Quotes about delight
page 4

“To know Jesus Christ for ourselves is to make Him a consolation, delight, strength, righteousness, companion, and end.”

Richard Cecil (clergyman) (1748–1810) British Evangelical Anglican priest and social reformer

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 246.

Christ

“A cheerful life is what the Muses love,
A soaring spirit is their prime delight.”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

From the Dark Chambers of Dejection Freed, l. 13 (1814).

Love, Life

“I will make you brooches and toys for your delight
Of bird-song at morning and star-shine at night.”

Robert Louis Stevenson book Songs of Travel and Other Verses

No. XI, Romance, st. 1.
Songs of Travel and Other Verses (1896)

Star, Bird, Night

“Though "none by searching can find out God, or the Almighty to perfection," yet I am persuaded, that if mankind would dare to exercise their reason as freely on those divine topics as they do in the common concerns of life, they would, in a great measure, rid themselves of their blindness and superstition, gain more exalted ideas of God and their obligations to him and one another, and be proportionally delighted and blessed with the views of his moral government, make better members of society, and acquire, manly powerful incentives to the practice of morality, which is the last and greatest perfection that human nature is capable of.”

Ethan Allen (1738–1789) American general

Source: Reason: The Only Oracle Of Man (1784), Chapter I Section I - Of Reforming Mankind from Superstition and Error, and the Good Consequences of it"

Life, God, Exercises, Search

“I'm delighted to see each of you here tonight in spite of a storm warning. You reveal that you are determined to go on anyhow. Something is happening in Memphis, something is happening in our world.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, I've Been to the Mountaintop (1968)

World

“What delight will it afford to renew the sweet counsel we have taken together, to recount the toils, the combats, and the labor of the way, and to approach, not the house, but the throne of God, in company, in order to join in the symphonies of heavenly voices, and lose ourselves amidst the splendors and fruitions of the beatific vision.”

Robert Hall (1764–1831) British Baptist pastor

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 306.

God, Way, Housing

“They say that, hung in ancient halls,
At midnight from the silent lute
A melancholy music falls
From chords which were by daylight mute.
And so the human heart by night
Is touched by some inspired tone,
Harmonious in the deep delight,
By day it knew not was its own.”

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

Meditation
Heath's book of Beauty, 1833 (1832)

Music, Heart, Night

“Look at the children, bloomin' excited,
Ain't it grand to be bloomin' well dead!
Look at the neighbours, bloomin' delighted,
Ain't it grand to be bloomin' well dead!”

Leslie Sarony (1897–1985) British singer

Song Ain't it Grand to be Bloomin' Well Dead!

Children, Dead

“It is a great joy to admire someone without reserve; love which is founded upon admiration of the mind as well as the body of the chosen person undoubtedly affords the keenest delight.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Loving

Love, Joy, Personality

“Gallantry to women (the sure road to their favor) is nothing but the appearance of extreme devotion to all their wants and wishes, a delight in their satisfaction, and a confidence in yourself as being able to contribute toward it.”

William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English writer

" On Disagreeable People http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/Hazlitt/Disagreeable.htm" (August 1827) Men and Manners: Sketches and Essays (1852)

Women, Confidence, Appearance

“Although I can look a bit grumpy myself, I love it when the sun shines in the water, but besides that I think my country is colored and what I particularly noticed when I came from abroad: our country is colored sappy fat, that's why our beautiful- colored and built cattle, their flesh, milk and butter, nowhere you can find this, but they [the cows] are also fed by that sappy, greasy and colored land - I have often heard strangers say, those Dutch painters all paint gray and their land is green.... the more I observe the more colored and transparent nature becomes and then the air seen altogether, something very different and yet so [strong] in harmony, it is delightful when one has learned to see, because that too must be learned, I repeat, our country is not gray, even not in gray weather, the dunes aren't gray either.”

Paul Gabriël (1828–1903) painter (1828-1903)

translation from the Dutch original: Fons Heijnsbroek
version in original Dutch / citaat van Paul Gabriël, in Nederlands: Alhoewel ik er zelf wat knorrig uit kan zien houd ik er veel van dat het zonnetje in het water schijnt, maar buiten dat ik vind mijn land gekleurd en wat mij bijzonder opviel wanneer ik uit den vreemde kwam: ons land is gekleurd sappig vet, vandaar onze schoone gekleurde en gebouwde runderen, hun vleesch melk en boter, nergens vind men dat zoo maar ze worden ook door dat sappige vette en gekleurde land gevoed - ik heb vreemdelingen dikwijls horen zeggen, die Hollandsche schilders schilderen allemaal grijs en hun land is groen.. ..hoe meer ik opserveer hoe gekleurder en transparanter de natuur word en dan de lucht erbij gezien een heel ander iets en toch zoo in harmonie, het is verrukkelijk wanneer men heeft leeren zien, want ook dat moet geleerd worden, ik herhaal het ons land is niet grijs, zelfs niet bij grijs weer, de duinen zijn ook niet grijs.
written note of Paul Gabriël, 1901; as cited in De Haagse School. Hollandse meesters van de 19de eeuw, ed. R. de Leeuw, J. Sillevis en C. Dumas); exhibition. cat. - Parijs, Grand Palais / Londen, Royal Academy of Arts / Den Haag, Haags Gemeentemuseum, Parijs, Londen, Den Haag 1983, p.183 - 23
after 1900

Love, Beauty, Color, Nature

“So I went over there and, I’m delighted to say, the play flopped. I hated New York. I loathed it.”

Ian Carmichael (1920–2010) actor

After the failure of the broadway run of Boeing-Boeing. New York Times obituary 9 February 2010 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/10/arts/television/10carmichael.html

Hate

“Or take the case of Suhabhatta, the chief minister of Sikandar Butshikan of Kashmir (1389-1413 AD). Suhabhatta who had renounced his ancestral faith for Islam is known as Suha in the Rajataringini of Jonaraja. This historian of Kashmir records: “Instructed by mlechhas, (Suha) instigated the king to break down the images of Gods. The king forgot his kingly duties and took a delight day and night in breaking images… He broke the images of Martanda, Vishaya, Isana, Chakravarati and Tripuresvara… There was no city, no town, no village, no wood where Suha and the Turushka left the temples of Gods unbroken.”

