For trash and toys,
And grief-engend'ring joys,
What torment seems too sharp for flesh and blood;
What bitter pills,
Compos'd of real ills,
Men swallow down to purchase one false good!
FRANCIS QUARLES
Emblems
Here below is not the land of happiness; I know it not; it is only the land of toil, and every joy which comes to us is only to strengthen us for some greater labor that is to succeed.
JOHANN GOTTLIEB FICHTE
Popular Works
Joy is circulatory. There is the joy. Then disbelief that says you must be dreaming. Then the mental pause or step back to give the universe a chance to wake you. Then the return to see if the joy is still there--and there is the joy again, insanely real and undeservedly all yours.
GLEN DUNCAN
Talulla Rising
This is a catastrophic universe, always; and subject to hidden reversals, upheavals, changes, cataclysms, with joy never anything but the song of substance under pressure forced into new forms and shapes.
DORIS LESSING
Shikasta
We seldom meet with joy and delight by appointment, but unexpectedly they smile on us their sudden welcome round some odd corner of life.
MISS PALMER
attributed, Day's Collacon
Troubles loom up big when they're ahead,
And joys seem always sweeter when they're past.
EDGAR GUEST
"The Present"
It ain't no sin to be glad you're alive.
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN
"Badlands", Darkness on the Edge of Town
Joy comes and fills the self-emptied heart; it abides with the peaceful; its reign is with the pure.
JAMES ALLEN
Morning and Evening Thoughts
Man was made for joy and woe,
And when this we rightly know
Through the world we safely go.
WILLIAM BLAKE
"Auguries of Innocence", Poems from the Pickering Manuscript
Joy is more divine than sorrow; for joy is bread, and sorrow is medicine.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Joy's recollection is no longer joy,
While Sorrow's memory is a sorrow still.
LORD BYRON
Marino Faliero
What matters an eternity of damnation to someone who has found in one second the infinity of joy?
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
"Le Mauvais Vitrier," Le Spleen de Paris
Joy cannot remain with the selfish; it is wedded to Love.
JAMES ALLEN
Morning and Evening Thoughts
Pleasure is always derived from something outside you, whereas joy arises from within.
ECKHART TOLLE
The Power of Now