82 Inspiring Quotes About Joy

In a world often filled with chaos and uncertainty, the pursuit of joy becomes an essential part of our everyday lives. Joy is not just an emotion; it's a state of being that can transform our outlook and inspire others around us. Whether it's found in moments of quiet solitude, the warmth of a shared smile, or the beauty of nature, joy has the power to elevate our spirits and renew our hope. In this post, we've curated an uplifting collection of 82 inspiring quotes about joy, each one offering a unique perspective and encouraging us to embrace positivity and happiness. Allow these words to serve as a gentle reminder of the joy that exists in the world and within ourselves.

1. “We could all do with a bit more joy in our lives couldn't we? The wonderful thing is that when we start spreading joy, we begin to actually experience more joy in our lives too!” - Steve Goodier

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

3. “God surely did not create us, and cause us to live, with the sole end of wishing always to die. I believe, in my heart, we were intended to prize life and enjoy it, so long as we retain it. Existence never was originally meant to be that useless, blank, pale, slow-trailing thing it often becomes to many, and is becoming to me, among the rest.” - Charlotte Brontë

4. “Man can never know the loneliness a woman knows. Man lies in the woman's womb only to gather strength, he nourishes himself from this fusion, and then he rises and goes into the world, into his work, into battle, into art. He is not lonely. He is busy. The memory of the swim in amniotic fluid gives him energy, completion. Woman may be busy too, but she feels empty. Sensuality for her is not only a wave of pleasure in which she is bathed, and a charge of electric joy at contact with another. When man lies in her womb, she is fulfilled, each act of love a taking of man within her, an act of birth and rebirth, of child rearing and man bearing. Man lies in her womb and is reborn each time anew with a desire to act, to be. But for woman, the climax is not in the birth, but in the moment man rests inside of her.” - Anais Nin

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

6. “We find these joys to be self evident: That all children are created whole, endowed with innate intelligence, with dignity and wonder, worthy of respect. The embodiment of life, liberty and happiness, children are original blessings, here to learn their own song. Every girl and boy is entitled to love, to dream and belong to a loving “village.” And to pursue a life of purpose.We affirm our duty to nourish and nurture the young, to honour their caring ideals as the heart of being human. To recognize the early years as the foundation of life, and to cherish the contribution of young children to human evolution.We commit ourselves to peaceful ways and vow to keep from harm or neglect these, our most vulnerable citizens. As guardians of their prosperity we honour the bountiful Earth whose diversity sustains us. Thus we pledge our love for generations to come. ” - Raffi

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 most profound joy has more of gravity than of gaiety in it.” - Michel de Montaigne

10. “Two kisses in one kiss was all it took, a comfort, a warmth, perhaps temporary, perhaps false, but reassuring nonetheless, and mine, and theirs, ours, all three of us giggling, insane giggles and laughter with still more kisses on the way, and I remember a brief instant then, out of the blue, when I suddenly glimpsed my own father, a rare but oddly peaceful recollection, as if he actually approved of my play in the way he himself had always laughed and played, great updrafts of light, burning off distant plateaus of bistre & sage, throwing him up like an angel, high above the red earth, deep into the sparkling blank, the tender sky that never once let him down, preserving his attachment to youth, propriety and kindness, his plane almost, but never quite, outracing his whoops of joy, trailing him in his sudden turn to the wind, followed then by a near vertical climb up to the angles of the sun, and I was barely eight and still with him and yes, that was the thought that flickered madly through me, a brief instant of communion, possessing me with warmth and ageless ease, causing me to smile again and relax as if memory alone could lift the heart like the wind lifts a wing, and so I renewed my kisses with even greater enthusiasm, caressing and in turn devouring their dark lips, dark with wine and fleeting love, an ancient memory love had promised but finally never gave, until there were too many kisses to count or remember, and the memory of love proved not love at all and needed a replacement, which our bodies found, and then the giggles subsided, and the laughter dimmed, and darkness enfolded all of us and we gave away our childhood for nothing and we died and condoms littered the floor and Christina threw up in the sink and Amber chuckled a little and kissed me a little more, but in a way that told me it was time to leave.” - Mark Z. Danielewski

11. “Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.” - Thich Nhat Hanh

12. “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

13. “Deriving truth from joy may be far more easier than generating joy from the truth.” - Toba Beta

14. “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

15. “Good is not the opposite of evil, joy is the opposite of evil.” - Michael Ventura

16. “I used to believe my art had to be about the things that brought me joy and gave me hope. But I learned that art can be found in all of life, even in pain. --Valentine, while in Italy (pg 267)” - Adriana Trigiani

17. “Keep your best wishes, close to your heart and watch what happens” - Tony DeLiso

18. “Today, I demand that a film express either the joy of making cinema or the agony of making cinema. I am not at all interested in anything in between; I am not interested in all those films that do not pulse.” - François Truffaut

19. “The goal of prayer is to live all of my life and speak all of my words in the joyful awareness of the presence of God.Prayer becomes real when we grasp the reality and goodness of God's constant presence with 'the real me.' Jesus lived his everyday life in conscious awareness of his Father.” - John Ortberg

