I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy. --Rabindranath Tagore (in Mercy Beyond Borders)

I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy. --Rabindranath Tagore (in She Transformed Her Trauma into a Path of Service)

I don't know what the future will be, but I absolutely know that joy and the things that give us joy in this world, especially the natural world, are essential for everything. --Dara McAnulty (in Finding Joy in the Unknown)

I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the earth gives me daily and I must return the gift --Robin Wall Kimmerer (in Soil & Spirit: Cultivation and Kinship in the Web of Life)

Experience each moment as it arrives. Create your own inner joy, for it will touch your world and you will not look back at what you could have been, but glow by who you actually are. --Amanda Gerhart (in Untitled)

All who would win joy, must share it; happiness was born a twin. --Lord Byron (in Untitled)

This is the true joy in life, being recognized by yourself as a mighty one, being a force of nature instead of a feverish clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for it’s own sake; Life is no brief candle to me, it is a sort of splendid torch which I’ve got to hold up for a moment. I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations. --George Bernard Shaw (in A Splendid Torch)

To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget. --Arundhati Roy (in Untitled)

Each day of human life contains joy and anger, pain and pleasure, darkness and light, growth and decay. Each movement is etched with nature’s grand design~ do not try to deny or oppose the cosmic order of things. --Morehei Ueshiba (founder of Aikido) (in Untitled)

An elderly Cherokee Native American was teaching his grandchildren about life... He said to them, "A fight is going on inside me, it is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One wolf is evil---he is fear, anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, competition, superiority, and ego. The other is good -- he is joy, peace, love, hope, sharing, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, friendship, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith. This same fight is going on inside you, and inside every other person, too." They thought about it for a minute and then one child asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will win?" The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed." --Author Unknown (in Untitled)

Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy. --Kahlil Gibran (in Work is Love Made Visible)

We have to create a new synthesis where the environmental movement, the spiritual movement, and the social movement come together. We need to create a new trinity--soil, soul, and society. Soil represents the natural world. Unless we take care of the earth, we cannot take care of society. We also need to take care of the soul. Unless we’re able to seek fulfillment and joy, we won’t find peace--no matter how much money we accumulate. And then there’s social justice, which includes concern for the old, the sick, the poor, and people of different races. --Satish Kumar (in Untitled)

Whatever you do with your running, you only cheat yourself by pushing, pressing, competing. There are no standards and no possible victories except the joy you are living while dancing your run. --Fred Rohe (in Marathon Monks)

All the joy the world contains is through wishing happiness for others. All the misery the world contains has come through wanting pleasure for oneself. --Shanti Deva (in Concern for Chickens)

Guardian of the crossroads, please keep clear the path in front of me. Help me turn towards light and away from harm. Mistress of the winds, please provide the breeze to keep my head cool and vision clear. Stay at my back, guiding me ever forward. Father of justice, strengthen my blood with iron. Keep my spine straight and my head high. Mother of the oceans, watch over my family and friends. As they pray for me, I pray for them - health and joy. Mother of the rivers, sweeten my words and beautify my walk. Keep me from want and allow me to respond to need. Creator of clouds, visit my dreams and illuminate corners. Remind me I am from, responsible to, all - but no one more than myself. The One, make it so. And so it is. --Suheir Hammad (in The Illuminated Path)

Everything you see has its roots in the unseen world. The forms may change, yet the essence remains the same. Every wonderful sight will vanish; every sweet word will fade, but do not be disheartened; the source they come from is eternal, growing, branching out, giving new life and new joy. Why do you weep? The source is within you; and this whole world is springing up from it. --Rumi (in Clandestine Brain Activity)

I love being alive. I really do. And I think the way the world is going to transform is by us getting back in touch with the joy of being alive for its own sake. --Matt Sanford (in Helping Others Come Alive)

And that is why I have to go back to so many places in the future, there to find myself and constantly examine my life with no witness but the moon and then whistle with joy ambling over rocks and doors of Earth with no task but to live, with no family but the road. --Pablo Neruda (in No Task But To Live)

This we have now is not imagination. This is not grief or joy. Not a judging state, or an elation, or sadness. Those come and go. This is the presence that doesn't. --Rumi (in This we have now)

Life can not give me joy and peace, it is up to me to will it. Life just gives me time and space, it is up to me to fill it. --William James (in Life Time)

Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; Where there is injury, pardon; Where there is discord, union; Where there is doubt, faith; Where there is despair, hope; Where there is darkness, light; Where there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek To be consoled as to console; To be understood as to understand; To be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; It is in pardoning that we are pardoned; And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. --The Prayer of St Francis (in The Prayer of St Francis)

Could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy. --Kahlil Gibran (in The Miracle of Positive Thinking)

It's not enough to have lived. We should be determined to live for something. May I suggest that it be creating joy for others, sharing what we have for the betterment of personkind, bringing hope to the lost and love to the lonely. --Leo Buscaglia (in Kids on Love)

If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in. --Rachel Carson (in Single Mom Adopts at 64)

