Great Throughts Treasury

"The human being who lives only for themselves finally reaps nothing but unhappiness. Selfishness corrodes. Unselfishness ennobles, satisfies. Don't put off the joy derivable from doing helpful, kindly things for others." - B. C. Forbes, fully Bertie Charles "B.C." Forbes

"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, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell

"From Wakan Tanka, the Great Spirit, there came a great unifying life force that flowed in and through all things - the flowers of the plains, blowing winds, rocks, trees, birds, animals - and was the same force that had been breathed into the first man. Thus all things were kindred, and were brought together by the same Great Mystery. Kinship with all creatures of the earth, sky, and water was a real and active principle. In the animal and bird world there existed a brotherly feeling that kept the Lakota safe among them. And so close did some of the Lakotas come to their feathered and furred friends that in true brotherhood they spoke a common tongue. The animals had rights - the right of man’s protection, the right to live, the right to multiply, and the right to freedom, and the right to man’s indebtedness - and in recognition of these rights the Lakota never enslaved an animal, and spared all life that was not needed for food and clothing. This concept of life and its relations was humanizing, and gave to the Lakota an abiding love. It filled his being with the joy and mystery of living; it gave him reverence for all life; it made a place for all things in the scheme of existence with equal importance to all. The Lakota could despise no creature, for all were of one blood, made by the same hand, and filled with the essence of the Great Mystery. In spirit, the Lakota were humble and meek. “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” - this was true for the Lakota, and from the earth they inherited secrets long since forgotten. Their religion was sane, natural, and human. " - Chief Luther Standing Bear

"Life is a place of service, and in that service one has to suffer a great deal that is hard to bear, but more often to experience a great deal of joy. But that joy can be real only if people look upon their life as a service, and have a definite object in life outside themselves and their personal happiness." -

"The root of joy is gratefulness...It is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful." - David Steindl-Rast

"Patience, kindness, love, good will, joy, happiness, wisdom and understanding are qualities which never grow old. Cultivate them and express them and remain young in mind and body" - Joseph Murphy

"When one's body is viewed with scorn and contempt, and one's joy is in the soul alone, this constitutes a direct and simple way to fulfill the commandment "Love your fellow as yourself" toward every Jew, great or small... For the source of their souls is in the One G‑d, and they aredivided only by virtue of their bodies. Therefore, those who give priority to their body over their soul, find it impossible to share true love and brotherhood except that which is conditional on some benefit. This is what Hillel the Elder meant when he said about this commandment [the love of Israel]: "This is the whole Torah; and the rest is commentary." For the foundation and source of all Torah is to elevate and give ascendancy to the soul over the body." - Shneur Zalman of Liadi

"Since you get more joy out of giving joy to others, you should put a good deal of thought into the happiness that you are able to give." - Eleanor Roosevelt, fully Anna Eleanor Roosevelt

"Find ecstasy in life; the mere sense of living is joy enough. " - Emily Dickinson, fully Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

"To possess, is past the instant we achieve the joy - immortality contented were anomaly." - Emily Dickinson, fully Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

"Children love and want to be loved and they very much prefer the joy of accomplishment to the triumph of hateful failure. Do not mistake a child for his symptom. " - Erik Erickson

"Who will tell whether one happy moment of love or the joy of breathing or walking on a bright morning and smelling the fresh air, is not worth all the suffering and effort which life implies." - Erich Fromm, fully Erich Seligmann Fromm

"You are joy, looking for a way to express. It's not just that your purpose is joy, it is that you are joy. You are love and joy and freedom and clarity expressing. Energy-frolicking and eager. That's who you are." - Ester and Jerry Hicks

"Happiness is the soul’s joy in the possession of the intangible. Absolute, perfect, continuous happiness in life is impossible for the human. It would mean the consummation of attainments, the individual consciousness of a perfectly fulfilled destiny. Happiness is a paradox because it may coexist with trial, sorrow and poverty. It is the gladness of the heart, rising superior to all conditions… Man might possess everything tangible in the world and yet not be happy, for happiness is the satisfying of the soul, not of the mind or the body." - William George Jordan

"Every word of tongue is love telling a story to her own ears. Every thought in every mind, she whispers a secret to her own Self. Every vision in every eye, she knows her beauty to her own sight. Every smile on every face, she reveals her own joy for herself to enjoy. Love courses through everything, no, love is everything. How can you say, there is no love, when nothing but Love exists? All that you see has appeared because of Love. All shines from Love, all pulses from Love, all flows from Love - no, once again, all is Love." - Fakhr ad-din Iraqi

