Joy Quotes (206) Spiritual Sayings
Summary: Joy is a mental or emotional state of well-being characterized by positive or pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy. A variety of biological, psychological, religious, and philosophical approaches have striven to define happiness and identify its sources. Various research groups, including Positive psychology, endeavor to apply the scientific method to answer questions about what "happiness" is, and how we might attain it.
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“Joy must be one of the pivots of our life. It is the token of a generous personality. Sometimes it is also a mantle that clothes a life of sacrifice and self-giving. A person who has this gift often reaches high summits. He or she is like sun in a community.”
~ Mother Teresa, In the Heart of the World: Thoughts, Stories and Prayers
Focus on the journey, not the destination. Joy is found not in finishing an activity but in doing it.
~ Greg Anderson
“When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.”
~ Rumi
“Beauty is whatever gives joy.”
~ Edna St. Vincent Millay
“Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day.”
~ Henri J.M. Nouwen
“peace is joy at rest, and joy is peace on its feet”
~ Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith
When you wish someone joy, you wish them peace, love, prosperity, happiness…all the good things.
~ Maya Angelou
Be a dynamo of irrepressible joy!
~ Babaji
Begin today. Declare outloud to the universe that you are willing to let go of struggle and eager to learn through joy.
~ Sarah Ban Breathnach
Joy is your birthright.
~ Sarah Ban Breathnach
Learning to live in the present moment is part of the path of joy.
~ Sarah Ban Breathnach
Joy is the simplest form of gratitude.
~ Karl Barth
We learn in our guts, not just in our brain, that a life of joy is not in seeking happiness, but in experiencing and simply being the circumstances of our life as they are; not in fulfilling personal wants, but in fulfilling the needs of life…
~ Charlotte Joko Beck
To attract something that you want, become as joyful as you think that thing would make you.
~ Martha Beck
If you are not living in joy, you are out of integrity with your soul.
~ Michael Beckwith
The sun does not shine for a few trees and flowers, but for the wide world’s joy.
~ Henry Ward Beecher
There is no greater joy than that of feeling oneself a creator. The triumph of life is expressed by creation.
~ Henri Bergson
The greatest gift you can give yourself is joy, not only because of the feeling that goes with it at the moment, but because of the magnificent experience it will draw to you. It will produce wonders in your life.
~ Jack Boland
When you recover or discover something that nourishes your soul and brings joy, care enough about yourself to make room for it in your life.
~ Jean Shinoda Bolen
If you enjoy living, it is not difficult to keep the sense of wonder.
~ Ray Bradbury
Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.
~ Robert Brault
To find joy in work is to discover the fountain of youth.
~ Pearl S. Buck
Drink deeply. Live in serenity and joy.
~ Buddha
Health, contentment, and trust are your greatest possessions. And freedom your greatest joy.
~ Buddha
May everyone be happy and safe, and may their hearts be filled with joy.
~ Buddha
Set your heart on doing good. Do it over and over again, and you will be filled with joy.
~ Buddha
Joy in the universe, and keen curiosity about it all – that has been my religion.
~ John Burroughs
Ancient Egyptians believed that upon death they would be asked two questions and their answers would determine whether they could continue their journey in the afterlife. The first question was, "Did you bring joy?" The second was, "Did you find joy?"
~ Leo Buscaglia
Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its joy.
~ Leo Buscaglia
All animals except man know that the principal business of life is to enjoy it.
~ Samuel Butler
Gratitude helps you to grow and expand; gratitude brings joy and laughter into your life and into the lives of all those around you.
~ Eileen Caddy
Success is following the pattern of life one enjoys most.
~ Al Capp
A laugh, to be joyous, must flow from a joyous heart, for without kindness, there can be no true joy.
~ Thomas Carlyle
Listen to the clues. The next time you feel real joy, stop and think. Pay attention. Because joy is the universe’s way of knocking on your mind’s door. Hello in there. Is anyone home? Can I leave a message? Yes? Good! The message is that you are happy, and that means that you are in touch with your purpose.
~ Steve Chandler
The greatest obstacle to connecting with our joy is resentment.
