Nothing But Joy Quotes & Sayings

Happiness celebrates how we feel, but we can rejoice over what we know is true regardless of feeling. Joy is the realization that we no longer have to live under our own power. The expression of thanks and the vocalization of delight and hope for a greater purpose that we know nothing of is fullness of joy. In that dark prison ward, the ten Boom sisters felt a pleasure not in the fleas but in the God who allowed them. They rejoiced not in the hunger and sickness but in the God who never forgets or rejects those who love Him and seek His face (p. 44). — Hayley DiMarco

By the time they were pulling into the parking lot of the A&P, the mood was fading, the moment gone. Amy could feel it go. Perhaps it was nothing more than the two doughnuts expanding in her stomach full of milk, but Amy felt a heaviness begin, a familiar turning of some inward tide. As they drove over the bridge the sun seemed to move from a cheerful daytime yellow to an early-evening gold; painful how the gold light hit the riverbanks, rich and sorrowful, drawing from Amy some longing, a craving for joy. — Elizabeth Strout

Time interval is a strange and contradictory matter in the mind. It would be reasonable to suppose that a routine time or an eventless time would seem interminable. It should be so, but it is not. It is the dull eventless times that have no duration whatever. A time splashed with interest, wounded with tragedy, crevassed with joy - that's the time that seems long in the memory. And this is right when you think about it. Eventlessness has no posts to drape duration on. From nothing to nothing is no time at all. — John Steinbeck

Why wait? So precious is this life - this gift - this temporary blindness. Burn and drown and embrace the false dark, then grasp the unthinkable height of resulting joy. For in the end, in the light of truth when the flesh is cast off, there is nothing but this. — Jennifer DeLucy

Nothing happened. And everything did. Your whole life you can be told something is wrong and so you believe it. Why should you question it? But then slowly seeds are planted inside of you, one by one, by a touch or a look or a day skateboarding in a park, and they start to burst out of old hulls shells and they start to sprout. And pretty soon there are so many of them. They are named Love and Trust and Kindness and Joy and Desire and Wonder and Spirit and Soulmate. They grow into a garden so dense and thick that it starts to invade your brain where the old things you were once told are dying. — Francesca Lia Block

Be sure to forsake, to turn away from, any teaching in the world that will demand of you a "proof of goodness" by the renouncing of earthly joys, pleasures, happiness, possessions! Forget about the creed that tells you, that what you make in this life accounts for nothing in the next one. Life on this Earth is a gift and we do not accept good gifts only to throw them away later on! Make in this life laughter, joy, pleasure, attain good things and give to others good things, too. But never let your aim be to selflessness, for at the end of the day, our responsibilities are to our own selves and to those few whom we love and who truly love us. And holiness? Holiness is happiness, holiness is joy. — C. JoyBell C.

There is a Reality which is Indivisible, One, Alone, the Source and Being of all; not a thing, nor even a mind, but pure Spirit or clear Consciousness; and we are That and nothing but That, for That is our true Nature; and the only way to find It is to look steadily within, where are to be found utmost peace, unfading joy, and eternal life itself. — Douglas Harding

When you came screaming onto this planet you were truly a bundle of joy, a wide-eyed creature incapable of doing anything but being in the moment. You had no idea that you had a body, let alone that you should be ashamed of it. When you looked around, everything just was. There was nothing about your world that was scary or too expensive or so last year as far as you were concerned. If something came near your mouth, you stuck it in, if it came near your hand, you grabbed it. You were simply a human... being. — Jen Sincero

I feel underslept but overjoyed. Nothing feels so good as this. — Johnny Rich

Look back upon winter with gratitude. Spring is the harvest of the darker months - everything you know starts to grow in darkness. Don't write and tell me that winter brought you only colds or the ubiquitous virus. Perhaps it did bring those (and to me as well). Who goes through the chilly months unscathed? But it also brought things not to be forgotten - silver moons and snow, brilliant under stars; it brought Christmas and a new year, and to each of us something happy, something unexpected, which was not another problem but a joy. For the pendulum swings; nothing is static; and the road, however long, does turn. — Faith Baldwin

These joys were so trifling as to be as imperceptible as grains of gold among the sand, and in moments of depression she saw nothing but the sand; yet there were brighter moments when she felt nothing but joy, saw nothing but the gold. — Leo Tolstoy

She sat at the window of the train ... The window frame trembled with the speed of the motion, the pane hung over empty darkness, and dots of light slashed across the glass as luminous streaks, once in a while ... She sat listening to the music. It was a symphony of triumph. The notes flowed up ... It was a sunburst of sound, breaking out of hiding and spreading open. It had the freedom of release and the tension of purpose. It swept space clean, and left nothing but the joy of an unobstructed effort. Only a faint echo within the sounds spoke of that from which the music had escaped, but spoke in laughing astonishment at the discovery that there was no ugliness or pain, and there never had had to be. It was the song of an immense deliverance. She thought: For just a few moments
while this lasts
it is all right to surrender completely
to forget everything and just permit yourself to feel. She thought: Let go
drop the controls
this is it. — Ayn Rand