"They had no temples, but they had a real living and uninterrupted sense of oneness with the whole of the universe; they had no creed, but they had a certain knowledge that when their earthly joy had reached the limits of earthly nature, then there would come for them, for the living and for the dead, a still greater fullness of contact with the whole of the universe. They looked forward to that moment with joy, but without haste, not pining for it, but seeming to have a foretaste of it in their hearts, of which they talked to one another." - Fyodor Dostoevsky, fully Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoevsky or Feodor Mikhailovich Dostoevski

"Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort. " - Franklin D. Roosevelt, fully Franklin Delano Roosevelt, aka FDR

"Mutual caring relationships require kindness and patience, tolerance, optimism, joy in the other's achievements, confidence in oneself, and the ability to give without undue thought of gain." - Fred Rogers, "Mister Rogers," born Frederick McFeely Rogers

"There are souls in this world which have the gift of finding joy everywhere and of leaving it behind them when they go. " - Frederick William Faber

"The most spiritual human beings, as the strongest, find their happiness where others would find their destruction: in the labyrinth, in severity towards themselves and others, in attempting; their joy lies in self-constraint: with them asceticism becomes nature, need, instinct." - Friedrich Nietzsche, fully Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

"No one gives joy or sorrow. ... We gather the consequences of our own deeds." - Garuda Purana

"To be able to find joy in another's joy, that is the secret of happiness." - Georges Bernanos

"We must face the recognition that what the early Christians saw in Jesus Christ, and what we must accept if we look at him rather than at our imaginations about him, was not a person characterized by universal benignity, loving God and loving man. His love of God and his love of neighbor are two distinct virtues that have no common quality but only a common source. Love of God is adoration of the only true good; it is gratitude to the bestower of all gifts; it is joy in holiness; it is "consent to Being." But the love of man is pitiful rather than adoring; it is giving and forgiving rather than grateful. It suffers for them in their viciousness and profaneness; it does not consent to accept them as they are, but calls them to repentance. The love of God is nonpossessive Eros; the love of man pure Agape; the love of God is passion; the love of man, compassion. There is duality here, but not of like-minded interest in two great values, God and man. It is rather the duality of the Son of Man and Son of God, who loves God as man should love Him, and loves man as only God can love, with powerful pity for those who are foundering." - Richard Niebuhr, fully Helmut Richard Niebuhr

"Every optimist moves along with progress and hastens it, while every pessimist would keep the worlds at a standstill. The consequence of pessimism in the life of a nation is the same as in the life of the individual. Pessimism kills the instinct that urges men to struggle against poverty, ignorance and crime, and dries up all the fountains of joy in the world." - Helen Keller. aka Helen Adams Keller

"Time is not measured by the years that you live but by the deeds that you do and the joy that you give. And each day as it comes brings a chance to each one to love to the fullest, leaving nothing undone that would brighten the life or lighten the load Of some weary traveler lost on Life's Road. So what does it matter how long we may live if as long as we live we unselfishly give." - Helen Steiner Rice

"There is no greater joy than that of feeling oneself a creator. The triumph of life is expressed by creation. " - Henri Bergson, aka Henri-Louis Bergson

"The shaping of our own life is our own work. It is a thing of beauty, or a thing of shame, as we ourselves make it. We lay the corner and add joint to joint, we give the proportion, we set the finish. It may be a thing of beauty and of joy for ever." - Henry Ware

"But there is only one avenue of access to that higher life. It is through a radical purging of inner unreality and the full and final surrender of one's whole self, all that one is and all that one possesses, to the imperious command of the Living God. From that surrender, when complete and unreserved, will follow release from defeat or ennui and the gift of utterly new joy and strength. The old life will be cast away; the old harrowing problems will dissolve; one will stand free from the shackles of temptation, self-consciousness, selfishness; for the first time in one's life, one will know the meaning of spiritual freedom. All that one has heard with the hearing of the ears about the life of religion, all that one has dismissed as the familiar exaggeration of religious propagandists or naïve faith no longer possible for intelligent moderns — all this will come vividly alive within one's own soul. One now knows, with a certainty for which there is no parallel, the truth of religion's claims — the absolutely unique character of the dedicated life, the vivid and continuous awareness of God's presence, the priceless worth of complete fellowship with Him, the service which is perfect freedom." - Henry P. Van Dusen

"Whatever may be the tensions and the stresses of a particular day, there is always lurking close at hand the trailing beauty of forgotten joy or unremembered peace." - Howard Therman

