Joy

Joy is a word used to denote a feeling of extreme happiness and cheerfulness, usually referring to intense delight in relation to one's sense of righteousness, general well-being, and the welfare of others, rather than to one's merely personal pleasures or selfish passions.

#

 * Sunny days wouldn't be special, if it wasn't for rain. Joy wouldn't feel so good, if it wasn't for pain.
 * 50 Cent, "Many Men" (2003), Get Rich or Die Tryin&zwj;'&zwj;, New York: Shady Records

A

 * Joy to the world All the boys and girls, now, Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea Joy to you and me.
 * Hoyt Axton, in Joy to the World (1971).

B

 * And these are joys, like beauty, but skin deep.
 * Philip James Bailey, Festus (1813), scene A Village Feast, line 26.


 * Joys Are bubble-like—what makes them bursts them too.
 * Philip James Bailey, Festus (1813), scene A Library and Balcony, A Summer Night, line 62.


 * Love to faults is always blind, Always is to joys inclined, Lawless, winged, and unconfined, And breaks all chains from every mind.
 * William Blake, in "Love to Faults" in Poems from Blake's Notebook (c. 1791-1792).


 * He who binds to himself a joy Does the wingèd life destroy; But he who kisses the joy as it flies Lives in eternity's sunrise.
 * William Blake, in No. 1, "He Who Binds" in Poems from the Pickering Manuscript (c. 1805).


 * Man was made for joy and woe, And when this we rightly know Through the world we safely go.
 * William Blake, in "Auguries of Innocence", line 56, in Poems from the Pickering Manuscript (c. 1805).


 * After all, joy and sorrow are often arbitrary, largely states of mind; nowhere is it written that joy must accompany victory and sorrow defeat.
 * Thomas Boswell, Why Time Begins on Opening Day (1984), Doubleday & Co., ISBN 0-385-18409-3, p. 59


 * Capacity for joy Admits temptation.
 * Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh (1856), Book I, line 703.


 * There may be Peace without Joy, and Joy without Peace, but the two combined make Happiness.
 * John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir, Pilgrim's Way : An Essay in Recollection (1940), p. 117.


 * An infant when it gazes on a light, A child the moment when it drains the breast, A devotee when soars the Host in sight, An Arab with a stranger for a guest, A sailor when the prize has struck in fight, A miser filling his most hoarded chest, Feel rapture; but not such true joy are reaping As they who watch o'er what they love while sleeping.
 * Lord Byron, Don Juan (1818-24), Canto II, Stanza 196.

C

 * There is not one little blade of grass, there is no color in this world that is not intended to make men rejoice.
 * John Calvin as quoted in The Value of Convenience: Genealogy of Technical Culture (1993) by Thomas F. Tierney, p. 128; variant translation: There is not one blade of grass, there is no color in this world that is not intended to make us rejoice.


 * no te bebas de un sorbo la alegría.
 * don't drain the cup of joy in a single sip.
 * The selected poems of Rosario Castellanos (1989)

D

 * As the skillful artist, in making a good portrait, finds it essentially necessary to use the dark and bright colors alternately, so the Divine Artist dips His pencil, by turns, in Marah and Elim. In Marah first, and the background is laid in darkness black as midnight; and then in Elim, and the blackness is relieved with the colors of the rainbow.
 * Alexander Dickson, Beauty for Ashes (New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1878), p. 32


 * Howling is the noise of hell, singing the voice of heaven; sadness the damp of hell, rejoicing the serenity of heaven.''' And he that hath not this joy here, lacks one of the best pieces of his evidence for the joys of heaven; and hath neglected or refused that earnest, by which God uses to bind his bargain, that true joy in this world shall flow into the joy of heaven, as a river flows into the sea; this joy shall not be put out in death, and a new joy kindled in me in heaven; but as my soul, as soon as it is out of my body, is in heaven, and does not stay for the possession of heaven, nor for the fruition of the sight of God, till it be ascended through air, and lire, and moon, and sun, and planets and firmament, to that place which we conceive to be heaven, but without the thousandth part of a minute's stop, as soon as it issues, is in a glorious light, which is heaven... As my soul shall not go towards heaven, but go by heaven to heaven, to the heaven of heavens, so the true joy of a good soul in this world is the very joy of heaven
 * John Donne in Sermon LXVI in The Works of John Donne: With a Memoir of His Life (1839) edited by Henry Alford, p. 177.