Motherhood brings as much joy as ever, but it still brings boredom, exhaustion, and sorrow too. Nothing else ever will make you as happy or as sad, as proud or as tired, for nothing is quite as hard as helping a person develop his own individuality especially while you struggle to keep your own. — Marguerite Kelly

Burne was drawing farther and farther away from the world about him. He resigned the vice-presidency of the senior class and took to reading and walking as almost his only pursuits. He voluntarily attended graduate lectures in philosophy and biology, and sat in all of them with a rather pathetically intent look in his eyes, as if waiting for something the lecturer would never quite come to. Sometimes Amory would see him squirm in his seat; and his face would light up; he was on fire to debate a point. He grew more abstracted on the street and was even accused of becoming a snob, but Amory knew it was nothing of the sort, and once when Burne passed him four feet off, absolutely unseeingly, his mind a thousand miles away, Amory almost choked with the romantic joy of watching him. Burne seemed to be climbing heights where others would be forever unable to get a foothold. — F Scott Fitzgerald

We breathe too fast to be able to grasp things in themselves or to expose their fragility. Our panting postulates and distorts them, creates and disfigures them, and binds us to them. I bestir myself, therefore I emit a world as suspect as my speculation which justifies it; I espouse movement, which changes me into a generator of being, into an artisan of fictions, while my cosmogonic verve makes me forget that, led on by the whirlwind of acts, I am nothing but an acolyte of time, an agent of decrepit universes. ( ... )
If we would regain our freedom, we must shake off the burden of sensation, no longer react to the world by our senses, break our bonds. For all sensation is a bond, pleasure as much as pain, joy as much as misery. The only free mind is the one that, pure of all intimacy with beings or objects, plies its own vacuity. — Emil Cioran

Though one may acquire much in wealth, fame, or honor, the real joy of life does not lie there but, rather, in keeping the romance of living going. Nothing gives such complete and profound happiness as the perpetually fresh wonder and mystery of exciting life. — Norman Vincent Peale

We are not going to change the whole world, but we can change ourselves and feel free as birds. We can be serene even in the midst of calamities and, by our serenity, make others more tranquil. Serenity is contagious. If we smile at someone, he or she will smile back. And a smile costs nothing. We should plague everyone with joy. If we are to die in a minute, why not die happily, laughing? (136-137) — Swami Satchidananda

Many writers today are wanderers. There is not only an unhousedness in language - how to convey, to say nothing of converge - but an unhousedness of place. — Joy Williams

'Truly, truly, I tell you, if you ask anything of the Father in My Name, He will give it to you. Till now you have asked nothing in My Name; ask and you will receive, that your joy may be full' (Jn. 16:23). What a wonderful gift! It is a guarantee of unending, infinite blessings! It came from the lips of the unlimited God, clothed in limited humanity and called by the human name of Savior. The name by its exterior form is limited, but it represents an unlimited object, God, from Whom it borrows infinite, divine value or worth, the power and properties of God. — Ignatius Bryanchaninov

Perhaps i am a masochist.
No. Not Possible. If I were basically a masochist then most of my life would have been just nothing but concentrated fun. Every time I woke up, bleeding from my heart and soul, I'd find myself barely able to hide my joy. — A. L. Kennedy

We possess our body by chance and we are already pleased with it. If our physical bodies went through ten thousand transformations without end, how incomparable would this joy be! Therefore the sage roams freely in the realm in which nothing can escape, but all endures. — Zhuangzi

Horrible, this love to which he was now chained, a love without purpose and without aim, without joy and without triumph, a love that sickened, weakened, laid waste to everything, a love without sweetness and without intoxication, breeding nothing but regret and foreboding, tears and pain, hinting at the ecstasy of shared caresses only by some intolerable longing for kisses not to be wakened on cold lips, sterile and dry as dead leaves. — Guy De Maupassant

If you have nothing but love for your avocados, and you take joy in turning them into guacamole, all you need is someone to share it with. — Jason Mraz

The souls of the dead [are] not deprived of their intellectual faculties but ... they also are not lacking in feelings such as hope and sadness, joy and fear. They already have a foretaste of what is in store for them after the general judgment. Nor does it happen, as some unbelievers would hold, that upon leaving this world they are turned to nothing. Actually they live more intensely and they concentrate more on the praises of God. — John Cassian

