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349a94e
|
Without pain, how could we know joy?' This is an old argument in the field of thinking about suffering and its stupidity and lack of sophistication could be plumbed for centuries but suffice it to say that the existence of broccoli does not, in any way, affect the taste of chocolate.
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|
suffering
joy
chocolate
pleasures
|
John Green |
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0cc8b50
|
I don't think of all the misery, but of the beauty that still remains.
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|
joy
beauty
hope
inspirational
|
Anne Frank |
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d25a1a2
|
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 . But for woman, the climax is not in the birth, but in the moment man rests inside of her.
|
|
men
passion
women
joy
love
fulfillment
ecstasy
sensuality
sexuality
|
Anaïs Nin |
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6e92e48
|
I'd like to repeat the advice that I gave you before, in that I think you really should make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do things which you may previously never have thought of doing, or been too hesitant to attempt. 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 damaging 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. If you want to get more out of life, Ron, you must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life that will at first appear to you to be crazy. But once you become accustomed to such a life you will see its full meaning and its incredible beauty. And so, Ron, in short, get out of Salton City and hit the Road. I guarantee you will be very glad you did. But I fear that you will ignore my advice. You think that I am stubborn, but you are even more stubborn than me. You had a wonderful chance on your drive back to see one of the greatest sights on earth, the Grand Canyon, something every American should see at least once in his life. But for some reason incomprehensible to me you wanted nothing but to bolt for home as quickly as possible, right back to the same situation which you see day after day after day. I fear you will follow this same inclination in the future and thus fail to discover all the wonderful things that God has placed around us to discover. Don't settle down and sit in one place. Move around, be nomadic, make each day a new horizon. You are still going to live a long time, Ron, and it would be a shame if you did not take the opportunity to revolutionize your life and move into an entirely new realm of experience. You are wrong if you think Joy emanates only or principally from human relationships. God has placed it all around us. It is in everything and anything we might experience. We just have to have the courage to turn against our habitual lifestyle and engage in unconventional living. My point is that you do not need me or anyone else around to bring this new kind of light in your life. It is simply waiting out there for you to grasp it, and all you have to do is reach for it. The only person you are fighting is yourself and your stubbornness to engage in new circumstances.
|
|
joy
life
conformity
security
|
Jon Krakauer |
|
30beca4
|
The pain of parting is nothing to the joy of meeting again.
|
|
pain
joy
|
Charles Dickens |
|
68bb987
|
Dare to love yoursel
|
|
angel-poems
classic-books
inspiring-authors
inspiring-words
poetry
joy
inspirational-quotes
spirituality
love
inspirational
famous-quotes
poem-in-your-pocket-day
positive-motivation
classic-quotes
national-poetry-month
haikus
rainbows
rainbow
self-motivation
personal-growth
gold
self-love
grace
creative-vision
psychotherapy
haiku
self-respect
self-esteem
|
Author-Poet Aberjhani |
|
d2d92df
|
Oh, Lizzy! do anything rather than marry without affection.
|
|
integrity
marriage
feelings
self-determination
romance
joy
love
matrimony
duty
|
Jane Austen |
|
720d796
|
Joy multiplies when it is shared among friends, but grief diminishes with every division. That is life.
|
|
joy
companionship
|
R.A. Salvatore |
|
4ab94da
|
It's important that what thoughts you are feeding into your mind because your thoughts create your belief and experiences. You have positive thoughts and you have negative ones too. Nurture your mind with positive thoughts: kindness, empathy, compassion, peace, love, joy, humility, generosity, etc. The more you feed your mind with positive thoughts, the more you can attract great things into your life.
|
|
experiences
mind
thoughts
kindness
joy
empathy
compassion
inspiration
inspirational-quotes
inspire
life-quotes
living
motivation
optimistic
positive-affirmation
positive-life
inspiring
positive
positive-thinking
motivational
optimism
life
love
inspirational
generosity
belief
humility
peace
|
Roy T. Bennett |
|
12a8677
|
"But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires: To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night. To know the pain of too much tenderness. To be wounded by your own understanding of love; And to bleed willingly and joyfully. To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving; To rest at noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;
|
|
joy
love
|
Kahlil Gibran |
|
c507d83
|
"You're insane!" she shouted. "Pretty cool, huh?" "No!"Tally yelled. "Why didn't you tell me it was broken?" Shay shrugged. "More fun that way?" "More fun?" Her heart beating fast,her vision strangely clear. She was full of anger and relief and...joy. "Well, kind of. But you suck!"
|
|
joy
funny
coaster
roller
shay
tally
relief
insane
|
Scott Westerfeld |
|
ec4c9a3
|
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.
|
|
words
joy
wonder
limits
|
Jodi Picoult |
|
82a9244
|
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.
|
|
happy
joy
life
no-regrets
enjoy-life
enjoyment
fight
|
Ilona Andrews |
|
a6d5d7e
|
Joy is to fun what the deep sea is to a puddle. It's a feeling inside that can hardly be contained.
|
|
joy
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
07ebd7b
|
Joy is sometimes a blessing, but it is often a conquest. Our magic moment help us to change and sends us off in search of our dreams. Yes, we are going to suffer, we will have difficult times, and we will experience many disappointments -- but all of this is transitory it leaves no permanent mark. And one day we will look back with pride and faith at the journey we have taken.
|
|
suffering
joy
disappointment
|
Paulo Coelho |
|
b2f4ee5
|
No man ever threw away life while it was worth keeping.
|
|
suicide
joy
death
strength
optimism
life
truth
inspirational
endurance
|
David Hume |
|
779566b
|
"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."
|
|
joy
optimism
happiness
hope
life
|
Orhan Pamuk |
|
09864bb
|
Do good, live in the most positive and joyful way possible every day.
|
|
joy
inspiration
inspirational-attitude
inspirational-life
inspirational-quotes
inspire
life-and-living
life-quotes
living
optimistic
positive-affirmation
positive-life
inspiring
positive
positive-thinking
life-lessons
optimism
life
inspirational
do-good
|
Roy T. Bennett |
|
07b5c1e
|
The voice so filled with nostalgia that you could almost see the memories floating through the blue smoke, memories not only of music and joy and youth, but perhaps, of dreams. They listened to the music, each hearing it in his own way, feeling relaxed and a part of the music, a part of each other, and almost a part of the world.
|
|
youth
joy
comfort
music
|
Hubert Selby Jr. |
|
ef3888b
|
On no subject are our ideas more warped and pitiable than on death. ... Let children walk with nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyous inseparable unity, as taught in woods and meadows, plains and mountains and streams of our blessed star, and they will learn that death is stingless indeed, and as beautiful as life, and that the grave has no victory, for it never fights.
|
|
joy
beauty
death
life
inspirational
warped
victory
ideas
|
John Muir |
|
f44c822
|
Life is full of beauty. Notice it. Notice the bumble bee, the small child, and the smiling faces. Smell the rain, and feel the wind. Live your life to the fullest potential, and fight for your dreams.
|
|
joy
beauty
positive
optimism
life
inspirational
|
Ashley Smith |
|
6ad9594
|
In the vastness of space and the immensity of time, it is my joy to share a planet and an epoch with Annie. [Dedication to Sagan's wife, Ann Druyan, in Cosmos]
|
|
time
marriage
true-love
joy
science
love
immensity
vastness
wife
space
|
Carl Sagan |
|
9ba820c
|
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.
|
|
suicide
courage
joy
death
strength
optimism
life
steadfastness
endurance
|
Charlotte Brontë |
|
efa31d2
|
"I get so god damn lonely and sad and filled with regrets some days. It overwhelms me as I'm sitting on the bus; watching the golden leaves from a window; a sudden burst of realisation in the middle of the night. I can't help it and I can't stop it. I'm alone as I've always been and sometimes it hurts.... but I'm learning to breathe deep through it and keep walking. I'm learning to make things nice for myself. To comfort my own heart when I wake up sad. To find small bits of friendship in a crowd full of strangers. To find a small moment of joy in a blue sky, in a trip somewhere not so far away, a long walk an early morning in December, or a handwritten letter to an old friend simply saying "I thought of you. I hope you're well." No one will come and save you. No one will come riding on a white horse and take all your worries away. You have to save yourself, little by little, day by day. Build yourself a home. Take care of your body. Find something to work on. Something that makes you excited, something you want to learn. Get yourself some books and learn them by heart. Get to know the author, where he grew up, what books he read himself. Take yourself out for dinner. Dress up for no one but you and simply feel nice. it's a lovely feeling, to feel pretty. You don't need anyone to confirm it.
|
|
lovely
gratitude
happy
trying
feelings
depression
joy
books
learning
life-quotes
sadness
friendship
heart
heal
anxiety-disorder
being-happy
bus
december
mental-wellness
panic-attacks
minimalism
breath
deep
self-care
mindfulness
healing
prose
plan
breathing
growing-up
well
sky
worrying
worries
emotions
panic
moment
regret
learn
recovery
lonely
sad
night
mental-health
letters
|
Charlotte Eriksson |
|
42c2cd6
|
In my own worst seasons I've come back from the colorless world of despair by forcing myself to look hard, for a long time, at a single glorious thing: a flame of red geranium outside my bedroom window. And then another: my daughter in a yellow dress. And another: the perfect outline of a full, dark sphere behind the crescent moon. Until I learned to be in love with my life again. Like a stroke victim retraining new parts of the brain to grasp lost skills, I have taught myself joy, over and over again(15).
