For trash and toys,
And grief-engend'ring joys,
What torment seems too sharp for flesh and blood;
What bitter pills,
Compos'd of real ills,
Men swallow down to purchase one false good!
FRANCIS QUARLES
Emblems
Joy's the shyest bird
Mortal ever heard;
Listen rapt and silent while he sings;
Do not seek to see,
Less the vision be
But a flutter of departing wings.
CAROLINE SPENCER
"A Strange Singer"
Perhaps there could be no joy on this planet without an equal weight of pain to balance it out on some unknown scale.
STEPHENIE MEYER
The Host
Joy is circulatory. There is the joy. Then disbelief that says you must be dreaming. Then the mental pause or step back to give the universe a chance to wake you. Then the return to see if the joy is still there--and there is the joy again, insanely real and undeservedly all yours.
GLEN DUNCAN
Talulla Rising
Joy is the best wine.
GEORGE ELIOT
Silas Marner
Joy flees from the selfish, it deserts the quarrelsome; it is hidden from the impure.
JAMES ALLEN
Morning and Evening Thoughts
The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.
JON KRAKAUER
Into the Wild
Joy, rather than happiness, is the goal of life, for joy is the emotion which accompanies our fulfilling our natures as human beings.
ROLLO MAY
Man's Search For Himself
This is a catastrophic universe, always; and subject to hidden reversals, upheavals, changes, cataclysms, with joy never anything but the song of substance under pressure forced into new forms and shapes.
DORIS LESSING
Shikasta
Joy comes and fills the self-emptied heart; it abides with the peaceful; its reign is with the pure.
JAMES ALLEN
Morning and Evening Thoughts
Pleasure is always derived from something outside you, whereas joy arises from within.
ECKHART TOLLE
The Power of Now
What matters an eternity of damnation to someone who has found in one second the infinity of joy?
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
"Le Mauvais Vitrier," Le Spleen de Paris
It ain't no sin to be glad you're alive.
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN
"Badlands", Darkness on the Edge of Town
Joy cannot remain with the selfish; it is wedded to Love.
JAMES ALLEN
Morning and Evening Thoughts