“There is nothing dreary or doubtful about (the life). It is meant to be continually joyful...We are called to a settled happiness in the Lord whose joy is our strength.”

“Comparing [our] blessings [with others] is almost certain to drive out joy. We cannot be grateful and envious at the same time. If we truly want to have the Spirit of the Lord and experience joy and happiness, we should rejoice in our blessings and be grateful.”

“True happiness is always self-forgetful: it loses itself in the object of its joy. As the joy of the Holy Ghost fills us, and we rejoice in God the Holy One, through our Lord Jesus Christ. [. . .]Love and joy ever keep company. Love, denying and forgetting itself for the brethren and the lost, living in them, finds the joy of God. ‘The kingdom of God is joy in the Holy Ghost.”

“Life was never meant to be serious, it was meant to be a joy.”

“But nothing in life was set in stone and nothing in life is promised us. Not happiness, not joy, not love. Everything was variable and mutable and inconstant.”

“The earthly desires men cherish are shadows. There is no true happiness in fulfilling them. Why, then, do we continue to pursue joys without substance? Because the pursuit itself has become our only substitute for joy. Unable to rest in anything we achieve, we determine to forget our discontent in a ceaseless quest for new satisfactions. In this pursuit, desire itself becomes our chief satisfaction.”