|
|
tucson
dark
joy
life
love
tide
times
taught
kingsolver
rebirth
high
|
Barbara Kingsolver |
|
57c2d13
|
Among the tales of sorrow and of ruin that came down to us from the darkness of those days there are yet some in which amid weeping there is joy and under the shadow of death light that endures. And of these histories most fair still in the ears of the Elves is the tale of Beren and Luthien
|
|
light
sorrow
joy
luthien
shadow
|
J.R.R. Tolkien |
|
2739ae9
|
"The soul is like an uninhabited world that comes to life only when
|
|
joy
spirituality
god
life
|
St. Thomas Aquinas |
|
793b39b
|
Religion can never reform mankind because religion is slavery. It is far better to be free, to leave the forts and barricades of fear, to stand erect and face the future with a smile. It is far better to give yourself sometimes to negligence, to drift with wave and tide, with the blind force of the world, to think and dream, to forget the chains and limitations of the breathing life, to forget purpose and object, to lounge in the picture gallery of the brain, to feel once more the clasps and kisses of the past, to bring life's morning back, to see again the forms and faces of the dead, to paint fair pictures for the coming years, to forget all Gods, their promises and threats, to feel within your veins life's joyous stream and hear the martial music, the rhythmic beating of your fearless heart. And then to rouse yourself to do all useful things, to reach with thought and deed the ideal in your brain, to give your fancies wing, that they, like chemist bees, may find art's nectar in the weeds of common things, to look with trained and steady eyes for facts, to find the subtle threads that join the distant with the now, to increase knowledge, to take burdens from the weak, to develop the brain, to defend the right, to make a palace for the soul. This is real religion. This is real worship
|
|
free
slavery
weak
worship
dream
joy
future
fear
heart
inspirational
development
feeling
reform
facts
purpose
gods
burden
threat
knowledge
thought
|
Robert Green Ingersoll |
|
30f3dfb
|
And yet all loneliness, angers, hatreds, envies, and itchings that (Hell) contains, if rolled into one single experience and put into the scale against the least moment of the joy that is felt by the least in Heaven, would have no weight that could be registered at all. Bad cannot succeed even in being bad as truly as good is good.
|
|
loneliness
heaven
joy
hell
|
C.S. Lewis |
|
6ec22cc
|
Dr. Suess said: 'Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened..' I tell my dates: 'Don't cry because it happened, smile because it's over
|
|
joy
sadness
optimism
happiness
life
misattributed-dr-seuss
crying
smile
smiling
|
josh stern |
|
1fb3c02
|
"A Second Childhood." When all my days are ending And I have no song to sing, I think that I shall not be too old To stare at everything; As I stared once at a nursery door Or a tall tree and a swing. Wherein God's ponderous mercy hangs On all my sins and me, Because He does not take away The terror from the tree And stones still shine along the road That are and cannot be. Men grow too old for love, my love, Men grow too old for wine, But I shall not grow too old to see Unearthly daylight shine, Changing my chamber's dust to snow Till I doubt if it be mine. Behold, the crowning mercies melt, The first surprises stay; And in my dross is dropped a gift For which I dare not pray: That a man grow used to grief and joy But not to night and day. Men grow too old for love, my love, Men grow too old for lies; But I shall not grow too old to see Enormous night arise, A cloud that is larger than the world And a monster made of eyes. Nor am I worthy to unloose The latchet of my shoe; Or shake the dust from off my feet Or the staff that bears me through On ground that is too good to last, Too solid to be true. Men grow too old to woo, my love, Men grow too old to wed; But I shall not grow too old to see Hung crazily overhead Incredible rafters when I wake And I find that I am not dead. A thrill of thunder in my hair: Though blackening clouds be plain, Still I am stung and startled By the first drop of the rain: Romance and pride and passion pass And these are what remain. Strange crawling carpets of the grass, Wide windows of the sky; So in this perilous grace of God With all my sins go I: And things grow new though I grow old, Though I grow old and die."
|
|
joy
wonder
death
life
love
old
|
G.K. Chesterton |
|
f861532
|
"A man worth being with is one... That never lies to you Is kind to people that have hurt him A person that respects another's life That has manners and shows people respect That goes out of his way to help people That feels every person, no matter how difficult, deserves compassion Who believes you are the most beautiful person he has ever met Who brags about your accomplishments with pride Who talks to you about anything and everything because no bad news will make him love you less That is a peacemaker That will see you through illness Who keeps his promises Who doesn't blame others, but finds the good in them That raises you up and motivates you to reach for the stars That doesn't need fame, money or anything materialistic to be happy That is gentle and patient with children Who won't let you lie to yourself; he tells you what you need to hear, in order to help you grow Who lives what he says he believes in Who doesn't hold a grudge or hold onto the past Who doesn't ask his family members to deliberately hurt people that have hurt him Who will run with your dreams That makes you laugh at the world and yourself Who forgives and is quick to apologize Who doesn't betray you by having inappropriate conversations with other women Who doesn't react when he is angry, decides when he is sad or keep promises he doesn't plan to keep Who takes his children's spiritual life very seriously and teaches by example Who never seeks revenge or would ever put another person down Who communicates to solve problems Who doesn't play games or passive aggressively ignores people to hurt them Who is real and doesn't pretend to be something he is not Who has the power to free you from yourself through his positive outlook Who has a deep respect for women and treats them like a daughter of God Who doesn't have an ego or believes he is better than anyone Who is labeled constantly by people as the nicest person they have ever met Who works hard to provide for the family Who doesn't feel the need to drink alcohol to have a good time, smoke or do drugs Who doesn't have to hang out a bar with his friends, but would rather spend his time with his family Who is morally free from sin Who sees your potential to be great Who doesn't think a woman's place has to be in the home; he supports your life mission, where ever that takes you Who is a gentleman Who is honest and lives with integrity Who never discusses your private business with anyone Who will protect his family
|
|
marriage
gratitude
freedom
joy
friendship
happiness
blessed
grateful
christ-like
best-choice
best-friend
god-s-plan
honorable-man
jealous-women
jim-alder
joyful
king-of-the-kingdom
life-partner
life-partners
lucky-girl
lucky-me
mate
my-husband
positive-outlook
qualities
revelations
righteous-man
spiritual-man
staying-positive
tests
the-man
winning
partner
the-best
selection
husband
dating
father
|
Shannon L. Alder |
|
61dd709
|
For what is love itself, for the one we love best? - an enfolding of immeasurable cares which yet are better than any joys outside our love.
|
|
joy
sacrifice
love
|
George Eliot |
|
33ba8e1
|
"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."
|
|
women
joy
fear
family
hope
concepts
daughters
heritage
mothers
immigration
language
perception
ideas
tradition
luck
|
Amy Tan |
|
196a390
|
There are souls in this world who have the gift of finding joy everywhere, and leaving it behind them when they go.
|
|
joy
inspirational
gift
|
Frederick William Faber |
|
e338e81
|
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!
|
|
joy
looking-no-further
the-way-of-the-cake
the-way-to-happiness
understanding-happiness
understanding-joy
inspirational-life
inspirational-quotes
life-and-living
living
happiness
life
inspirational
cake
cakes
|
C. JoyBell C. |
|
cf706a7
|
Most parents try really hard to give their kids the best possible life. They give them the best food and clothes they can afford, take their own kind of take on training kids to be honest and polite. But what they don't realize is no matter how much they try, their kids will get out there. Out to this complicated little world. If they are lucky they will survive, through backstabbers, broken hearts, failures and all the kinds of invisible insane pressures out there. But most kids get lost in them. They will get caught up in all kinds of bubbles. Trouble bubbles. Bubbles that continuously tell them that they are not good enough. Bubbles that get them carried away with what they think is love, give them broken hearts. Bubbles that will blur the rest of the world to them, make them feel like that is it, that they've reached the end. Sometimes, even the really smart kids, make stupid decisions. They lose control. Parents need to realize that the world is getting complicated every second of every day. With new problems, new diseases, new habits. They have to realize the vast probability of their kids being victims of this age, this complicated era. Your kids could be exposed to problems that no kind of therapy can help. Your kids could be brainwashed by themselves to believe in insane theories that drive them crazy. Most kids will go through this stage. The lucky ones will understand. They will grow out of them. The unlucky ones will live in these problems. Grow in them and never move forward. They will cut themselves, overdose on drugs, take up excessive drinking and smoking, for the slightest problems in their lives
|
|
broken-hearts
cutting-your-self
depression
emo
emotion
hopeless-romantic
lfe-essons
phases
romance
sorrow
joy
happiness
life
love
inspirational
childhood-trauma
teenage-love
infatuation
growing-up
helplessness
crying
parents
bullying
teenagers
trapped
childhood
|
Thisuri Wanniarachchi |
|
89d05d2
|
An infinite question is often destroyed by finite answers. To define everything is to annihilate much that gives us laughter and joy.
|
|
laughter
joy
finite
questions
|
Madeleine L'Engle |
|
682f264
|
Happiness consists not of having, but of being; not of possessing, but of enjoying. It is a warm glow of the heart at peace with itself. A martyr at the stake may have happiness that a king on his throne might envy. Man is the creator of his own happiness. It is the aroma of life, lived in harmony with high ideals. For what a man has he may be dependent upon others; what he is rests with him alone.
