Delight

“ We listen ever with delight intense,
And drink it in as drinks the dew the flower:
The hours go by and yet we sit entranced,
And rise at last unwearied and unsated,
Our joy in life rekindled or enhanced,
In spirit and in senses recreated. ”

“ What a gladness is the world! There is not a creature born of its most fruitful womb that is not taught to slake its thirst and bathe its buoyant limbs in the fountain of delight that flows for all. Smiles and flowers are about us from our infancy. The air breathes of gladness. ”

“ But, in addition to this sense of permanent security, the piety I speak of famishes the highest, the deepest, and the most intimate delight which mortal man knows or can know here on the earth. I am very far from denying the value of other forms of delight, even of those which come wholly from the world of matter. Every sense has its function, and that function is attended with pleasure, with joy. All these natural and normal delights ought to be enjoyed by every man ”

“ Still hungrier for delight as delights grow more rare.
We pause; we hush our heart,
And thus address the gods:—
“The world hath failed to impart
The joy our youth forebodes,
Failed to fill up the void which in our breasts we bear. ”

“ When to this simple sensuous pleasure is added the enchantment of poetic images, lovely and veiled and dimly understood, then the delight grows sweeter and keener, the child’s soul flowers into a conscious love of poetry, and one lifelong source of happiness is gained. ”

“ Youths and maidens, you are in the heyday of vigorous, joyous life! Your delight is, like the springtime, rich in hope and promise. Your laugh rings true; your voices mingle in frolic glee, or in quiet tones of kind regard. ”

“ And we—who sing but as we can,
In the small knowledge of a man—
Have we an answer found?
Nay, some are happy whose delight
Is hid even from themselves from sight;
And some win peace who spend
The skill of words to sweeten despair
Of finding consolation where
Life has but one dark end;
Who, in rapt solitude, tell o’er
A tale as lovely as forlore
Into the midnight air. ”

“ Our first emotion is, perhaps, a simple, unreflecting delight, the delight which a butterfly must feel among the flowers or that of a child playing in the fields under the warm sun; it is a delight wholly physical,—pure sensation. ”

“ For whatever there is of beauty or of pleasure in wealth, in descendants, or in sovereign command, the highest summit of human enjoyment, or in those objects of desire which we endeavour to chase into the toils of love; whatever delight, or whatever solace is granted by the celestials, to soften our fatigues, in thy presence, thou parent of happiness, all those joys spread out and flourish; in thy presence blooms the spring of pleasure, and without thee no man is happy. ”

“ Joy paints with its own colours every act and thought. The happy do not feel poverty, for delight is a gold tissued robe, and crowns them with priceless gems. Enjoyment plays the cook to their homely fare, and mingles intoxication with their simple drink. ”

“ Everybody knows what joy is,—a certain sense of gladness and of pleasure, a contentment and a satisfaction, sometimes noisily breaking into transient surges of rapture, sometimes rolling with the tranquil swell of calm delight. It is a state which comes upon any particular faculty, when that finds its natural gratification. So there may be a partial joy of any one faculty, or a total joy of the whole man, all the faculties normally developed and normally gratified. ”

“ This entreaty still rings in my ears, and leads me so to use any influence I may now have over parents.
Is it not true that the strongest delight the human being ever has is in well-doing? Is it not true that this pleasure, like the pleasures of the eye and ear, the pleasures of benevolence, the pleasures of the understanding and the imagination, will seek its own continuance and gratification, if it have fair play? ”

“ How transporting and ineffable are the joys of convalescence!—the calm of mind—the voluptuous langour—the unrebuked abandonment to mere pleasurable sensation—the delight that every natural object imparts, fill those hours with a dream-like, faint ecstasy, more dear to memory than tumultuous joy. ”

“ The speaker paused, overcome with emotion, but the countenance of the listener grew radiant with delight,—not that delight which arises from the realization of some worldly hope, but, rather, a heavenly joy, which lent to the pale and pensive face a beauty not of this world; it beamed in the sunken, yet soft blue eye, and flushed the hollow cheek; it was the joy of a saint, nay, it was the joy of an angel, at the return of the stray sheep to its Father's fold. ”

