137 Joyful Quotes

In a world often bustling with challenges and uncertainties, finding sources of joy can act as a beacon of light, lifting our spirits and enhancing our well-being. Quotes, with their succinct and impactful nature, have a unique ability to capture the essence of joy and remind us of the simple pleasures in life. We have compiled a curated collection of the top 137 joyful quotes, each one selected to inspire happiness, positivity, and a greater appreciation of everyday moments. Whether you're looking for a quick pick-me-up or a dose of daily inspiration, these quotes are sure to bring a smile to your face and warmth to your heart. Dive in and let these words of wisdom fill you with an enduring sense of joy.

1. “Some of you say, “Joy is greater than sorrow,” and others say, “Nay, sorrow is the greater.”But I say unto you, they are inseparable.Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.” - Kahlil Gibran

2. “To get the full value of joy you must have someone to divide it with.” - Mark Twain

3. “Joy is the infallible sign of the presence of God.” - Pierre Teilhard De Chardin

4. “Pan, who and what art thou?" he cried huskily."I'm youth, I'm joy," Peter answered at a venture, "I'm a little bird that has broken out of the egg.” - J.M. Barrie

5. “There are joys which long to be ours. God sends ten thousands truths, which come about us like birds seeking inlet; but we are shut up to them, and so they bring us nothing, but sit and sing awhile upon the roof, and then fly away.” - Henry Ward Beecher

6. “Joy multiplies when it is shared among friends, but grief diminishes with every division. That is life.” - R.A. Salvatore

7. “One of the secrets of life is to find joy in the journey." But Grandma, you weren't on *this* journey. It was just crazy--"Grandma held up her hand. "You have six brothers. You got to spend a whole day in the car with them. You're all healthy, well fed, happy... Someday, when you're a little older, I'll bet you'd give anything to be back in that van of yours with all of your brothers, smelly diapers and all."I mulled that over.Well what about Dad?" I pointed out. "He didn't find any joy in the journey. He was yelling at trees."Grandma sat back, "Your father and mother are masters at finding joy in the journey."I didn't understand.Grandma continued, "Do you really think your parents would have had seven kids if they couldn't find joy in the journey?... I would be willing to wager that he'll be laughing about this trip on Monday morning with his friends at work."Grandma took my hands into hers. "There are a lot of people in this life that will try to convince you that they're selling something that will bring you joy. The simple fact of the matter is that *things* don't bring you joy. You have to find joy in life experience. And if you take along somebody you love, then that journey is going to be all the more enjoyable.I can promise you right now that both good and bad things are going to happen to you in your life. Good and bad things happen to everybody. Some people are good at finding the miserable things in life, and some are good at finding the joy. No matter what happens to you, what you remember is up to you.” - Matthew Buckley

8. “On with the dance! let joy be unconfin'd” - George Gordon Byron

9. “The soul is like an uninhabited worldthat comes to life only whenGod lays His headagainst us.” - St. Thomas Aquinas

10. “I didn't expect to recover from my second operation but since I did, I consider that I'm living on borrowed time. Every day that dawns is a gift to me and I take it in that way. I accept it gratefully without looking beyond it. I completely forget my physical suffering and all the unpleasantness of my present condition and I think only of the joy of seeing the sun rise once more and of being able to work a little bit, even under difficult conditions.” - Henri Matisse

11. “You ought to live your life with such freedom and joy that uptight Christians will doubt your salvation.” - Steve Brown

12. “The sweetest joy, the wildest woe is love.” - Pearl Bailey

13. “I have learned that in every circumstance that comes my way, I can choose to respond in one of two ways: I can whine or I can worship! And I can't worship without giving thanks. It just isn't possible. When we choose the pathway of worship and giving thanks, especially in the midst of difficult circumstances, there is a fragrance, a radiance, that issues forth out of our lives to bless the Lord and others.” - Nancy Leigh DeMoss

14. “Anything's possible in Human Nature," Chacko said in his Reading Aloud voice. Talking to the darkness now, suddenly insensitive to his little fountain-haired niece. "Love. Madness. Hope. Infinite joy."Of the four things that were Possible in Human Nature, Rahel thought that Infinnate Joy sounded the saddest. Perhaps because of the way Chacko said it.Infinnate Joy. With a church sound to it. Like a sad fish with fins all over.” - Arundhati Roy