|
|
joy
happiness
life
ideals
|
David O. McKay |
|
eb18d70
|
If peace comes from seeing the whole, then misery stems from a loss of perspective. We begin so aware and grateful. The sun somehow hangs there in the sky. The little bird sings. The miracle of life just happens. Then we stub our toe, and in that moment of pain, the whole world is reduced to our poor little toe. Now, for a day or two, it is difficult to walk. With every step, we are reminded of our poor little toe. Our vigilance becomes: Which defines our day--the pinch we feel in walking on a bruised toe, or the miracle still happening? It is the giving over to smallness that opens us to misery. In truth, we begin taking nothing for granted, grateful that we have enough to eat, that we are well enough to eat. But somehow, through the living of our days, our focus narrows like a camera that shutters down, cropping out the horizon, and one day we're miffed at a diner because the eggs are runny or the hash isn't seasoned just the way we like. When we narrow our focus, the problem seems everything. We forget when we were lonely, dreaming of a partner. We forget first beholding the beauty of another. We forget the comfort of first being seen and held and heard. When our view shuts down, we're up in the night annoyed by the way our lover pulls the covers or leaves the dishes in the sink without soaking them first. In actuality, misery is a moment of suffering allowed to become everything. So, when feeling miserable, we must look wider than what hurts. When feeling a splinter, we must, while trying to remove it, remember there is a body that is not splinter, and a spirit that is not splinter, and a world that is not splinter.
|
|
enlightenment
mark-nepo
joy
happiness
perspective
misery
|
Mark Nepo |
|
020b056
|
Pippin glanced in some wonder at the face now close beside his own, for the sound of that laugh had been gay and merry. Yet in the wizard's face he saw at first only lines of care and sorrow; though as he looked more intently he perceived that under all there was a great joy: a fountain of mirth enough to set a kingdom laughing, were it to gush forth.
|
|
joy
inspiration
|
J.R.R. Tolkien |
|
7c55b7d
|
The modern philosopher had told me again and again that I was in the right place, and I still felt depressed even in acquiescence. But I had heard that I was in the place, and my soul sang for joy like a bird in spring.
|
|
joy
|
G.K. Chesterton |
|
1a7c393
|
Up then, fair phoenix bride, frustrate the sun; Thyself from thine affection Takest warmth enough, and from thine eye All lesser birds will take their jollity. Up, up, fair bride, and call Thy stars from out their several boxes, take Thy rubies, pearls, and diamonds forth, and make Thyself a constellation of them all; And by their blazing signify That a great princess falls, but doth not die. Be thou a new star, that to us portends Ends of much wonder; and be thou those ends.
|
|
stars
light
joy
happiness
brides
brightness
jewels
phoenix
radiance
imagery
wedding
metaphors
sun
|
John Donne |
|
ba08883
|
A great ring of pure & endless light Dazzles the darkness in my heart And breaks apart the dusky clouds of night. The end of all is hinted in the start. When we are born we bear the seeds of blight; Around us life & death are torn apart, Yet a great ring of pure and endless light Dazzles the darkness in my heart. It lights the world to my delight. Infinity is present in each part. A loving smile contains all art. The motes of starlight spark & dart. A grain of sand holds power & might. Infinity is present in each part, And a great ring of pure and endless light Dazzles the darkness in my heart.
|
|
light
joy
darkness
god
hope
dazzlement
madeleine-l-engle
eternal
eternity
|
Madeleine L'Engle |
|
7f4d4af
|
There is a wide world out there, full of pain, but filled with joy as well. The former keeps you on the path of growth and the latter makes the journey tolerable.
|
|
pain
joy
journey
|
R.A. Salvatore |
|
790ccfd
|
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 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.
|
|
sex
joy
single-sentence
|
Mark Z Danielewski |
|
f4a58d0
|
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.
|
|
madness
joy
bewildered
incoherence
sparks
nervous
energy
despair
sickness
|
Luke Davies |
|
80b7f63
|
We must never expect discretion in first love: it is accompanied by such excessive joy that unless the joy is allowed to overflow, it will choke you.
|
|
joy
love
|
Alexandre Dumas |
|
d5b9b6f
|
It was strange, I reflected.. that even in the weirdest circumstances, the most troubling episodes of one's life, the greatest divides from home and familiarity, there were these moments of undeniable joy.
|
|
joy
life
weird
|
Elizabeth Kostova |
|
6653014
|
People who shout joy from the rooftops are often the saddest of all.
|
|
joy
sadness
|
Milan Kundera |
|
95f65aa
|
Our purest form of joy comes when people we envy get hurt. That most genuine form of joy.
|
|
joy
|
Chuck Palahniuk |
|
8a61dbc
|
Tirelessly they flew on and on, and tirelessly she kept pace. She felt a fierce joy possessing her, that she could command these immortal presences. And she rejoiced in her blood and flesh, in the rough pine bark she felt next to her skin, in the beat of her heart and the life of all her senses, and in the hunger she was feeling now, and in the presence of her sweet-voiced bluethroat daemon, and in the earth below her and the lives of every creature, plant and animal both; and she delighted in being of the same substance as them, and in knowing that when she died her flesh would nourish other lives as they had nourished her.
|
|
joy
life
ruta-skadi
|
Philip Pullman |
|
ae70715
|
Where humanity sowed faith, hope, and unity, joy's garden blossomed.
|
|
history
joy
humanity
faith
spirituality
philosophy
multiculturalità
rebith
rejuvenation
remembering-september-11
teaching-diversity
world-suicide-prevention-day
multiculturalismo
famous-quotes-from-classic-books
haikus
national-history-day
personal-growth
healing
multiculturalism
americans
haiku
patriotism
|
Aberjhani |
|
36a6e21
|
People, he thought, were as hungry for a sight of joy as he had always been--for a moment's relief from that gray load of suffering which seemed so inexplicable and unnecessary. He had never been able to understand why men should be unhappy.
|
|
pain
suffering
happy
joy
happiness
relief
|
Ayn Rand |
|
39c6675
|
But does it make any sense at all to know that it ends badly for all of us, even the happiest of us, and that we all lose everything that matters in the end-and yet to know as well, despite all this, as cruelly as the game is stacked, that it's possible to play it with a kind of joy? To try to make some meaning out of all this seems unbelievably quaint. Maybe I only see a pattern because I've been staring too long. But then again, to paraphrase Boris, maybe I see a pattern because it's there.
|
|
joy
meaning
doomed
pattern
obsession
|
Donna Tartt |
|
b4b686a
|
There's light and joy, but there's also darkness all around and we can be lost in it.
|
|
joy
kit-s-wilderness
david-almond
evil
|
David Almond |
|
de993ee
|
Her room was warm and lightsome. A huge doll sat with her legs apart in the copious easy-chair beside the bed. He tried to bid his tongue speak that he might seem at ease, watching her as she undid her gown, noting the proud conscious movements of her perfumed head. As he stood silent in the middle of the room she came over to him and embraced him gaily and gravely. Her round arms held him firmly to her and he, seeing her face lifted to him in serious calm and feeling the warm calm rise and fall of her breast, all but burst into hysterical weeping. Tears of joy and relief shone in his delighted eyes and his lips parted though they would not speak. She passed her tinkling hand through his hair, calling him a little rascal. --Give me a kiss, she said. His lips would not bend to kiss her. He wanted to be held firmly in her arms, to be caressed slowly, slowly, slowly. In her arms he felt that he had suddenly become strong and fearless and sure of himself. But his lips would not bend to kiss her. With a sudden movement she bowed his head and joined her lips to his and he read the meaning of her movements in her frank uplifted eyes. It was too much for him. He closed his eyes, surrendering himself to her, body and mind, conscious of nothing in the world but the dark pressure of her softly parting lips. They pressed upon his brain as upon his lips as though they were the vehicle of a vague speech; and between them he felt an unknown and timid pressure, darker than the swoon of sin, softer than sound or odour.
|
|
sex
woman
kiss
emotion
joy
love
held
overcome
embrace
lust
lips
|
James Joyce |
|
5dc5ad2
|
"I drink to the general joy o' the whole table." Macbeth"
|
|
shakespeare
joy
life
toast
party
|
William Shakespeare |
|
5ef223a
|
Gratitude begins in our hearts and then dovetails into behavior. It almost always makes you willing to be of service, which is where the joy resides. It means that you are willing to stop being such a jerk. When you are aware of all that has been given to you, in your lifetime and the past few days, it is hard not to be humbled, and pleased to give back.
|
|
gratitude
joy
|
Anne Lamott |
|
411f2a0
|
Funfunfunfunfun!
|
|
joy
|
Tamora Pierce |
|
a622528
|
It is so good to have friends who understand how there is a time for crying and a time for laughing, and that sometimes the two are very close together.
|
|
laughter
happy
joy
friendship
true-friend
crying
sad
|
Lois Lowry |
|
362b88a
|
Individual cultures and ideologies have their appropriate uses but none of them erase or replace the universal experiences, like love and weeping and laughter, common to all human beings.
|
|
laughter
joy
humanity
angel-art
appropriate-application
common-ground
cultural-boundaries
cultural-demographics
cultural-heritage
cultural-literacy
demographics
universal-truths
ideologies
ideology-religion-war-compromise
philosophy-for-millennials
racial-division
racial-identity
social-philosophy
sociological-imagination
universal-love
cultural-differences
waging-peace
ending-violent-jihad
anti-racism
ending-war
faith-in-love
interfaith-dialogue
multiculturalismo
faith-in-humanity
peacism
antiracism
spiritual-philosophy
joy-of-life
coexistence
cultural-relativism
nonviolent-conflict-resolution
human-condition
universal
multiculturalism
love-for-humanity
diversity
universality
race-relations
weeping
human-beings
ideology
|
Aberjhani |
|
4a004bb
|
It is strange,' he said at last. 'I had longed to enter the world of men. Now I see it filled with sorrow, with cruelty and treachery, with those who would destroy all around them.' 'Yet, enter it you must,' Gwydion answered, 'for it is a destiny laid on each of us. True, you have seen these things. But there are equal parts of love and joy.
|
|
sorrow
joy
love
treachery
cruelty
manhood
|
Lloyd Alexander |
|
5eae11c
|
I needed to know that there was such a thing as love and that it brought smiles and joy in its wake.