“ The substantial happiness, which enlarges and civilizes the mind, may be compared to the pleasure experienced in roving through nature at large, inhaling the sweet gale natural to the clime; while the reveries of a feverish imagination continually sport themselves in gardens full of aromatic shrubs, which cloy while they delight, and weaken the sense of pleasure they gratify. ”

“ More especially is this the case, when childhood with its fresh uncalculating energies becomes the subject of consideration—when we sit down to make cool comments upon its outbursts of ungoverned feeling, and its thrilling voice of joy which echoes upon the weary ear like the summer song of birds, startling the tired spirit into hope that some new spring of gladness has been found, when it is but nature at her joyous revelry, making pastime of common and familiar things, and exulting in the fulness of her own delight. ”

“ Viewing all these wondrous odes together, the predominant quality which we trace in them is an extreme susceptibility to delight, close-linked with afterthought—pleasure with pang—or that poignant sense of ultimates, a sense delicious and harrowing, which clasps the joy in sadness, and feasts upon the very sadness in joy. ”

“ And the spirit which animates him is essentially the spirit of delight: delight in the beauty of nature and the vividness of sensation, delight in the charm of fable and romance, in the thoughts of friendship and affection, in anticipations of the future, and in the exercise of the art itself which expresses and communicates all these joys. ”

“ Therese, ever happy, smiling, and joyous in the midst of pain, in spite of your extreme sensitiveness to suffering, I rejoice with you in the glorious triumph which you have won over self through your tender love of God. Obtain for me the grace to walk in your footsteps, that I may always find a sincere delight in that which gives joy to God, even though it be the very fact of my being utterly deprived of all sensible joy. ”

“ The poets have numbered among the felicities of the golden age, an exemption from the change of seasons, and a perpetuity of spring; but I am not certain that in this state of imaginary happiness they have made sufficient provision for that insatiable demand of new gratifications, which seems particularly to characterize the nature of man. Our sense of delight is in a great measure comparative, and arises at once from the sensations, which we feel, and those which we remember. ”

“ Strange that grief, and laments, and the humble petition of repentance, should fill us with delight—a delight that awakens these very emotions in the heart—and calls tears into the eyes, and yet which is dearer than any pleasure. ”

“ Who does not remember the delight with which, in early youth, when existence is a living poem, and all our emotions sanctify the spirit-like inspiration—the delight, we say, with which our eye rested upon a primrose or a daisy for the first time? ”

“ The particular moment when hope and certainty combined reward the day's toil is the very quintessence of joy and delight. Nothing in the shape of enjoyment can come near it. What a strange power has that helpless-looking mass—the brain! ”

“ But a picture of men finding a joy in the higher senses, still more in thought, iu the common, every-day duties of life, in works of benevolence or justice, in the delight of love, in contemplation, or in prayer,—this can touch us all. We like the quality of such delight, and love to look on men in such a mood of joy. I need only refer to the most admired paintings of the great masters, Dutch or Italian, and to the poetry which chronicles the mortal modes of high delight. The spiritual element must subordinate the material, in order to make the sensual joy welcome to a nice eye. ”

“ You take an emotional delight in living; I an intellectual delight. You feel a thing to be beautiful and joyful; I seek to know why it is beautiful and joyful. You are content that it is, no matter how it came to be; I, when I have learned why, strive that we may have more beautiful and joyful things. ”

“ The delight we had in the gratification of the appetite, inflames the imagination, and makes us, with avidity, search for the same gratification in whatever other object it can be found. And thus frequency and uniformity in gratifying the same passion upon different objects, produceth at the longrun a habit. In this manner, a man acquires an habitual delight in high and poignant sauces, rich dress, fine equipage, crowds of company, and in whatever is commonly termed pleasure. ”

“ The thrill of anticipation, the joyous pursuit, the sustained interest, the final satisfaction,—all these sensations of delight belong to our earliest acquaintance with literature. They are part of the sunshine which gilds the halcyon days of youth. ”