15. “When we fully understand the brevity of life, its fleeting joys and unavoidable pains; when we accept the facts that all men and women are approaching an inevitable doom: the consciousness of it should make us more kindly and considerate of each other. This feeling should make men and women use their best efforts to help their fellow travelers on the road, to make the path brighter and easier as we journey on. It should bring a closer kinship, a better understanding, and a deeper sympathy for the wayfarers who must live a common life and die a common death.” - Clarence Darrow

16. “Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy.” - William Butler Yeats

17. “Although not a very old man, I have yet lived a great deal in my life, and I have known sorrow too bitter and joy too keen to allow me to become either cast down or elated for more than a very brief period over any success or defeat.” - Theodore Roosevelt

18. “When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.” - Kahlil Gibran

19. “Joy is sometimes a blessing, but it is often a conquest. Our magic moment help us to change and sends us off in search of our dreams. Yes, we are going to suffer, we will have difficult times, and we will experience many disappointments — but all of this is transitory it leaves no permanent mark. And one day we will look back with pride and faith at the journey we have taken.” - Paulo Coelho

20. “If there is no laughter, Jesus has gone somewhere else. If there is no joy and freedom, it is not a church: it is simply a crowd of melancholy people basking in a religious neurosis. If there is no celebration, there is no real worship.” - Steve Brown

21. “Part of the problem with the word 'disabilities' is that it immediately suggests an inability to see or hear or walk or do other things that many of us take for granted. But what of people who can't feel? Or talk about their feelings? Or manage their feelings in constructive ways? What of people who aren't able to form close and strong relationships? And people who cannot find fulfillment in their lives, or those who have lost hope, who live in disappointment and bitterness and find in life no joy, no love? These, it seems to me, are the real disabilities.” - Fred Rogers

22. “It was strange, I reflected.. that even in the weirdest circumstances, the most troubling episodes of one's life, the greatest divides from home and familiarity, there were these moments of undeniable joy.” - Elizabeth Kostova

23. “Oh, Lizzy! do anything rather than marry without affection.” - Jane Austen

24. “I want a life that sizzles and pops and makes me laugh out loud. And I don't want to get to the end, or to tomorrow, even, and realize that my life is a collection of meetings and pop cans and errands and receipts and dirty dishes. I want to eat cold tangerines and sing out loud in the car with the windows open and wear pink shoes and stay up all night laughing and paint my walls the exact color of the sky right now. I want to sleep hard on clean white sheets and throw parties and eat ripe tomatoes and read books so good they make me jump up and down, and I want my everyday to make God belly laugh, glad that he gave life to someone who loves the gift.” - Shauna Niequist

25. “There's light and joy, but there's also darkness all around and we can be lost in it.” - David Almond

26. “This is the ending. Now not day only shall be beloved, but night too shall be beautiful and blessed and all its fear pass away.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

27. “Love the animals: God has given them the rudiments of thought and joy untroubled.” - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28. “It's only natural to feel lonely after the enjoyable moments pass. But as you experience new joys those feelings of sorrow will start to fade.” - Mizu Sahara

29. “you might want to decide fast. We live in a dangerous world. If you see a chance to be happy, you have to fight for it, so later you have no regrets.” - Ilona Andrews

30. “[All the ancient wisdom] tells us that work is necessary to us, as much a part of our condition as mortality; that good work is our salvation and our joy; that shoddy or dishonest or self-serving work is our curse and our doom. We have tried to escape the sweat and sorrow promised in Genesis - only to find that, in order to do so, we must forswear love and excellence, health and joy.(pg. 44, "The Unsettling of America")” - Wendell Berry

31. “And all the host laughed and wept, and in the midst of their merriment and tears the clear voice of the minstrel rose like silver and gold, and all men were hushed. 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 and tears are the very wine of blessedness.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

32. “Know that joy is rarer, more difficult, and more beautiful than sadness. Once you make this all-important discovery, you must embrace joy as a moral obligation.” - Andre Gide