|
|
joy
love
smiles
|
Elie Wiesel |
|
80d133f
|
Accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields. And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.
|
|
seasons
grief
sorrow
joy
life
acceptance
serenity
|
Kahlil Gibran |
|
768931d
|
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears. And how else can it be? The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. 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.
|
|
sorrow
joy
|
Kahlil Gibran |
|
b534708
|
It is a beautiful thing to be on fire for justice... there is no greater joy than inspiring and empowering others--especially the least of these, the precious and priceless wretched of the earth!
|
|
social-justice
joy
humanity
inspiration
empowerment
antiracism
black-prophetic-fire
economic-disparity
impoverishment
political-motivation
political-movements
poor-people
social-movements
social-injustice
servant-leadership
democracy
|
Cornel West |
|
6bb568f
|
I would venture to say that approaching the Christian Story from this direction, it has long been my feeling (a joyous feeling) that God redeemed the corrupt makingcreatures, men, in a way fitting to this aspect, as to others, of their strange nature. The Gospels contain a fairy-story, or a story of a larger kind which embraces all the essence of fairy-stories. They contain many marvels--peculiarly artistic, beautiful, and moving: 'mythical' in their perfect, self-contained significance; and among the marvels is the greatest and most complete conceivable eucatastrophe. But this story has entered History and the primary world; the desire and aspiration of sub-creation has been raised to the fulfillment of Creation. The Birth of Christ is the eucatastrophe of Man's history. The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the story of the Incarnation. This story begins and ends in joy. It has pre-eminently the 'inner consistency of reality'. There is no tale ever told that men would rather find was true, and none which so many sceptical men have accepted as true on its own merits. For the Art of it has the supremely convincing tone of Primary Art, that is, of Creation. To reject it leads either to sadness or to wrath.
|
|
joy
inspiration
on-fairy-stories
mythology
|
J.R.R. Tolkien |
|
c86d402
|
We read the pagan sacred books with profit and delight. With myth and fable we are ever charmed, and find a pleasure in the endless repetition of the beautiful, poetic, and absurd. We find, in all these records of the past, philosophies and dreams, and efforts stained with tears, of great and tender souls who tried to pierce the mystery of life and death, to answer the eternal questions of the Whence and Whither, and vainly sought to make, with bits of shattered glass, a mirror that would, in very truth, reflect the face and form of Nature's perfect self. These myths were born of hopes, and fears, and tears, and smiles, and they were touched and colored by all there is of joy and grief between the rosy dawn of birth, and death's sad night. They clothed even the stars with passion, and gave to gods the faults and frailties of the sons of men. In them, the winds and waves were music, and all the lakes, and streams, and springs,--the mountains, woods and perfumed dells were haunted by a thousand fairy forms. They thrilled the veins of Spring with tremulous desire; made tawny Summer's billowed breast the throne and home of love; filled Autumns arms with sun-kissed grapes, and gathered sheaves; and pictured Winter as a weak old king who felt, like Lear upon his withered face, Cordelia's tears. These myths, though false, are beautiful, and have for many ages and in countless ways, enriched the heart and kindled thought. But if the world were taught that all these things are true and all inspired of God, and that eternal punishment will be the lot of him who dares deny or doubt, the sweetest myth of all the Fable World would lose its beauty, and become a scorned and hateful thing to every brave and thoughtful man.
|
|
winter
perfection
shakespeare
true
grief
doubt
passion
nature
joy
fear
past
death
dreams
music
hope
life
love
truth
hateful
philosophies
religion-myths
scorn
sacred-books
brave
tender
fairy
haunted
pagan
king-lear
spring
woods
fable
poetic
mountains
lake
birth
smiles
deny
eternity
autumn
punishment
gods
effort
tears
questions
mystery
beautiful
throne
summer
thought
delight
william-shakespeare
pleasure
|
Robert G. Ingersoll |
|
63bada6
|
And Priests in black gowns, were walking their rounds, And binding with briars, my joys & desires.
|
|
joy
religion
love
|
William Blake |
|
3151b40
|
I have cried even when the laugh did choke me. But no more think that I am all sorry when I cry, for the laugh he come just the same. Keep it always with you that laughter who knock at your door and say, 'May I come in?' is not true laughter. No! He is a king, and he come when and how he like. He ask no person, he choose no time of suitability. He say, 'I am here.
|
|
laughter
grief
joy
|
Bram Stoker |
|
df30662
|
"The pursuit of joy in God is not optional. It is not an "extra" that a person might grow into after he comes to faith. It is not simply a way to "enhance" your walk with the Lord. Until your heart has hit upon this pursuit, your "faith" cannot please God. It is not saving faith. Saving faith is the confidence that if you sell all you have and forsake all sinful pleasures, the hidden treasure of holy joy will satisfy your deepest desires. Saving faith is the heartfelt conviction not only that Christ is reliable, but also that He is desirable. It is the confidence that He will come through with His promises and that what He promises is more to be desired than all the world."
|
|
freedom
joy
treasure
life
precious
prize
purity
peace
wholeness
everything
|
John Piper |
|
c40fa28
|
"The greatest joy is joy in God. This is plain from Psalm 16:11: "You [God] will make known to me the path of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy; in Your right hand there are pleasures forever." Fullness of joy and eternal joy cannot be improved. Nothing is fuller than full, and nothing is longer than eternal. And this joy is owing to the presence of God, not the accomplishments of man. Therefore, if God wants to love us infinitely and delight us fully and eternally, he must preserve for us the one thing that will satisfy us totally and eternally; namely, the presence and worth of his own glory. He alone is the source of full and lasting pleasure. Therefore, his commitment to uphold and display his glory is not vain, but virtuous. God is the one being for whom self-exaltation is an infinitely loving act. If he revealed himself to the proud and self-sufficient and not to the humble and dependent, he would belittle the very glory whose worth is the foundation of our joy. Therefore, God's pleasure in hiding this from "the wise and intelligent" and revealing it to "infants" is the pleasure of God in both his glory and our joy."
|
|
joy
faith
god
glory
pleasure
|
John Piper |
|
4c2ad3a
|
Each heart knows its own bitterness and no one else can share its joy.
|
|
pain
joy
scripture
|
Anonymous |
|
b74df39
|
Yes, he could walk forever. He could so easily continue to walk and all thoughts of death would fall away, absorbed by the silent snow. [...] And then he heard it, very faintly at first, but distinct just the same. He heard the snow falling gently through the air, each flake sounded distinctly different, yet just as each fell unhindered by another, so their sound did not clash or interfere with each other, but blended into a snow song that he knew very few had ever heard. And that song became louder, though always gentle, as he continued to be absorbed by the light, to become one with the light... and now there weren't any feet to leave prints, or a body or eyes to glow, but just light and sound and pure joy, pure eternal joy. No past, no future, no, not even a present, just ever new joy where there wasn't even a memory of pain or struggle or sorrow... just ever new joy...
|
|
enlightenment
joy
timelessness
|
Hubert Selby Jr. |
|
5ab42bf
|
"Yesterday it was sun outside. The sky was blue and people were lying under blooming cherry trees in the park. It was Friday, so records were released, that people have been working on for years. Friends around me find success and level up, do fancy photo shoots and get featured on big, white, movie screens. There were parties and lovers, hand in hand, laughing perfectly loud, but I walked numbly through the park, round and round, 40 times for 4 hours just wanting to make it through the day. There's a weight that inhabits my chest some times. Like a lock in my throat, making it hard to breathe. A little less air got through and the sky was so blue I couldn't look at it because it made me sad, swelling tears in my eyes and they dripped quietly on the floor as I got on with my day. I tried to keep my focus, ticked off the to-do list, did my chores. Packed orders, wrote emails, paid bills and rewrote stories, but the panic kept growing, exploding in my chest. Tears falling on the desk tick tick tick me not making a sound and some days I just don't know what to do. Where to go or who to see and I try to be gentle, soft and kind, but anxiety eats you up and I just want to be fine. This is not beautiful. This is not useful. You can not do anything with it and it tries to control you, throw you off your balance and lovely ways but you can not let it. I cleaned up. Took myself for a walk. Tried to keep my eyes on the sky. Stayed away from the alcohol, stayed away from the destructive tools we learn to use. the smoking and the starving, the running, the madness, thinking it will help but it only feeds the fire and I don't want to hurt myself anymore. I made it through and today I woke up, lighter and proud because I'm still here. There are flowers growing outside my window. The coffee is warm, the air is pure. In a few hours I'll be on a train on my way to sing for people who invited me to come, to sing, for them. My own songs, that I created. Me--little me. From nowhere at all. And I have people around that I like and can laugh with, and it's spring again.
|
|
lovely
madness
lovers
new-day
gratitude
drinking
joy
inspiration
sadness
music
songs
happiness
hope
be-okay
fine
panic-attacks
park
starving
panic-attack
chest
sound
ed
okay
self-destruction
wellness
grateful
hopeful
anxiety
alcohol
coffee
spring
well-being
art
singing
hurt
balance
sky
flowers
crying
focus
panic
sing
tears
walking
hopeless
recovery
sad
self-harm
smoking
mental-health
|
Charlotte Eriksson |
|
3169537
|
There was an agelessness about him, a stillness; on Roose Bolton's face, rage and joy looked much the same.