“ They reckon up several sorts of pleasures, which they call true ones; some belong to the body, and others to the mind. The pleasures of the mind lie in knowledge, and in that delight which the contemplation of truth carries with it; to which they add the joyful reflections on a well- spent life, and the assured hopes of a future happiness. ”

“ Assist me, therefore, O most loving Lord, with thy most holy grace (without which I know that I can do nothing) , that all things may tend to thy honour and glory, and that thy most holy will may be most perfectly fulfilled. Amen.
X.
Act of Delight in God.
Delight in the Lord, and he will give thee the requests of thy heart. [10]
True joy is the delight produced by the things that belong to God. ”

“ Pride misers with enjoyment, when we have
Delight in things that are but of the mind:
But half humility when we partake
Pleasures that are half wants, the spirit pines
And struggles in its fetters, and disdains
The low base clay to which it is allied. ”

“ By despair, the twin-born of devotion,
By the pleasure that winces and stings,
The delight that consumes the desire,
The desire that outruns the delight,
By the cruelty deaf as a fire
And blind as the night,
By the ravenous teeth that have smitten ”

“ These considerations lead to a certain emphasis on the element of delight as an ingredient in the best love. Delight, in this actual world, is unavoidably selective, and prevents us from having the same feelings towards all mankind. ”

“ He exhorts to holy joy and delight in God: Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, Rejoice, Phi 4:4. All our joy must terminate in God; and our thoughts of God must be delightful thoughts. Delight thyself in the Lord (Ps. 37:4) , in the multitude of our thoughts within us (grievous and afflicting thoughts) his comforts delight our souls (Ps. 94:19) , and our meditation of him is sweet, Ps. 104:34. Observe, It is our duty and privilege to rejoice in God, and to rejoice in him always; at all times, in all conditions; even when we suffer for him, or are afflicted by him. ”

“ But in both instances the sensation was pleasurable—intensely so; it was a sudden and immense exaltation, a mixed ecstasy of deadly fright and unimaginable joy. I believe that this combination makes the perfection of human delight. ”

“ My delight and thy delight
Walking, like two angels white,
In the gardens of the night:
My desire and thy desire ”

“ And he refers to the intense delight which he himself felt, and which he supposes other men feel, in nature, during their thoughtless youth, as an intimation of their immortality, and a joy which indicates their having come fresh from the hand of God. ”

“ Rarely, rarely, comest thou,
Spirit of Delight!
Wherefore hast thou left me now
Many a day and night?
Many a weary night and day _5
'Tis since thou art fled away. ”

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

“ Our secret passion is now of long standing; we have made trial, each of the other, and find that in the matter of jealousy we are twin spirits; our thoughts are the reverberation of the same thunderclap. We both love for the first time, and this bewitching springtime has filled its days for us with all the images of delight that fancy can paint in laughing, sweet, or musing mood. ”

“ Am not I born for the glittering throng?
Treading on roses with delicate feet,
Is not a life a perpetual treat?
Can we be more than delighted and blest?
Pleasure is beautiful—is it the best?
Highest and best that our nature can know? ”

“ The adventitious beauty of poetry may be felt in the greater delight which a verse gives in happy quotation than in the poem. ”

“ We find a delight in the beauty and happiness of children, that makes the heart too big for the body. ”

“ Cast but your pure eyes into the well of my delight, my friends! How could it become turbid thereby! It shall laugh back to you with ITS purity. ”

“ Teach us Delight in simple things,
And Mirth that has no bitter springs; ”

“ because the sweetest souls, like the sweetest flowers, soon canker in cities, and no purity is rarer there than the purity of delight. ”

“ It is leisurely, restful, delightful. Throughout runs a vein of gentle humor, of spontaneity, of unaffected enthusiasm, of a spirit keenly alive to beauty and eager to share its delights."—Chicago Record-Herald. ”

“ You 46 were made for enjoyment, and the world was filled with things which you will enjoy, unless you are too proud to be pleased by them, or too grasping to care for what you cannot turn to other account than mere delight. Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless; ”