33. “People, he thought, were as hungry for a sight of joy as he had always been--for a moment's relief from that gray load of suffering which seemed so inexplicable and unnecessary. He had never been able to understand why men should be unhappy.” - Ayn Rand

34. “No man ever threw away life while it was worth keeping.” - David Hume

35. “nothing wonderful lasted forever. Joy was as fleeting as a shooting star that crossed the evening sky, ready to blink out at any moment.” - Nicholas Sparks

36. “Reading is an addiction that I adore.” - Vianka Van Bokkem

37. “The glance embroiders in joy, knits in pain, and sews in boredom.When indifferent, the eye takes stills, when interested, movies.Laughter is regional: a smile extends over the whole face.” - Malcolm de Chazal

38. “You've got to S-M-I-L-ETo be H-A-Double-P-Y” - Shirley Temple

39. “Live from abundance;Utilize with economy;Share in advance.” - Geoffrey M. Gluckman

40. “A month ago, Gavin had given his employer four weeks' notice. "I'll get a job around here," he'd told her. "Something low-stress, part-time, maybe. We're not paying rent, and Dad's left us plenty. You should quit, too." A year earlier this news would have filled her with delicious, full fat, chocolate-coated joy. But now, after a grueling routine of shitty work, shitty- weird home life in a house where the shadow of a dead boy walked more solidly than the grownups, shitty headaches, shitty worry about a husband who couldn't keep his dick out of other women, the golden offer just weirded Laine out. She didn't trust it.” - Stephen M. Irwin

41. “Complaints drain joy.” - Toba Beta

42. “There is joy in self-forgetfulness. So I try to make the light in others' eyes my sun, the music in others' ears my symphony, the smile on others' lips my happiness.” - Helen Keller

43. “If I can see pain in your eyes then share with me your tears. If I can see joy in your eyes then share with me your smile.” - Santosh Kalwar

44. “To serve is beautiful, but only if it is done with joy and a whole heart and a free mind.” - Pearl S. Buck

45. “We lose our life by serving and lifting others. By so doing we experience the only true and lasting happiness. Service is not something we endure on this earth so we can earn the right to live in the celestial kingdom. Service is the very fiber of which an exalted life in the celestial kingdom is made. Oh, for the glorious day when these things all come naturally because of the purity of our hearts... We are truly happy only when we are engaged in unselfish service. Service is what godhood is all about.” - Marion G. Romney

46. “I'd rather laugh in a tent than cry in a palace.” - James Enns

47. “May we all soon go about as our real selves and take joy in it, saying, yes, yes, to whatever we are.” - Carol Emshwiller

48. “She tips back her head and howls: Moooooown! Oh wonderful moooooowwwwwyyyn!” - Carol Emshwiller

49. “Well I want something to do, to create, to achieve, to whatever.... Something I can’t get enough of. You know something that I can't wait to get up in the morning to do something I can't get enough of, something that brings me joy and makes my heart sing. It could be anything, could be more than one thing but something that grabs me. Even a job, if it grabs me so that I could hardly wait to get there. Something that makes me feel good, allows me to be me, gives me freedom to grow and expand, something that grasps my heart, my joy, my excitement and leads me down the path to more joyful things, exciting challenges and challenging things. Barely stopping to take a breath I continued. Need a new journey a new destination, I want to grow to be or become, tread a new path, see what I haven't seen be what I haven't been ask what I haven't asked dare to what I haven't dared to . . . I don't even think it is so much a physical thing or mental it's just sort of un-learning some of what I learned It’s being happy, while I am happy but I want something to do that creates even more. (..)Doing it for the joy of doing it not for any other reason; also I want it from and un-edited creativity free flowing something… I have some things that seem very interesting and somehow just don’t feel right almost like I’m taking the wrong path and yet there are other things that I could be doing like writing but it seems that it does not feel good to sit and write but yet some part of me seems to love it and something in me hates it sort of like it could be the thing for me to do and yet it might not be.” - Klaus Joehle

50. “Perhaps in nearly every joy, as certainly in every pleasure, cruelty has its place.” - Oscar Wilde