I know, indeed, of nothing more subtly satisfying and cheering than a knowledge of the real good will and appreciation of others. Such happiness does not come with money, nor does it flow from fine physical state. It cannot be brought. But it is the keenest joy, after all; and the toiler's truest and best reward. — William Dean Howells

All this holiday cheer
Heaven knows where it goes
But it returns every year
And though this winter does nothing but storm
The joy in my heart is ablaze and it's keeping me warm! — Owl City

You are not here to fix anything, because nothing is broken, but everything is continually changing and expanding. Release your struggle, and seek joy and fun, and in doing so, you will align with the fantastic expanding rhythm of this Universe. — Esther Hicks

Everything in his life had come down to the sensation of her fingers against his. The person he was, the history he carried within himself, every joy and grief he had ever experienced, slipped way like an irrelevant garment. He was nothing but skin, speaking to another skin, and between the skins there was no need to find any words. — Kate Grenville

For years I had known joy in nothing but victories, and now I felt myself a boy again. When I had wished to climb the Great Keep, it had never occurred to me that the Great Keep itself might wish to climb the sky; I knew better now. But this ship at least was climbing beyond the sky, and I wanted to climb with her. — Gene Wolfe

The only position that leaves me with no cognitive dissonance is atheism. It is not a creed. Death is certain, replacing both the siren-song of Paradise and the dread of Hell. Life on this earth, with all its mystery and beauty and pain, is then to be lived far more intensely: we stumble and get up, we are sad, confident, insecure, feel loneliness and joy and love. There is nothing more; but I want nothing more. — Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Summer is a prodigal of joy. The grass Swarms with delighted insects as I pass, And crowds of grasshoppers at every stride Jump out all ways with happiness their guide; And from my brushing feet moths flit away In safer places to pursue their play. In crowds they start. I marvel, well I may, To see such worlds of insects in the way, And more to see each thing, however small, Sharing joy's bounty that belongs to all. And here I gather, by the world forgot, Harvests of comfort from their happy mood, Feeling God's blessing dwells in every spot And nothing lives but owes him gratitude. — John Clare

There is nothing wrong with anger. Anger is a beautiful emotion, as valid and rich as joy or laughter. But you have been taught to repress your anger. Your anger has been condemned. If anger is unexpressed, it will slowly poison you. The key is to know how to express your anger. Do not throw it out onto any one. No one is responsible for your anger. Simply express your anger. Beat up a cushion. Go for a run. Express your anger to a tree. Dance your anger. Enjoy it. — Leonard Jacobson

The universe dilated within him, above him. Something like joy stirred in Lancaster's being, a sublime ecstasy born of terror. His heart felt as if it might burst, might leap from his chest. His cheeks were wet. Drops of blood glittered on his bare arms, the backs of his hands, his thighs, his feet. Black as the blackest pearls come undone from a string, the droplets lifted from him, drifted from him like a slow motion comet tail, and floated toward the road, the fields. For the first time in an age he heard nothing but the night sounds of crickets, his own breath. His skull was quiet. — Laird Barron

We call "happiness" a certain set of circumstances that makes joy possible. But we call joy that state of mind and emotions that needs nothing to feel happy. — Andre Gide

Travis, I love you with all of my being, but I love Cassie, too. And right now she needs me more than you do. Forgive me. Meri She loved him. The wonder of the statement seeped into him, but the joy that should have accompanied the knowledge faded beneath his growing frustration and fear. How could she possibly think that anyone needed her more than he did? She was his heart, his very life. If anything happened to her . . . Travis tore the top page from the tablet and hardened his jaw. He'd just have to make sure nothing did happen. After all, if a wife was going to tell her husband she loved him, she ought to do it in person. And he aimed to see that she did precisely that. Right after he kissed the living fire out of her and showed her exactly how much he truly needed her. — Karen Witemeyer

What we would like to do is change the world
make it a little simpler for people to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves as God intended them to do. And, by fighting for better conditions, by crying out unceasingly for the rights of the workers, the poor, of the destitute
the rights of the worthy and the unworthy poor, in other words
we can, to a certain extent, change the world; we can work for the oasis, the little cell of joy and peace in a harried world. We can throw our pebble in the pond and be confident that its ever widening circle will reach around the world. We repeat, there is nothing we can do but love, and, dear God, please enlarge our hearts to love each other, to love our neighbor, to love our enemy as our friend. — Dorothy Day

Gibran says: Once I asked such a scarecrow, "I can understand the farmer who made you - he needs you. I can understand the poor animals - they don't have great intelligence to see that you are bogus. But in the rain, in the sun, in the hot summer, in the cold winter, you remain standing here: for what?" And the scarecrow said, "You don't know my joy. Just to make those animals afraid is such a joy that it is worth suffering rain, suffering sun, suffering heat, winter, everything. I am making thousands of animals afraid! I know I am bogus, there is nothing inside me, but I don't care about that. My joy is in making others afraid." I want to ask you: Would you like to be just like this bogus man - nothing inside, making somebody afraid, making somebody happy, making somebody humiliated, making somebody respectful? Is your life only for others? Will you ever look inside? — Osho