Sikandar Butshikan

Jonraja, quoted in Sita Ram Goel: The Story of Islamic Imperialism in India.

God, Faith, Night

“There is in this world no real delight (excepting those of sensuality), but exchange of ideas in conversation.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

Source: Anecdotes of Samuel Johnson (1786), p. 266

World, Idea

“Happiest is he who expects no happiness from others. Love delights and glorifies in giving, not receiving. So learn to love and give, and not to expect anything from others.”

Meher Baba (1894–1969) Indian mystic

7:2457.
Lord Meher (1986)

Love, Happiness, Learning

“When we cannot be delivered from ourselves, we delight in devouring ourselves.”

Emil M. Cioran book A Short History of Decay

A Short History of Decay (1949)

“I know the dark delight of being strange,
The penalty of difference in the crowd,
The loneliness of wisdom among fools”

Claude McKay (1889–1948) Jamaican American writer, poet

Complete Poems, University of Illinois Press, 2004, p. 348

Wisdom, Penalty, Fools, Loneliness

“It [chess] is not only the most delightful and scientific, but the most moral of amusements.”

Paul Morphy (1837–1884) American chess player

As quoted in Testimonials to Paul Morphy: Presented at University Hall, New York, May 25, 1859

“Immeasurable pain!
My dreaming soul last night was king again.
As in past days
I wandered through the Palace of Delight,
And in my dream
Down grassy garden-ways
Glided my chariot, smoother than a summer stream;
There was moonlight,
The trees were blossoming,
And a faint wind softened the air of night,
For it was spring.”

Li Yu (Southern Tang) (937–978) ruler of the Southern Tang Kingdom in ancient China

《望江南》 ("Immeasurable Pain"), as translated by Arthur Waley in The Temple (1923), p. 144

Pain, Dreams, Way, Soul

“A baby is shown sitting on the floor. He appears to be about a year and a half old. Incidentally, he is a very plain baby. Strewn about him on the floor are the toys that he has been playing with. There are a ball, a rattle, a ring, a doll, a bell and a pair of roller-skates. Evidently, the candidate is supposed to be aghast at the roller-skates in the possession of such a small child.
The man who drew that picture had evidently never furnished playthings for a small child. I can imagine nothing that would delight a child of a year and a half more than a pair of roller-skates to chew and spin and hit himself in the face with. They could also be dropped on Daddy when Daddy was lying on the floor in an attempt to be sociable. Of all the toys arranged before the child, the roller-skates are the most logical. … That is my great trouble in taking tests and examinations of any kind. I always want to argue with the examiner, because the examiner is always so obviously wrong.”

Robert Benchley (1889–1945) American comedian

"Measure Your Mind", in Love Conquers All (1922)

Imagination, Lying, Appearance, Baby

“Hope is like a harebell, trembling from its birth,
Love is like a rose, the joy of all the earth,
Faith is like a lily, lifted high and white,
Love is like a lovely rose, the world’s delight.
Harebells and sweet lilies show a thornless growth,
But the rose with all its thorns excels them both.”

Christina Rossetti (1830–1894) English poet

Hope is like a Harebell; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Love, World, Faith, Hope

“The duty we owe to our gardens is to so use the plants that they shall form beautiful pictures; and that, while delighting our eyes.”

Gertrude Jekyll (1843–1932) garden designer, artist

Colour in the Garden

Beauty

“I am staying on in Geneva, this charming city. With each step I discover delightful motives. How pleasant it is to work here. And the light is just the way I like it, full of delicate nuances.”

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796–1875) French landscape painter and printmaker in etching

Quote in a letter to his friend, the painter Paul Tavernier, Geneva, July 1842; ; as quoted in 'Corot', Gary Tinterow, Michael Pantazzi, Vincent Pomarède - Galeries nationales du Grand Palais (France), National Gallery of Canada, Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.), 1996, p. 136
1820 - 1850

Way, Motivation, Light

“It is with philosophy as with just intonation on a piano, if you get everything quite straight and on all fours in one department, in perfect tune, it is delightful so long as you keep well in the middle of the key; but as soon as you modulate you find the new key is out of tune and the more remotely you modulate the more out of tune you get.”

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist

Philosophy and Equal Temperament
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XX - First Principles

Perfection

“And she conceived and bore to Zeus, who delights in the thunderbolt, two sons, Magnes and Macedon, rejoicing in horses, who dwell round about Pieria and Olympus.”

Hesiod Greek poet

Catalogues of Women and Eoiae 3 (Loeb, H.G. Evelyn-White).
Catalogue of Women or Eoiae

Horse

“The human eye loves to rest upon wide expanses of pure colour: the moors in the purple heyday of heather, miles of green downland, and the sea when it lies calm and blue and boundless, all delight it; but to some none of these, lovely though they all are, can give the same satisfaction of spirit as acres upon acres of golden corn. There is both beauty and bread and the seeds of bread for future generations.”

Flora Thompson book Lark Rise

Source: Lark Rise, ch. 15, Harvest Home

Love, Beauty, Future, Sea

“Tell me some of your chief difficulties that prevent you and your countrymen from openly following Christ, and when I write to you I shall do my best to explain how I and many who agree with me have met them and solved them… From my point of view, India, at least the best part of it, is already converted to Christianity. You want no persuasion to become a follower of Christ. Then make up your mind to act for yourselves. Unite your flock, and put up a few folds to hold them together. The bridge has been built by you for those who came before you. Step boldly forward, it will not break under you, and you will find many friends to welcome you on the other shore, and among them none more delighted that you old friend and fellow labourer.”