 * Anguish and grief, like darkness and rain, may be depicted; but gladness and joy, like the rainbow, defy the skill of pen or pencil.
 * Frederick Douglass, "My Escape from Slavery" (1881)


 * Joy rul'd the day, and Love the night.
 * John Dryden, The Secular Masque (1700), line 82.

E

 * We all need joy, and we can all receive joy in only one way, by adding to the joy of others.
 * Eknath Easwaran, The End of Sorrow (1975).


 * Our joy is dead, and only smiles on us.
 * George Eliot, Spanish Gypsy (1868), Book III.

F

 * I will fight for you, yes, and you will fight for me. And if you have sacrificed joy and courage and beauty and wisdom for my sake, I will give them all to you again; and yet you must also give them to me, for they are things in which without you I am wanting. But together we can make them.
 * Eleanor Farjeon, Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard (1922).


 * Every joy that some experience is paid for by the sorrow of others.
 * Kaneko Fumiko, Translated by Jean Inglis

G

 * The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ. Indeed, nothing genuinely human fails to raise an echo in their hearts. For theirs is a community composed of men. United in Christ, they are led by the Holy Spirit in their journey to the Kingdom of their Father and they have welcomed the news of salvation which is meant for every man.'''
 * Gaudium et Spes, composed during the Second Vatican Council, promulgated by Pope John XXIII (7 December 1965), Preface.


 * Who is the happiest of men? He who values the merits of others, And in their pleasure takes joy, even as though 'twere his own.
 * Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, in "Distichs" in The Poems of Goethe (1853) as translated in the original metres by Edgar Alfred Bowring.


 * And, e'en while fashion's brightest arts decoy, The heart, distrusting, asks if this be joy.
 * Oliver Goldsmith, The Deserted Village (1770), line 263.


 * They hear a voice in every wind, And snatch a fearful joy.
 * Thomas Gray, Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College (1742), Stanza 4.

I

 * Those redeemed by Jehovah will return and come to Zion with a joyful cry. Unending joy will crown their heads. Exultation and rejoicing will be theirs, And grief and sighing will flee away.
 * Book of Isaiah, 35:10

J

 * Sunny days wouldn't be special if it wasn't for rain. Joy wouldn't feel so good if it wasn't for pain.
 * Curtis Jackson, "Many Men" (2003), Get Rich or Die Tryin'


 * The kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field.
 * Jesus, in Matthew 13:44.


 * Verily it is the most joy that may be, as to my sight, that He that is highest and mightiest, noblest and worthiest, is lowest and meekest, homeliest and most courteous: and truly and verily this marvellous joy shall be shewn us all when we see Him.
 * Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love (c. 1393), Chapter 7.

K

 * Few have written about the joy of political life, the sense of comradeship and achievement. As activists we need to believe in vision and imagination; communicate a sense of possibility. Bleakness is not the whole story, and escape is not the only alternative. Change is possible.
 * Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz “Nine Suggestions For Radicals, or Lessons From the Gulf War” in The Issue is Power: Essays on Women, Jews, Violence and Resistance (1992)


 * I keep my heart flaming, courageous, restless. I feel in my heart all commotions and all contradictions, the joys and sorrows of life. But I struggle to subdue them to a rhythm superior to that of the mind, harsher than that of my heart — to the ascending rhythm of the Universe.
 * Nikos Kazantzakis, The Saviors of God (1923), First Step : The Ego.


 * The essence of our God is STRUGGLE. Pain, joy, and hope unfold and labor within this struggle, world without end.
 * Nikos Kazantzakis, The Saviors of God (1923), The Vision.


 * From every joy and pain a hope leaps out eternally to escape this pain and to widen joy. And again the ascent begins — which is pain — and joy is reborn and new hope springs up once more. The circle never closes. It is not a circle, but a spiral which ascends eternally, ever widening, enfolding and unfolding the triune struggle.
 * Nikos Kazantzakis, The Saviors of God (1923), The Vision.


 * Joy! Joy! I did not know that all this world is so much part of me, that we are all one army, that windflowers and stars struggle to right and left of me and do not know me; but I turn to them and hail them.
 * Nikos Kazantzakis, The Saviors of God (1923), The Vision.