If Catherine would just let go' had been their mantra for so long. Now Mamah understood Catherine's dilemma better. She wouldn't divorce Frank because she feared he wouldn't pay her child support and alimony. And there was revenge to be sure: By refusing to divorce after twenty years of accommodating him, Catherine was squeezing recompense from Frank for a longstanding emotional debt. But that was only part of it. Catherine held on because she still loved him, and remembered what it was like to be loved by him. Nothing else in the world compared to the incandescent joy Frank brought to his best beloved. — Nancy Horan

What can we make of the inexpressible joy of children? It is a kind of gratitude, I think - the gratitude of the ten-year-old who wakes to her own energy and the brisk challenge of the world. You thought you knew the place and all its routines, but you see you hadn't known. Whole stacks at the library held books devoted to things you knew nothing about. The boundary of knowledge receded, as you poked about in books, like Lake Erie's rim as you climbed its cliffs. And each area of knowledge disclosed another, and another. Knowledge wasn't a body, or a tree, but instead air, or space, or being - whatever pervaded, whatever never ended and fitted into the smallest cracks and the widest space between stars. — Annie Dillard

You're not getting the joy out of literature that it gave you. This is the danger of what we do. Look at Hemingway and so many others. You devote your life to one thing, that is what you are. It's artificial but it's all you have. If you lose it, then you're nothing and there's no point in going on. — T.C. Boyle

True friends - those that want nothing for you but peace, harmony, and joy - sometimes more than you want it for yourself - will rise to the surface. Those are the ones to listen to and commune with. You will know their voice because it's authentic as well, and it speaks with no ulterior motives or projections. It may not tell you pretty things, but it will always speak in love. — Akosua Dardaine Edwards

God is always working to make His children aware of a dream that remains alive beneath the rubble of every shattered dream, a new dream that when realized will release a new song, sung with tears, till God wipes them away and we sing with nothing but joy in our hearts. — Larry Crabb

How do you wake up? It was one thing to know that you had been asleep all your life, but something else to wake up from it, to find out you were really alive and it wasn't anybody's fault but your own. Of course that was the problem.

All right. Everything is a dream. Nothing hangs together. You move from one dream to another and there is no reason for the change. Your eyes see things and your ears hear, but nothing has any reason behind it. It would be easier to believe in God. Then you could wake up and yawn and stretch and grin at a world that was put together on a plan of mercy and death, punishment for evil, joy for good, and if the game was crazy at least it had rules. But that didn't make sense. It had never made any sense. The trouble was, now that he was not asleep and not awake, what he saw and heard didn't make sense either.

Mishmash, he thought. You know enough to know how you feel is senseless, but you don't know enough to know why. — Don Carpenter

For me, everything is about Jesus and Father and the Holy Spirit, and relationships, and life is an adventure of faith lived one day at a time. Any aspirations, visions and dreams died a long time ago and I have absolutely no interest in resurrecting them (they would stink by now anyway). I have finally figured out that I have nothing to lose by living a life of faith. I know more joy every minute of every day than seems appropriate, but I love the wastefulness of my Father's grace and presence. For me, everything in my life that matters, is perfect! — William P. Young

We who have been hunted through the rapids of life, torn from our former roots, always driven to the end and obliged to begin again, victims and yet also the willing servants of unknown mysterious powers, we for whom comfort has become an old legend and security, a childish dream, have felt tension from pole to pole of our being, the terror of something always new in every fibre. Every hour of our years was linked to the fate of the world. In sorrow and in joy we have lived through time and history far beyond our own small lives, while they knew nothing beyond themselves. Every one of us, therefore, even the least of the human race, knows a thousand times more about reality today than the wisest of our forebears. But nothing was given to us freely; we paid the price in full. — Stefan Zweig

She was not happy
she never had been. Whence came this insufficiency in life
this instantaneous turning to decay of everything on which she leaned? But if there were somewhere a being strong and beautiful, a valiant nature, full at once of exaltation and refinement, a poet's heart in an angel's form, a lyre with sounding chords ringing out elegiac epithalamia to heaven, why, perchance, should she not find him? Ah! How impossible! Besides, nothing was worth the trouble of seeking it; everything was a lie. Every smile hid a yawn of boredom, every joy a curse, all pleasure satiety, and the sweetest kisses left upon your lips only the unattainable desire for a greater delight. — Gustave Flaubert

