Quotes about Joy

Where did our sense of beauty and pleasure come from? That seems to me a huge question—the philosophical equivalent, for atheists, to the problem of pain for Christians. The Teacher's answer is clear: A good and loving God naturally would want his creatures to experience delight, joy, and personal fulfillment. G. K. Chesterton credits pleasure, or eternity in his heart, as the signpost that eventually directed him to God:

Where did Christians get the reputation as life-squelchers instead of life-enhancers? Jesus himself promised, I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. What keeps us from realizing that abundant life?

Turn around and believe that the good news that we are loved is gooder than we ever dared hope, and that to believe in that good news, to live out of it and toward it, to be in love with that good news, is of all glad things in this world the gladdest thing of all.

One of the gifts that comes with age is an appreciation for some of the more simple, more commonplace things that seem mundane earlier in one's life. As the years pass, the hidden treasure to be found in humble and unpretentious virtues becomes more accentuated—things like rest, silence, and the joy of an ordinary day. The attraction toward activity and achievement lessens, becoming slowly, steadily, and appropriately replaced by an interest in more internal matters.

That in the midst of heartache so deep it was a physical pain, she was finding a deeper joy and contentment in life than she'd ever known.

One cannot be a good person without gratitude, and one cannot be a happy person without gratitude. This provides a vital link between goodness and happiness.

Or to put it another way, fun is during, happiness is during and after.

In all my studies of happiness, one of the most significant conclusions I have drawn is that there is little correlation between the circumstances of people's lives and how happy they are. A moment's reflection should make this obvious to anyone. We know people who have a relatively easy life and who are essentially unhappy, and we know people who have suffered a great deal but maintained a relatively high level of happiness.

Happiness is a battle to be waged and not a feeling to be awaited.

Many people seem to want this epitaph: "I led as painless a life as possible." But the purpose of life is not to avoid pain. That is the purpose of an animal's life—but animals cannot know happiness.

Everything that leads to happiness involves pain.

As the Psalmist put it millennia ago, 'Those who sow in tears will reap in joy.' Many people, however, believe that they can both sow and reap without tears.