"Indecision regarding the choice among pleasures temporarily robs a man of inner peace. After due reflection, he attains joy by turning away from the lower pleasures and seeking the higher ones." - I Ching, Book of Changes or Zhouyi NULL

"Here below is not the land of happiness; 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. " - Immanual Hermann Fichte

"If you expect anything out of love, or meditation, you will get only frustration, and negative emptiness will happen. If you love for the sheer joy of it, if you meditate for the sheer delight of it and you don't have any result in mind -- you are not goal-oriented -- then there comes an emptiness which is positive. You start feeling full. You start feeling, for the first time, that you ARE. Being is felt, and that being is tremendously beautiful, blissful. It is SATCHITANANDA: it is existence, it is consciousness, it is bliss." - Osho, born Chandra Mohan Jain, also known as Acharya Rajneesh and Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh NULL

"My approach towards life is that of laughter. And laughter contains love, laughter contains joy and laughter contains gratitude. Laughter contains a tremendous thankfulness towards God." - Osho, born Chandra Mohan Jain, also known as Acharya Rajneesh and Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh NULL

"The craving for sympathy is the common boundary-line between joy and sorrow." - J. C. Hare (1795-1855) and A. W. Hare

"Nothing else in all life is such a maker of joy and cheer as the privilege of doing good." - J. R. Miller, fully James Russell Miller

"There are more worlds than one, and in many ways they are unlike each other. But joy and sorrow, or, in other words, good and evil,are not absent in their degree from any of the worlds, for wherever there is life there is action, and action is but the expression of one or other of these qualities." - James Stephens

"Understanding, and action proceeding from understanding and guided by it, is one weapon against the world's bombardment, the one medicine, the one instrument by which liberty, health, and joy may be shaped . . . in the individual, and in the race." - James Agee, fully James Rufus Agee

"Muriel seeks happiness and beauty. Dan informs her that life is a balance between the two, between suffering and laughter, beauty and ugliness. 'There is no such thing as happiness. Life bends joy and pain, beauty and ugliness, in such a way that no one may isolate them. No one should want to. Perfect joy, or perfect pain, with no contrasting element to define them, would mean a monotony of consciousness, would mean death. Not happy, Muriel. Say that you have tried to make them CREATE." - Jean Toomer

"When people love each other, they are content with very little. When we have light and joy in our hearts, we don't need material wealth. The most loving communities are often the poorest. If our own life is luxurious and wasteful, we can't approach poor people. If we love people, we want to identify with them and share with them." - Jean Vanier

"There are souls in this world which have the gift of finding joy everywhere and of leaving it behind them when they go." - Jean Paul, born Johann Paul Friedrich Richter, aka Jean Paul Richter

"It is not the end of joy that makes old age so sad, but the end of hope." - Jean Paul, born Johann Paul Friedrich Richter, aka Jean Paul Richter

"Tears of joy are the dew in which the sun of righteousness is mirrored. " - Jean Paul, born Johann Paul Friedrich Richter, aka Jean Paul Richter

"The fact is always obvious much too late, but the most singular difference between happiness and joy is that happiness is a solid and joy a liquid." - J.D. Salinger, fully Jerome David Salinger

"Most of us, swimming against tides of trouble the world knows nothing about, need only a bit of praise or encouragement and we'll make the goal. Say "Thank you!" whenever you think of it. Say "Nice job!" to that workman who put extra effort into his task. Say "Atta boy!" to the fellow who is struggling through in the face of odds. You'll get a whale of a lot of joy out of life that way. And people will love you." - Jerome P. Fleishman

"The source of one's joy is also often the source of one's sorrow. " - Jessamyn West, fully Mary Jessamyn West

"Because gratification of a desire leads to the temporary stilling of the mind and the experience of the peaceful, joyful Self, it's no wonder that we get hooked on thinking that happiness comes from the satisfaction of desires. This is the meaning of the old adage, Joy is not in things, it is in us. " - Joan Borysenko

"Pain is short, and joy is eternal." - Friedrich Schiller, fully Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller

"Only by joy and sorrow does a person know anything about themselves and their destiny. They learn what to do and what to avoid." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"A positive thing; in Joy one does not only feel secure, but something goes out from one’s self to the universe, a warm, possessive effluence of love. " - John Buchan, Baron Tweedsmuir

"Peace is that state in which fear of any kind is unknown. But Joy is a positive thing; in Joy... something goes out from oneself to the universe, a warm, possessive effluence of love. There may be Peace without Joy, and Joy without Peace, but the two combined make happiness. " - John Buchan, Baron Tweedsmuir