Book readers are special people, and they will always turn to books as the ultimate pleasure. Those who do not read are the unfortunate ones. There's nothing wrong with them; but they are missing out on one of life's compensations and rewards. A great book is a friend that never lets you down. You can return to it again and again and the joy first derived from it will still be there. — Ruskin Bond

Our dearest one. Fear nothing of the forest. There is no danger in solitude. We have no need of our brothers. Let us forget their good and our evil, let us forget all things save that we are together and that there is joy as a bond between us. Give us your hand. Look ahead. It is our own world, Golden One, a strange, unknown world, but our own. — Ayn Rand

Or can it be thought that they who heap up an useless mass of wealth, not for any use that it is to bring them, but merely to please themselves with the contemplation of it, enjoy any true pleasure in it? The delight they find is only a false shadow of joy. Those are no better whose error is somewhat different from the former, and who hide it, out of their fear of losing it; for what other name can fit the hiding it in the earth, or rather the restoring to it again, it being thus cut off from being useful, either to its owner or to the rest of mankind? And yet the owner having hid it carefully, is glad, because he thinks he is now sure of it. It if should be stole, the owner, though he might live perhaps ten years after the theft, of which he knew nothing, would find no difference between his having or losing it; for both ways it was equally useless to him. — Thomas More

So far as we know, Earth is the only planet which supports life, and it is the only planet on which we can survive. Our bodies and our minds are fashioned by it. Our hearts resonate with it. There will be little joy for the human spirit if we destroy the natural fabric of Earth with nothing left to do but go shopping. When we imagine the world a century from now, when we look our great grandchildren in the eye and see them smiling back at us because they know we cared for them, we smile too! — Bob Brown

Although Jillian had known what Grimm was before that moment, she was briefly immobilized by the sight of him. It was one thing to know that the man she loved was a Berserker-it was another thing entirely to behold it. He regarded her with such an inhuman expression that if she hadn't peered deep into his eyes, she might have seen nothing of Grimm at all. But there, deep in the flickering blue flames, she glimpsed such love that it rocked her soul. She smiled up at him through her tears.
A wounded sound of disbelief escaped him.
Jillian gave him the most dazzling smile she could muster and placed her fist to her heart. "And the daughter wed the lion king," she said clearly.
An expression of incredulity crossed the warrior's face. His blue eyes widened and he stared at her in stunned silence.
"I love you, Gavrael McIllioch."
When he smiled, his face blazed with love. He tossed his head back and shouted his joy to the sky. — Karen Marie Moning

Nothing we do is inevitable, but everything we do is irreversible. — Joy Williams

But here in my hometown, history was like a fine dust that settled out on everything. There was nothing to counter it. The culture had been hardened by a religion suspect of joy, yet fascinated by sin. Its moral acceptance of slavery eroded compassion. And gentility became a necessary pretense to cover the resentment created long ago when the North's industrial prestige trumped the agrarian South. It was not an easy place to feel lighthearted or triumphant. Nor was it an easy place to remember the beauty of wonder and awe. — Christina Carson

That his prayer was nothing else but a sense of the presence of GOD, his soul being at that time insensible to everything but Divine love: and that when the appointed times of prayer were past, he found no difference, because he still continued with GOD, praising and blessing Him with all his might, so that he passed his life in continual joy; yet hoped that GOD would give him somewhat to suffer, when he should grow stronger. — Brother Lawrence

It is certainly not then - not in dreams - but when one is wide awake, in moments of robust joy and achievement, on the highest terrace of consciousness, that mortality has a chance to peer beyond its own limits, from the mast, from the past and its castle tower. And although nothing much can be seen through the mist, there is somehow the blissful feeling that one is looking in the right direction.
- Vladimir Nabokov — Vladimir Nabokov

Change the world, I know I won't,
Enthralling as always I hope it remains,
A kaleidoscope of joy, sorrow and pain.
But my only wish as I take this jaunt,
Is for my words on you to impress upon,
A smile, a tear or even an angry frown. — Anurag Anand

But unlike sirens, selkies don't mean any harm with their songs. They don't sing to seduce or to kill. Their songs have nothing to do with anyone but themselves. They sing for the simple joy of it, and because of that, I imagine their songs are more beautiful than those of any siren. — Betsy Cornwell

I bet you didn't think I'd come back. But here I am. I come to save you. Too late, thought Edward as Bryce climbed the pole and worked at the wires that were tied around his wrists. I am nothing but a hollow rabbit. Too late, thought Edward as Bryce pulled the nails out of his ears. I am only a doll made of china. But when the last nail was out and he fell forward into Bryce's arms, the rabbit felt a rush of relief, and the feeling of relief was followed by one of joy. Perhaps, he thought, it is not too late, after all, for me to be saved. — Kate DiCamillo