~ Pema Chodron
According to Vedanta, there are only two symptoms of enlightenment, just two indications that a transformation is taking place within you toward a higher consciousness. The first symptom is that you stop worrying. Things don’t bother you anymore. You become light hearted and full of joy. The second symptom is that you encounter more and more meaningful coincidences in your life, more and more synchronicities. And this accelerates to the point where you actually experience the miraculous.
~ Deepak Chopra
Joy is a return to the deep harmony of body, mind, and spirit that was yours at birth and that can be yours again. That openness to love, that capacity for wholeness with the world around you, is still within you.
~ Deepak Chopra
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
Friendship improves happiness and abates misery, by the doubling of our joy and the dividing of our grief.
~ Cicero
Joy is not the result of getting what you want; it is the way to get what you want. In the deepest sense, joy is what you want.
~ Alan Cohen
Life does not require you to sacrifice or compromise your joy to get what you want. Joy is what you want, so when you choose in harmony with it, you are fulfilling your purpose in living.
~ Alan Cohen
Simply be who you are, do what you do best, be where you are called by joy, and let life work its magic on your behalf.
~ Alan Cohen
Uncertainty and expectation are the joys of life.
~ William Congreve
Our greatest joy and our greatest pain comes in our relationships with others.
~ Stephen R. Covey
A joyful life is an individual creation that cannot be copied from a recipe.
~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Even without success, creative persons find joy in a job well done. Learning for its own sake is rewarding.
~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
It does not seem to be true that work necessarily needs to be unpleasant. It may always have to be hard, or at least harder than doing nothing at all. But there is ample evidence that work can be enjoyable, and that indeed, it is often the most enjoyable part of life.
~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
There are some days when I think I'm going to die from an overdose of satisfaction.
~ Salvador Dali
It is in the compelling zest of high adventure and of victory, and in creative action that man finds his supreme joy.
~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery
To awaken each morning with a smile brightening my face; to greet the day with reverence for the opportunities it contains; to approach my work with a clean mind; to hold ever before me, even in the doing of little things, the ultimate purpose toward which I am working; to meet men and women with laughter on my lips and love in my heart; to be gentle, kind, and courteous through all the hours; to approach the night with weariness that ever woos sleep and the joy that comes from work well done - this is how I desire to waste wisely my days.
~ Thomas Dekker
The mere sense of living is joy enough.
~ Emily Dickinson
All art, whether it pleases us or not, helps to add color, excitement, joy, or sadness and, most often, a sense of awe to our life's experience.
~ Henry O. Dorman
Man is fond of counting his troubles, but he does not count his joys. If he counted them up as he ought to, he would see that every lot has enough happiness provided for it.
~ Fyodor Dostoevsky
Joy is but the sign that creative emotion is fulfilling its purpose.
~ Charles Du Bos
Joy is not dependent on circumstances.
~ Faith Duck
I do not teach children. I give them joy.
~ Isadora Duncan
If the sight of the blue skies fills you with joy, if a blade of grass springing up in the fields has power to move you, if the simple things of nature have a message that you understand, rejoice, for your soul is alive.
~ Eleanora Duse
When you dance, your purpose is not to get to a certain place on the floor. It’s to enjoy each step along the way.
~ Wayne Dyer
Do your duty until it becomes your joy.
~ Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach
It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.
~ Albert Einstein
Allow yourself to trust joy and embrace it. You will find you dance with everything.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Not what we have but what we enjoy, constitutes our abundance.
~ Epicurus
There are souls in this world which have the gift of finding joy everywhere and of leaving it behind them when they go.
~ Frederick W. Faber
No man is a failure who is enjoying life.
~ William Feather
There is joy in work. There is no happiness except in the realization that we have accomplished something.
~ Henry Ford
…joy is integral to all creativity. Creativity brings joy.
~ Matthew Fox
There is nothing of which we are more ashamed than of not being ourselves. And there is nothing which brings us greater joy and happiness than to think, feel, and say what is ours.