Max Müller (1823–1900) German-born philologist and orientalist

Letter to Protap Chunder Mozoomdar, author of The Oriental Christ (1883); published in The Life and Letters of Right Honorable Friedrich Max Müller (1902) edited by Georgina Müller, Vol. II., Ch. XXXIV

Christ, Parting

“The Renaissance discovery of nature was an invention of nineteenth-century liberalism which played off the Renaissance delight in nature against the Middle Ages, in order to strike a blow at the romantic philosophy of history. For when Burckhardt says that the ‘discovery of the world and of man’was an achievement of the Renaissance, this thesis is, at the same time, an attack on romantic reaction and an attempt to ward off the propaganda designed to spread the romantic view of medieval culture. The doctrine of the spontaneous naturalism of the Renaissance comes from the same source as the theory that the fight against the spirit of authority and hierarchy, the ideal of freedom of thought and freedom of conscience, the emancipation of the individual and the principle of democracy, are achievements of the fifteenth century. In all this the light of the modern age is contrasted with the darkness of the Middle Ages.”

Arnold Hauser (1892–1978) Hungarian art historian

Source: The Social History of Art', Volume II. Renaissance, Mannerism, Baroque, 1999, Chapter 1. The Concept of the Renaissance

Age, World, Democracy, History

“They knew me from the dawn of time: if Hermes beats his rainbow wings,
If Angus shakes his locks of light, or golden-haired Apollo sings,
It matters not the name, the land; my joy in all the gods abides:
Even in the cricket in the grass some dimness of me smiles and hides.
For joy of me the day star glows, and in delight and wild desire
The peacock twilight rays aloft its plumes and blooms of shadowy fire,
Where in the vastness too I burn through summer nights and ages long,
And with the fiery footed Watchers shake in myriad dance and song.”

George William Russell (1867–1935) Irish writer, editor, critic, poet, and artistic painter

The Nuts of Knowledge (1903)

God, Age, Smile, Star

“Slavery has left behind it a spirit that still delights in human blood. Outrage, murder, and assassination are the inheritance of the freed men and women of the South. Neither our government nor our civilization seems able to stop the flow of blood. As in the time of slavery, the Church is silent.”

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

Letter http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/the-nations-problem/

Women, Men, Time

“You are within, my Love, and I too am there with you and will be there constantly. No, I will never look for you outside, for you are not there. Rather will I retire into the deepest center of my being, where I shall possess you in a singular repose and delight. IN this simple union, we shall take the greatest delight in each other. And I shall rejoice only in this: that you are my God. With this I am happy, completely satisfied that you are such, and that you will never be understood by any created being. p. 183”

John of St. Samson (1571–1636)

From Prayer, Aspiration, and Contemplation

Love, God, Happiness

“One I have loved, uneluding, dearly possessed,
Two I have wooed, by greater praise be they blessed –
Three, yea, and four, with fortune lavish of gold,
Five maidens I've won their white flesh fair to behold,
And six more bright than the sun on my city's strong walls
With never a treacherous rede to blemish delight;
Seven by heaven! though hardly won was the fight –
Yea eight of whom I have sung: but to bridle the tongue
Lest heedless a careless word slip – the teeth they are strong!”

Hywel ab Owain Gwynedd poet

Keueisy vun dunn diwyrnawd;
keueisy dwy, handid mwy eu molawd;
keueisy deir a pheddir a phawd;
keueisy bymp o rei gwymp eu gwyngnawd;
keueisy chwech heb odech pechawd;
gwen glaer uch gwengaer yt ym daerhawd;
keueisy sseith ac ef gweith gordygnawd;
keueisy wyth yn hal pwyth peth or wawd yr geint;
ys da deint rac tauaed.
"Gorhoffedd" (The Boast), line 75; translation from Robert Gurney Bardic Heritage (London: Chatto & Windus, 1969) p. 41.

Love, Strong, Sun, Fight

“It is restful to leave one's home; not because traveling does not entail varied and difficult daily actions, but because it removes our responsibilities. Except in the case of official persons, the traveler now lives for himself alone, and is no longer accountable to a community or a family clan. A foreign country is merely a spectacle; in it we no longer have the continual awareness of responsibility. All of us, from time to time, need a plunge into freedom and novelty, after which routine and discipline will seem delightful by contrast. Periods of rest, however, must be brief, but it is amazing to discover how a few days of travel can restore our mental freshness.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Working

Family, Travel, Home, Communication

“Bend low, O dusky Night,
And give my spirit rest,
Hold me to your deep breast,
And put old cares to flight.
Give back the lost delight
That once my soul possest,
When Love was loveliest.”

Louise Chandler Moulton (1835–1908) American poet, story-writer and critic

To-night.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Love, Soul, Night

“I had but one joy, the apple of the eye of my delights, to preach Christ my Lord”

Samuel Rutherford (1600–1661) Scottish Reformed theologian

Letter 225 (to his parishioners) Aberdeen 1837
Letters of Samuel Rutherford (Andrew Bonar)

Joy, Christ

“When once the mind has raised itself to grasp and to delight in excellence, those who love most will be found to love most wisely.”

Francis Turner Palgrave (1824–1897) English poet and critic

Golden Treasury of English Songs and Lyrics (1861) Summary of Book Fourth.

Love

“[Conchita Wurst] She is an incredible singer and entertainer. But what made her win so meaningful was the way she turned her victory in the Song Contest into an electrifying moment of human rights education. Conchita is promoting respect for diversity. This is a core value of the United Nations Charter, along with our commitment to tolerance. She confounds people's preconceived ideas of gender and sexuality - and she appeals to them to accept her as she is. That is a powerful message. I am delighted she is using her talent and the Eurovision platform to take this message to a global audience.”

Ban Ki-moon (1944) 8th Secretary-General of the United Nations

3 November 2014; Remarks at Meeting with Conchita Wurst http://www.unis.unvienna.org/unis/en/pressrels/2014/unissgsm573.html

People, Education, Way, Idea

“I want to say to those who are trying to learn to speak and those who are teaching them: Be of good cheer. Do not think of to-day's failures, but of the success that may come to-morrow. You have set yourselves a difficult task, but you will succeed if you persevere, and you will find a joy in overcoming obstacles — a delight in climbing rugged paths, which you would perhaps never know if you did not sometime slip backward — if the road was always smooth and pleasant. Remember, no effort that we make to attain something beautiful is ever lost. Sometime, somewhere, somehow we shall find that which we seek. We shall speak, yes, and sing, too, as God intended we should speak and sing.”

Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist

Address to the American Association to Promote the Teaching of Speech to the Deaf (8 July 1896)

God, Beauty, Failure, Thinking

“For all their incoherence and senseless rage, their message is attractive to those layers of the population who yearn for some order in their lives. If the fanatics promise to feed them and educate their children they are prepared to forgo the delights of CNN and BBC World.”

Tariq Ali book The Clash of Fundamentalisms

Referring to the Taliban. The Clash of Fundamentalisms ISBN 1-85984-457-X, pg. 200.

Children, World, Education, Rage

“Life is a jest;
Take the delight of it.
Laughter is best;
Sing through the night of it.
Swiftly the tear
And the hurt and the ache of it
Find us down here;
Life must be what we make of it.”

Edgar Guest (1881–1959) American writer

Life, stanza 1, All That Matters, p. 80 (1922).

Life, Tear, Laughter, Singing

“Not result is the purpose of action, but God's eternal delight in becoming, seeing and doing.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

Thoughts and Aphorisms (1913), Karma

God

“I do not know whether to be delighted or outraged by the fact that Literary Theory: An Introduction was the subject of a study by a well known U. S. business school, which was intrigued to discover how an academic text could become a best-seller.”

Terry Eagleton (1943) British writer, academic and educator

New Preface to Literary Theory: An Introduction, Anniversary Edition, (2008)
2000s

School, Business, Study

“These years of Kunti’s life were comparatively peaceful. Hardly had Kunti heaved a sigh of relief when fresh troubles arose. Though the Pandavas were received as princes, they were not acknowledged as sole heirs to the throne. Dhritarashtra continued to rule though uncrowned and quarrels broke out among the cousins. Kunti’s Bhima, a hefty fellow, delighted in frightening his cousins. Apparently they in their turn tried to poison him. Kunti’s children proved themselves to be quick in learning the art.”

Kunti character from Indian epic Mahabharata

Source: The End Of An Epoch, p. 33.

Life, Children, Peace, Art

“O the one who is playful with a row of locks of wavering hair (lolālālīlala); O the one who never changes (alola); O the one whose mouth is full of saliva in the pastimes [as a child] (līlālālālalālala); O the one who accepts the wealth of earth (Sītā) in the sport [of breaking the bow of Śiva] (lelelela); O the one who destroys the multitude of worldly desires of mortals (lalālīla); O the child [form of Rāma] (lāla); O the one who destroys the fickle-minded nature of the being (lolīla); [may you ever] delight [in my mind] (lālala). ॥ 20.94 ॥”

Rāmabhadrācārya (1950) Hindu religious leader

lolālālīlalālola līlālālālalālala ।
lelelela lalālīla lāla lolīla lālala ॥
Śrībhārgavarāghavīyam

Nature, Sport, Change, Wealth

“Man, little as he may suppose it, is necessitated to obey superiors. He is a social being in virtue of this necessity; nay he could not be gregarious otherwise. He obeys those whom he esteems better than himself, wiser, braver; and will forever obey such; and even be ready and delighted to do it.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1840s, Past and Present (1843)

“There is no mask that temptation cannot wear, and the idea that Satan is purely a logician is an illusion held by not a few naive people. Many a shifty old man sees him as an opponent in an academic argument, but if he does the observer is still at the stage of games and trifles. Sometimes, though not often, the black desire to harm wins out over quicker and less bitter delights. When that happens, evil shows itself for what it truly is, not a way of life, but an attack on life itself.”

Georges Bernanos (1888–1948) French writer

Source: L'imposture (The Impostor), 1927, pp.74–75

Life, People, Way, Game

“There is some delight in ale and wine
And some in girls with ankles fine
But my delight, yes always mine
Is to dance with Jak O’ the Shadows

We will toss the dice however they fall
And snuggle the girls be they short or tall
Then follow lord Mat whenever he calls
To dance with Jak O’ the Shadows.”

Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer

Band of the Red Hand's rendition of the song Dance With the Jak O' Shadows
(11 October 2005)

Girl, Wine, Dance

“But it never occurred to him to want to be a philosopher, or dedicate himself to Speculation; he was still too fickle for that. True, he was not drawn now to one thing and now to another – thinking was and remained his passion – but he still lacked the self-discipline required for acquiring a deeper coherence. Both the significant and the insignificant attracted him equally as points of departure for his pursuits; the result was not of great consequence – only the movements of thought as such interested him. Sometimes he noticed that he reached one and the same conclusion from quite different starting points, but this did not in any deeper sense engage his attention. His delight was always just to be pressing on; wherever he suspected a labyrinth, he had to find the way. Once he had started, nothing could bring him to a halt. If he found the going difficult and became tired of it before he ought, he would adopt a very simple remedy – he would shut himself up in his room, make everything as festive as possible, and then say loudly and clearly: I will do it. He had learned from his father that one can do what one wills, and his father’s life had not discredited this theory. Experiencing this had given Johannes indescribable pride; that there could be something one could not do when one willed it was unbearable to him. But his pride did not in the least indicate weakness of will, for when he had uttered these energetic words he was ready for anything; he then had a still higher goal – to penetrate the intricacies of the problem by force of will. This again was an adventure that inspired him. Indeed his life was in this way always adventurous. He needed no woods and wanderings for his adventures, but only what he possessed – a little room with one window.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Johannes Climacus p. 22-23
1840s, Johannes Climacus (1841)

Life, Way, Departure, Problem

“I care not what black spiritual crisis we may come through or what delightful spiritual Canaan we may enter, no blessing of the Christian life becomes continually possessed unless we are men and women of regular, daily, unhurried, secret lingerings in prayer.”