51. “The highest prize we can receive for creative work is the joy of being creative. Creative effort spent for any other reason than the joy of being in that light filled space, love, god, whatever we want to call it, is lacking in integrity. . .” - Marianne Williamson

52. “In what he suffered, as in all true suffering and in true joy, there was the quality of eternity. He could not believe it would ever end.” - Elizabeth Goudge

53. “Because beyond their practical function, all gestures have a meaning that exceeds the intention of those who make them; when people in bathing suits fling themselves into the water, it is joy itself that shows in the gesture, notwithstanding any sadness the divers may actually feel. When someone jumps into the water fully clothed, it is another thing entirely: the only person who jumps into the water fully clothed is a person trying to drown; and a person trying to drown does not dive headfirst; he lets himself fall: thus speaks the immemorial language of gestures.” - Milan Kundera

54. “She tried to act as though it were nothing to go to the library alone. But her happiness betrayed her. Her smile could not be restrained, and it spread from her tightly pressed mouth, to her round cheeks, almost to the hair ribbons tied in perky bows over her ears.” - Maud Hart Lovelace

55. “Ainsi dans le faste ostenstatoire d'une dernière cérémonie, le bourgeois, laissant à ses fils un héritage plus riche que celui qu'il a reçu de son père, quite ce monde où il a conu au moins deux grands sources de joie, la fortune et la vanité...Thus in the ostentatious pomp of a last ceremony, the bourgeois, leaving his sons a richer heritage than he has received from his own father, departs from this world where he has known at least two great sources of joy, the fortune and the vanity...” - Georges Mongredien

56. “Love doesn't make the world go 'round; love is what makes the ride worthwhile.” - Shannon Alder

57. “Joy is the realest reality, the fullest life, and joy is always given, never grasped. God gives gifts and I give thanks and I unwrap the gift given: joy.” - Ann Voskamp

58. “Old age is not meant to be survived alone," Man Rapadou said, her voice trailing with her own hidden thoughts. "Death should come gently, slowly, like a man's hand approaching your body. There can be joy in impatience if there is time to find the joy.” - Edwidge Danticat

59. “While writing is like a joyful release, editing is a prison where the bars are my former intentions and the abusive warden my own neuroticism.” - Tiffany Madison

60. “God favors men and women who delight in being made worthy of happiness before the happiness itself.” - Criss Jami

61. “Veganism is not a "sacrifice." It is a joy.” - GaryLFrancione

62. “Friendship is thinking of the other person first.” - George Alexiou

63. “The key is loveIt is the gatewayTo hopeTo joyTo enhanced livingLove is the answer” - Karen Hackel

64. “Man is a fallen star till he is right with heaven: he is out of order with himself and all around him till he occupies his true place in relation to God. When he serves God, he has reached that point where he doth serve himself best, and enjoys himself most. It is man's honour, it is man's joy, it is man's heaven, to live unto God.” - Charles H. Spurgeon

65. “We must never expect discretion in first love: it is accompanied by such excessive joy that unless the joy is allowed to overflow, it will choke you.” - Alexandre Dumas

66. “The good life doesn't knock on the door. Joy is a job.” - Lionel Shriver

67. “In fact no one recognizes the happiest moment of their lives as they are living it. It may well be that, in a moment of joy, one might sincerely believe that they are living that golden instant "now," even having lived such a moment before, but whatever they say, in one part of their hearts they still believe in the certainty of a happier moment to come. Because how could anyone, and particularly anyone who is still young, carry on with the belief that everything could only get worse: If a person is happy enough to think he has reached the happiest moment of his life, he will be hopeful enough to believe his future will be just as beautiful, more so.” - Orhan Pamuk

68. “I am going to hold a pistol to the head of the Modern Man. But I shall not use it to kill him–only to bring him to life.” - G.K. Chesterton

69. “From the mud of adversity grows the lotus of joy” - Carolyn Marsden

70. “I like joy; I want to be joyous. I want to smile and I want to make people laugh. And that`s all I want. I like being happy. I want to make others happy.” - Doris Day

71. “Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place. It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow. Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place.” - Rumi

72. “One bulb at a time. There was no other way to do it. No shortcuts--simply loving the slow process of planting. Loving the work as it unfolded. Loving an achievement that grew slowly and bloomed for only three weeks each year.” - Jaroldeen Asplund Edwards