That's it: watch your moods. Don't let people see you fluctuate. Don't let yourself run your mouth. Never ever cry, even alone, because your cat or your kettle might tell. Always smile, but don't laugh loudly. Mania is an extrovert, but if you need to vent, tell your mattress or maybe your therapist, but put nothing in writing and never tell a friend or coworker how you're really feeling. Downplay any problem or joy. Pay attention to any signs that your life is shitty or excellent, because either is an illusion. Be careful around men, especially ones with big arms or opinions. Stop talking. — Elissa Washuta

It's luck. All is luck when skill's played out. It was luck left me with a face that didn't fit in Contact, it's luck that's made you a great game-player, it's luck that's put you here tonight. Neither of us were fully planned, Jernau Gurgeh; your genes determined you and your mother's genofixing made certain you would not be a cripple or mentally subnormal. The rest is chance. I was brought into being with the freedom to be myself; if what that general plan and that particular luck produced is something a majority - a majority, mark you; not all - of one SC admissions board decides is not what they just happen to want, is it my fault? Is it?"

"No," Gurgeh sighed, looking down.

"Oh, it's all so wonderful in the Culture, isn't it, Gurgeh; nobody starves and nobody dies of disease or natural disasters and nobody and nothing's exploited, but there's still luck and heartache and joy, there's still chance and advantage and disadvantage. — Iain M. Banks

Nothing finite will ever satisfy us. We can go to the moon; it is a great achievement, but after a while our eyes turn beyond to Neptune. Wherever we go in space, wherever we go in time, we find limitations. Our need is for infinite joy, infinite love, infinite wisdom and infinite capacity for service, and until this need is met, we can never, never rest peacefully. — Eknath Easwaran

What magic was this, brewed from equal parts of age-old memories and total oblivion. One could have believed that the last war these people had fought had left only happy memories, had carried in its wake nothing but joy and prosperity. Women and girls were smiling as if their sons and lovers were invulnerable. — Anna Seghers

PHi2.1 If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies, PHi2.2 Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. PHi2.3 Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. PHi2.4 Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. — Anonymous

Ah! If you have a self-will in your hearts, pray to God to uproot it. Have you self-love? Beseech the Holy Spirit to turn it out; for if you will always will to do as God wills, you must be happy. I have heard of some good old woman in a cottage, who had nothing but a piece of bread and a little water, and lifting up her hands, she said, as a blessing, "What!? all this, and Christ too?" What is "all this," compared with what we deserve? And I have read of someone dying, who was asked if he wished to live or die; and he said, "I have no wish at all about it." "But if you might wish, which would you choose?" "I would not choose at all." "But if God bade you choose?" "I would beg God to choose for me, for I would not know which to take." Oh happy state! to be perfectly acquiescent, to lie passive in His hand, and know no will but His. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

The Christian God is interested in relationship with us, and not just relationship, but union, and not just union, but such a union that everything He is and has - all glory and fullness, all joy and beauty and unbridled life - is to be shared with us and to become as much ours as it is His. The plan from the beginning, in the Christian vision, is that God would give Himself to us, and nothing less, so that we could be filled to overflowing with the divine life. — C. Baxter Kruger

Down in the kitchen, I open the refrigerator. There is nothing there but the prize steer of the county fair, rearranged in neat and mysterious packages. Daily, the cook pushes her hand into the cold. The result in uncertain. A gristly Ouija. It could be pot roast or brisket, eye of the round or sirloin tip. The steer has invaded their lives. He is everywhere. There is no room for the sisters' diet-cola or for their underwear on sizzling mornings. They have been eating him for weeks. — Joy Williams

So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more dangerous to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun. — Jon Krakauer

You love him still and struggle against your love, feeling that it will undo you. He knows this and he will tempt you by every lure he can devise, every deceit he can employ. Sorrow and sin will surely follow if you yield; happiness never can be yours with him; doubt, remorse and self-reproach will kill love, and a time will come when you will find that in gaining a brief joy you have lost your peace forever. Oh, Agatha, be warned in time, do not listen to your own weak heart but to the conscience that nothing can bribe or silence. — Louisa May Alcott

I lead a bitter life, devoid of all external joy and in which I have nothing to keep me going but a sort of permanent rage, which weeps at times from impotence, but which is constant. — Gustave Flaubert

When I ask, "What are you afraid of?" I'm asking, "What is it that immobilizes you? What is stealing your joy and destroying your hope? What is robbing you of sleep, night after night? What keeps you from living by faith and being a risk taker? What keeps you from giving your life wholly to a loving God who wants nothing but the best for you? — David Jeremiah

The moment you are there You know but the moment cannot be explained for it is beyond language and expression. It is a moment of silence, joy, bliss, void, crying, dancing but nothing confirms to normal. — Maitreya Rudrabhayananda

Love is nothing but joy accompanied with the idea of an eternal cause. — Baruch Spinoza

