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Ironically,
often the thing that keeps me from experiencing joy is my
preoccupation with self. The very selfishness that keeps me
from pouring
myself out for the joy of others also keeps me from noticing and
delighting
in the myriad small gifts God offers each day. This is why Walker
Percy
describes boredom as "the self stuffed with the self."
-John Ortberg
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Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world. We cannot cure
the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy.
-Joseph Campbell
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Know
that joy is rarer, more difficult, and more beautiful than
sadness. Once you make this all-important discovery,
you
must embrace joy as a moral obligation.
-Andre
Gide
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The habit of
always putting off an experience until you can afford it,
or until the
time is right, or until you know how to do it
is one of the greatest
burglars of joy. Be deliberate, but once you've made up your
mind--jump in. -Charles R.
Swindoll
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To
pursue joy is to lose it. The only way to get it is
to
follow steadily the path of duty, without thinking of joy,
and
then, like sheep, it comes most surely, unsought.
-Alexander
Maclaren |
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There is the true joy in life, the
being used for a purpose
recognized by yourself as a
mighty one;
the being thoroughly worn out before you are
thrown on the scrap heap;
the being a force of Nature
instead of a feverish selfish
little clod of ailments and
grievances complaining that the world
will not devote
itself to making you happy. -George Bernard Shaw
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How
necessary it is to cultivate a spirit of joy.
It is a psychological truth
that the physical acts of reverence
and devotion make one feel devout.
The courteous gesture increases one’s respect for others.
To act lovingly
is to begin to feel loving, and certainly to act
joyfully brings joy to others
which in turn makes one feel joyful.
I believe we are called to the duty of delight.
-Dorothy Day
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| Not by appointment do we
meet delight
Or joy; they heed not our expectancy;
But round some corner of the streets of life
They of a sudden greet us with a smile.
-Gerald Massey
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Joy
descends gently upon us like the evening dew,
and does not patter down like a hailstorm.
-Jean
Paul Richter
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Joy is what we are,
not what we must get. Joy is the realization that all we want or need
in life
has been etched into our souls. Joy helps us see not what we are "going
through,"
but what we are "growing to"--a
greater sense of understanding,
accomplishment,
and enlightenment. Joy reveals to us the calm at the end of the
storm,
the peace that surpasses the momentary
happiness of pleasure. If we keep our minds
centered on joy, joy becomes a state of mind.
-Iyanla Vanzant
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Joy
is a constituent of life, a necessity of life;
it is an
element of life's value and life's power. As every person has need of joy, so too, every
person
has a right to joy . .
. It is a condition of religious living.
-Paul Wilhelm von Keppler |
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Speak not, move not, but
listen, the sky is full of gold.
No ripple on the river, no stir in field or fold,
All gleams but naught doth glisten, but the far-off
unseen sea.
Forget days past, heart broken, put all memory by!
No grief on the green hillside, no pity in the sky,
Joy that may not be spoken fills mead and flower and tree.
William Morris
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| The
affirmation of one's essential being
in spite of
desires and anxieties creates joy.
-Paul Tillich |
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Join the great company of those
who make
the barren places of life
fruitful with kindness. Carry a
vision of heaven in your hearts,
and you shall make your
name, your college, the world, correspond
to that vision. Your success and happiness lie within you.
External
conditions are the accidents of life, its outer wrappings. The great, enduring realities are love and service. Joy
is the holy fire
that keeps our purpose warm and our
intelligence aglow. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy
and you shall form
an invincible host against difficulty.
-Helen Keller |
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| 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. . . Joy is there everywhere.
-Rabindranath Tagore
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From
such people I have learned a new definition of the word "joy."
I had thought joy to be rather synonymous with happiness, but it
seems now to be far less vulnerable than happiness. Joy seems to
be part
of an unconditional wish to live, not holding back because life may not
meet our preferences and expectations. Joy seems to be a function
of
the willingness to accept the whole, and to show up to meet with
whatever
is there. It has a kind of invincibility that attachment to any
particular
outcome would deny us. Rather than the warrior who fights towards
a specific outcome and therefore is haunted by the specter of failure
and disappointment, it is the lover drunk with the opportunity to love
despite the possibility of loss, the player for whom the playing has
become more important than winning or losing.
The
willingness to win or lose moves us out of an adversarial relationship
to life and into a powerful kind of openness. From such a
position,
we can make a greater commitment to life. Not only pleasant life,
or
comfortable life, or our idea of life, but all life. Joy seems
more
closely related to aliveness than to happiness.
-Rachel
Naomi Remen
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Find joy
in simplicity, self-respect, and indifference
to what
lies between virtue and vice. Love the human race. Follow
the divine. -Marcus
Aurelius |
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Happiness birthed by
joy is an inside decision. You must fight against
the
human tendency to be hurt by someone else's failure to
see your needs. You must become an incurable optimist,
not an optimist that wears rose-colored glasses
and does
not see the reality of life; rather, an optimist that
says,
"Thanks to God I am filled with joy, a joy
that transcends all of life."
