Life has beauty and a joy that transcends all the darkness that surrounds us, that something ineffable lives beyond the ordinary affairs of the day, and that without this mystery our lives would not be worth living. --Kent Nerbern (in Cup of Compassion and Grandma's Beautiful Hat)

Intelligence and capability are not enough. There must be the joy of doing something beautiful. --Dr. Govindappa Venkataswamy (Dr. V) (in The World's Greatest Business Case for Compassion)

We have stopped for a moment to encounter each other, to meet, to love, to share. This is a precious moment but it is transient. It is a little parenthesis in eternity. If we share caring, lightheartedness, and love, we will create abundance and joy for each other. And then this moment will be worthwhile. --Deepak Chopra (in Attitude of Gratitude)

We're never so vulnerable than when we trust someone -- but paradoxically, if we cannot trust, neither can we find love or joy. --Walter Anderson (in How Vulnerability Can Be a Strength)

Gradually, you will return to yourself, having learned a new respect for your heart, and the joy that dwells far within slow time. --John O'Donohue (in The Joy of Quiet)

There is no greater joy nor greater reward than to make a fundamental difference in someone's life. -- Sr. Mary Rose McGeady (in The Kindness Boomerang)

In time of care and sorrow, keep a fountain of joy alive in you. --Dietrich Bonhoffer (in No Greater Joy: Photos from Around the World)

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was often times filled with your tears. And how else can it be? --Kahlil Gibran (in 4 Ways Happiness Can Hurt You)

Set me a task in which I can put something of my very self, and it is a task no longer; it is joy; it is art. --Bliss Carman (in 5 Principles for Inner Transformation at Work)

If you have not often felt the joy of doing a kind act, you have neglected much, and most of all yourself. --A. Neilen (in The Kindness of Strangers...Varies Around the World)

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears. --Kahlil Gibran (in In Praise of Melancholy)

Embrace relational uncertainty. It's called romance. Embrace spiritual uncertainty. It's called mystery. Embrace occupational uncertainty. It's called destiny. Embrace emotional uncertainty. It's called joy. Embrace intellectual uncertainty. It's called revelation. --Mark Batterson (in How to Get Good at Uncertainty)

Beauty is whatever gives joy. --Edna St. Vincent Millay (in The Most Beautiful Street in the World)

How do you say "thank you" for sunshine or health...for clear days or gentle rains...for happiness, joy or love? You say it by sharing what you have. You say it by making the world a better place in which to live. --Thomas D. Willhite (in Gratitude, Gifting and Grandpa)

Joy is strength. --Mother Teresa (in Jessie's Joy Jars)

To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn't always know this and am happy I lived long enough to find it out. --Roger Ebert (in Roger Ebert Goes Gently Into That Good Night)

With an eye made quiet by the power of harmony, and the deep power of joy, we see into the life of things. --William Wordsworth (in Find Your Moment of Obligation)

People have traditionally turned to ritual to help them frame and acknowledge and ultimately even find joy in just such a paradox of being human -- in the fact that so much of what we desire for our happiness and need for our survival comes at a heavy cost. --Michael Pollan (in Rituals for Wastelands)

Words are like nets -- we hope they'll cover what we mean, but we know they can't possibly hold that much joy, or grief, or wonder. --Jodi Picoult (in 11 Untranslatable Words From Other Cultures)

Who will tell whether one happy moment of love or the joy of breathing or walking on a bright morning and smelling the fresh air, is not worth all the suffering and effort which life implies. --Erich Fromm (in Mind & Mood On A Breathing Planet)

Joy in the universe, and keen curiosity about it all - that has been my religion. --John Burroughs (in Big Questions From Little People)

The present moment is filled with joy and happiness. If you are attentive, you will see it. --Thich Nhat Hanh (in Why The Capacity For Boredom Is A Good Thing)

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. --Kahlil Gibran (in A Guide To Love, Loss ... and Lucky Socks)

Listen to the joy in your heart and look at how much peace you have brought into the world before you. --Francesca (5 years old) (in The Extinction of Quiet)

