nevertheless, even in these [misfortunes], nobility of the soul is conspicuous, when a man bears and digests many and great misfortunes, not from insensibility, but because he is high spirited and magnanimous. But if the energies are the things that constitute the bliss or the misery of life, as we said, no happy man can ever become miserable.
A New Translation of the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle (1835), 3rd. ed., Oxford: J. Vincent. p. 30
Nevertheless even under these [misfortunes] the force of nobility shines out, when a man bears calmly many great disasters, not from insensibility, but because he is generous and of a great soul. Setting happiness then, as we do, not in the outward surroundings of man, but in his inward state, we may fairly say that no one who has attained to the bliss of virtue will ever justly become an object of pity or contempt.
St. George William Joseph Stock, Lectures in the Lyceum or Aristotle's ethics for English readers (1897), p. 47
Misattributed

Beauty , Suffering

“In my travels, I have found that those who keep heaven in view remain serene and cheerful in the darkest day.”

Billy Graham (1918–2018) American Christian evangelist

Hope for the Troubled Heart: Finding God in the Midst of Pain (1991); the last statement of this anecdote has often become quoted as if it originated with Graham: "My home is in Heaven. I'm just traveling through this world."
Context: In my travels, I have found that those who keep heaven in view remain serene and cheerful in the darkest day. If the glories of Heaven were more real to us, if we lived less for material things and more for things eternal and spiritual, we would be less easily disturbed by this present life.
A friend told me about stopping on a street corner in London and listening to a man play the bagpipes. He was playing "Amazing Grace" and smiling from ear to ear. My friend asked him if he was from Scotland, and he answered, “No sir, my home is in Heaven. I'm just traveling through this world.”

Travel

“Such a life, with all vision limited to a Point, and all motion to a Straight Line, seemed to me inexpressibly dreary; and I was surprised to note the vivacity and cheerfulness of the King.”

Edwin Abbott Abbott book Flatland

Source: Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (1884), PART II: OTHER WORLDS, Chapter 13. How I had a Vision of Lineland
Context: Describing myself as a stranger I besought the King to give me some account of his dominions. But I had the greatest possible difficulty in obtaining any information on points that really interested me; for the Monarch could not refrain from constantly assuming that whatever was familiar to him must also be known to me and that I was simulating ignorance in jest. However, by persevering questions I elicited the following facts:It seemed that this poor ignorant Monarch — as he called himself — was persuaded that the Straight Line which he called his Kingdom, and in which he passed his existence, constituted the whole of the world, and indeed the whole of Space. Not being able either to move or to see, save in his Straight Line, he had no conception of anything out of it. Though he had heard my voice when I first addressed him, the sounds had come to him in a manner so contrary to his experience that he had made no answer, "seeing no man", as he expressed it, "and hearing a voice as it were from my own intestines." Until the moment when I placed my mouth in his World, he had neither seen me, nor heard anything except confused sounds beating against — what I called his side, but what he called his INSIDE or STOMACH; nor had he even now the least conception of the region from which I had come. Outside his World, or Line, all was a blank to him; nay, not even a blank, for a blank implies Space; say, rather, all was non-existent.His subjects — of whom the small Lines were men and the Points Women — were all alike confined in motion and eye-sight to that single Straight Line, which was their World. It need scarcely be added that the whole of their horizon was limited to a Point; nor could any one ever see anything but a Point. Man, woman, child, thing — each was a Point to the eye of a Linelander. Only by the sound of the voice could sex or age be distinguished. Moreover, as each individual occupied the whole of the narrow path, so to speak, which constituted his Universe, and no one could move to the right or left to make way for passers by, it followed that no Linelander could ever pass another. Once neighbours, always neighbours. Neighbourhood with them was like marriage with us. Neighbours remained neighbours till death did them part.Such a life, with all vision limited to a Point, and all motion to a Straight Line, seemed to me inexpressibly dreary; and I was surprised to note the vivacity and cheerfulness of the King.

Life

“We know who the homicidal maniacs are. They are the ones cheering and dancing right now.
We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.”

Ann Coulter (1961) author, political commentator

2001
Context: Airports scrupulously apply the same laughably ineffective airport harassment to Suzy Chapstick as to Muslim hijackers. It is preposterous to assume every passenger is a potential crazed homicidal maniac. We know who the homicidal maniacs are. They are the ones cheering and dancing right now.
We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren't punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That's war. And this is war.

Dance , Country

“To our generation Einstein has been made to become a double symbol — a symbol of the mind travelling in the cold regions of space, and a symbol of the brave and generous outcast, pure in heart and cheerful of spirit.”