-Elizabeth B. Brown |
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| We have
no right to ask when a sorrow comes,
"Why did this
happen to me?" unless we ask
the same question for
every joy that comes our way.
-Philip F. Bernstein |
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A new
day rose upon me. It was as if another sun had risen into
the sky;
the heavens were indescribably brighter, and the
earth fairer; and that day
has gone on brightening to the
present hour. I have known the other joys of life,
I
suppose, as much as most men; I have known art and beauty,
music and gladness;
I have known friendship and love and
family ties; but it is certain that till we see God
in
the world--God in the bright and boundless universe--we
never know the highest joy. It is far more than if one
were translated to a world a thousand times fairer than
this;
for that supreme and central Light of Infinite Love
and Wisdom, shining over this world
and all worlds, alone
can show us how noble and beautiful, how fair and
glorious they are. -Orville Dewey |
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Eternal
joy is the end of the ways of God. The message of all
religions
is that the Kingdom of God is peace and joy. And it is the message
of Christianity. But eternal joy is
not to be reached by living on the surface. It is rather
attained by breaking through the surface, by penetrating
the deep things of ourselves, of our world, and of God. The moment
in which we reach the last depth of our lives
is the moment in which
we can experience the joy that has
eternity within it, the hope
that cannot be destroyed,
and the truth on which life and death are built. For in
the depth is truth; and in the depth is hope; and in the
depth is joy. -Paul Tillich |
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Real joy comes not
from ease or riches or
from the praise of people,
but from
doing something worthwhile. -Wilfred T. Grenfell
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Religion
without joy--it is no religion.
-Theodore Parker
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I cannot
believe that the inscrutable universe turns on an axis of
suffering;
surely the strange beauty of the world must
somewhere rest on pure joy. -Louise
Bogan |
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When
we experience moments of ecstasy—in play, in art,
in sex—they come not as an exception, an accident, but
as a taste of what life is meant to be. . . Ecstasy is an idea,
a goal, but it can be the expectation of every day.
Those
times when we’re grounded in our body, pure in our heart,
clear in our mind, rooted in our soul, and suffused with the
energy, the spirit of life, are our birthright.
It’s really not
that hard to stop and luxuriate in the joy and wonder of
being.
Children do it all the time.
It’s a natural human
gift that should be at the heart of our lives.
-Gabrielle Roth
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What
is joy? A sunbeam between two clouds.
-Madame
Deluzy
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The
art of joy is having a love affair with life. It is embracing life,
drawing close to you all the beauty and wonder and goodness of the
universe. It is having a heart aglow with warmth for all your companions
on the journey of life. It is an expression of inner music. It is
radiating joy as does a band of musicians marching down the street.
It
is a blend of laughter and tears. Often it is the deep joy that comes to
you through the mist of years as you recall tender memories of joyous
days gone by.
It is sharing your joy. "Some people," wrote the poet Walt
Whitman, "are so much sunshine to the square inch." The joyous
person seems to be plugged in to the sun itself.
It is celebrating life. The Master turned water into wine that the
joyous wedding feast might continue. "Be of good cheer,"
he
said. He proclaimed the purpose of his message to men in these words:
"That my joy might remain in you and that your joy might be
full."
It is the putting forth of all your powers. It is the flood-tide of
inspiration, the glory of creation. As you work with joy you find joy in
your work.
It is looking for the joys that come in small, precious packages and
making the most of them, knowing that big packages of joy are few and
far between. It is making the most of now, enjoying what is at hand.
It
is taking time to enjoy life as you go along.
It is an awareness of the heaven that exists all about you. As Solomon
said: "He that hath a bountiful eye shall be blessed."
It is
making each day your most wonderful day.
Joy is love bubbling forth into life.
Wilferd A. Peterson
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Keep knocking and
the joy inside will
eventually
open a window and look
out to see who is there. -Rumi |
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Joy is the wild card of life; it supersedes every other formula
for success.
If you can find a way to create joy, you can rise
beyond all external factors.
If you can play at whatever you
are doing, you are the master of your life.
-Alan Cohen |
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Joy
is the characteristic by which God uses us to re-make the distressing
into the desired, the discarded into the creative.
Joy is prayer--
Joy is strength--Joy is love--Joy is a net of love by which you can
catch souls. -Mother
Teresa |
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When
I look at the sky, the trees, the land or into the eyes of
someone I love,
I experience the wonder of life. Noticing the simple
blessings that surround me
here and now, I tap into my inner wellspring of joy.
One joyful thought starts
a chain reaction, just as the song of a bird at dawn invites
others to join in
I choose to cultivate joy, to count my blessings and to
share this feeling with
others. A joyous state of mind opens me to divine
ideas and substance.
I see new ways to express my potential and new opportunities
to experience life as a joyful child of God.