 * There is something terribly callous in such a view of life, to murder in cold blood all the joy in life for everyone who does not have money. This is indeed what the monied person does, for it is at least his view that without money there is no joy in life.
 * Søren Kierkegaard, Either-Or, H. Hong, trans. (1987), part 2, pp. 277-278..


 * Occasionally in life there are those moments of unutterable fulfillment which cannot be completely explained by those symbols called words. Their meanings can only be articulated by the inaudible language of the heart.
 * Martin Luther King, Jr., Nobel Lecture by The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Oslo, Norway (December 11, 1964) p. 1.


 * Happy happy, joy joy happy happy, joy joy
 * John Kricfalusi, "Stimpy's Invention", Ren and Stimpy.

L

 * A blossom full of promise is life's joy, That never comes to fruit; hope, for a time, Suns the young floweret in its gladsome light, And it looks flourishing—a little while, Tis past, we know not whither, but 'tis gone—
 * Letitia Elizabeth Landon The London Literary Gazette (19th January 1822) ‘Poetic Sketches, No.2’


 * An infinite question is often destroyed by finite answers. To define everything is to annihilate much that gives us laughter and joy.
 * Madeleine L'Engle, A Circle of Quiet (1972) Section 1.10.


 * When a child who has been conceived in love is born to a man and a woman, the joy of that birth sings throughout the universe. The joy of writing or painting is much the same, and the insemination comes not from the artist himself but from his relationship with those he loves, with the whole world.
 * Madeleine L'Engle, A Circle of Quiet (1972) Section 1.16.


 * I have never served a work as I would like to, but I do try, with each book, to serve to the best of my ability, and this attempt at serving is the greatest privilege and the greatest joy that I know.
 * Madeleine L'Engle, The Irrational Season (1977).


 * It is so great a thing to be an infinitesimal part of this immeasurable orchestra the music bursts the heart, And from this tiny plosion all the fragments join: Joy orders the disunity until the song is one.
 * Madeleine L'Engle, in "Instruments" in The Weather of the Heart (1978).

M

 * Joy, rather than happiness, is the goal of life, for joy is the emotion which accompanies our fulfilling our natures as human beings. It is based on the experience of one's identity as a being of worth and dignity, who is able to affirm his being, if need be, against all other beings and the whole inorganic world.
 * Rollo May, Man's Search For Himself (1953), p. 67.


 * The joys of heaven are not the joys of passive contemplation, of dreamy remembrance, of perfect repose; but they are described thus: "They rest not day nor night. His servants serve Him, and see His face."
 * Alexander Maclaren, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 307.


 * If you want to know what it means to be happy, look at a flower, a bird, a child; they are perfect images of the kingdom. For they live from moment to moment in the eternal now with no past and no future. So they are spared the guilt and anxiety that so torment human beings and they are full of the sheer joy of living, taking delight not so much in persons or things as in life itself. As long as your happiness is caused or sustained by something or someone outside of you, you are still in the land of the dead. The day you are happy for no reason whatsoever, the day you find yourself taking delight in everything and in nothing, you will know that you have found the land of unending joy called the kingdom.
 * Anthony de Mello, The Way to Love (1995)

N

 * Our innermost being, our common foundation, experiences dreams with profound pleasure and joyful necessity.
 * Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy (1872).


 * The mother of excess is not joy but joylessness.
 * Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human (1878).


 * The secret for harvesting from existence the greatest fruitfulness and greatest enjoyment is — to live dangerously.
 * Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science (1882).

P

 * Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.
 * Psalms 16:11 (KJV)
 * Variant translation:
 * You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.
 * New Living Translation (2007).

R

 * The expression of joy also makes the ego more resilient, less fearful, less resentful of diverse conditions when they occur. The emotion itself is an automatic signal that unites the conscious and subconscious in shared experience.
 * Jane Roberts, The Early Sessions: Book 4 (1997), Session 152, Page 21.


 * Just as there are Laws of Conservation of Matter and Energy, so there are in fact Laws of Conservation of Pain and Joy. Neither can ever be created or destroyed. But one can be converted into the other.
 * Spider Robinson, Callahan's Crosstime Saloon (1977) "Laws of Conservation of Pain and Joy".


 * Joy. The thing like pleasure that you feel when you've done a good thing or passed up a real tempting chance to do a bad thing. Or when the unfolding of the universe just seems especially apt. It's nowhere near as flashy and intense as pleasure can be. Believe me! But it's got something going for it. Something that can make you do without pleasure, or even accept a lot of pain, to get it.
 * Spider Robinson, in "God Is An Iron" (1977).