73. “Without pain, how could we know joy?' This is an old argument in the field of thinking about suffering and its stupidity and lack of sophistication could be plumbed for centuries but suffice it to say that the existence of broccoli does not, in any way, affect the taste of chocolate.” - John Green

74. “Seek joyfulness when you can, for seeking joy leads to an auspicious atmosphere.” - Jonathan D. Spence

75. “This must be a simply enormous wardrobe!” - C.S. Lewis

76. “I was still young and the whole world of beauty was opening before me, my own officious obstructions were often swept aside and, startled into self-forgetfulness, I again tasted Joy. ... One thing, however, I learned, which has since saved me from many popular confusions of mind. I came to know by experience that it is not a disguise of sexual desire. ... I repeatedly followed that path - to the end. And at the end one found pleasure; which immediately resulted in the discovery that pleasure (whether that pleasure or any other) was not what you had been looking for. No moral question was involved; I was at this time as nearly nonmoral on that subject as a human creature can be. The frustration did not consist in finding a "lower" pleasure instead of a "higher." It was the irrelevance of the conclusion that marred it. ... You might as well offer a mutton chop to a man who is dying of thirst as offer sexual pleasure to the desire I am speaking of. ... Joy is not a substitute for sex; sex is very often a substitute for Joy. I sometimes wonder whether all pleasures are not substitutes for Joy.” - C.S. Lewis

77. “What makes a man's 80 year-old Irish uncle skip like a little boy? "Me Father is very fond of me!” - John Ortberg Jr.

78. “If you have a dog, you will most likely outlive it; to get a dog is to open yourself to profound joy and, prospectively, to equally profound sadness.” - Marjorie Garber

79. “The sunlight now lay over the valley perfectly still. I went over to the graveyard beside the church and found them under the old cedars... I am finding it a little hard to say that I felt them resting there, but I did. I felt their completeness as whatever they had been in the world.I knew I had come there out of kindness, theirs and mine. The grief that came to me then was nothing like the grief I had felt for myself alone... This grief had something in it of generosity, some nearness to joy. In a strange way it added to me what I had lost. I saw that, for me, this country would always be populated with presences and absences, presences of absences, the living and the dead. The world as it is would always be a reminder of the world that was, and of the world that is to come.” - Wendell Berry

80. “The true purpose of life is the perfection of humanity through individual effort, under the guidance of God's inspiration. Real life is response to the best within us. To be alive only to appetite, pleasure, pride, money-making, and not to goodness and kindness, purity and love, poetry, music, flowers, stars, God and eternal hopes, is to deprive one's self of the real joy of living.” - President David O. McKay

81. “we want it visible to showwhen even the most visible joy will reveal itselfonly when we have transformed it within.there’s nowhere, my love, the world can existexpect within.” - Rainer Maria Rilke

82. “Everywhere we shine death and life burn into something new…” - Aberjhani

83. “time is better for you.” - joy

84. “I did not believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for anarchism, for release and freedom from convention and prejudice, should demand the denial of life and joy. I insisted that our Cause could not expect me to become a nun and that the movement would not be turned into a cloister. If it meant that, I did not want it.” - Emma Goldman

85. “I'll be singing hymns to the rafters, be praising His goodness so loud they're going to have to turn down the volume in Heaven.” - Diane Hammond

86. “Let a joy keep you. Reach out your hands and take it runs by.” - Carl Sandburg

87. “Yaroo!" I shouted, and I didn't give a beetle's bottom who heard me. "Ya-rooo!” - Alan Bradley

88. “I was assailed by memories of a life that wasn't mine anymore, but one in which I'd found the simplest and most lasting joys: the smells of summer, the part of town I loved, a certain evening sky, Marie's dresses and the way she laughed.” - Albert Camus

89. “Work may be your dominant thought, and joy an afterthought. But joy is your true purpose, and work the afterthought.” - Alan Cohen

90. “Surrender to your dreams and let them launch your tomorrow.” - Lisa Fantino

91. “The sweetness of reunion is the joy of heaven.” - Richard Paul Evans

92. “But the real joy he feels doesn't come in the guise of Bruce the billionaire playboy. It comes as Batman - when he does what he was meant to do. When he follows his purpose.” - Paul Asay