J. Sidlow Baxter (1903–1999) Australian theologian

Reported in Wright L. Lassiter, The Power of Prayer (2005), p. xiv.

Life, Women, Men, Secret

“That he delights in the misery of others no man will confess, and yet what other motive can make a father cruel?”

Samuel Johnson The Rambler

No. 148 (17 August 1751)
The Rambler (1750–1752)

Motivation

“To own a bit of ground, to scratch it with a hoe, to plant seeds and watch, their renewal of life, this is the commonest delight of the race, the most satisfactory thing a man can do.”

Charles Dudley Warner (1829–1900) American writer

Preliminary.
My Summer in a Garden (1870)

Life

“Where is Christ, the King? In heaven, to be sure. Thither it behooves you, soldier of Christ, to direct your course. Forget all earthly delights. A soldier does not build a house; he does not aspire to possession of lands; he does not concern himself with devious, coin-purveying trade. … The soldier enjoys a sustenance provided by the king; he need not furnish his own, nor vex himself in this regard.”

Basil of Caesarea (329–379) Christian Saint

Source: Ascetical Works, p. 9

Christ, Housing, Forgetting

“Come, spur away,
I have no patience for a longer stay,
But must go down
And leave the chargeable noise of this great town.
I will the country see,
Where old simplicity,
Though hid in grey,
Doth look more gay
Than foppery in plush and scarlet clad:
Farewell, you city wits, that are
Almost at civil war;
'Tis time that I grow wise, when all the world grows mad.
More of my days
I will not spend to gain an idiot's praise;
Or to make sport
For some slight puny of the inns of court.
Then, worthy Stafford, say,
How shall we spend the day?
With what delights
Shorten the nights?
When from this tumult we are got secure,
Where mirth with all her freedom goes,
Yet shall no finger lose;
Where every word is thought, and every thought is pure.
There from the tree
We'll cherries pluck and pick the strawberry,
And every day
Go see the wholesome country girls make hay,
Whose brown hath lovelier grace
Than any painted face
That I do know
Hyde Park can show.”

Thomas Randolph (poet) (1605–1635) English poet and dramatist

"An Ode to Master Anthony Stafford, to hasten him into the Country"
Poems (pub. 1638)

War, World, Girl, Sport

“When he saw Tiny, he was delighted, and thought her the prettiest little maiden he had ever seen. He took the gold crown from his head, and placed it on hers, and asked her name, and if she would be his wife, and queen over all the flowers. This certainly was a very different sort of husband to the son of a toad, or the mole, with my black velvet and fur; so she said, "Yes," to the handsome prince. Then all the flowers opened, and out of each came a little lady or a tiny lord, all so pretty it was quite a pleasure to look at them. Each of them brought Tiny a present; but the best gift was a pair of beautiful wings, which had belonged to a large white fly and they fastened them to Tiny's shoulders, so that she might fly from flower to flower.”

Hans Christian Andersen Thumbelina

Thumbelina
Fairy Tales (1835)

Pleasure, Beauty, Flowers, Flying

“We sleep in peace in the arms of God when we yield ourselves up to His providence, in a delightful consciousness of His tender mercies; no more restless uncertainties, no more anxious desires, no more impatience at the place we are in, for it is God who has put us there, and who holds us in His arms. Can we be unsafe where He has placed us, and where He watches over us as a parent watches a child? This confiding repose, in which earthly care sleeps, is the true vigilance of the heart; yielding itself up to God, with no other support than Him, it thus watches while we sleep. This is the love of Him that will not sleep even in death.”

François Fénelon (1651–1715) Catholic bishop

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 600.

Love, Death, God, Peace

“Doesn't a boy forever delight in making a girl cry? Whether it is his sister or cousin or school-fellow, he always has some little feminine victim to vent his mischievous propensities on, with a view to seeing her 'dissolved in tears'; when he adds insult to injury by denominating her a 'cry baby.”

Frances Fuller Victor (1826–1902) American writer

Quoted by Jim Martin in his 1995 A Bit of Blue...

School, Girl, Boy, Sister

“I love the idea that something would be whimsical, and like "delightful", you know, but also disgusting — so I like this sort of, you know, a really gnarly guitar — really gross, disgusting guitar and then a — really a whimsical… — it's one of those things you can only describe in sort of awkward hand gestures and eye motions. Imagine!”

St. Vincent (musician) (1982) American singer-songwriter

On one of her compositions on the album Actor, in an interview for Billboard magazine (20 March 2009)

Love, Imagination, Idea

“And if his own joy knew no bounds, the girl was no less delighted on seeing him.”

Giovanni Boccaccio book The Decameron

Se egli fu lieto assai, la letizia della giovane non fu minore.
Fifth Day, Third Story
The Decameron (c. 1350)

Girl, Joy

“How can you not sell the first three Bunnymen albums? It's like, how can you not sell the Mona Lisa, Van Gogh's Sunflowers, and The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch?”

Ian McCulloch (1959) singer, musician

Spin magazine (2008)

“A hundred objective measurements didn't sum the worth of a garden; only the delight of its users did that. Only the use made it mean something.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, A Civil Campaign (1999)

“.. The movement and the rustle of the branches [in the forest, while losing his attention for chasing] delights me. The clouds float past and I lift my head to follow their flight, or think about some madrigal, when a slight sound, which has been going on for a little while, rouses me slowly from my dream.; at least I turn my head and see, to my grief, a little white scut just disappearing into the thicket…”

Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863) French painter

Quote in a letter to Delacroix' friend Achille Peron - 16 September 1819, Paris; as quoted in Eugene Delacroix – selected letters 1813 – 1863, ed. and translation Jean Stewart, art Works MFA publications, Museum of Fine Art Boston, 2001, p. 51
1815 - 1830

Dreams, Thinking, Past

“Rosamond felt herself beginning to know a great deal of the world, especially in discovering what when she was in her unmarried girlhood had been inconceivable to her except as a dim tragedy in by-gone costumes— that women, even after marriage, might make conquests and enslave men. Still, vanity, with a woman’s whole mind and day to work in, can construct abundantly on slight hints, especially on such a hint as the possibility of indefinite conquests. How delightful to make captives from the throne of marriage with a husband as crown-prince by your side—himself in fact a subject— while the captives look up forever hopeless, losing their rest probably, and if their appetite too, so much the better!”