 * Shared pain is lessened; shared joy, increased — thus do we refute entropy.
 * Spider Robinson, "Callahan's Law", as expressed in The Callahan Chronicals (1996) [originally published as Callahan and Company (1988)], Part IV : Earth … and Beyond, "Post Toast", p. 388. On the back cover of Callahan's Legacy (1996) this is modified into: Shared pain is lessened; shared joy is increased (and bad puns are appreciated).


 * 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.
 * George William Russell, (also known as Æ) in "The Master Singer"in The Nuts Of Knowledge (1903).


 * On the laugh of a child I am borne to the joy of the King.
 * George William Russell, Reconciliation" in The Nuts Of Knowledge (1903).


 * A thousand ages onward led Their joys and sorrows to that hour; No wisdom weighed, no word was said, For only what we were had power.
 * George William Russell, in "The Parting Of Ways" in By Still Waters (1906).


 * Forgive me, Spirit of my spirit, for this, that I have found it easier to read the mystery told in tears and understood Thee better in sorrow than in joy; that, though I would not, I have made the way seem thorny, and have wandered in too many byways, imagining myself into moods which held Thee not.
 * George William Russell, in his Preface to Collected Poems (1913).

S

 * During the darkest days of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, when Republicans and religious conservatives controlled the federal government and were doing everything in their power to harm the sick and dying, queers organized and protested and volunteered and mourned. We also made music and theater and art. We took care of each other, and we danced and loved and fucked. Embracing joy and art and sex in the face of fear and uncertainty made us feel better—it kept us sane—and it had the added benefit of driving our enemies crazy. They couldn’t understand how we could be anything but miserable, given the challenges we faced—their greed, their indifference, their bigotry—but we created and experienced joy despite their hatred and despite this awful disease. We turned to each other—we turned to our lovers and friends and sometimes strangers—and said, "Fuck them. Now fuck me."
 * Dan Savage, Mourning in America, Savage Love column, The Stranger, 15 November 2016


 * Joy, thou spark from Heav'n immortal, Daughter of Elysium! Drunk with fire, toward Heaven advancing Goddess, to thy shrine we come. Thy sweet magic brings together What stern Custom spreads afar; All men become brothers Where thy happy wing-beats are.
 * Friedrich Schiller, An die Freude (Ode to Joy; or Hymn to Joy) (1785), Stanza 1.


 * Joy, in Nature's wide dominion, Mightiest cause of all is found; And 'tis joy that moves the pinion, When the wheel of time goes round.
 * Friedrich Schiller, An die Freude [Ode to Joy], Stanza 4.


 * Joy from truth's own glass of fire Sweetly on the searcher smiles; Lest on virtue's steeps he tire, Joy the tedious path beguiles. High on faith's bright hill before us, See her banner proudly wave! Joy, too, swells the angels' chorus,— Bursts the bondage of the grave!
 * Friedrich Schiller, An die Freude [Ode to Joy], Stanza 5.


 * Pain is short, and joy is eternal.
 * Friedrich Schiller, The Maid of Orleans (1801).


 * For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.
 * William Shakespeare, Hamlet (1600-02), Act IV, scene 5, line 186.


 * My plenteous joys, Wanton in fulness, seek to hide themselves In drops of sorrow.
 * William Shakespeare, Macbeth (1605), Act I, scene 4, line 35.


 * 'Tis safer to be that which we destroy Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.
 * William Shakespeare, Macbeth (1605), Act III, scene 2, line 9.


 * I wish you all the joy that you can wish.
 * William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice (late 1590s), Act III, scene 2, line 192.


 * Joy is not the same as pleasure or happiness. A wicked and evil man may have pleasure, while any ordinary mortal is capable of being happy. Pleasure generally comes from things, and always through the senses; happiness comes from humans through fellowship. Joy comes from loving God and neighbor. Pleasure is quick and violent, like a flash of lightning. Joy is steady and abiding, like a fixed star. Pleasure depends on external circumstances, such as money, food, travel, etc. Joy is independent of them, for it comes from a good conscience and love of God.'''
 * Fulton J. Sheen, Fulton J. Sheen's Guide to Contentment (1967), p. 120.


 * I have drunken deep of joy, And I will taste no other wine to-night.
 * Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Cenci (1819), Act I, scene 3, line 92.


