Joie de vivre

“ Was not the first half of one's days spent in dreaming of happiness and the latter half in regrets and fears? ”

“ What are all the pleasures this world can offer, yea, even the choicest ones, compared to one hour's real joy in fellowship and communion with Him who is the Fount of every Blessing, and in whose presence there is fulness of joy? Would that the poor souls hungering for rest and happiness, dissatisfied with the worldly pleasures, tired of their empty show, might turn to Him who is the source of all true and lasting joy. ”

“ At this moment I tremble with joy in the soft breezes, I thrill with life, I drink the rain-drops, and the next moment and to-morrow will bring each its store of work and joy for me, and I shall be the highest thing I could wish to be, the thing I was made to be. ”

“ The least of all my cares
Is not to him unknown—
He sees and he prepares
The pathway for his own;
And what his hand assigns to me,
That serves my peace;
The greatest burden it might be,
Yet joys increase.
I live no more for earth;
Nor seek my full joy here;
The world seems little worth
When heaven is shining clear.
Yet joyfully I go my way
So free, so blest!
Sweetening my toil from day to day
With thoughts of rest.
Give me, my Lord, whate'er
Will bind my heart to thee;
For that I make my prayer,
And know thou hearest me! ”

“ If your reply is favorable I change my
life, I bid adieu to all the irksome pleasures which we have the
folly to call happiness. Happiness, my dear and beautiful unknown,
is what you dream it to be,—a fusion of feelings, a perfect
accordance of souls, the imprint of a noble ideal (such as God
does permit us to form in this low world) upon the trivial round
of daily life whose habits we must needs obey, a constancy of
heart more precious far than what we call fidelity. ”

“ Where, in the dull eyes of doating men, are the laughing light and life of childhood, the gaiety that has known no check, the frankness that has felt no chill, the hope that has never withered, the joys that fade in blossoming? Where, in the sharp lineaments of rigid and unsightly death, is the calm beauty of slumber, telling of rest for the waking hours that are past, and gentle hopes and loves for those which are to come? ”

“ Thus shalt thou be—ah, and thou deem'st, indeed,
That thou shalt gain thereby no happy meed
[Pg 302] Reft of the world's joys? nor canst understand
How thou art come into a happy land?—
Love, in thy world the priests of heaven still sing,
And tell thee of it many a joyous thing;
But think'st thou, bearing the world's joy and pain,
Thou couldst live there? nay, nay, but born again
Thou wouldst be happy with the angels' bliss;
And so with us no otherwise it is,
Nor hast thou cast thine old life quite away
Even as yet, though that shall be to-day. ”

“ What time we lose, waste, pervert, by forgetting [242] the duty, the joy, the delight of living in the Eternal Now. Take your joys as they come along. It is the Divine plan that every moment shall be filled with His joy—the joy of living, of being. ”

“ And he will also find that this purifying interaction of spiritual and mental forces will give the mind an abiding foundation of joy for its starts of rapture and flights of ecstasy;--a joy, in whose light and warmth languor and discontent and depression and despair will be charmed away;--a joy, which will make the mind large, generous, hopeful, aspiring, in order to make life beautiful and sweet;--a joy, in the words of an old divine, "which will put on a more glorious garment above, and be joy superinvested in glory!" ”

“ Still I must live and be happy, because happiness is all I desire. Never mind what I am—an animal like all the rest, above whom the grass will grow and nothing more; or a frame in which a bit of the one God has been set,—still I must live in the very best way. ”

“ This is, perhaps, the foundation, on which, without the aid of reflection, the contented and the cheerful have rested the gaiety of their tempers. It is, perhaps, the most solid basis of fortitude which any reflection can lay; and happiness itself is secured by making a certain species of conduct our amusements; and, by considering life in the general estimate of its value, as well on every particular occasion, as a mere scene for the exercise of the mind, and the engagements of the heart. ”

“ I know now what is written on the eternal tablets—to live one’s own life as it is given, in honor, charity, without malice; to seek happiness where it is offered; to share it when possible; to uplift. But, most of all, to be happy and accept happiness as a heavenly gift that is to be shared with as many as possible. ”

“ Thou art the main-spring, the vital secret, the fountain-source, of our existence. What is life but a genial current of joy and grace that wells up incessantly from Thy centred self? Thou art the life, the inner vitality, of our senses. ”

“ Thus, when pleasure begins from its sweetness to cloy, And the warm heart grows rank like a soil over ripe, We must turn from the earth for some promise of joy, And look up to heaven for a holier type. ”

“ The answer is: to make one's own life happier—to bring into it a new sunshine, a new joy of living that was not even dreamed of when the mind and spirit were shrouded in the gloom of discourtesy, coarseness and vulgarity. ”

“ Joy in life was the fundamental characteristic of his existence and his compositions. His individual lot and his satisfaction with common things contributed to this. “Contentment is happiness,” says the philosopher. ”

“ How can we then but rejoice with joy unspeakable, as the children of immortality; living habitually above the gloom and damps of earth, and leading lives of ministration; bestowing everywhere sweetness and light,—radiating upon the earth something of the beauty of the unseen world. ”

“ Is it nothing to know that every happiness I have I owe to you—that all the enjoyment of a life more bright than a fairy tale, comes from you? That from your generous indulgence I have learned to think mere existence something like ecstasy, and awake each day as to a fête? ”

“ Gladness and sighs brighten and dim the mirror of daily life. Tears and laughter are twin-born. Like two children sleeping in one cradle, when one wakes and stirs the other wakes also.
Be not dismayed at the trials of life; they are sent for your good. God knows what keys in the human soul to touch in order to draw out its sweetest and most perfect harmonies. These may be the strains of sadness and sorrow as well as the loftier notes of joy and gladness. Think not that uninterrupted joy is good. The sunshine lies upon the mountain top all day, and lingers there latest and longest at eventide. ”