93. “God is glorified not by calling strong women but by giving His strength to weak women.” - Lydia Brownback

94. “...childlike wonder and awe have died. The scenery and poetry and music of the majesty of God have dried up like a forgotten peach at the back of the refrigerator.” - John Piper

95. “Sing before the spirits and dance with the earth deitiesAnd you will be able to compose your own tune.Then you and I, united, will clap hands joyously,Singing 'tum-tiddly-um tum-tiddly-um-tum.” - Hongzhi Zhengjue

96. “There is more to joy than looking only for affirmation; refusing to be challenged is the only bigotry.” - Criss Jami

97. “There is a wide world out there, full of pain, but filled with joy as well. The former keeps you on the path of growth and the latter makes the journey tolerable.” - R.A. Salvatore

98. “We are all the walking wounded in a world that is a war zone. Everything we love will be taken from us, everything, last of all life itself. Yet everywhere I look, I find great beauty in this battlefield, and grace and the promise of joy.” - Dean Koontz

99. “I beseech you, little brothers, that you be as wise as brother Daisy and brother dandelion; for never do they lie awake thinking of tomorrow, yet they have gold crowns like kings and emperors or like Charlemagne in all his glory.” - G.K. Chesterton

100. “I needed to know that there was such a thing as love and that it brought smiles and joy in its wake.” - Elie Wiesel

101. “Nothing came in reasonable measure, it seemed, not water or sunshine or sorrow. But joy, too, is immoderate sometimes, and that makes up for the rest.” - Jetta Carleton

102. “Wanting help, I reached out to serve. Seeking happiness, I smiled and offered comfort. Yearning for love, I showed love. And now I understand. My life was never about me, it was always about you.” - Richelle E. Goodrich

103. “Because life is a symphony it must have its C Minor. Days there be when we hear only a discord of sharps and flats, and we wonder whether harmony will ever be restored. On other days we hear only an ominous, deep strain which seems to say that hope is fled. But why this chill despair? Symphonies are a blending of many tones, high and low, over and under, major and minor. One day cannot make a life a whole any more than shadows can make a picture or minor notes a symphony. We need to hear life's song, not as the discord of a single day, but as the completed harmony of all the years. Then will today's sorrow and tomorrow's disappointment ring forth in major key as glorious melody.” - W. Waldemar W. Argow

104. “But as, in ethics, evil is a consequence of good, so, in fact, out of joy is sorrow born. Either the memory of past bliss is the anguish of today, or the agonies which are have their origin in the ecstasies which might have been.” - Edgar Alan Poe

105. “True joy cannot be bought with money or found in lavish things. It's a feeling deep within the heart.” - Marie Cornelio

106. “The greatest joys in life are found not only in what we do and feel, but also in our quiet hopes and labors for others.” - Bryant McGill

107. “Joy passed, but happiness never completely disappeared; a touch of it would always remain to remind one it had been there. It was happiness that made one smile, then.” - Anne Holm

108. “It's none of your concern what others say or think about you. Your happiness is your own responsibility.” - Richelle E. Goodrich

109. “I have no nameI am but two days old.-What shall I call thee?I happy amJoy is my name,-Sweet joy befell thee!Pretty joy!Sweet joy but two days old.Sweet joy I call thee:Thou dost smile.I sing the whileSweet joy befell thee.- "Infant Joy” - William Blake

110. “Fear pounds on the door to our heart demanding to be let in. Joy is modest and often comes into our lives like a shy person entering a room; it can take a while to even notice it’s there.” - Jonathan Carroll

111. “But there is nothing enduring in the world, and therefore even joy in the second minute is already not as acute as in the first; in the third minute it becomes still weaker and finally merges unnoticeably with the usual condition of the soul, as a circle on the water, caused by the fall of a pebble, finally merges with the smooth surface.” - Nikolai Gogol

112. “The problem with churches of all sorts,” he continued, “is that so often they ignore the key teachings of the Sermon on the Mount, like the doctrine of love. So often we ask God to be on our side instead of asking that we be blessed enough to be on his. That said, the wheat and the tares must grow up together, and in the days of harvest they will be separated properly.” - David Holdsworth