~ Erich Fromm
Service which is rendered without joy helps neither the servant nor the served. But all other pleasures and possessions pale into nothingness before service which is rendered in a spirit of joy.
~ Mahatma Gandhi
…joy and sorrow are inseparable…together they come and when one sits alone with you…remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.
~ Kahlil Gibran
The deeper the sorrow carves into your being the more joy you can contain. Is not the cup that hold your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?
~ Kahlil Gibran
We plan our joys and sorrows long before we experience them.
~ Kahlil Gibran
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
I am wealth. I am abundance. I am joy.
~ David Cameron Gikandi
When we accept tough jobs as a challenge to our ability and wade into them with joy and enthusiasm, miracles can happen.
~ Arland Gilbert
Enjoyment is not a goal, it is a feeling that acompanies important ongoing activity.
~ Paul Goodman
Joy of life seems to me to arise from a sense of being where one belongs…of being foursquare with the life we have chosen. All the discontented people I know are trying sedulously to be something they are not, to do something they cannot do.
~ David Grayson
Real joy comes not from ease or riches or from the praise of men, but from doing something worthwhile.
~ Wilfred T. Grenfell
Simplicity, clarity, singleness: these are the attributes that give our lives power and vividness and joy.
~ Richard Halloway
Don’t be afraid to expand yourself, to step out of your comfort zone. That’s where the joy and the adventure lie.
~ Herbie Hancock
Find joy and peace in this very moment.
~ Thich Nhat Hanh
May all beings learn how to nourish themselves with joy each day.
~ Thich Nhat Hanh
Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.
~ Thich Nhat Hanh
True love always brings joy to ourself and the one we love. If our love does not bring joy to both of us, it is not true love.
~ Thich Nhat Hanh
Self-initiated movement, exploration, interaction and physical experience for the joy and challenge of it, facilitates neurogenesis for a lifetime.
~ Carla Hannaford
Sooner or later we must realize there is no station, no one place to arrive at once and for all. The true joy of life is the trip.
~ Robert J. Hastings
Always leave enough time in your life to do something that makes you happy, satisfied, even joyous. That has more of an effect on economic well-being than any other single factor.
~ Paul Hawken
My day begins with gratitude and joy. I look forward with enthusiasm to the adventures of the day, knowing that in my life, All is good.
~ Louise Hay
Joy is the highest expression of love.
~ Abraham-Hicks
The only true measure of success is the amount of joy we are feeling.
~ Abraham-Hicks
The certain pathway to all things that you want is through the corridor of joy.
~ Abraham-Hicks
I am a gift of joy that God gives to a wonderful world.
~ Ernest Holmes
The root of joy, as of duty, is to put all one's powers towards some great end.
~ Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Loving friendships provide us with a space to experience the joy of community in a relationship where we learn to process all our issues, to cope with differences and conflict while staying connected.
~ bell hooks
Increase your joy by doing the good you wish to have done to you.
~ Daisaku Ikeda
The trick is not how much pain you feel but how much joy you feel. Any idiot can feel pain. Life is full of excuses to feel pain, excuses not to live, excuses, excuses, excuses.
~ Erica Jong
A thing of beauty is a joy forever.
~ John Keats
As selfishness and complaint pervert the mind, so love with its joy clears and sharpens the vision.
~ Helen Keller
Be of good cheer. Do not think of today's failures, but of the success that may come tomorrow. You have set yourselves a difficult task, but you will succeed if you persevere; and you will find joy in overcoming obstacles. Remember, no effort that we make to attain something beautiful is ever lost.
~ Helen Keller
Joy is the holy fire that keeps our purpose warm and our intelligence aglow.
~ Helen Keller
Your success and happiness lie in you. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invisible host against difficulties.
~ Helen Keller
Most people live dejectedly in worldly joys or sorrows. They sit on the sidelines and do not join the dance.
~ Søren Kierkegaard
Your chances of success are directly proportional to the degree of pleasure you derive from what you do.
~ Michael Korda
Joy is something entirely different from pleasure.
~ Krishnamurti
Faith is what makes life bearable, with all its tragedies and ambiguities and sudden, startling joys.