The freedom of an unscheduled afternoon brought confusion rather than joy. Julius had always been focused. When he was not seeing patients, other important projects and activities-writing, teaching, tennis, research-clamored for his attention. But today nothing seemed important. He suspected that nothing had ever been important, that his mind had arbitrarily imbued projects with importance and then cunningly covered its traces. Today he saw through the ruse of a lifetime. Today there was nothing important to do, and he ambled aimlessly down Union Street. — Irvin D. Yalom

When a Muslim becomes a Christian, he or she is radical in their faith. The cost to serve Jesus is high, but there is so much joy and freedom in choosing Him that even if it costs you your life, the reward far outweighs the sacrifice. My sisters and I would wake at 4:00 a.m. to run to the prayer meeting, praying in heavenly language the whole way for our safety. Nothing would stop us - not rain, snow or war. We went because we loved to be free in the presence of God while at home we had to hide our faith. Our mother knew where we were going, but our father and brothers had no idea. They woke up early to go to work and assumed we were still asleep in our beds. — Samaa Habib

I have nothing to do today but to smell the freshness of flowers and feel the joy of life. — Debasish Mridha

This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence - even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust! — Friedrich Nietzsche

When I look over my past, I see that the stages in my life are like the phases of the moon. I've had periods where I was the waxing gibbous: fat with wealth and success. There have been other seasons when my happiness was like the waning crescent and I watched my joy fade away slowly, merging with the atmosphere around me as if it never existed. Then I felt as if I was left with nothing more than an illusion, but happiness returns in time and glows once more in corpulent fullness. It's time that makes the difference. — Amy Neftzger

The Vale is not real.

It's a lie told by mothers and fathers to give their starving children a reason for the horror. There is no reason.

There is nothing but this world. It is our beginning and our end. Our one chance at joy before the dark. — Pierce Brown

What had she have to wish for? Nothing but to grow more worthy of him whose intentions and judgment had been ever so superior to her own. — Jane Austen

It does not seem to be true that work necessarily needs to be unpleasant. It may always have to be hard, or at least harder than doing nothing at all. But there is ample evidence that work can be enjoyable, and that indeed, it is often the most enjoyable part of life. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Take joy in your digressions. Because that is where the unexpected arises. That is the experimental aspect. If you know where you will end up when you begin, nothing has happened in the meantime. You have to be willing to surprise yourself writing things you didn't think you thought. Letting examples burgeon requires using inattention as a writing tool. You have to let yourself get so caught up in the flow of your writing that it ceases at moments to be recognizable to you as your own. This means you have to be prepared for failure. For with inattention comes risk: of silliness or even outbreaks of stupidity. But perhaps in order to write experimentally, you have to be willing to 'affirm' even your own stupidity. Embracing one's own stupidity is not the prevailing academic posture (at least not in the way I mean it here). — Brian Massumi

I write because there is nothing as joyful as writing, even when the writing is twisted and full of hate, the self-hate that makes writing not only possible but necessary. I hate myself, I hate the people around me, but what I crave is the fulfillment of some ideal. — Gary Shteyngart

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. — Faith Hunter

Writers end up writing stories-or rather, stories' shadows-and they're grateful if they can, but it is not enough. Nothing the writer can do is ever enough — Joy Williams

I hardly dare believe it after that horrible day last summer. I have had a heart ache ever since then. But it is gone now."
"This baby will take Joy's place." Said Marilla.
"Oh, no no no Marilla. He can't, nothing can ever do that. He has his own place, my dear wee man child. But little Joy has hers, and always will have it. — L.M. Montgomery

Each new day beckons you to walk on the road of self-transcendence. We transcend ourselves, we do not compete with others. We compete only with our previous achievements, and we get joy. Life is nothing but a perpetual possibility. — Sri Chinmoy

But nothing is lasting in this world. Even joy begins to fade after only one minute. Two minutes later, and it is weaker still, until finally it is swallowed up in our everyday, prosaic state of mind, just as a ripple made by a pebble gradually merges with the smooth surface of the water. — Nikolai Gogol

I give you my solemn vow to be your faithful partner in sickness and in health, to stand by your side in good times and in bad, to share your joy as well as your sorrow," I murmur. He freezes. His only movement is to open wide his fathomless eyes and gaze at me as I continue my wedding vows. "I promise to love you unconditionally, to support you in your goals and dreams, to honor and respect you, to laugh with you and cry with you, to share my hopes and dreams with you, and bring you solace in times of need." I pause, willing him to talk to me. He watches me, his lips parted, but says nothing. "And to cherish you for as long as we both shall live." I sigh. — E.L. James

Failure isn't really an option because, as my grandmother used to say, "Nothing beats a failure but a try." — Joy Bryant