John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946) British economist

Collected Writings volume xxviii pages 21-22
Context: The boys, who cannot grow up to adult human nature, are beating the prophets of the ancient race — Marx, Freud, Einstein — who have been tearing at our social, personal and intellectual roots, tearing with an objectivity which to the healthy animal seems morbid, depriving everything, as it seems, of the warmth of natural feeling. What traditional retort have the schoolboys but a kick in the pants?...
To our generation Einstein has been made to become a double symbol — a symbol of the mind travelling in the cold regions of space, and a symbol of the brave and generous outcast, pure in heart and cheerful of spirit. Himself a schoolboy, too, but the other kind — with ruffled hair, soft hands and a violin. See him as he squats on Cromer beach doing sums, Charlie Chaplin with the brow of Shakespeare...
So it is not an accident that the Nazi lads vent a particular fury against him. He does truly stand for what they most dislike, the opposite of the blond beast — intellectualist, individualist, supernationalist, pacifist, inky, plump... How should they know the glory of the free-ranging intellect and soft objective sympathy to whom money and violence, drink and blood and pomp, mean absolutely nothing? Yet Albert and the blond beast make up the world between them. If either cast the other out, life is diminished in its force. When the barbarians destroy the ancient race as witches, when they refuse to scale heaven on broomsticks, they may be dooming themselves to sink back into the clods which bore them.

Travel , Heart

“Life is what we make it, and the world is what we make it. The eyes of the cheerful and of the melancholy man are fixed upon the same creation; but very different are the aspects which it bears to them.”

Albert Pike book Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry

Source: Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871), Ch. XXII : Grand Master Architect, p. 193
Context: Life is what we make it, and the world is what we make it. The eyes of the cheerful and of the melancholy man are fixed upon the same creation; but very different are the aspects which it bears to them. To the one, it is all beauty and gladness; the waves of ocean roll in light, and the mountains are covered with day. Life, to him, flashes, rejoicing, upon every flower and every tree that trembles in the breeze. There is more to him, everywhere, than the eye sees; a presence of profound joy, on hill and valley, and bright, dancing water. The other idly or mournfully gazes at the same scene, and everything wears a dull, dim, and sickly aspect. The murmuring of the brooks is a discord to him, the great roar of the sea has an angry and threatening emphasis, the solemn music of the pines sings the requiem of his departed happiness, the cheerful light shines garishly upon his eyes and offends him. The great train of the seasons passes before him like a funeral procession; and he sighs, and turns impatiently away. The eye makes that which it looks upon; the ear makes its own melodies and discords: the world without reflects the world within.

Life , World

“So two cheers for Democracy: one because it admits variety and two because it permits criticism. Two cheers are quite enough: there is no occasion to give three.”

E.M. Forster (1879–1970) English novelist

What I Believe (1938)
Context: Whether Parliament is either a representative body or an efficient one is questionable, but I value it because it criticizes and talks, and because its chatter gets widely reported. So two cheers for Democracy: one because it admits variety and two because it permits criticism. Two cheers are quite enough: there is no occasion to give three.

Democracy

“Out upon the wharfs they came,
Knight and Burgher, Lord and Dame,
And around the prow they read her name,
The Lady of Shalott.Who is this? And what is here?
And in the lighted palace near
Died the sound of royal cheer;
And they crossed themselves for fear,
All the Knights at Camelot;
But Lancelot mused a little space
He said, "She has a lovely face;
God in his mercy lend her grace,
The Lady of Shalott."”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson The Lady of Shalott

Pt. IV, st. 6
The Lady of Shalott (1832)

Love , God , Fear , Light

“I do not regret the sufferings and peculiaties of my physical constitution. They have taught me, and continue to teach me, that which I think nothing else could have developed. It is a force and control put upon me by Providence which I must obey. And the effects of this continual disciple of facts are mighty. They tame the in the best sense of that word, and they fan into existence a pure, bright, holy, unselfish flame within that sheds cheerfulness and light on many.”

Ada Lovelace (1815–1852) English mathematician, considered the first computer programmer

In a letter to Andrew Crosse, as quoted in Eugen Kölbing's Englische Studien, Volume 19 https://archive.org/stream/englischestudien19leipuoft#page/158/mode/1up (1894), Leipzig; O.R. Reisland, "Byron's Daughter", p. 158.
Context: With all my wiry power and strength, I am prone at times to bodily sufferings, connected chiefly with the digestive organs, of no common degree or king. I do not regret the sufferings and peculiaties of my physical constitution. They have taught me, and continue to teach me, that which I think nothing else could have developed. It is a force and control put upon me by Providence which I must obey. And the effects of this continual disciple of facts are mighty. They tame the in the best sense of that word, and they fan into existence a pure, bright, holy, unselfish flame within that sheds cheerfulness and light on many.
— Ever yours truly. "A. A. Lovelace."