|
|
rage
joy
roose-bolton
stillness
|
George R.R. Martin |
|
e6c6846
|
{ } heart was fathomlessly deep, long acquainted with humility, patience, sacrifice. His little home amid the roses was austerely simple; he knew the worthlessness of luxury, the joy of few possessions. The modesty with which he wore his scientific fame repeatedly reminded me of the trees that bend low with the burden of ripening fruits; it is the barren tree that lifts its head high in an empty boast. I was in New York when, in 1926, my dear passed away. In tears I thought, 'Oh, I would gladly walk all the way from here to Santa Rosa for one more glimpse of him!' Locking myself away from secretaries and visitors, I spent the next twenty-four hours in seclusion... name has now passed into the heritage of common speech. Listing 'burbank' as a transitive verb, Webster's New International Dictionary defines it: 'To cross or graft (a plant). Hence, figuratively, to improve (anything, as a process or institution) by selecting good features and rejecting bad, or by adding good features.' 'Beloved ,' I cried after reading the definition, 'your very name is now a synonym for goodness!
|
|
mourning
grief
joy
goodness
death
sadness
science
friendship
love
burbank
luther-burbank
brotherhood
modesty
new-york
|
Paramahansa Yogananda |
|
3f8798d
|
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.
|
|
gratitude
joy
wonder
knowledge
memoir
childhood
|
Annie Dillard |
|
d581ae9
|
My contemplation is an excruciation only because it is also a joy.
|
|
joy
excruciation
|
Simone de Beauvoir |
|
be45060
|
alone, condemned, deserted, as those who are about to die are alone, there was a luxury in it, an isolation full of sublimity; a freedom which the attached can never know
|
|
freedom
joy
condemned
deserted
isolation
die
|
Virginia Woolf |
|
fca860d
|
She knew there were only small joys in life--the big ones were too complicated to be joys when you got all through--and once you realized that, it took a lot of the pressure off.
|
|
joy
quote
living
life
joys
small-joys
like-life
lorrie-moore
complicated
pressure
short-story
realization
quotes
|
Lorrie Moore |
|
d116095
|
photographs are very interesting, and you can look into them a million times and still find a new meaning in them, something in the past that was caught in the film itself...
|
|
photography
grief
loss
romance
joy
meaning
past
love
fujifilm
nikon
kodak
kodachrome
super-8
canon
photo
capture
film
knowledge
nostalgia
|
Rebecca McNutt |
|
00157f6
|
If everyone could feel as I felt at that moment, dressed in my preppy sweater and McGregor coat and about to set out on a little journey with my Bambi-eyed girlfriend on Christmas Eve, all conflicts in the world would vanish. Mellow smiles would rule the earth.
|
|
joy
relationship
happiness
love
peace
|
Ryū Murakami |
|
3cf5625
|
To know intense joy without a strong bodily frame, one must have an enthusiastic soul.
|
|
joy
soul
|
George Eliot |
|
8aff6a1
|
Man is more himself, more manlike, when joy is the fundamental thing and grief superficial.
|
|
joy
|
G.K. Chesterton |
|
6f7d11d
|
Other people's sorrows and joys have a way of reminding us of our own; we partly empathize with them because we ask ourselves: What about me? What does that say about my life, my pains, my anguish?
|
|
pain
sorrow
joy
empathy
life
|
Azar Nafisi |
|
661623e
|
No one was ever born without that light or flame of life. Some event, some person stifles or drowns it altogether. I was always tempted to resuscitate such men by my own joyousness or luminosity. When I break glasses in a night club, as the Russians do, when my unconscious breaks out in wild rebellions, it is against life which has crippled these idealistic, romantic men. I respect these men, cold, pure, faithful, devoted, moral, delicate, sensitive, and unequal to life, more than I respect the tough-minded ones who return three blows to one received, who kill those who hurt them.
|
|
joy
life
|
Anaïs Nin |
|
91f130e
|
"It's the same struggle for each of us, and the same path out: the utterly simple, infinitely wise ultimately defiant act of loving one thing and then another, loving our way back to life... Maybe being perfectly happy is not really the point. Maybe that is only some modern American dream of the point, while the truer measure of humanity is the distance we must travel in our lives, time and again, "twixt two extremes of passion--joy and grief," as Shakespeare put it. However much I've lost, what remains to me is that I can still speak to name the things I love. And I can look for safety in giving myself away to the world's least losable things."
|
|
grief
joy
life
love
salvation
|
Barbara Kingsolver |
|
4891e71
|
What she wants to say has to do not only with joy but with the penetrating, constant fear that is joy's other half.
|
|
joy
love
|
Michael Cunningham |
|
4d7f0fd
|
Charles Wallace and the unicorn moved through the time-spinning reaches of a far glazy, and he realized that the galaxy itself was part of a mighty orchestra, and each star and planet within the galaxy added its own instrument to the music of the spheres. As long as the ancient harmonies were sung, the universe would not entirely lose its joy.
|
|
universe
stars
joy
music
musical-instrument
orchestra
planet
singing
harmony
|
Madeleine L'Engle |
|
0854ec2
|
Now, remember: they're not for eating, but for listening, because you'll often be hungry for sounds as well as food. Here are street noises at night, train whistles from a long way off, dry leaves burning, busy department stores, crunching toast, creaking bed springs, and of course, all kinds of laughter. There's a little of each, and in far off, lonely places, I think you will be glad to have them.
|
|
joy
sounds
|
Norton Juster |
|
a692565
|
we got out of the car for air and suddenly both of us were stoned with joy to realize that in the darkness all around us was fragrant green grass and the smell of fresh manure and warm waters. 'We're in the South! We've left the winter!' Faint daybreak illuminated green shoots by the side of the road. I took a deep breath; a locomotive howled across the darkness, mobile-bound. So were we. I took off my shirt and exulted
|
|
joy
life
stoned
south
|
Jack Kerouac |
|
435a3d6
|
Spring is made of solid, fourteen-karat gratitude, the reward for the long wait. Every religious tradition from the northern hemisphere honors some form of April hallelujah, for this is the season of exquisite redemption, a slam-bang return to joy after a season of cold second thoughts.
|
|
joy
spring
|
Barbara Kingsolver |
|
42c0866
|
And in that moment of sun and joy, Lupe knew why she loved and also hated Salvador. He gave her wings. He didn't try to lock her in, as had Jaime and the other boys she'd known. No, she could dream her wildest dreams with him and so she loved him for this; but she also hated him because it made her fearful. No one in her family was like this. They were always very cautious.
|
|
freedom
joy
fear
happiness
love
|
Victor Villaseñor |
|
c1cbad0
|
Long looking with admiration produces change. From your heroes you pick up mannerisms and phrases and tones of voice and facial expressions and habits and demeanors and convictions and beliefs. The more admirable the hero is and the more intense your admiration is, the more profound will be your transformation. In the case of Jesus, he is infinitely admirable, and our admiration rises to the most absolute worship. Therefore, when we behold him as we should, the change is profound.
|
|
worship
joy
god
sanctification
|
John Piper |
|
42813be
|
"And so silence and ...darkness hold happiness and joy?" he said softly. "Assuredly," she said, "provided one listens to the silence and gazes deeply into the darkness. Everything is there. Everything."
|
|
silence
joy
listen
|
Mary Balogh |
|
cba8d3e
|
At first sight, joy seems to be connected with being different. When you receive a compliment or win an award, you experience the joy of not being the same as others. You are faster, smarter, more beautiful, and it is that difference that brings you joy. But such joy is very temporary. True joy is hidden where we are the same as other people: fragile and mortal. It is the joy of belonging to the human race. It is the joy of being with others as a friend, a companion, a fellow traveler. This is the joy of Jesus, who is Emmanuel: God-with-us.
|
|
joy
jesus
immanuel
|
Henri J.M. Nouwen |
|
ca3adc4
|
He's not really struggling even for material wealth, but for the second-hander's delusion--prestige. A stamp of approval, not his own. He can find no joy in the struggle and no joy when he has succeeded.
|
|
joy
the-fountainhead
|
Ayn Rand |
|
60b729b
|
"I have often noticed that these things, which obsess me, neither bother nor impress other people even slightly. I am horribly apt to approach some innocent at a gathering, and like the ancient mariner, fix him with a wild, glitt'ring eye and say, "Do you know that in the head of the caterpillar of the ordinary goat moth there are two hundred twenty-eight separate muscles?" The poor wretch flees. I am not making chatter; I mean to change his life."
|
|
fate
seeing
free
light
poem
prayer
nature
poetry
freedom
joy
spirit
wonder
faith
beauty
religion
science
god
philosophy
enoughness
exultant
illumination
intricacy
joyfulness
living-in-the-present-moment
religious-diversity
stalking-the-gaps
the-tree-with-the-lights-in-it
gaps
philosopher-s-stone
multiplicity
praying
prayers
hallelujah
life-force
seeking
exploration
praise
joyful
mindfulness
epiphany
tolerance
grace
energy
disbelief
watching
growth
belief
fearless
humility
consciousness
walking
fire
mystery
curiosity
power
soul
poet
creation
|
Annie Dillard |
|
091bf2a
|
Man is fond of reckoning up his troubles, but does not count his joys.
|
|
joy
happiness
|
Fyodor Dostoyevsky |
|
f8e7110
|
...but most of all he liked to listen to stories of real life. He smiled gleefully as he listened to such stories, putting in words and asking questions, all aiming at bringing out clearly the moral beauty of the action of which he was told. Attachments, friendships, love, as Pierre understood them, Karataev had none, but he loved and lived on affectionate terms with every creature with whom he was thrown in life, and especially so with man- not with any particular man, but with the men that happened to be before his eyes. But his life, as he looked at it, had no meaning as a separate life. It only had meaning as part of a whole, of which he was at all times conscious.
|
|
joy
|
Leo Tolstoy |
|
74f3e14
|
Begin each day with God. It will change your priorities.