113. “It is astonishing to realize that growing up actually means to become one with Existence. It means to find the whole Existence within myself, it means to discover that Existence is alive in my own heart and being. The song of a bird echoes my own inner voice, the beauty of a flower reflects my own inner beauty, a dog becomes an expression of my own unconditional love and friendship, the majestic mountains create an exstatic joy, and I discover all the shining stars of the sky within my own heart. It is to realize that the whole Existence is alive, and that the underlying thread of consciousness is God.” - Swami Dhyan Giten

114. “Life is really very simple. In each moment, we have the opportunity to choose between saying “yes” or “no”, to listen to our intuition, to listen to our true inner voice, the Existential voice within ourselves. When we say “yes”, we have contact with Existence and we receive nourishment, love, joy, support and inspiration. When we say “no”, we create a separation from life and begin to create dreams and expectations of how it should be. We begin to live in the memories of the past and in the fantasies of the future – as if any other time than here and now really could make us happy and satisfied.” - Swami Dhyan Giten

115. “The human heart operates from two premises: "I Am Responsible" and "Only Love Works.” - Swami Dhyan Giten

116. “Fear and hate create separation, love and joy creates belongingness and wholeness.” - Swami Dhyan Giten

117. “Peace of mind arrives the moment you come to peace with the contents of your mind.” - Rasheed Ogunlaru

118. “The joy you bring us is so much greater than the sadness we feel about your illness.” - John Green

119. “The sixth gift is Joy. May it keep your heart open and filled with light.” - Charlene Costanzo

120. “Our outer relationships are a mirror of the relationship and communication between our own inner male and female sides. Our outer relationships with a man or a woman are a possibility to understand our own inner man or woman.” - Swami Dhyan Giten

121. “The heart is the door to our inner woman. The heart is the door to our inner world. The power chakra relates to the inner man. The power chakra relates to the outer world. Irrespective of if we are a man or a woman, the inner woman is the center of our consciousness.” - Swami Dhyan Giten

122. “It is when our inner male and female sides meets within ourselves that a new spark of love, joy, and wholeness arises within ourselves.” - Swami Dhyan Giten

123. “It is when we develop both our inner man and woman that we find a new harmony and wholeness within ourselves. Healing means to develop and integrate our inner man and woman so that love can flow between them. To rediscover our own inner source of love, we need to embrace both the male and female sides within ourselves. When these two sides are developed and integrated, a new spark of love, joy, harmony, creativity and wholeness arises within us. Awareness is an inner harmony between opposite poles and tendencies.” - Swami Dhyan Giten

124. “Awareness is a choiceless consciousness. Awareness is the capacity to embrace, accept and include both joy and sadness, love and aloneness, light and darkness, male and female qualities and life and death. Through saying “yes” and accepting both tendencies and including whatever aspect that happens in the moment, we meet our unlimited and boundless inner being. The inner man and woman need to find their own independence and integrity.” - Swami Dhyan Giten

125. “When both our inner man and woman takes responsibility for themselves and lives their own truth, a joy and love begins to flow naturally between them. Healing means to develop the inner man and woman so that love can flow between them. Healing is to learn to love both our inner man and woman. It is to learn to live the truth of both the inner man and woman.” - Swami Dhyan Giten

126. “If peace comes from seeing the whole,then misery stems from a loss of perspective.We begin so aware and grateful. The sun somehow hangs there in the sky. The little bird sings. The miracle of life just happens. Then we stub our toe, and in that moment of pain, the whole world is reduced to our poor little toe. Now, for a day or two, it is difficult to walk. With every step, we are reminded of our poor little toe.Our vigilance becomes: Which defines our day—the pinch we feel in walking on a bruised toe, or the miracle still happening?It is the giving over to smallness that opens us to misery. In truth, we begin taking nothing for granted, grateful that we have enough to eat, that we are well enough to eat. But somehow, through the living of our days, our focus narrows like a camera that shutters down, cropping out the horizon, and one day we’re miffed at a diner because the eggs are runny or the hash isn’t seasoned just the way we like.When we narrow our focus, the problem seems everything. We forget when we were lonely, dreaming of a partner. We forget first beholding the beauty of another. We forget the comfort of first being seen and held and heard. When our view shuts down, we’re up in the night annoyed by the way our lover pulls the covers or leaves the dishes in the sink without soaking them first.In actuality, misery is a moment of suffering allowed to become everything. So, when feeling miserable, we must look wider than what hurts. When feeling a splinter, we must, while trying to remove it, remember there is a body that is not splinter, and a spirit that is not splinter, and a world that is not splinter.” - Mark Nepo