Thinking , Sense , Light , Suffering

“To be 70 years young is sometimes far more cheerful and hopeful than to be 40 years old.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) United States Supreme Court justice

Almost certainly attributable to Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., who is, in various sources, credited with having said this in letters to Harriet Beecher Stowe (who turned 70 in 1881) and Julia Ward Howe (who turned 70 in 1889), as well as having made the commented about himself. Holmes, Sr. reached the age of 70 in 1879, while Holmes, Jr. reached that age in 1911, some time after the earliest reports of this quote.
Misattributed

Hope

“The American Beauty Rose can be produced in the splendor and fragrance which bring cheer to its beholder only by sacrificing the early buds which grow up around it.”

John D. Rockefeller, Jr. (1874–1960) American financier and philanthropist

Address to the students of Brown University, quoted in Ida Tarbell (1904) The History of the Standard Oil Company
Context: The American Beauty Rose can be produced in the splendor and fragrance which bring cheer to its beholder only by sacrificing the early buds which grow up around it. This is not an evil tendency in business. It is merely the working-out of a law of nature and a law of God.

Beauty

“I learned something recently: our true friends are those who are with us when the good things happen. They cheer us on and are pleased by our triumphs.”

Paulo Coelho book The Zahir

Source: The Zahir (2005), p. 65.
Context: I learned something recently: our true friends are those who are with us when the good things happen. They cheer us on and are pleased by our triumphs. False friends only appear at difficult times, with their sad, supportive faces, when, in fact, our suffering is serving to console them for their miserable lives...

Learning

“No one could if they put themselves first. We have to be all those difficult things like cheerful and kind and curious and patient, and we’ve got to study and think and work hard, all of us, in all our different worlds, and then we’ll build…”

Philip Pullman His Dark Materials trilogy

Lyra to Pan in Ch. 38 : The Botanic Garden
His Dark Materials, The Amber Spyglass (2000)
Context: "I remember. He meant the Kingdom was over, the Kingdom of Heaven, it was all finished. We shouldn’t live as if it mattered more than this life in this world, because where we are is always the most important place."
"He said we had to build something…"
"That’s why we needed our full life, Pan... we wouldn’t have been able to build it. No one could if they put themselves first. We have to be all those difficult things like cheerful and kind and curious and patient, and we’ve got to study and think and work hard, all of us, in all our different worlds, and then we’ll build…"

World , Thinking , Study

“The gates of hell are open night and day;
Smooth the descent, and easy is the way:
But to return, and view the cheerful skies,
In this the task and mighty labor lies.”
Facilis descensus Averno: Noctes atque dies patet atri ianua Ditis; Sed revocare gradum superasque evadere ad auras, Hoc opus, hic labor est.

Virgil Aeneid

Facilis descensus Averno:
Noctes atque dies patet atri ianua Ditis;
Sed revocare gradum superasque evadere ad auras,
Hoc opus, hic labor est.
Variant translation:
: It is easy to go down into Hell;
Night and day, the gates of dark Death stand wide;
But to climb back again, to retrace one's steps to the upper air—
There's the rub, the task.
Compare:
Long is the way
And hard, that out of Hell leads up to Light.
John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book II, line 432
Source: Aeneid (29–19 BC), Book VI, Lines 126–129 (as translated by John Dryden)

Way , Hell , Night

“BB: I'm actually from the West Country…
[solitary cheer from audience]
BB: Hypnotized, or actually? What are you doing here?
Audience member: I had to come.
BB: What do you mean you had to come here? What, you were on some dark purpose?
Ch. 4, 07:38”

Bill Bailey (1965) English comedian, musician, actor, TV and radio presenter and author

Bewilderness (DVD, 2001)

Country

“The reason we'd stopped was that the buffet car was on fire, that was the reason we stopped. One of the giant biscuits spontaneously combusted out of boredom. Whoever was charged with making the announcement momentarily lost all sense of procedure and we got this tantalizing glimpse into the chaos on the trains, and all we could hear was (bangs on microphone) "Gary, it's burning, what we gonna do?!" And everyone on the carriage just cheered, "Hooray! We're rubbish!"”

Bill Bailey (1965) English comedian, musician, actor, TV and radio presenter and author

Part Troll (2004)

Cars , Sense , Training

Quotes about cheer page 5

Quotes about cheer
page 5