~ Madeleine L’Engle
Joy is the infallible sign of the presence of God.
~ Madeleine L'Engle
Health is the greatest possession. Contentment is the greatest treasure. Confidence is the greatest friend. Non-being is the greatest joy.
~ Lao Tzu
Lead yourself. If you must follow someone, follow the genuinely joyful. Joy is evidence that something is working.
~ Eileen Lighthawk
For happiness one needs security, but joy can spring like a flower even from the cliffs of despair.
~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Joy, rather than happiness, is the goal of life, for joy is the emotion which accompanies our fulfilling our natures as human beings. It is based on the experience of one’s identity as being of worth and dignity.
~ Rollo May
Whatever sphere we may be in, there is a profound joy in the realization that we are helping to form the structure of the new world. This is creative courage, however minor or fortuitous our creations may be.
~ Rollo May
There is no greater joy, nor greater reward than to make a fundamental difference in someone’s life.
~ Mary Rose McGeady
The best work is done with the heart breaking, or overflowing.
~ Mignon McLaughlin
Use those talents you have. You will make it. You will give joy to the world. Take this tip from nature: The woods would be a very silent place if no birds sang except those who sang best.
~ Bernard Meltzer
Do not look for rest in any pleasure, because you were not created for pleasure: you were created for joy. And if you do not know the difference between pleasure and joy you have not yet begun to live.
~ Thomas Merton
Joy is peace dancing and peace is joy at rest.
~ F. B. Meyer
Without joy in your life you are powerless.
~ Joyce Meyers
Always remember, joy is not incidental to spiritual quest. It is vital.
~ Rebbe Nachman
Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day.
~ Henri Nouwen
Creative action leads to ‘joy attraction’.
~ Marta Davidovich Ockuly
Joy is your destiny. You were created for joy. Pay attention to what brings you joy and take joyful actions daily. Creative action equals joy attraction. Joy is the path to your true purpose.
~ Marta Davidovich Ockuly
Surprises are the joy of living. Surprises directly touch the soul. Good surprises energize and bad surprises teach.
~ Alev Oguz
Joys come from simple and natural things: mists over meadows, sunlight on leaves, the path of the moon over water.
~ Sigurd F. Olson
As you express joy, you draw it out of those you meet, creating joyful people and joyful events. The greater the joy you express, the more joy you experience.
~ Arnold Patent
When we love unconditionally, with our hearts wide open, we feel joyfulness.
~ Arnold Patent
The only joy in the world is to begin.
~ Cesare Pavese
True joy results when we become aware of our connectedness to everything.
~ Paul Pearsall
The great awareness comes slowly, piece by piece. The path of spiritual growth is a path of lifelong learning. The experience of spiritual power is basically a joyful one.
~ M. Scott Peck
Love is the joy of the good, the wonder of the wise, the amazement of the Gods.
~ Plato
True joy is that which gives us more energy and makes us feel more alive.
~ Robert Puryear
May your walls know joy, may every room hold laughter, and every window open to great possibility.
~ Mary Anne Radmacher
We laugh to survive. Then, with joy we thrive.
~ Mary Anne Radmacher
By picturing ourselves creating at our highest levels, imagining the finished product and the deep joy that comes from creating, we move closer to our dreams. Visualizing the end result from our creative effort helps us achieve it.
~ Salli Rasberry
Only those who have learned the power of sincere and selfless contribution experience life’s deepest joy: true fulfillment.
~ Anthony Robbins
I have always found that my view of success has been iconoclastic: success to me is not about money or status or fame, its about finding a livelihood that brings me joy and self-sufficiency and a sense of contributing to the world.
~ Anita Roddick
Being, not doing, is my first joy.
~ Theodore Roethke
Those of us who can facilitate the healing of the grief, anger, and sense of hopelessness that exist today are called to help humanity recover joy, creativity, and a sense of personal empowerment within community.
~ Natalie Rogers
The walls we build around us to keep sadness out also keeps out joy.
~ Jim Rohn
Whoever renders service to many puts himself in line for greatness - great wealth, great return, great satisfaction, great reputation, and great joy.