|
|
joy
faith
change
god
hope
love
day
priorities
start
christian
|
Elizabeth George |
|
6478149
|
A kind of northing is what I wish to accomplish, a single-minded trek towards that place where any shutter left open to the zenith at night will record the wheeling of all the sky's stars as a pattern of perfect, concentric circles. I seek a reduction, a shedding, a sloughing off. At the seashore you often see a shell, or fragment of a shell, that sharp sands and surf have thinned to a wisp. There is no way you can tell what kind of shell it had been, what creature it had housed; it could have been a whelk or a scallop, a cowrie, limpet, or conch. The animal is long since dissolved, and its blood spread and thinned in the general sea. All you hold in your hand is a cool shred of shell, an inch long, pared so thin that it passes a faint pink light. It is an essence, a smooth condensation of the air, a curve. I long for the North where unimpeded winds would hone me to such a pure slip of bone. But I'll not go northing this year. I'll stalk that floating pole and frigid air by waiting here. I wait on bridges; I wait, struck, on forest paths and meadow's fringes, hilltops and banksides, day in and day out, and I receive a southing as a gift. The North washes down the mountains like a waterfall, like a tidal wave, and pours across the valley; it comes to me. It sweetens the persimmons and numbs the last of the crickets and hornets; it fans the flames of the forest maples, bows the meadow's seeded grasses and pokes it chilling fingers under the leaf litter, thrusting the springtails and the earthworms deeper into the earth. The sun heaves to the south by day, and at night wild Orion emerges looming like the Specter over Dead Man Mountain. Something is already here, and more is coming.
|
|
fate
seeing
free
light
poem
prayer
nature
poetry
freedom
joy
spirit
wonder
faith
beauty
religion
science
god
philosophy
ring-the-bells
enoughness
exultant
illumination
intricacy
joyfulness
living-in-the-present-moment
religious-diversity
stalking-the-gaps
the-tree-with-the-lights-in-it
gaps
philosopher-s-stone
multiplicity
praying
prayers
hallelujah
life-force
seeking
exploration
praise
joyful
mindfulness
epiphany
tolerance
grace
energy
disbelief
watching
growth
belief
fearless
humility
consciousness
walking
fire
mystery
curiosity
power
soul
poet
creation
|
Annie Dillard |
|
7c1e0bb
|
And because she worshipped joy, Kira seldom laughed and did not go to see comedies in theaters. And because she felt a profound rebellion against the weighty, the tragic, the solemn, Kira had a solemn reverence for those songs of defiant gaiety.
|
|
rebellion
joy
defiance
reverence
tragic
|
Ayn Rand |
|
b2992e1
|
...childlike wonder and awe have died. The scenery and poetry and music of the majesty of God have dried up like a forgotten peach at the back of the refrigerator.
|
|
simile
worship
joy
similes
|
John Piper |
|
c31a4a3
|
The artist cannot hold back; it is impossible, because writing, or any other discipline of art, involves participation in suffering, in the ills and the occasional stabbing joys that come from being part of the human drama.
|
|
pain
joy
drama
|
Madeleine L'Engle |
|
5719693
|
Let us do without soldiers. The joy built upon successful slaughter is not the right kind of joy; it will not do; it is fearful and it is trivial.
|
|
war
joy
|
Ursula K. Le Guin |
|
075c0f6
|
"Extreme joy and extreme sorrow are indistinguishable beyond a certain point. ("Jane Brown's Body")"
|
|
sorrow
joy
|
Cornell Woolrich |
|
36ea6e8
|
I was delighted to see you again, and forgot for the moment that all happiness is fleeting.
|
|
joy
reunion
|
Alexandre Dumas |
|
66df5db
|
Wisdom is the God-given ability to see life with rare objectivity and to handle life with rare stability.
|
|
joy
faith
god
life
love
wisdom
point-of-view
stable
view
stability
objectivity
see
christian
peace
|
Elizabeth George |
|
86899e7
|
A mothers greatest joy in having a child is to give that child fully and freely to God.
|
|
woman
free
joy
god
christian
mom
mother
|
Elizabeth George |
|
0afc43b
|
We must pray in order to grow, and we must grow because Infinite Love will not, cannot, settle for less than the greatest joy of which his beloved creature is capable.
|
|
prayer
joy
god
love
|
Peter Kreeft |
|
fee0a2d
|
Henry had written a novel because there was a hole in him that needed filling, a question that needed answering, a patch of canvas that needed painting--that blend of anxiety, curiosity and joy that is at the origin of art--and he had filled the hole, answered the question, splashed colour on the canvas, all done for himself, because he had to. Then complete strangers told him that his book had filled a hole in them, had answered a question, had brought colour to their lives. The comfort of strangers, be it a smile, a pat on the shoulder or a word of praise, is truly a comfort.
|
|
writing-life
writer
joy
writing
life
inspirational
writers-on-writing
book
painting
strangers
curiosity
creativity
|
Yann Martel |
|
3a7aba7
|
Truth is neither joyful nor sad, neither good nor bad. It is simply truth.
|
|
good
joy
truth
sad
|
Robert Ludlum |
|
d34484e
|
Shout to the top!
|
|
happy
fun
joy
life
shout
cheer
protest
voice
|
Rebecca McNutt |
|
1f51588
|
"Alex here. (...) Ron, I really enjoy all the help you have given me and the times we spent together. I hope that you will not be too depressed by our parting. It may be a very long time before we see each other again. But providing that I get through the Alaskan Deal in one piece you will be hearing form me again in the future. I'd like to repeat the advice I gave you before, in that I think you really should make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do things which you may previously never have thought of doing or been to hesitant to attempt. 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 piece of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging 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. (...) Once you become accustomed to such a life you will see its full meaning and its incredible beauty. (...) Don't settle down and sit in one place. Move around, be nomadic, make each day a new horizon. (...) You are wrong if you think joy emanates only or principally from human relationships. God has placed it all around us. It is in everything and anything we might experience. We just have to have the courage to turn against our habitual lifestyle and engage in unconventional living. Ron, I really hope that as soon as you can you will get out of Salton City, put a little camper on the back of your pickup, and start seeing some of the great work that God has done here in the American West. you will see things and meet people and there is much to learn from them. And you must do it economy style, no motels, do your own cooking, as a general rule spend as little as possible and you will enjoy it much more immensely. I hope that the next time I see you, you will be a new man with a vast array of new adventures and experiences behind you. Don't hesitate or allow yourself to make excuses. Just get out and do it. Just get out and do it. You will be very, very glad that you did.
|
|
courage
nature
joy
life
inspirational
new-experiences
into-the-wild
changes
|
Jon Krakauer |
|
a2a0369
|
In order to understand the intensity of ritual forms, one must rid oneself of the idea that all happiness derives from nature, and all pleasure from the satisfaction of a desire. On the contrary, games, the sphere of play, reveal a passion for rules, a giddiness born of rules, and a force that comes from ceremony, and not desire.
|
|
sex
fun
joy
religion
play
seduction
games
pleasure
rules
|
Jean Baudrillard |
|
5322620
|
"Oh, I'm Chrissy Mackenzie, I'm from Vancouver but I came here to study environmental journalism," the girl exclaimed with way too much enthusiasm. "You got any advice?" "Search me," Mandy muttered, spooning another ice cube from the empty glass on the table in front of her. "I like pollution, I write in favor of it, and environmental journalism most often implies that it's in favor of all that "go green" hippie crap." "Oh, well...." Chrissy seemed taken aback, offended, and Mandy sighed a fourth time. "Damn it, I'm really sorry," she apologized, smiling dismally at the aspiring writer. "It's just been a really lousy day for me and I wasn't really thinking. My advice? Find your own cause to represent, not one thrown out into society by a ton of environmentalist dopes. Find something new, something you think could be improved, and work from there." Chrissy smiled with a look of total ecstasy as if the words of some nobody woman were important. Mandy momentarily noticed the groups of laughing, drunk, giggling people, all acting childish... and for a moment she wished she could be them."
|
|
world
joy
change
hope
drea
environmntal
gol
ice-cube
vancouver
cape-breton
nova-scotia
hippie
journalist
pollution
improve
friend
peace
drunk
sad
|
Rebecca McNutt |
|
581d398
|
Life is so funny sometimes that you just have to laugh.
|
|
live
happy
joy
funny
life
laugh
|
Rebecca McNutt |
|
b4c65f6
|
Once I started trying to give positive reviews, though, I began to understand how much happiness I took from the joyous ones in my life---and how much effort it must take for them to be consistently good=tempered and positive. It is easy to be heavy; hard to be light. We nonjoyous types suck energy and cheer from the joyous ones; we rely on them to buoy us with their good spirit and to cushion our agitation and anxiety. At the same time, because of a dark element in human nature, we're sometimes provoked to try to shake the enthusiastic, cheery folk out of their fog of illusion---to make them see that the play was stupid, the money was wasted, the meeting was pointless. Instead of shielding their joy, we blast it.
|
|
joy
optimism
pessimism
|
Gretchen Rubin |
|
c33222a
|
You can have all the money in the world, one of the biggest mansions ever built, be one of the most famous people in the world, and still be as unhappy as Mariah Carey was. Money and fame don't make people happy. Only God does. Amen.