-unattributed
(Daily Word) |
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When we align our
thoughts, emotions, and actions
with the highest part of ourselves, we are filled with enthusiasm,
purpose, and meaning . . . . We are joyously and intimately engaged
with our world. This is the experience of authentic power.
-Gary Zukav |
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As
you express joy, you draw it out of those you meet, creating
joyful people and joyful events. The greater the joy you
express, the more joy you experience.
-Arnold
Patent |
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Joy
increases as you give it, and diminishes as you try to keep it
for yourself. in giving it, you will accumulate a deposit
of joy greater than you ever believed possible.
-Norman
Vincent Peale |
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Joys come from simple and natural things:
mists over meadows, sunlight on leaves,
the path of the moon over water. -Sigurd F. Olson |
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The
real joy of life is in its play. Play
is
anything we do for the joy and love of doing
it, apart from any profit, compulsion, or
sense of
duty. It is the real living of life
with the feeling of freedom and
self-expression. Play is the business
of childhood, and its continuation in later
years is the prolongation of youth.
-Walter
Rauschenbusch |
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Joy seems to me a step beyond happiness—happiness
is a sort
of atmosphere you can live in sometimes when you’re lucky.
Joy is a light that fills you with hope and faith and love.
-Adela Rogers St. Johns
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Joy is the soul made visible.
-Susan Santucci |
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Real
joy means immediate expansion.
If we experience pure joy,
immediately
our heart expands. We feel that we
are flying
in the divine freedom-sky.
The entire length and breadth
of
the
world
becomes ours,
not for us
to rule over, but as
an expansion
of our
consciousness. We become
reality and vastness. -Sri
Chinmoy |
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Learn to nurture seeds of joy within
yourself. Ask yourself, "What's one action that I can
take to increase my joy today?"
-Susan Santucci |
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Sometimes
your joy is the source of your smile,
but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.
-Thich
Nhat Hanh |
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Joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God.
-Leon Bloy |
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Joy of life seems to me
to arise from a sense of being where one belongs. . .
of being foursquare with the life we have chosen. All the
discontented people
I know are trying sedulously to be something they are not,
to do something they cannot do. -David Grayson |
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There is no need to ever wait for joy.
My joy
does not depend on reaching or
achieving certain goals. I
don't have to graduate from college to feel joy, nor do
I
need to be married to feel joy. I needn't postpone my joy
until I've retired or
reached a certain level of success. Joy is a state of mind, arising from realization
and
gratitude, accessible to me at all times. I never wait for
joy.
I choose joy in this very moment.
-unattributed (Daily Word) |
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Listen
to the clues. The next time you feel real joy, stop and think.
Pay attention. Because joy's the universe's way of knocking
on your mind's door. Hello in there. Is anyone home?
Can I leave a message?
Yes? Good! The message is that you are happy, and that means
that you are in touch with your purpose.
-Steve
Chandler |
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People
need joy quite as much as they need clothing.
Some of them need it far more. -Margaret
Collier Graham |
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The
beating heart of the universe is holy joy.
-Martin
Buber |
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The deeper that sorrow carves into your being
the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was
burned in the potter's oven?
-Khalil
Gibran |
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Once
as we were sitting together in a doctor's office, awaiting
the lab results
of her six-month chemotherapy checkup, I had asked her about
her joy in life.
Her own life had been so hard. Didn't she feel envious
of others who had
things she did not? She had smiled at the thought and
shaken her head. "Then
what is your secret?" I had asked her, laughing.
Suddenly serious, she had
replied that it seemed to her that joy was not something
personal. When I looked
at her, baffled, she explained she has found that if you are
genuinely happy for them,
people are very generous with their joy and share it with
you openheartedly.
"When something good happens to the person next to me,
I am there to celebrate
it with them. Their good luck makes me feel
lucky. I rejoice with them about it
as fully as if it was happening to me," she told
me. "It makes me really happy."
She paused and looked thoughtful. "Of course,
then it is happening to me,"
she said with a grin. -Rachel
Naomi Remen |
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Even rain and wind and stormy clouds bring
joy,
just as knowing animals and flowers and where they live.
-Sigurd F. Olson |
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I
need to learn. Joy is at the heart of God's plan for
human beings. The reason for
this is worth pondering awhile: Joy is at the heart of
God himself. We will never
understand the significance of joy in human life until we
understand its importance
to God. I suspect that most of us seriously
underestimate God's capacity for joy.
-John Ortberg |
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To
miss out on joy is to miss out on the reason for your
existence. -Lewis Smedes |
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If we are to extract any joy out of our
span, we must think
and plan and make things better not only for ourselves but
for others,
since joy for ourselves depends upon our joy in others and
theirs in us. -Theodore Dreiser |
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There
are thousands of books on the joy of gardening
and cooking. Alas, there are only few on the joy of living.
-Robert Muller |
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