George Eliot book Middlemarch

Middlemarch (1871)

Women, Men, Marriage, World

“The Higgs is a very special type of particle - one we've never seen before. It has strange properties that we need to understand. This award was a complete surprise to me. It's really quite humbling and of course I'm delighted to receive it. I'm over the moon to be frank.”

Tejinder Virdee (1952) British physicist

In The Economic Times, British Indian physicist Tejinder Virdee accorded knighthood by Queen http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-06-14/news/50581680_1_particle-physics-higgs-boson-tom-kibble, The Economic Times, 14 June 2014 On getting the Knighthood

Understanding

“Energy is eternal delight; and from the earliest times human beings have tried to imprison it in some durable hieroglyphic. It is perhaps the first of all the subjects of art.”

Kenneth Clark (1903–1983) Art historian, broadcaster and museum director

Source: The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form (1951), Ch. V: Energy

Art, Time

“What does it mean, then, to become part of God’s work in the world? What does it mean to live a Christian life? One way to answer that question is to look back into the life of the Trinity and the original creation. God made us to ever increasingly share in his own joy and delight in the same way he has joy and delight within himself. We share his joy first as we give him glory (worshipping and serving him rather than ourselves); second, as we honor and serve the dignity of other human beings made in the image of God’s glory; and third, as we cherish his derivative glory in the world of nature, which also reflects it. We glorify and enjoy him only as we worship him, serve the human community, and care for the created environment.
Another way to look at the Christian life, however, is to see it from the perspective of the final restoration. The world and our hearts are broken. Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection was an infinitely costly rescue operation to restore justice to the oppressed and marginalized, physical wholeness to the diseased and dying, community to the isolated and lonely, and spiritual joy and connection to those alienated from God. To be a Christian today is to become part of that same operation, with the expectation of suffering and hardship and the joyful assurance of eventual success.”

Tim Keller (pastor) book The Reason for God

The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism (2008), Ch. 14: The Dance of God

Life, Death, God, World

“Scientific discovery is a private event, and the delight that accompanies it, or the despair of finding it illusory, does not travel. One scientist may get great satisfaction from another’s work and admire it deeply; it may give him great intellectual pleasure; but it gives him no sense of participation in the discovery, it does not carry him away, and his appreciation of it does not depend on his being carried away. If it were otherwise the inspirational origin of scientific discovery would never have been in doubt.”

Peter Medawar (1915–1987) scientist

‘Hypothesis and Imagination’ in The Art of the Soluble, 1967.
1960s

Pleasure, Travel, Sense, Dependency

“I crossed the tracks and sought out White prey. I did this consciously, deliberately, willfully, methodically […] Rape was an insurrectionary act. It delighted me that I was defying and trampling upon the White man's law […] and that I was defiling his women […]”

Eldridge Cleaver (1935–1998) American activist

Soul on Fire (1978)
1970s

Women, Law

“The remembrance of death is very powerful to restrain us from sinning. For he should well consider the day will come(and he knoweth not how soon)….. no more Suns will rise and set upon him;.. no more seeing, no more hearing. no more speaking, no more touching, no more tasting, no more fancying, no more understanding, no more remembering, no more desiring, no more loving, no more delights of any sort to be enjoyed by him…let any man duly and daily ponder these things, and how can it be that he should dare…..”

Nicholas Ferrar (1592–1637) English scholar and courtier

Some final, unfinished thoughts a few weeks before his death aged forty-six, in 1637, Essay on Nicholas Ferrar, Jane Falloon, Heart of Pilgrimage-A Study of George Hertbert, Author House,Milton Keynes 2007 ISBN 978-1-4259-7755-9

Love, Death, Understanding, Sun

“Weave no more silks, ye Lyons looms,
To deck our girls for gay delights!
The crimson flower of battle blooms,
And solemn marches fill the nights.”

Julia Ward Howe (1819–1910) American abolitionist, social activist, and poet

"Our Orders" in The Atlantic Monthly (July 1861).

Girl, Flowers, Night

“A [further] aspect [of homosexuality] is the hatred of God’s reality, an insistence on wars against reality, in living in a world of make believe. As a result, the theater is the natural element of these people. Some scholars, again not Christian, have pointed out there has been by-and-large a strong homosexual control of the theater, in varying degrees in different times, from the days of the Romans. But part and parcel of this homosexual control of the theater has been the delight in prostituting women, in using them and abusing them for the sheer delight of showing their contempt for them. Now this is homosexual culture, described by people who are not hostile to it, and in fact sometimes have some good things to say for it.”

Rousas John Rushdoony (1916–2001) American theologian

Audio lectures, Homosexuality (n. d.)

Women, God, Hostility, War

“With the vast sweep of his imagination Jules Verne created a whole world of magical things imbued with a delightful naiveté, which just charm us…”

Karel Zeman (1910–1989) Czech film director, artist and animator

Veliká fantazie Julesa Vernea vytvořila svět, kouzelný svět plný rozkošné naivity, která je tolik půvabná... Quoted on the website of the Karel Zeman Museum in Prague (in English http://www.muzeumkarlazemana.cz/en/karel-zeman/quotes and Czech http://www.muzeumkarlazemana.cz/cz/karel-zeman/citaty).

World, Imagination

“I think it was a generous thought, and one that fow'd from an exalted mind, that it was not improbable but God might be delighted with the various methods of worshipping him, which divided the whole world.”

Alexander Pope (1688–1744) eighteenth century English poet

Letter, February 10, 1715, 16.

God, World, Thinking

“Tis impious pleasure to delight in harm.
And beauty should be kind, as well as charm.”

George Granville, 1st Baron Lansdowne (1666–1735) 1st Baron Lansdowne

To Myra, line 21; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), "Beauty", p. 57-63.