|
|
money
joy
god
success
love
mansion
worldly
mariah-carey
unhappy
fame
peace
popularity
|
Lisa Bedrick |
|
f1f3c26
|
"In the forty minutes I watched the muskrat, he never saw me, smelled me, or heard me at all. When he was in full view of course I never moved except to breathe. My eyes would move, too, following his, but he never noticed. Only once, when he was feeding from the opposite bank about eight feet away did he suddenly rise upright, all alert- and then he immediately resumed foraging. But he never knew I was there. I never knew I was there, either. For that forty minutes last night I was as purely sensitive and mute as a photographic plate; I received impressions, but I did not print out captions. My own self-awareness had disappeared; it seems now almost as though, had I been wired to electrodes, my EEG would have been flat. I have done this sort of thing so often that I have lost self-consciousness about moving slowly and halting suddenly. And I have often noticed that even a few minutes of this self-forgetfulness is tremendously invigorating. I wonder if we do not waste most of our energy just by spending every waking minute saying hello to ourselves. Martin Buber quotes an old Hasid master who said, "When you walk across the field with your mind pure and holy, then from all the stones, and all growing things, and all animals, the sparks of their souls come out and cling to you, and then they are purified and become a holy fire in you."
|
|
fate
seeing
free
light
poem
prayer
nature
poetry
freedom
joy
spirit
wonder
faith
beauty
religion
science
god
philosophy
ring-the-bells
enoughness
exultant
illumination
intricacy
joyfulness
living-in-the-present-moment
religious-diversity
stalking-the-gaps
the-tree-with-the-lights-in-it
gaps
philosopher-s-stone
multiplicity
praying
prayers
hallelujah
life-force
seeking
exploration
praise
joyful
mindfulness
epiphany
tolerance
grace
energy
disbelief
watching
growth
belief
fearless
humility
consciousness
walking
fire
mystery
curiosity
power
soul
poet
creation
|
Annie Dillard |
|
7879b53
|
I want to think about trees. Trees have a curious relationship to the subject of the present moment. There are many created things in the universe that outlive us, that outlive the sun, even, but I can't think about them. I live with trees. There are creatures under our feet, creatures that live over our heads, but trees live quite convincingly in the same filament of air we inhabit, and in addition, they extend impressively in both directions, up and down, shearing rock and fanning air, doing their real business just out of reach.
|
|
fate
seeing
free
light
poem
prayer
nature
poetry
freedom
joy
spirit
wonder
faith
beauty
religion
science
god
philosophy
enoughness
exultant
illumination
intricacy
joyfulness
living-in-the-present-moment
religious-diversity
stalking-the-gaps
the-tree-with-the-lights-in-it
gaps
philosopher-s-stone
multiplicity
praying
prayers
hallelujah
life-force
seeking
exploration
praise
joyful
mindfulness
epiphany
tolerance
grace
energy
disbelief
watching
trees
growth
belief
fearless
humility
consciousness
walking
fire
mystery
curiosity
power
soul
poet
creation
|
Annie Dillard |
|
9b573e9
|
"The color-patches of vision part, shift, and reform as I move through space in time. The present is the object of vision, and what I see before me at any given second is a full field of color patches scattered just so. The configuration will never be repeated. Living is moving; time is a live creek bearing changing lights. As I move, or as the world moves around me, the fullness of what I see shatters. "Last forever!" Who hasn't prayed that prayer? You were lucky to get it in the first place. The present is a freely given canvas. That it is constantly being ripped apart and washed downstream goes without saying; it is a canvas, nevertheless. But there is more to the present than a series of snapshots. We are not merely sensitized film; we have feelings, a memory for information and an eidetic memory for the imagery of our pasts. Our layered consciousness is a tiered track for an unmatched assortment of concentrically wound reels. Each one plays out for all of life its dazzle and blur of translucent shadow-pictures; each one hums at every moment its own secret melody in its own unique key. We tune in and out. But moments are not lost. Time out of mind is time nevertheless, cumulative, informing the present. From even the deepest slumber you wake with a jolt- older, closer to death, and wiser, grateful for breath. But time is the one thing we have been given, and we have been given to time. Time gives us a whirl. We keep waking from a dream we can't recall, looking around in surprise, and lapsing back, for years on end. All I want to do is stay awake, keep my head up, prop my eyes open, with toothpicks, with trees."
|
|
fate
seeing
free
light
poem
prayer
nature
poetry
freedom
joy
spirit
wonder
faith
beauty
religion
science
god
philosophy
enoughness
exultant
illumination
intricacy
joyfulness
living-in-the-present-moment
religious-diversity
stalking-the-gaps
the-tree-with-the-lights-in-it
gaps
philosopher-s-stone
multiplicity
praying
prayers
hallelujah
life-force
seeking
exploration
praise
joyful
mindfulness
epiphany
tolerance
grace
energy
disbelief
watching
growth
belief
fearless
humility
consciousness
walking
fire
mystery
curiosity
power
soul
poet
creation
|
Annie Dillard |
|
b33a883
|
The memory of the pain did not destroy the reality of the pleasure; grief did not obliterate joy.
|
|
pain
memories
joy
reality
inspirational
past-and-present
memory
pleasure
|
Orson Scott Card |
|
e5e95ef
|
Let me be cursed, let me be base and vile, but let me also kiss the hem of that garment in which my God is clothed; let me be following the devil at the same time, but still I am also your son, Lord, and I love you, and I feel a joy without which the world cannot stand and be.
|
|
joy
faith
god
love
devil
evil
|
Fyodor Dostoyevsky |
|
84abdf0
|
I will not stop singing the Muses who set me dancing.
|
|
tragedy
writer
poetry
joy
work
inspiration
inspirational-quotes
happiness
life
love
euripides
muses
dancing
sing
creativity
poet
|
Anne Carson |
|
ca2349a
|
How is there laughter, how is there joy, as this world is always burning?
|
|
joy
sadness
life
|
Jack Kerouac |
|
0af3153
|
"All his life Harry Bosch believed he had a mission. And to carry out that mission he needed to be bulletproof. He needed to build himself and his life so that he was invulnerable, so that nothing and no one could ever get to him. All of that changed on the day he was introduced to the daughter he didn't know he had. In that moment he knew he was both saved and lost. He would be forever connected to the world in the way only a father knew. - "Nine Dragons" by Michael Connelly"
|
|
joy
fear
love
vulnerability
|
Michael Connelly |
|
26f7058
|
And who knows, thought Cadfael, which is in the right, the young man who sees the best in all, and trusts all, or the old one who suspects all until he has probed them through and through? The one may stumble into a snare now and then, but at least enjoy sunshine along the way, between falls. The other may never miss his footing, but seldom experience joy. Better find a way somewhere between!
|
|
youth
joy
trust
|
Ellis Peters |
|
0e251f7
|
that palpable sense of Friday joy, everyone colluding with the lie that somehow the weekend would be amazing and that, next week, work would be different, better. They never learn.
|
|
joy
never
lie
learn
|
Gail Honeyman |
|
07ec12b
|
For most people there is a fascinating inconsistency in the position of St. Francis. He expressed in loftier and bolder language than any earthly thinker the conception that laughter is as divine as tears. He called his monks the mountebanks of God. He never forgot to take pleasure in a bird as it flashed past him, or a drop of water as it fell from his finger; he was perhaps the happiest of the sons of men. Yet this man undoubtedly founded his whole polity on the negation of what we think of the most imperious necessities; in his three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience he denied to himself, and those he loved most, property, love, and liberty. Why was it that the most large-hearted and poetic spirits in that age found their most congenial atmosphere in these awful renunciations? Why did he who loved where all men were blind, seek to blind himself where all men loved? Why was he a monk and not a troubadour? We have a suspicion that if these questions were answered we should suddenly find that much of the enigma of this sullen time of ours was answered also.
|
|
joy
hope
love
saints
|
G.K. Chesterton |
|
e10680f
|
"Today is the winter solstice. The planet tilts just so to its star, lists and holds circling in a fixed tension between veering and longing, and spins helpless, exalted, in and out of that fleet blazing touch. Last night Orion vaulted and spread all over the sky, pagan and lunatic, his shoulder and knee on fire, his sword three suns at the ready-for what? I won't see this year again, not again so innocent; and longing wrapped round my throat like a scarf. "For the Heavenly Father desires that we should see," says Ruysbroeck, "and that is why He is ever saying to our inmost spirit one deep unfathomable word and nothing else." But what is the word? Is this mystery or coyness? A cast-iron bell hung from the arch of my rib cage; when I stirred, it rang, or it tolled, a long syllable pulsing ripples up my lungs and down the gritty sap inside my bones, and I couldn't make it out; I felt the voiced vowel like a sigh or a note but I couldn't catch the consonant that shaped it into sense."
|
|
fate
seeing
free
light
poem
prayer
nature
poetry
freedom
joy
spirit
wonder
faith
beauty
religion
science
god
philosophy
ring-the-bells
enoughness
exultant
illumination
intricacy
joyfulness
living-in-the-present-moment
religious-diversity
stalking-the-gaps
the-tree-with-the-lights-in-it
gaps
philosopher-s-stone
multiplicity
praying
prayers
hallelujah
life-force
seeking
exploration
praise
joyful
mindfulness
epiphany
tolerance
grace
energy
disbelief
watching
growth
belief
fearless
humility
consciousness
walking
fire
mystery
curiosity
power
soul
longing
poet
creation
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Annie Dillard |
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b5cdf26
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One of pleasures of parenting, future reader: parent can positively influence kid, make moment kid will remember for rest of life, moment that alters his/her trajectory, opens up his/her heart + mind.
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joy
parenting
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George Saunders |
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b424be9
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While the light remains,' said Carde, speaking slowly in his high deliberate voice, 'only do not forsake the joy of life. If you shall have given all your kisses, you will give too few. And as leaves fall from withered wreaths which you may see spread upon the cups and floating there, so for us, who now as lovers hope for so much, perhaps tomorrow's day will close the doom.
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light
joy
wreaths
tomorrow
kisses
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Iris Murdoch |
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6a8a9eb
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When one grows older one learns that happiness--complete and unadulterated happiness--comes only in moments, and must be recognized and savored to the full, for even in the happiest life, the complete joy is not always present.