20. “They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.” - Tom Bodett

21. “Pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy.” - Leo Tolstoy

22. “I don't think of all the misery, but of the beauty that still remains.” - Anne Frank

23. “May all your joys be pure joys, and all your pain champagne.” - Mrs. Graham

24. “She was becoming sad. There is no joy involved in following others' expectations of yourself.” - Miriam Toews

25. “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

26. “Today is Your Day to Dance Lightly with Life. It Really Is.” - Jonathan Lockwood Huie

27. “And then it occurs to me. They are frightened. In me, they see their own daughters, just as ignorant, just as unmindful of all the truths and hopes they have brought to America. They see daughters who grow impatient when their mothers talk in Chinese, who think they are stupid when they explain things in fractured English. They see that joy and luck do not mean the same to their daughters, that to these closed American-born minds "joy luck" is not a word, it does not exist. They see daughters who will bear grandchildren born without any connecting hope passed from generation to generation.” - Amy Tan

28. “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

29. “Deep within everyone's heart there always remains a sense of longing for that hour, that summer, that one brief moment of blossoming. For several weeks or months, rarely longer, a beautiful young woman lives outside ordinary life. She is intoxicated. She feels as if she exists beyond time, beyond its laws; she experiences not the monotonous succession of days passing by, but moments of intense, almost desperate happiness.” - Irene Nemirovsky

30. “Towards the end of the season it is not bad to have the body. To have experienced joy as the mere lifting of hunger is not to have known it less.” - Jorie Graham

31. “Joy is distinctly a Christian word and a Christian thing. It is the reverse of happiness. Happiness is the result of what happens of an agreeable sort. Joy has its spring deep down inside. And that spring never runs dry, no matter what happens. Only Jesus gives that joy.” - Samuel Gordon

32. “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

33. “(J)oy deserves always more.” - Linda McCarriston

34. “She had had her momentary flowering, a year, perhaps, of wildrose beauty, and then she had suddenly swollen like a fertilized fruit and grown hard and red and coarse, and then her life had been laundering, scrubbing, laundering, first for children, then for grandchildren, over thirty years. At the end of it she was still singing.” - George Orwell

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

36. “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

37. “There were sins whose fascination was more in the memory than in the doing of them, strange triumphs that gratified the pride more than the passions, and gave to the intellect a quickened sense of joy, greater than any joy they brought, or could ever bring, to the senses.” - Oscar Wilde

38. “Fred dislikes the idea going into the ministry partly because he doesn't like "feeling obligated to look serious", and he centers his doubts on "what people expect of a clergyman".” - George Eliot

39. “Quassù, la sensazione che la natura ha una sua presenza psichica è fortissima. A volte, quando tutto imbacuccato contro il freddo mi fermo ad osservare, seduto su un grotto, il primo raggio di sole che accende le vette dei ghiacciai e lentamente solleva il velo di oscurità, facendo emergere catene e catene di altre montagne dal fondo lattiginoso delle valli, un’aria di immensa gioia pervade il mondo ed io stesso mi ci sento avvolto, assieme agli alberi, gli uccelli, le formiche: sempre la stessa vita in tante diverse, magnifiche forme.” - Tiziano Terzani

40. “The monkeys solved the puzzle simply because they found it gratifying to solve puzzles. They enjoyed it. The joy of the task was its own reward.” - Daniel H. Pink

41. “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

42. “Cake is happiness! If you know the way of the cake, you know the way of happiness! If you have a cake in front of you, you should not look any further for joy!” - C. JoyBell C.

43. “We all struggle alone through the ten thousand joys and ten thousand sorrows of our lives.” - Elizabeth Kim

44. “Embrace fanaticism. Harness joie de vivre by pursuing insane interests, consuming passions, and constant sources of gratification that do not depend on the approval of others” - Elizabeth Wurtzel

45. “A few minutes ago every tree was excited, bowing to the roaring storm,waving, swirling, tossing their branches in glorious enthusiasm likeworship. But though to the outer ear these trees are now silent, theirsongs never cease. -John Muir, naturalist, explorer, and writer (1838-1914)” - John Muir

46. “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

47. “Each heart knows its own bitterness and no one else can share its joy.” - Anonymous

48. “Each of you has a personal vocation which He has given you for your own joy and sanctity. When a person is conquered by the fire of His gaze, no sacrifice seems too great to follow Him and give Him the best of ourselves. This is what the saints have always done, spreading the light of the Lord ... and transforming the world into a welcoming home for everyone.” - Pope Benedict-XVI

49. “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

50. “...'joy' in Phillippians is a defiant 'Nevertheless!' that Paul sets like a full stop against the Philippians' anxiety...” - Karl Barth

51. “... but happiness is to joy as an electric light bulb is to the sun. Happiness always has an object, you're happy because of something, it's a condition whose existence depends on external things. Joy, on the other hand, has no object. It seizes you for no apparent reason, it's like the sun, its burning is fueled by its own heart.” - Susanna Tamaro