Pleasure, Beauty

“[T]he thought of creation itself dictates the presence of an excessive will to receive in the souls, to fit the immense pleasure that the Creator thought to bestow upon them. For the great delight and the great desire to receive must go hand in hand.”

Yehuda Ashlag (1886–1954) Orthodox Jewish Rabbi and Kabbalist

Introduction to the Book of Zohar, in Introduction to the Book of Zohar: Volume Two, Michael Laitman, ed., Laitman Kabbalah Publishers, 2005, p. 119.
Introduction to the Book of Zohar

Pleasure, Soul

“Whoever possesses the following three qualities will have the sweetness (delight) of faith:”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

1. The one to whom Allah and His Apostle becomes dearer than anything else 2. Who loves a person and he loves him only for Allah's sake 3. Who hates to revert to Atheism (disbelief) as he hates to be thrown into the fire. Bukhari 1:15 http://www.sacred-texts.com/isl/bukhari/bh1/bh1_14.htm Sunni Hadith

Faith

“Be rather delighted with those that reprove, than with those that flatter you.”

Stobaeus Ancient Greek anthologist

29
Pythagorean Ethical Sentences

“The most offensive egotist is he that fears to say "I" and "me." "It will probably rain "—that is dogmatic. "I think it will rain"—that is natural and modest. Montaigne is the most delightful of essayists because so great is his humility that he does not think it important that we see not Montaigne. He so forgets himself that he employs no artifice to make us forget him.”

Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914) American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist

Source: Epigrams, p. 364

Fear, Nature, Thinking, Forgetting

“Theo, your brother has preached for the first time last Sunday in God's dwelling.... it is a delightful thought that in the future wherever I shall come I shall preach the gospel; to do that well, one must have the gospel in one's heart, may the Lord give it to me.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

In a letter to Theo, from Isleworth England, Autumn 1876, (letter 79); as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, p. 18 1870s

God, Time, Future, Heart

“So that Christianity is so far from leaving us to live in the common ways of life, conforming to the folly of customs, and gratifying the passions and tempers which the spirit of the world delights in, it is so far from indulging us in any of these things, that all its virtues which it makes necessary to salvation are only so many ways of living above and contrary to the world, in all the common actions of our life. If our common life is not a common course of humility, self-denial, renunciation of the world, poverty of spirit, and heavenly affection, we do not live the lives of Christians.”

William Law (1686–1761) English cleric, nonjuror and theological writer

Source: A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life (1728), Ch. I.

Life, World, Way, Passion

“In the spirit of enthusiasm or vanity, the prophet [Muhammad] rests the truth of his mission on the merit of his book; audaciously challenges both men and angels to imitate the beauties of a single page; and presumes to assert that God alone could dictate this incomparable performance. This argument is most powerfully addressed to a devout Arabian, whose mind is attuned to faith and rapture; whose ear is delighted by the music of sounds; and whose ignorance is incapable of comparing the productions of human genius… If the composition of the Koran exceed the faculties of a man to what superior intelligence should we ascribe the Iliad of Homer, or the Philippics of Demosthenes?”

Edward Gibbon (1737–1794) English historian and Member of Parliament

EGPaIV" Edward Gibbon, [1788], Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/gibbon/05/daf05010.htm, Vol. 5, Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants. Part IV. The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire: Volume 1 (1776)

Men, God, Truth, Books

“All in heaven take joy in sharing their delights and blessings with others.”

Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772) Swedish 18th century scientist and theologian

Heaven and Hell #399

Joy

“The shape and texture of fruit is sensuous and fascinating, but the true delight blossoms when you experience the flavor of these colorful gifts of nature.”

DeBarra Mayo (1953) American martial artist

Bikini Body Fitness by DeBarra Mayo, Juicy, Sensuous, Tasty...and Healthy http://www.ujena.com/book.php?h=Ujena+News, December 22, 2006

Color, Nature

“A great many people seem to delight most in what they least understand.”

William Hogarth book The Analysis of Beauty

The Analysis of Beauty (1753)

People, Understanding

“Cherish your visions; cherish your ideals; cherish the music that stirs in your heart, the beauty that forms in your mind, the loveliness that drapes your purest thoughts, for out of them will grow all delightful conditions, all, heavenly environment; of these, if you but remain true to them, your world will at last be built.”

James Allen (1864–1912) British philosophical writer

As A Man Thinketh (1902), Visions and Ideals

World, Beauty, Music, Heart

“O harmony! thou tenderest nurse of pain,
If that thy note's sweet magic e'er can heal
Griefs which the patient spirit oft may feel,
Oh! let me listen to thy songs again;
Till memory her fairest tints shall bring;
Hope wake with brighter eye, and listening seem
With smiles to think on some delightful dream.”

William Lisle Bowles (1762–1850) English priest, poet and critic

Music, from The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 - With Memoir, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes by George Gilfillan (1855).

Pain, Smile, Dreams, Hope

“Reason has moons, but moons not hers
Lie mirror'd on her sea,
Confounding her astronomers,
But, O! delighting me.”

Ralph Hodgson (1871–1962) British writer

"Reason Has Moons", p. 64.
Poems (1917)

Lie, Sea

“[He was] delighted to be called the mistress, the wife, the Queen of Hierocles.”

Elagabalus (203–222) Roman Emperor

Harry Benjamin in The Transsexual Phenomenon http://www.symposion.com/ijt/benjamin/ (1966)

“The viewpoint of the formalist must lead to the conviction that if other symbolic formulas should be substituted for the ones that now represent the fundamental mathematical relations and the mathematical-logical laws, the absence of the sensation of delight, called "consciousness of legitimacy," which might be the result of such substitution would not in the least invalidate its mathematical exactness. To the philosopher or to the anthropologist, but not to the mathematician, belongs the task of investigating why certain systems of symbolic logic rather than others may be effectively projected upon nature. Not to the mathematician, but to the psychologist, belongs the task of explaining why we believe in certain systems of symbolic logic and not in others, in particular why we are averse to the so-called contradictory systems in which the negative as well as the positive of certain propositions are valid.”