Intelligence and capability are not enough. There must be the joy of doing something beautiful. --Dr Govindappa Venkataswamy (in Village Kids Crack Prestigious Exam)

Realize that true happiness lies within you. Waste no time and effort searching for peace and contentment and joy in the world outside. Remember that there is no happiness in having or in getting, but only in giving. Reach out. Share. Smile. Hug. --Og Mandino (in Leading A Happier Life)

Suffering and joy teach us, if we allow them, how to make the leap of empathy, which transports us into the soul and heart of another person. ln those transparent moments we know other people's joys and sorrows, and we care about their concerns as if they were our own. --Fritz Williams (in A 9-Year Old's Vision: Hoops of Hope)

Cooking is at once child's play and adult joy. And, cooking done with care is an act of love. --Craig Clairborne (in Lunch Lady With A Mission)

We're never so vulnerable as when we trust someone -- but paradoxically, if we cannot trust, neither can we find love or joy. --Walter Anderson (in The Speed of Trust)

The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other's life. Rarely do members of one family grow up under the same roof. --Richard Bach (in Breakthrough In Blood Types)

The work I do to let go of my suffering diminishes the suffering of the whole universe. When I have room for my own pain, I have room for the pain of others. Only then can I be transformed into joy. As I heal, the Earth heals. --Christiane Northrup (in World's Largest Floating Hospital)

When you do things from your soul you feel a river moving in you, a joy. When action comes from another section, the feeling disappears. --Jalaluddin Rumi (in What Does It Mean To Have Soul?)

Joy is not in things; it is in us. --Richard Wagner (in Beatbox on the Paris Metro)

Happiness is the soul's joy in the possession of the intangible. --William Jordan (in Cake But No Presents Please)

Listen. In every office you hear the threads of love and joy and fear and guilt, the cries for celebration and reassurance, and somehow you know that connecting those threads is what you are supposed to do and business takes care of itself. --James Autry (in Leprosy And A Mother's Love)

It is worth reminding ourselves that what brings us the greatest joy and satisfaction in life are those actions we undertake out of concern for others. Indeed we can go further. For whereas the fundamental questions of human existence, such as why we are here, where we are going, and whether the universe had a beginning, have each elicited different responses in different philosophical traditions, it is self-evident that a generous heart and wholesome actions lead to greater peace. --Dalai Lama (in What Makes Us Moral?)

Joy, sorrow, tears, lamentation, laughter -- to all these music gives voice, but in such a way that we are transported from the world of unrest to a world of peace, and see reality in a new way, as if we were sitting by a mountain lake and contemplating hills and woods and clouds in the tranquil and fathomless water. --Albert Schweitzer (in Six-year-old Piano Prodigy)

The joy is that we can take back our bodies, reclaim our health, and restore ourselves to balance. We can take power over what and how we eat. We can rejuvenate and recharge ourselves, bringing healing to the wounds we carry inside us, and bringing to fuller life the wonderful person that each of us can be. --John Robbins (in What The World Eats In A Week)

Love is a force more formidable than any other. It is invisible, it cannot be seen or measured, yet it is powerful enough to transform you in a moment, and offer you more joy than any material possession could. --Barbara DeAngelis (in Selling 1 House to Serve 30 Villages)

We have stopped for a moment to encounter each other, to meet, to love, to share. This is a precious moment, but it is transient. It is a little parenthesis in eternity. If we share with caring, lightheartedness and love, we will create abundance and joy for each other. And then this moment will have been worthwhile. --Deepak Chopra (in Caring For Other People's Children)

All we see of someone at any moment is a snapshot of their life, there in riches or poverty, in joy or despair. Snapshots don't show the million decisions that led to that moment. --Richard Bach (in Australian Slumdog Millionaires)

If we encourage and uphold our essential goodness and capacity for loving connection, we can nurture a society of people who are healthy and whole and whose lives will bring healing, peace, and joy to those they touch. --John Robbins (in The City that Ended Hunger)

It has been said that art is a tryst, for in the joy of it maker and beholder meet. --Kojiro Tomita (in Art & The Happiness Entrepreneur)

Joy and happiness are the indicators of balance in a human machine. --Walter Russell (in The World's Happiest People)

We rely upon artists to articulate what most of us can only feel in joy and sorrow. Whenever I feel my courage wavering I rush to them. They will give me the wisdom of acceptance, the will and resilience to push on. --Helen Hayes (in Giving Slums a Human Face)

Who is the happiest of men? He who values the merits of others, and in their pleasure takes joy, even as though 'twere his own. --Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (in Is Pure Altriusm Possible?)

Conquering any difficulty always gives one a secret joy, for it means pushing back a boundary-line and adding to one's liberty. --Henri Frederic Amiel (in A Marathon with Heart, Literally)

In contentment and joy are found the height and perfection of all love towards our neighbor. --William Ames (in A Neighbor's Kind Act)

Those who have learned the power of sincere and selfless contribution experience life's deepest joy: true fulfillment. --Tony Robbins (in Nine-year-old Saves Her Sister's life)

When you do things from your soul you feel a river moving in you, a joy. --Rumi (in The Art of Joy)