127. “we got out of the car for air and suddenly both of us were stoned with joy to realize that in the darkness all around us was fragrant green grass and the smell of fresh manure and warm waters. 'We're in the South! We've left the winter!' Faint daybreak illuminated green shoots by the side of the road. I took a deep breath; a locomotive howled across the darkness, mobile-bound. So were we. I took off my shirt and exulted” - Jack Kerouac

128. “Life is too short for anger, resentment, hostility and "should have." It is too short to put off doing what brings you joy. Live each day as if it were your last, because one day it will be.” - Julie-Anne

129. “Dogs, for a reason that can only be described as divine, have the ability to forgive, let go of the past, and live each day joyously. It’s something the rest of us strive for.” - Jennifer Skiff

130. “No one has learned the meaning of living until he has surrendered his ego to the service of his fellow man. Service to others is akin to duty, the fulfillment of which brings true joy. We do not live alone - in our city, our nation, or our world. There is no dividing line between our prosperity and our neighbor's wretchedness. 'Love they neighbor' is more than a divine truth. It is a pattern for perfection.” - Thomas S. Monson

131. “Ah, cruel fate, how swiftly joy and sorrow alternate!” - Raimbaut de Vaqueyras

132. “She wasn’t just a faithful friend, she was the closest thing to heaven I allowed myself to know. Through her I received joy in my heart and began to love others.” - Jennifer Skiff

133. “Unzip your life right now, air out the putrid and bleach the infection, then invite your childhood dreams back, beckon the best of you and breathe deeper than you have in a very long time. Believe in the holdings of your heart. You can become anyone and anything your heart desires once you clear the clutter and stuff yourself with positive power and intentions.” - Toni Sorenson

134. “There were no windows in the Stockholders' Records Section of the Treasurer's Department of the American Forge and Foundry Company. But the soft, sweet music from the loudspeaker on the green wall by the clock, music that increased the section's productivity by 3 percent, kept pace with the seasons, and provided windows of a sort for the staff.--"Bomar” - Kurt Vonnegut

135. “The relationship you take for granted is the one that needs the greatest work.” - George Alexiou

136. “Kindness is a currency that can cover a multitude of interpersonal debts.” - George Alexiou

137. “Most parents try really hard to give their kids the best possible life. They give them the best food and clothes they can afford, take their own kind of take on training kids to be honest and polite. But what they don't realize is no matter how much they try, their kids will get out there. Out to this complicated little world. If they are lucky they will survive, through backstabbers, broken hearts, failures and all the kinds of invisible insane pressures out there. But most kids get lost in them. They will get caught up in all kinds of bubbles. Trouble bubbles. Bubbles that continuously tell them that they are not good enough. Bubbles that get them carried away with what they think is love, give them broken hearts. Bubbles that will blur the rest of the world to them, make them feel like that is it, that they've reached the end. Sometimes, even the really smart kids, make stupid decisions. They lose control. Parents need to realize that the world is getting complicated every second of every day. With new problems, new diseases, new habits. They have to realize the vast probability of their kids being victims of this age, this complicated era. Your kids could be exposed to problems that no kind of therapy can help. Your kids could be brainwashed by themselves to believe in insane theories that drive them crazy. Most kids will go through this stage. The lucky ones will understand. They will grow out of them. The unlucky ones will live in these problems. Grow in them and never move forward. They will cut themselves, overdose on drugs, take up excessive drinking and smoking, for the slightest problems in their lives. You can't blame these kids for not being thankful or satisfied with what they have. Their mentality eludes them from the reality.” - Thisuri Wanniarachchi