 * What we felt in those years, the hope, the joy, the possibilities, the sense that anything might happen no matter who we were, will always be a part of us. After all, people said the Beatles would never last, and they were right... except of course they did.
 * Bob Stevens, in his script for Rock 'n Roll, a season 3 episode of The Wonder Years.

T

 * In the joy of your heart may you feel the living joy that sang one spring morning, sending its glad voice across a hundred years.
 * Rabindranath Tagore, The Gardener (1915).


 * Compulsion is not indeed the final appeal to man, but joy is. And joy is everywhere; it is in the earth's green covering of grass; in the blue serenity of the sky; in the reckless exuberance of spring; in the severe abstinence of grey winter; in the living flesh that animates our bodily frame; in the perfect poise of the human figure, noble and upright; in living; in the exercise of all our powers; in the acquisition of knowledge; in fighting evils; in dying for gains we never can share. Joy is there everywhere; it is superfluous, unnecessary; nay, it very often contradicts the most peremptory behests of necessity. It exists to show that the bonds of law can only be explained by love; they are like body and soul. Joy is the realisation of the truth of oneness, the oneness of our soul with the world and of the world-soul with the supreme lover.
 * Rabindranath Tagore, Sādhanā : The Realisation of Life (1916).


 * That side of our existence whose direction is towards the infinite seeks not wealth, but freedom and joy.
 * Rabindranath Tagore, Sādhanā : The Realisation of Life (1916).


 * Love is the ultimate meaning of everything around us. It is not a mere sentiment; it is truth; it is the joy that is at the root of all creation.
 * Rabindranath Tagore, Sādhanā : The Realisation of Life (1916).


 * Joy is prayer. Joy is strength. Joy is love. Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls. God loves a cheerful giver. She gives most who gives with joy.
 * Mother Teresa, My Life for the Poor (1985), edited by José Luis González-Balado and Janet N. Playfoot.


 * Pleasure is always derived from something outside you, whereas joy arises from within... The very thing that gives you pleasure today will give you pain tomorrow, or it will leave you, so its absence will give you pain.
 * Eckhart Tolle in The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment (1997)


 * Cravings are the mind seeking salvation or fulfillment in external things and in the future as a substitute for the joy of Being. p. 24
 * Eckhart Tolle in The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment (1997)

W

 * Joy to the world! the Lord is come; Let earth receive her King. Let every heart prepare Him room, And heav'n and nature sing, And heaven and nature sing, And heaven, and heaven, and nature sing.
 * Isaac Watts, in "Joy to the World!" (1719), Stanza 1.

Let men their songs employ'''; While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains Repeat the sounding joy.
 * ''' Joy to the world! the Saviour reigns;
 * Isaac Watts, in "Joy to the World!" (1719), Stanza 2.


 * Joyful, all ye nations, rise. Join the triumph of the skies. With th'angelic hosts proclaim "Christ is born in Bethlehem!"
 * Charles Wesley, in "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" (Full text online).


 * She gave me eyes, she gave me ears; And humble cares,and delicate fears; A heart, the fountain of sweet tears; And love, and thought, and joy.
 * William Wordsworth, The Sparrow's Nest, st. 2 (1801).


 * Like an army defeated The snow hath retreated, And now doth fare ill On the top of the bare hill; The Ploughboy is whooping— anon— anon! There's joy in the mountains: There's life in the fountains; Small clouds are sailing, Blue sky prevailing; The rain is over and gone.
 * William Wordsworth, Written in March, st. 2 (1801).


 * Hail to thee, far above the rest In joy of voice and pinion! Thou, linnet! in thy green array, Presiding spirit here to-day, Dost lead the revels of the May; And this is thy dominion.
 * William Wordsworth, The Green Linnet, st. 2 (1803).


 * Surprised by joy — impatient as the Wind.
 * William Wordsworth, Surprised by Joy, l. 1 (1815).


 *  'Tis her privilege, Through all the years of this our life, to lead From joy to joy: for she can so inform The mind that is within us, so impress With quietness and beauty, and so feed With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues, Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men, Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all The dreary intercourse of daily life, Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb Our cheerful faith that all which we behold Is full of blessings.
 * William Wordsworth, Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey "On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye During a Tour" (July 13, 1798), Stanza 4.