“ Life held joy as well—countless untried experiences that radiated happiness. Were there not a balance between sunshine and shadow this world would be a wretched place in which to live, and its Maker an unjust dealer. ”

“ When they do, they mean (or ought to mean) that a life of mixed joy and sorrow, such as most of us have, is what most of us deserve; and that this is the happiest as well as the best for us in the long-run. ”

“ You are not found in the halls of worldly pleasure, but instead are to be found by the bedside of the sick, reading the Bible, praying, or speaking words of cheer and comfort, and the world wonders how you can enjoy yourself in such a way. You have a joy that is unknown to them, because you have a life that is hidden from them. ”

“ How far is the happiness of one consistent with the happiness of another? What difficulties and miscarriages attend the business of transmuting the recognized materials for happiness into living human joy? ”

“ For I have found a joy that is full, and more than full. For when heart, and mind, and soul, and all the man, are full of that joy, joy beyond measure will still remain. Hence, not all of that joy shall enter into those who rejoice; but they who rejoice shall wholly enter into that joy. ”

“ All those to whom I looked up, were of opinion that the pleasure of sympathy with human beings, and the feelings which made the good of others, and especially of mankind on a large scale, the object of existence, were the greatest and surest sources of happiness. ”

“ The highest good they yield is only reached through the lower one. But, then, when joy fills the heart, and life is bounding in the veins, we have to learn that these are granted, not for pleasure only, but for pleasure in order to power. ”

“ Now all my life I have believed that we are intended to be happy, that joy is of all gifts the most divine. And when I left London, abandoned my career, such as it was, I did so because I intended to devote my life to the cultivation of joy, and, by continuous and unsparing effort, to be happy. ”

“ This is not life’s inevitable law,—
But that the gladness we are called to know,
Is an increasing gladness, that the soil
Of the human heart, tilled rightly, will become
Richer and deeper, fitter to bear fruit{103}
Of an immortal growth, from day to day,
Fruit of love life and indeficient joy. ”

“ Though we travel quickly over the road, we enjoy for the most part, the journey of life. We have pain, it is true; we learn of sorrow and grief; we feel the pang of parting and weep on the white face of some loved one, and yet, we find happiness, [pg 016] we enjoy living, and we regret when the curtain is rung down and our part is played and the lights turned out. When we strike the balance between pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow, happiness and misery, most find that life is worth living. ”

“ Instead of simply being happy in the condition where we are, getting the sweets of life in human intercourse, hour by hour, as the bees take honey from every flower that opens in the summer air, finding happiness in the well-filled and orderly mind, in the sane and enlightened spirit, in the self that has become what the self should be, we say that tomorrow, next year, in ten or twenty or thirty years, when we have arrived at certain coveted possessions or situation, we will be happy. ”

“ The domestic life—there, and there only, might one find the elements of true happiness. He knew this because he had endeavoured to reach happiness by every other avenue and had failed in his endeavours. ”

“ And with our reasons convinced, how can we so unweariedly pursue that phantom happiness which has here no fixed abode? We acknowledge that nothing here can satisfy us, and yet vainly delude ourselves with the hope of soon attaining some ideal joy which, like the philosopher's stone, will convert all into solid happiness. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In them I seemed to draw from a source of inward joy, of sympathetic and imaginative pleasure, which could be shared in by all human beings, which had no connexion with struggle or imperfection, but would be made richer by every improvement in the physical or social condition of mankind. From them I seemed to learn what would be the perennial sources of happiness, when all the greater evils of life shall have been removed. ”

“ Know you not that what you demand is the highest happiness of the beings that dwell in heaven? Ask for wealth or rank, or what earthly happiness you will, but not for you are the holiest joys of the gods. ”

“ There is an atmosphere of benevolence and cheerfulness breathing round, which penetrates to my very heart. I know not when I have felt so quietly—so entirely happy—so full of sympathy—so light-hearted—so inclined to shut out the world, and its cares and vanities, and "fleet the time as they did i' the golden age." ”

“ Mine didn't consist in a daily continuously happy state, such as one reads about and such as is the experience of some sheltered souls. Most of us have to be satisfied with those single brilliant flashes of happiness that leave a reflected glow on the way ahead after they've passed by. ”

“ The greater joy is everywhere preceded by the greater pain. What does this mean, O Lord my God, when thou art an everlasting joy to thyself, and some creatures about thee are ever rejoicing in thee? What does it mean that this portion of creation thus ebbs and flows, alternately in want and satiety? ”

“ In my estimation, more permanent and genuine happiness is to be found in the sequestered walks of connubial life than in the giddy rounds of promiscuous pleasure, or the more tumultuous and imposing scenes of successful ambition. ”

“ For where are the destinies of persons thus exquisitely organized—thus full of love and loveliness—thus readily swayed to joy or sorrow, by the trivial incidents of life—characterised by what the world calls happiness—such happiness, I mean, as is enjoyed by the serene and the prudent, the unexcitable, the unaspiring! ”

“ What is it that you call happiness, and matter of rejoicing? Is it not when every thing about you helps you to stand upon higher ground, and gratifies every pride of life? And yet life itself is the loss of every thing, unless pride be overcome. ”

“ I repeat it, I distinctly believe this elusive, thrilling gladness-element of mind and nerve, is the joy-power, the intellectual vigor of that Vital One, the being whom we call God; who is the breath of our lives, and of whom we are competent to know more and more eternally. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To become a joy-giving medium, individual experience of joy is, he claims, essential, and to be best acquired through a free and grateful acceptance, and a reasonable enjoyment of the blessings of earth. ”