52. “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

53. “time is better for you.” - joy

54. “For one wild, glad moment we snapped the chain that binds us to earth, and joining hands with the winds we felt ourselves divine.” - Helen Keller

55. “Joy is the reflex of terror.” - Victor Hugo

56. “The news can be poison to your soul, don't let it kill your joy, be compassionate but not consumed. Be empathetic not enraged.” - Rob Liano

57. “After the rain, the sun will reappear. There is life. After the pain, the joy will still be here.” - Walt Disney Company

58. “Wondrous as it is, how simple is this mystery! To love Christ and to know that I love Him--this is all!” - Elizabeth Prentiss

59. “Some people are attracted to sickness, to the kind of madness where sparks fly off the head, to the incoherence of despair, masked by nervous energy, which winds up looking like bewildered joy.” - Luke Davies

60. “Tikrąją tavo šeimą sieja ne kraujo ryšys, o pagarba ir džiaugsmas, kuriuos randate vienas kito gyvenime. Vienos šeimos nariai retai išauga po tuo pačiu stogu.” - Richard Bach

61. “When you experience the joy of bringing joy into someone else's life, then you know what joy is.” - Nathaniel Phillips

62. “The midsummer sun shines but dim, The fields strive in vain to look gay; But when I am happy in Him December's as pleasant as May.” - John Newton

63. “People says you are not going to take anything with you at the end but people, mind that you are going to leave a lot behind you.So be precise for your deeds n trail you left. :)” - Nikunj shukla

64. “Praise is the mode of love which always has some element of joy in it.” - C.S. Lewis

65. “We can cry for years but sometimes gotta smile too.” - Aberjhani

66. “The beautiful fragrance of joy is breathtaking.” - Marie Cornelio

67. “You never know the hurt others endure in this world behind the closed windows of their life, or the joy a simple act of kindness can bring.” - Jennifer Skiff

68. “Of them all, it was the true love. Of them all, it was the best. That other sumptuous love which made one drunk, which one longed for, envied, believed in, that was not life. It was what life was seeking; it was a suspension of life. But to be close to a child, for whom one spent everything, whose life was protected and nourished by one's own, to have that child beside one, at peace, was the real, the deepest, the only joy.” - James Salter

69. “I wish you all the joy that you can wish.” - William Shakespeare

70. “Joy doesn't ever leave, you know. It's always with you. And one day you'll find it again.” - Louise Penny

71. “Last night I danced. My body rose from its slump for the first time since the beginning of sorrows—my fingers beckoning to the stars at arm's length, back arching as tingles bubbled up my spine, hips caught in a silent tempo while on tiptoe I twirled in endless euphoric circles. It didn't matter that you loved me or that you didn't. For I was wanted by the gods last night, their seraphs and muses descending on moonbeams into my midst, caressing my face and gliding their spirited arms about my waist, lifting my toes from the soil that I might feel what it is to fly without heaviness of heart. I danced with them under the glow of a loyal moon. For one brief, visceral dance I joyed as Heaven joys—in endless bliss.And the universe cherished me.” - Richelle E. Goodrich

72. “I love everything that makes up a milieu, the rolling of the carriages and the noise of the workmen in Paris, the cries of a thousand birds in the country, the movement of the ships on the waters. I love also absolute, profound silence, and, in short, I love everything that is around me, no matter where I am.” - George Sand

73. “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

74. “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

75. “Traditional corporations, particularly large-scale service and manufacturing businesses are organized for efficiency. Or consistency. But not joy. Joy comes from surprise and connection and humanity and transparency and new...If you fear special requests, if you staff with cogs, if you have to put it all in a manual, then the chances of amazing someone are really quite low. These organizations have people who will try to patch problems over after the fact, instead of motivated people eager to delight on the spot.The alternative, it seems, is to organize for joy. These are the companies that give their people the freedom (and the expectation) that they will create, connect and surprise. These are the organizations that embrace someone who make a difference, as opposed to searching the employee handbook for a rule that was violated.” - Seth Godin

76. “Joy is the holy fire that keeps our purpose warm and our intelligence aglow.” - Helen Keller

77. “Nothing that happens to you was meant to be. The only thing about you that was meant to be is you. Blaze your own trail.” - George Alexiou

78. “Success follows those who champion a cause greater than themselves.” - George Alexiou

79. “Going beyond our ordinary concept of self is what always brings us the greatest sense of joy in life. Going beyond our own boundaries brings us an ecstatic awareness of how we are truly created in connection with all that is.” - Cynthia Sue Larson

80. “That’s the thing about love It can take you up to the mountaintop and can drop you And the impact will either kill you or make you a new person” - Kehinde Sonola

81. “Every soul is beautiful and precious; is worthy of dignity and respect, and deserving of peace, joy and love.” - Bryant McGill

82. “John 14:6Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth,and the life: no man cometh unto the Father,but by me.Psalm 45:1My heart is inditing a good matter: I speak of the things which I have made touching the king: my tongue is the pen of a ready writer.” - Tamara Sanguinetti