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joy
life
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Victoria Holt |
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d90ee72
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It looked as though the leaves of the autumn forest had taken flight, and were pouring down the valley like a waterfall, like a tidal wave, all the leaves of the hardwoods from here to Hudson's Bay. It was as if the season's colors were draining away like lifeblood, as if the year were molting and shedding. The year was rolling down, and a vital curve had been reached, the tilt that gives way to headlong rush. And when the monarch butterflies had passed and were gone, the skies were vacant, the air poised. The dark night into which the year was plunging was not a sleep but an awakening, a new and necessary austerity, the sparer climate for which I longed. The shed trees were brittle and still, the creek light and cold, and my spirit holding its breath.
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fate
seeing
free
light
poem
prayer
nature
poetry
freedom
joy
spirit
wonder
faith
beauty
religion
science
god
philosophy
ring-the-bells
enoughness
exultant
illumination
intricacy
joyfulness
living-in-the-present-moment
religious-diversity
stalking-the-gaps
the-tree-with-the-lights-in-it
gaps
philosopher-s-stone
multiplicity
praying
prayers
hallelujah
life-force
seeking
exploration
praise
joyful
mindfulness
epiphany
tolerance
grace
energy
disbelief
watching
growth
belief
fearless
humility
consciousness
walking
fire
mystery
curiosity
power
soul
poet
creation
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Annie Dillard |
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3601f72
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Yet for some reason, we as a society have collectively decided it's better to have millions of human beings spending years of their lives pretending to type into spreadsheets or preparing mind maps for PR meetings than freeing them to knit sweaters, play with their dogs, start a garage band, experiment with new recipes, or sit in cafes arguing about politics, and gossiping about their friends' complex polyamorous love affairs.
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joy
time-allocation
productivity
society
purpose
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David Graeber |
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b488979
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"All at once, something wonderful happened, although at first, it seemed perfectly ordinary. A female goldfinch suddenly hove into view. She lighted weightlessly on the head of a bankside purple thistle and began emptying the seedcase, sowing the air with down. The lighted frame of my window filled. The down rose and spread in all directions, wafting over the dam's waterfall and wavering between the tulip trunks and into the meadow. It vaulted towards the orchard in a puff; it hovered over the ripening pawpaw fruit and staggered up the steep faced terrace. It jerked, floated, rolled, veered, swayed. The thistle down faltered down toward the cottage and gusted clear to the woods; it rose and entered the shaggy arms of pecans. At last it strayed like snow, blind and sweet, into the pool of the creek upstream, and into the race of the creek over rocks down. It shuddered onto the tips of growing grasses, where it poised, light, still wracked by errant quivers. I was holding my breath. Is this where we live, I thought, in this place in this moment, with the air so light and wild? The same fixity that collapses stars and drives the mantis to devour her mate eased these creatures together before my eyes: the thick adept bill of the goldfinch, and the feathery coded down. How could anything be amiss? If I myself were lighter and frayed, I could ride these small winds, too, taking my chances, for the pleasure of being so purely played. The thistle is part of Adam's curse. "Cursed is the ground for thy sake, in sorrow shalt thou eat of it; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee." A terrible curse: But does the goldfinch eat thorny sorrow with the thistle or do I? If this furling air is fallen, then the fall was happy indeed. If this creekside garden is sorrow, then I seek martyrdom. I was weightless; my bones were taut skins blown with buoyant gas; it seemed that if I inhaled too deeply, my shoulders and head would waft off. Alleluia."
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fate
seeing
free
light
poem
prayer
nature
poetry
freedom
joy
spirit
wonder
faith
beauty
religion
science
god
philosophy
ring-the-bells
enoughness
exultant
illumination
intricacy
joyfulness
living-in-the-present-moment
religious-diversity
stalking-the-gaps
the-tree-with-the-lights-in-it
gaps
philosopher-s-stone
multiplicity
praying
prayers
hallelujah
life-force
seeking
exploration
praise
joyful
mindfulness
epiphany
tolerance
grace
energy
disbelief
watching
growth
belief
fearless
humility
consciousness
walking
fire
mystery
curiosity
power
soul
poet
creation
|
Annie Dillard |
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900bb3a
|
And under the cicadas, deeper down that the longest taproot, between and beneath the rounded black rocks and slanting slabs of sandstone in the earth, ground water is creeping. Ground water seeps and slides, across and down, across and down, leaking from here to there, minutely at a rate of a mile a year. What a tug of waters goes on! There are flings and pulls in every direction at every moment. The world is a wild wrestle under the grass; earth shall be moved. What else is going on right this minute while ground water creeps under my feet? The galaxy is careening in a slow, muffled widening. If a million solar systems are born every hour, then surely hundreds burst into being as I shift my weight to the other elbow. The sun's surface is now exploding; other stars implode and vanish, heavy and black, out of sight. Meteorites are arcing to earth invisibly all day long. On the planet, the winds are blowing: the polar easterlies, the westerlies, the northeast and southeast trades. Somewhere, someone under full sail is becalmed, in the horse latitudes, in the doldrums; in the northland, a trapper is maddened, crazed, by the eerie scent of the chinook, the sweater, a wind that can melt two feet of snow in a day. The pampero blows, and the tramontane, and the Boro, sirocco, levanter, mistral. Lick a finger; feel the now. Spring is seeping north, towards me and away from me, at sixteen miles a day. Along estuary banks of tidal rivers all over the world, snails in black clusters like currants are gliding up and down the stems of reed and sedge, migrating every moment with the dip and swing of tides. Behind me, Tinker Mountain is eroding one thousandth of an inch a year. The sharks I saw are roving up and down the coast. If the sharks cease roving, if they still their twist and rest for a moment, they die. They need new water pushed into their gills; they need dance. Somewhere east of me, on another continent, it is sunset, and starlings in breathtaking bands are winding high in the sky to their evening roost. The mantis egg cases are tied to the mock-orange hedge; within each case, within each egg, cells elongate, narrow, and split; cells bubble and curve inward, align, harden or hollow or stretch. And where are you now?
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fate
seeing
free
light
poem
prayer
nature
poetry
freedom
joy
spirit
wonder
faith
beauty
religion
science
god
philosophy
enoughness
exultant
illumination
intricacy
joyfulness
living-in-the-present-moment
religious-diversity
stalking-the-gaps
the-tree-with-the-lights-in-it
gaps
philosopher-s-stone
multiplicity
praying
prayers
hallelujah
life-force
seeking
exploration
praise
joyful
mindfulness
epiphany
tolerance
grace
energy
disbelief
watching
growth
belief
fearless
humility
consciousness
walking
fire
mystery
curiosity
power
soul
poet
creation
|
Annie Dillard |
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3b41102
|
"Say you could view a time-lapse film of our planet: what would you see? Transparent images moving through light, "an infinite storm of beauty." The beginning is swaddled in mists, blasted by random blinding flashes. Lava pours and cools; seas boil and flood. Clouds materialize and shift; now you can see the earth's face through only random patches of clarity. The land shudders and splits, like pack ice rent by a widening lead. Mountains burst up, jutting and dull and soften before your eyes, clothed in forests like felt. The ice rolls up, grinding green land under water forever; the ice rolls back. Forests erupt and disappear like fairy rings. The ice rolls up-mountains are mowed into lakes, land rises wet from the sea like a surfacing whale- the ice rolls back. A blue-green streaks the highest ridges, a yellow-green spreads from the south like a wave up a strand. A red dye seems to leak from the north down the ridges and into the valleys, seeping south; a white follows the red, then yellow-green washes north, then red spreads again, then white, over and over, making patterns of color too swift and intricate to follow. Slow the film. You see dust storms, locusts, floods, in dizzying flash frames. Zero in on a well-watered shore and see smoke from fires drifting. Stone cities rise, spread, and then crumble, like patches of alpine blossoms that flourish for a day an inch above the permafrost, that iced earth no root can suck, and wither in a hour. New cities appear, and rivers sift silt onto their rooftops; more cities emerge and spread in lobes like lichen on rock. The great human figures of history, those intricate, spirited tissues that roamed the earth's surface, are a wavering blur whose split second in the light was too brief an exposure to yield any images. The great herds of caribou pour into the valleys and trickle back, and pour, a brown fluid. Slow it down more, come closer still. A dot appears, like a flesh-flake. It swells like a balloon; it moves, circles, slows, and vanishes. This is your life."
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fate
seeing
free
light
poem
prayer
nature
poetry
freedom
joy
spirit
wonder
faith
beauty
religion
science
god
philosophy
ring-the-bells
enoughness
exultant
illumination
intricacy
joyfulness
living-in-the-present-moment
religious-diversity
stalking-the-gaps
the-tree-with-the-lights-in-it
gaps
philosopher-s-stone
multiplicity
praying
prayers
hallelujah
life-force
seeking
exploration
praise
joyful
mindfulness
epiphany
tolerance
grace
energy
disbelief
watching
growth
belief
fearless
humility
consciousness
walking
fire
mystery
curiosity
power
soul
poet
creation
|
Annie Dillard |
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2358808
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The sun dances in her and she has an immense joy of life
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dance
women
joy
happiness
sun
|
James Clavell |
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dca1b95
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The events that occur in my life are workout situations. They are there for my benefit so I can become strong and gain wisdom and information by working my way through those situations.
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pain
joy
happiness
life
love
philosophy
wisdom
addiction-free
chris-prentiss-quotes
addiction-and-recovery
passages-ventura
passages-malibu
chris-prentiss
philosophy-of-life
peace
guilt
|
Chris Prentiss |