The essential joy of being with horses is that it brings us in contact with the rare elements of grace, beauty, spirit, and fire. --Sharon Ralls Lemon (in Photographing Horses To Save Their Lives)

Happiness is a choice that I can make no matter how grim circumstances might seem. The joy of being alive is always attainable at some level. --Patti Pansa (in No Regrets: Living With Dying)

The source of love is deep in us and we can help others realize a lot of happiness. One word, one action, one thought can reduce another person's suffering and bring that person joy. --Thich Nhat Hanh (in Free Tea and Company: Ten Years And Counting)

There is no joy in possession without sharing. --Erasmus (in Gotta Have Sole)

Purposefulness and connectedness bring joy even amidst death, chaos, fear and loss --Rebecca Solnit (in Rebecca Solnit: Falling Together)

If there was an abundance of misery in the world, there was also sufficient joy, yes -- as long as one knew where to look for it. --Rohinton Mistry (in Sagar Kabra: A Doctor Who Strove to Light the World)

It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge. --Albert Einstein (in Parker Palmer on the Heart of a Teacher)

Believe what your heart tells you when you ask, "does this spark joy?" --Marie Kondo (in How to Only Do Things You Actually Want to Do)

All who joy would win must share it. Happiness was born a Twin. --Lord Byron (in Meredith's Joy Jars)

True joy results when we become aware of our connectedness to everything. --Paul Pearsall (in Linda Cruse: Marmalade & Machine Guns)

If you carry joy in your heart, you can heal every moment. --Carlos Santana (in Overcoming Stress By Seeing Other People's Joy)

With an eye made quiet by the power of harmony, and the deep power of joy, we see into the life of things. --William Wordsworth (in Finding Your Moment of Obligation)

The essential joy of being with horses is that is brings us into contact with the elements of grace, beauty, spirit, and fire. --Sharon Ralls Lemon (in 21 Lessons on Leadership and Love from an Uncommon Master)

Joy is the gift of love. Grief is the price of love. Anger is the force that protects it. --Valerie Kaur (in Three Lessons of Revolutionary Love in a Time of Rage)

We must turn water into air in order to live, which for us means turning our experience into something that can sustain us. It means turning pain into wonder, heartache into joy. --Mark Nepo (in Etty Hillesum: A Celebrant of Life)

Into the void of silence, into the empty space of nothing, the joy of life is unfurled. --C. S. Lewis (in The Japanese Words for "Space")

If you carry joy in your heart, you can heal any moment. --Carlos Santana (in Against Self-Righteousness)

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. -- Kahlil Gibran (in The Geography of Sorrow)

This is what rituals are for. We do spiritual ceremonies as human beings in order to create a safe resting place for our most complicated feelings of joy or trauma. --Elizabeth Gilbert (in The Power of Everyday Rituals)

Life can survive in the constant shadow of illness, and even rise to moments of rampant joy, but the shadow remains, and one has to make space for it. --Diane Ackerman (in Diane Ackerman: 100 Names for Love)

Until we define happiness for ourselves, clearly seeing the difference between excitement and joy, for example, our habits will likely not change. We will keep returning to the fruits of our desires --Judson Brewer (in A Simple Way to Break a Bad Habit)

The moment that judgement stops through acceptance of what it is, you are free of the mind. You have made room for love, for joy, for peace --Eckhart Tolle (in Accepting What Is)

There is no water in oxygen, no water in hydrogen: it comes bubbling fresh from the imagination of the living God, rushing from under the great white throne of the glacier. The very thought of it makes one gasp with an elemental joy no metaphysician can analyze. --George McDonald (in Deep Water-- A Conversation with Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee)

Joy is the holy fire that keeps our purpose warm and our intelligence aglow. --Helen Keller (in Seven Ways to Live in the Direction of Your Purpose)

Having compassion starts and ends with having compassion for all those unwanted parts of ourselves. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy. --Pema Chodron (in Meeting Our Pain With Compassion)

What if we joined our sorrows, I'm saying. I'm saying: What if that is joy? --Ross Gay (in Joining Our Wildernesses)