L. E. J. Brouwer (1881–1966) Dutch mathematician and logician

as translated by Arnold Dresden from: Brouwer, L. E. J. (1913). Intuitionism and formalism. Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society, 20(2), 81–96. (quote on p. 84)

Law, Mathematics, Nature

“O time, arrest your flight! and you, propitious hours, arrest your course! Let us savor the fleeting delights of our most beautiful days!”

Alphonse de Lamartine (1790–1869) French writer, poet, and politician

The Lake (1820), st. 6

Beauty, Time

“He had employed his mind chiefly on works of fiction, and subjects of fancy; and, by indulging some peculiar habits of thought, was eminently delighted with those flights of imagination which pass the bounds of nature, and to which the mind is reconciled only by a passive acquiescence in popular traditions. He loved fairies, genii, giants, and monsters; he delighted to rove through the meanders of enchantment, to gaze on the magnificence of golden palaces, to repose by the waterfalls of Elysian gardens.”

William Collins (1721–1759) English poet, born 1721

Samuel Johnson The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets (1781), "William Collins" http://www.bookrags.com/ebooks/4678/50.html Criticism

Love, Imagination, Nature

“The body is placed under the earth, and after a certain period there remains no vestige even of its form. This is that contemplation of inexhaustible melancholy, whose shadow eclipses the brightness of the world. The common observer is struck with dejection of the spectacle. He contends in vain against the persuasion of the grave, that the dead indeed cease to be. The corpse at his feet is prophetic of his own destiny. Those who have preceded him, and whose voice was delightful to his ear; whose touch met his like sweet and subtle fire: whose aspect spread a visionary light upon his path — these he cannot meet again.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley book The Necessity of Atheism

The Necessity of Atheism (1811)

World, Light, Dead

“Books! Real books were Joneny’s delight. Heavy, cumbersome, difficult to store, they were the bane of most scholars. Joneny found them entrancing. He didn’t care what was in them. Any book today was so old that each word glittered to him like the facet of a lost gem. The whole conception of a book was so at odds with this compressed, crowded, breakneck era that he was put into ecstasy by the simple heft of the paper. His own collection, some seventy volumes, was considered a pretentious luxury by everyone at the University.”

Samuel R. Delany book The Ballad of Beta-2

The Ballad of Beta-2 (1965)

Books, Universe

“Art is a concrete and personal and rather childish thing after all — no matter what people do to graft it into science and make it sociological and psychological; it is no good at all unless it is let alone to be itself — a game of make-believe, or re-production, very exciting and delightful to people who have an ear for it or an eye for it.”

Willa Cather (1873–1947) American writer and novelist

"Light on Adobe Walls"
Willa Cather on Writing (1949)

People, Art, Game, Science

“When you wander, as you often delight to do, you wander indeed, and give never such satisfaction as the curious time requires. This is not caused by any natural defect, but first for want of election, when you, having a large and fruitful mind, should not so much labour what to speak as to find what to leave unspoken. Rich soils are often to be weeded.”

Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, and author

Letter of Expostulation to Coke, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Nature, Time

“Tsenov is famous in Italy for his logical Bulgarian erudition and in Germany, with his previous work, he has revolutionized the origin of the Bulgarians and the other Slavs in the Balkans … The thesis on the Thracian-Bulgarian origin of the Bulgarians was supported by Tsenov with a great controversial liveliness, sometimes quite brave, always resting on arguments that can not be denied without an absolute competence, because the author who has devoted his entire life to this study does not allow concessions … He establishes in a complete picture Irvine inhabit life, the language of the Thracians and Illyrians, ethnic influence they exercised on the development of peoples-conquerors in the Balkans, to reach aboriginal character of the Bulgarians, which is comprehensively addressed and clearly and accurately exposed. All this work has been examined with a critical chronological and convincing method. He deserves praise. Mr. Tsenov shows that he is a man who has a deep knowledge and a great skill, a man who has put all his love and his whole excitement, always inspired by a belief that undoubtedly gives him the right to delight.”

Gancho Tsenov (1870–1949) Bulgarian historian

quotations for him
Source: prof. dr. Antonio Baldaci, член на Италианската АН, сп. „Светоглас”, юни (June), 1937 г., стр. 6

Love, Life, People, Exercises

“He delighted to tread upon the brink of meaning.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

The Life of Dryden
Lives of the English Poets (1779–81)

“Although it was only nine o'clock he had already gone once around the pharmacological wheel to which he'd strapped himself for the evening, stolen a tuba, and offended a transvestite; and now his companions were beginning, with delight and aplomb, to barf. It was definitely a Crabtree kind of night.”

Michael Chabon book Wonder Boys

Wonder Boys (1995)

Night

“I am delighted at Des's support in these elections. And thank him for his rewrite of the lyrics of Send in the Clowns which we are planning to sing at our South East conference.”

Nigel Farage (1964) British politician and former commodity broker

In response to Des Lynam's recent support and vote on UKIP, during the May 2013 local elections - Des Lynam reveals he voted UKIP, 10 May 2013. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ukip/10049891/Des-Lynam-reveals-he-voted-Ukip.html 2013

Support, Singing

“My mother Earth!
And thou fresh breaking Day, and you, ye Mountains,
Why are ye beautiful? I cannot love ye.
And thou, the bright eye of the universe,
That openest over all, and unto all
Art a delight—thou shin'st not on my heart.”

George Gordon Byron book Manfred

Act I, scene ii.
Manfred (1817)

Love, Beauty, Art, Mountain

“God walked alone unhonored through the earth;
For Him no heart-built temple open stood,
The soul forgetful of her nobler birth
Had hewn him lofty shrines of stone and wood,
And left unfinished and in ruins still
The only temple he delights to fill.”

Jones Very (1813–1880) American poet and essayist

From Enoch

God, Soul, Birth, Heart

Quotes about delight page 4

Quotes about delight
page 4