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Joy quotes

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“Excess of joy is harder to bear than any amount of sorrow.” Honoré de Balzac, “Letters of Two Brides” - 1841

“A happy life must be to a great extent a quiet life, for it is only in an atmosphere of quiet that true joy can live.” Bertrand Russell, “The Conquest of Happiness” - 1930

“Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.” Lao Tzu, “Tao Te Ching” - 4th century BC

“Do anything, but let it produce joy. Do anything, but let it yield ecstasy.” Henry Miller, “Tropic of Cancer” - 1934

“Silence is the perfectest herald of joy. I were but little happy if I could say how much.” William Shakespeare, “Much Ado About Nothing” - 1600

“Grief can take care of itself; but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.” Mark Twain, “Following the Equator” - 1897

“I've chosen the work I want to do. If I find no joy in it, then I'm only condemning myself to sixty years of torture. And I can find the joy only if I do my work in the best way possible to me. But the best is a matter of standards—and I set my...” Ayn Rand, “The Fountainhead” - 1943

“It was a joy. Words weren't dull, words were things that could make your mind hum. If you read them and let yourself feel the magic, you could live without pain, with hope, no matter what happened to you.” Charles Bukowski, “Ham on Rye” - 1982

“A Christmas gambol oft could cheer the poor man's heart through half the year.” Walter Scott, “Marmion” - 1808

“if you can do it for joy, you can do it forever.” Stephen King, “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft” - 2000

“The most manifest sign of wisdom is a continual cheerfulness” Michel de Montaigne, “The Essays of Michel de Montaigne” - 1580

“It’s the great mystery of human life that old grief passes gradually into quiet, tender joy.” Fyodor Dostoyevsky, “The Brothers Karamazov” - 1880

“pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy.” Leo Tolstoy, “War and Peace” - 1869

“How much better is it to weep at joy than to joy at weeping!” William Shakespeare, “Much Ado About Nothing” - 1600

“Joy and grief were mingled in the cup; but there were no bitter tears: for even grief itself arose so softened, and clothed in such sweet and tender recollections, that it became a solemn pleasure, and lost all character of pain.” Charles Dickens, “Oliver Twist” - 1838

“Anyhow there was no bitterness in her; none of that sense of moral virtue which is so repulsive in good women. She enjoyed practically everything.” Virginia Woolf, “Mrs Dalloway” - 1925

“It aspires to being a modernized fairy tale, in which the wonderment and joy are retained and the heartaches and nightmares are left out.” L. Frank Baum, “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” - 1900

“My days are as happy as those reserved by God for his elect; and, whatever be my fate hereafter, I can never say that I have not tasted joy,—the purest joy of life.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, “The Sorrows of Young Werther” - 1774

“It is only in the act of nursing that a woman realizes her motherhood in visible and tangible fashion; it is a joy of every moment.” Honoré de Balzac, “Letters of Two Brides” - 1841

“A mother's life, you see, is one long succession of dramas, now soft and tender, now terrible. Not an hour but has its joys and fears.” Honoré de Balzac, “Letters of Two Brides” - 1841

“How could he rejoice in victory and delight in the slaughter of men?” Lao Tzu, “Tao Te Ching” - 4th century BC

“Human life is everywhere a state in which much is to be endured and little to be enjoyed.” Samuel Johnson, “The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia” - 1759

“I live in the crowds of jollity, not so much to enjoy company as to shun myself, and am only loud and merry to conceal my sadness.” Samuel Johnson, “The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia” - 1759

“Suddenly he knew joy and sorrow felted into one fabric. Courage and fear were one thing too.” John Steinbeck, “East of Eden” - 1952

“There is thus an organic affinity between joyousness and tenderness, and their companionship in the saintly life need in no way occasion surprise.” William James, “The Varieties of Religious Experience” - 1902

“I see a repose that neither earth nor hell can break, and I feel an assurance of the endless and shadowless hereafter—the Eternity they have entered—where life is boundless in its duration, and love in its sympathy, and joy in its fulness.” Emily Brontë, “Wuthering Heights” - 1847

“May our struggles and our concern for this planet never take away the joy of our hope.” Pope Francis, “Laudato si'” - 24 May 2015

“What I know for sure is that every day brings a chance for you to draw in a breath, kick off your shoes, and step out and dance—to live free of regret and filled with as much joy, fun, and laughter as you can stand.” Oprah Winfrey, “What I Know For Sure” - 2014

“There are moments when I wish I could roll back the clock and take all the sadness away, but I have the feeling that if I did, the joy would be gone as well.” Nicholas Sparks, “A Walk to Remember” - 1999

“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.” J. R. R. Tolkien, “The Hobbit” - 1937

“I was only going to say that heaven did not seem to be my home; and I broke my heart with weeping to come back to earth; and the angels were so angry that they flung me out into the middle of the heath on the top of Wuthering Heights; where I...” Emily Brontë, “Wuthering Heights” - 1847

“The whole world is now for me divided into two halves: one half is she, and there all is joy, hope, light: the other half is everything where she is not, and there is all gloom and darkness...” Leo Tolstoy, “War and Peace” - 1869

“Remember that I am thy creature; I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed.” Mary Shelley, “Frankenstein” - 1818

“This 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...” George Bernard Shaw, “Man and Superman” - 1903

“The morning cup of coffee has an exhilaration about it which the cheering influence of the afternoon or evening cup of tea cannot be expected to reproduce.” Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., “Over the Teacups” - 1891

“Give me a moment, because I like to cry for joy. It's so delicious, John dear, to cry for joy.” Charles Dickens, “Our Mutual Friend” - 1865

“Joy cannot unfold the deepest truths, although deepest truth must be deepest joy.” George MacDonald, “Phantastes” - 1858

“For what is love itself, for the one we love best? —an enfolding of immeasurable cares which yet are better than any joys outside our love.” George Eliot, “Daniel Deronda” - 1876

“And he sang to them, now in the elven-tongue, now in the speech of the West, until their hearts, wounded with sweet words, overflowed, and their joy was like swords, and they passed in thought out to regions where pain and delight flow together...” J. R. R. Tolkien, “The Return of the King” - 1955

Related topics

life love sadness grief sorrow crying pain fear happiness care wisdom food courage truth darkness words mother morning reading virtue

Related authors

Honoré de Balzac (3)
William Shakespeare (2)
Charles Dickens (2)
Leo Tolstoy (2)
Lao Tzu (2)
Samuel Johnson (2)
J. R. R. Tolkien (2)
Emily Brontë (2)
George Bernard Shaw (1)
Mark Twain (1)
George Eliot (1)
Virginia Woolf (1)
Ayn Rand (1)
Bertrand Russell (1)
Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1)
George MacDonald (1)
L. Frank Baum (1)
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1)
Walter Scott (1)
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. (1)

Related sources

Letters of Two Brides (3)
Much Ado About Nothing (2)
Tao Te Ching (2)
The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (2)
Wuthering Heights (2)
War and Peace (2)
Man and Superman (1)
Oliver Twist (1)
Mrs Dalloway (1)
The Fountainhead (1)
The Conquest of Happiness (1)
The Brothers Karamazov (1)
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1)
The Sorrows of Young Werther (1)
Ham on Rye (1)
The Essays of Michel de Montaigne (1)
The Hobbit (1)
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (1)
East of Eden (1)
Tropic of Cancer (1)