Y

 * Joys season'd high, and tasting strong of guilt.
 * Edward Young, Night Thoughts (1742-1745), Night VIII, line 835.

Leaves of Grass (1850 - 1892)

 * Quotes on joy by Walt Whitman in Leaves of Grass 




 * I dote on myself, there is that lot of me and all so luscious, Each moment and whatever happens thrills me with joy, I cannot tell how my ankles bend, nor whence the cause of my faintest wish, Nor the cause of the friendship I emit, nor the cause of the friendship I take again.
 * "Song of Myself" (1855; 1881), section 24.


 * To feed the remainder of life with one hour of fulness and freedom! With one brief hour of madness and joy.
 * One Hour to Madness and Joy (1860).


 * Though the live-oak glistens there in Louisiana solitary in a wide flat space, Uttering joyous leaves all its life without a friend a lover near, I know very well I could not.
 * I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing (1860).


 * Passing stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you, You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking, (it comes to me as of a dream,) I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you…
 * To a Stranger (1860; 1867).


 * My spirit to yours dear brother, Do not mind because many sounding your name do not understand you, I do not sound your name, but I understand you,''' I specify you with joy O my comrade to salute you, and to salute those who are with you, before and since, and those to come also…
 * To Him That Was Crucified (1860; 1881).


 * Thee as another equally needed sun, radiant, ablaze, swift-moving, fructifying all, Thee risen in potent cheerfulness and joy, in endless great hilarity, Scattering for good the cloud that hung so long, that weigh'd so long upon the mind of man, The doubt, suspicion, dread, of gradual, certain decadence of man
 * Thou Mother with Thy Equal Brood.


 * Now trumpeter for thy close, Vouchsafe a higher strain than any yet, Sing to my soul, renew its languishing faith and hope, Rouse up my slow belief, give me some vision of the future, Give me for once its prophecy and joy.


 * O glad, exulting, culminating song! A vigor more than earth's is in thy notes, Marches of victory — man disenthral'd — the conqueror at last, Hymns to the universal God from universal man — all joy! A reborn race appears — a perfect world, all joy! Women and men in wisdom innocence and health — all joy! Riotous laughing bacchanals fill'd with joy! War, sorrow, suffering gone — the rank earth purged — nothing but joy left! The ocean fill'd with joy — the atmosphere all joy! Joy! joy! in freedom, worship, love! joy in the ecstasy of life! Enough to merely be! enough to breathe! Joy! joy! all over joy!


 * Who thinks the amplest thoughts? for I would surround those thoughts, And who has made hymns fit for the earth? for I am mad with devouring ecstasy to make joyous hymns for the whole earth.
 * Excelsior

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

 * Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 409-10.


 * The joy late coming late departs.
 * Lewis J. Bates, Some Sweet Day.


 * There's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away.
 * Lord Byron, Stanzas for Music, There's not a joy, etc.


 * Oh, frabjous day! Callooh. Callay! He chortled in his joy.
 * Lewis Carroll, Jabberwocky, Alice Through the Looking Glass.


 * Sing out my soul, thy songs of joy; Such as a happy bird will sing, Beneath a Rainbow's lovely arch, In early spring.
 * W. H. Davies, Songs of Joy.


 * Joy rul'd the day, and Love the night.
 * John Dryden, The Secular Masque (1700), line 82.


 * All human joys are swift of wing, For heaven doth so allot it; That when you get an easy thing, You find you haven't got it.
 * Eugene Field, Ways of Life.


 * There's a hope for every woe, And a balm for every pain, But the first joys of our heart Come never back again!
 * Robert Gilfillan, The Exile's Song.


 * But were there ever any Writhed not at passed joy?
 * John Keats, Stanzas, In Drear Nighted December.


 * Die Freude macht drehend, wirblicht.
 * Joy makes us giddy, dizzy.
 * Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Minna von Barnhelm, II. 3.


 * Medio de fonte leporum Surgit amari aliquid, quod in ipsis floribus angat.
 * Full from the fount of joy's delicious springs Some bitter o'er the flowers its bubbling venom flings.
 * Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, IV. 1,129. Byron's translation. in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, I. 82.


 * Gaudia non remanent, sed fugitiva volant.
 * Joys do not stay, but take wing and fly away.
 * Martial, Epigrams (c. 80-104 AD), Book I. 16. 8.


 * Joys too exquisite to last, And yet more exquisite when past.
 * James Montgomery, The Little Cloud.