There is nothing - no circumstance, no trouble, no testing - that can ever touch me until, first of all it has gone past God and past Christ, right through to me. If it has come that far, it has come with a great purpose, which I may not understand at the moment. But as I refuse to become panicky, as I lift up my eyes to him and accept it as coming from the throne of God for some great purpose of blessing to my own heart, no sorrow will ever disturb me, no trial will ever disarm me, no circumstance will cause me to fret - for I shall rest in the joy of what my Lord is - That is the rest of victory.1 — Elizabeth George

... Or he could choose life. At that pivotal moment, it occurred to him that with all his
schooling in theology he had, perhaps, missed the entire point of his studies, the very
crux of the gospel he had professed to believe. That the measure of a person's heart, the
barometer of good or evil, was nothing more than the extent of their willingness to
choose life over death. That the path of God was, simply, the path of life, abundant and
eternal. And this is where he failed, for to choose life is to choose sorrow as well as joy,
pain as well as pleasure. When Hunter had buried Rachel, he buried along with her his
heart, lest it might heal and feel and grow again. And in so doing he had chosen more
than death, he had chosen damnation itself, for damnation is nothing more than to stop
a thing in its eternal progression. In that first flight from West Chester he had run not
only from the horror and pain of death but from life itself.
— Richard Paul Evans

Duty o'er love was the choice you did make
My love you did spurn, my heart you did break
Your penance to pay, no pride you shall gain
Three sons on three sons find nothing but pain
I gift you my powers in memory of me
The joy of love no son shall ever see
When a Lifemate is chosen by the heart of a son
No protection can be given, again I have won
His pain will be deep, her death will be swift
Inside his heart a terrible rift
Only freely given will this curse be done
To break the spell, three must work as one. — Cherry Adair

She sat listening to the music. It was a symphony of triumph. The notes flowed up, they spoke of rising and they were the rising itself, they were the essence and the form of upward motion, they seemed to embody every human act and thought that had ascent as its motive. It was a sunburst of sound, breaking out of hiding and spreading open. It had the freedom of release and the tension of purpose. It swept space clean, and left nothing but the joy of an unobstructed effort. Only a faint echo within the sounds spoke of that from which the music had escaped, but spoke in laughing astonishment at the discovery that there was no ugliness or pain, and there never had to be. It was the song of an immense deliverance. — Ayn Rand

One of the Franciscans says later, "A monk should own nothing but his harp"; meaning, I suppose, that he should value nothing but his song, the song with which it was his business as a minstrel to serenade every castle and cottage, the song of the joy of the Creator in His creation and the beauty of the brotherhood of men. — G.K. Chesterton

When we compared our dream list to our "joy and meaning" list, we realized that by merely letting go of the list of things we want to accomplish and acquire, we would be actually living our dream - not striving to make it happen in the future, but living it right now. The things we were working toward did nothing in terms of making our life fuller. — Brene Brown

When you have become willing to hide nothing, you will not only be willing to enter into communion but will also understand peace and joy. — Helen Schucman

Modern man is full of platitudes about living life to its fullest, with catchy keychain phrases and little plaques for kitchen walls. But if you've never retreated to the solitude of a dark room and listened to Beethoven's Ninth from start to finish, you know nothing. For music is a transcendental exploration of human emotion and experience, the very fabric of life in its purest form. And the Ninth our greatest musical achievement. — Tiffany Madison

What a joy to know where one is, and where one will stay, without being there. Nothing to do but stretch out comfortably on the rack, in the blissful knowledge you are nobody for all
eternity. A pity I should have to give tongue at the same time, it prevents it from bleeding in peace, licking the lips. — Samuel Beckett

In the static mode an observer may unify the pieces of a puzzle, but only as a blueprint - kinetics add the third dimention of depth, and the fourth of history. The motion, however, must be on the human scale, which happens also to be that of birds, waves, and clouds. Were a bullet to be made sentient, it still would see or hear or smell or feel nothing in land or water or air except its target. So, too, with a passenger in any machine that goes faster than a Model A. As speed increases, reality thins and becomes at the pace of a jet airplane no more substantial than a computer readout.
Running suits a person who seeks to look inward, through a fugue of pain, to study the dark self. A person afraid of the dark had better walk - strenuous enough for the rhythm of the feet to pace those of heart and lungs, relaxed enough to let him look outward, through joy, to a bright creation. — Harvey Manning

She will take your life and all you are and all you care'st for, and she will leave you with nothing but mist and fog. She'll take your joy. And one day you'll awake and your heart and your soul will have gone. A husk you'll be, a wisp you'll be, and a thing no more than a dream on waking, or a memory of something forgotten.' 'Hollow,' whispered the third voice. 'Hollow, hollow, hollow, hollow, hollow.' 'You — Neil Gaiman