 * How fading are the joys we dote upon! Like apparitions seen and gone; But those which soonest take their flight Are the most exquisite and strong; Like angel's visits short and bright, Mortality's too weak to bear them long.
 * John Norris, The Parting, Stanza 4.


 * Joy, in Nature's wide dominion, Mightiest cause of all is found; And 'tis joy that moves the pinion When the wheel of time goes round.
 * Friedrich Schiller, Hymn to Joy, Bowring's translation.


 * At Earth's great market where Joy is trafficked in, Buy while thy purse yet swells with golden Youth.
 * Alan Seeger, Ode to Antares, last lines.


 * Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy.
 * William Shakespeare, Sonnet VIII.


 * There is a sweet joy which comes to us through sorrow.
 * Charles Spurgeon, Gleanings Among the Sheaves, Sweetness in Sorrow.


 * Beauty for Ashes, and oil of joy!
 * John Greenleaf Whittier, The Preacher, Stanza 26. Quoting Isaiah LXI. 3.


 * And often, glad no more, We wear a face of joy, because We have been glad of yore.
 * William Wordsworth, The Fountain.

Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)



 * Quotes reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895).


 * When we speak of joy, we do not speak of something we are after, but of something that will come to us, when we are after God and duty. It is a prize unbought, and is freest, purest in its flow, when it comes unsought. No getting into heaven as a place will compass it. You must carry it with you, or else it is not there. You must have it in you, as the music of a well- ordered soul, the fire of a holy purpose, the welling up, out of the central depths, of eternal springs that hide their waters there. It is the rest of confidence, the blessedness of eternal light and outflowing benevolence,— the highest form of life and spiritual majesty. Being the birth of character, it has eternity in it. Rising from within, it is sovereign over all circumstances and hindrances.
 * Horace Bushnell, reported in osiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 355.


 * God offers to fill our homes and our hearts with joy and gladness if we will only let Him do it. We cannot create the canary-birds; but we can provide cages for them, and fill our dwellings with their music. Even so we cannot create the heavenly gifts which Jesus offers; but they are ours if we provide heart-room for them. The birds of peace and contentment and joy and praise will fly in fast enough if we will only invite Jesus Christ, and set the windows of our souls open for His coming.
 * Theodore L. Cuyler, p. 355.


 * We ask God to forgive us for our evil thoughts and evil temper, but rarely, if ever, ask Him to forgive us for our sadness. Joy is regarded as a happy accident of the Christian life, an ornament and a luxury, rather than a duty.
 * Robert William Dale, p. 357.


 * Rejoice evermore in your Redeemer,— in His truth — His person — His almighty grace — His everlasting faithfulness — His precious blood whose efficacy reaches farther than the eye of your conscience ever penetrated, and cleanses you from a sin- fulness more inveterate than you have ever conceived to be yours.
 * Richard Fuller, p. 356.


 * God is merely tuning the soul, as an instrument, in this life. And these joys of the Christian, are only the notes and chords that are sounded out in the preparation — preludes to the perfect harmony that shall flood the soul — forerunners of the perfected and rapturous joy that shall bless the soul, in that exceeding and eternal weight of glory.
 * Herrick Johnson, p. 355.


 * These are the marks of a heart that is living in the joy of the resurrection. It lives out of itself; and living out of itself, by this unselfish joy, it has a joy in itself which comes from the presence of Jesus Christ; the overflow of His peace which passeth all sense, the consciousness of that twofold relationship — His relation to us, our relation to Him, and our mutual and indissoluble love.
 * Archibald Manning, p. 356.


 * "The joy of the Lord is your strength," my brother. Nothing else is. No vehement resolutions, no sense of your own sin- fulness, nor even contrite remembrance of your own failures, ever made a man strong yet. It made him weak that he might become strong; and when it had done that, it had done its work. For strength there must be hope, for strength there must be joy.
 * Alexander Maclaren, p. 354.


 * Nobody can commit his way unto the Lord who has not begun by delighting in the Lord; and nobody can rest in the Lord who has not committed his way to the Lord.
 * Alexander Maclaren, p. 356.


 * If a man is dying for want of bread, and you give him bread, is that to make him gloomy? That is what Christ is to the soul — the Bread of Life. You will never have true pleasure or peace or joy or comfort until you have found Christ.
 * Dwight L. Moody, p. 356.