~ Jim Rohn
Since you get more joy out of giving joy to others, you should put a good deal of thought into the happiness you are able to give.
~ Eleanor Roosevelt
Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.
~ Franklin D. Roosevelt
The kind of spirituality I value is one in which you get great joy out of contributing to life, not just sitting and meditating, although meditation is certainly valuable. But from meditation, from the resulting consciousness, I would like to see people in action creating the world they want to live in.
~ Marshall Rosenberg
Patience is the key to joy.
~ Rumi
The soul is here for its own joy.
~ Rumi
The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.
~ Bertrand Russell
Gratitude helps us to return to our natural state of joyfulness, where we notice what's right instead of what's wrong. It makes us feel complete, that we have everything we need, at least in this moment.
~ M. J. Ryan
The key is to trust your heart to move where your talents can flourish. This old world will really spin when work becomes a joyous expression of the soul.
~ Al Sacharov
Joy needs no object; it is our own nature.
~ Sathya Sai Baba
Your true nature is purity, peace and joy.
~ Sathya Sai Baba
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace, where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy.
~ Saint Francis of Assisi
If you were all alone in the universe with on one to talk to, no one with which to share the beauty of the stars, to laugh with, to touch, what would be your purpose in life? It is other life, it is love, which gives your life meaning. This is harmony. We must discover the joy of each other, the joy of challenge, the joy of growth.
~ Mitsugi Saotome
The closer you come to your core, the greater is your joy.
~ Torkom Saraydarin
There is no real and true joy of if that joy is not imbued with love. Love cannot exist without joy.
~ Torkom Saraydarin
Joy comes from using your potential.
~ Will Schultz
The truth is there is more than enough love, creative ideas, power, joy, happiness to go around.
~ “The Secret”
Loving can cost a lot but not loving always costs more, and those who fear to love often find want of love is an emptiness that robs the joy from life.
~ Merle Shain
This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one.
~ George Bernard Shaw
The joy comes when we recognize that whatever situation we may find ourselves in, it’s only a role we are playing.
~ Jean Slatter
When I feel the joy of receiving a gift my heart nudges me to join creation's ballet, the airy dance of giving and receiving, and getting and giving again.
~ Lewis Smedes
Hope is the belief, more or less strong, that joy will come.
~ Sydney Smith
Love is nothing but joy accompanied with the idea of an eternal cause.
~ Baruch Spinoza
There’s no thrill in easy sailing when the skies are clear and blue. There’s no joy in merely doing things which anyone can do. But there is some satisfaction that is mighty sweet to take, when you reach a destination that you thought you’d never make.
~ Spirella
I wake up every morning with a great desire to live joyfully.
~ Alexandra Stoddard
The world is extremely interesting to a joyful soul.
~ Alexandra Stoddard
I cannot imagine where I would be today were it not for that handful of friends who have given me a heart full of joy. Let’s face it, friends make life a lot more fun.
~ Charles R. Swindoll
The progress of our soul is like a perfect poem. It has an infinite idea which, once realised, makes all movements full of meaning and joy.
~ Rabindanath Tagore
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
Oh who can tell the range of joy or set the bounds of beauty?
~ Sara Teasdale
When you arise in the morning, give thanks for the morning light, for your life and strength. Give thanks for your food, and the joy of living.
~ Tecumseh
If we try hard to bring happiness to others, we cannot stop it from coming to us also. To get joy, we must give it, and to keep joy, we must scatter it.
~ John Templeton
Joy is prayer. Joy is strength. Joy is love...She gives most who gives with joy.
~ Mother Teresa
Peace and war begin at home. If we truly want peace in the world, let us begin by loving one another in our own families. If we want to spread joy, we need for every family to have joy.
~ Mother Teresa
Joy is very infectious; therefore, be always full of joy,
~ Mother Teresa
Surely joy is the condition of life.
~ Henry David Thoreau
All the things that truly matter – beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace – arise from beyond the mind.
~ Eckhart Tolle
Love, joy and peace cannot flourish until you have freed yourself from mind dominance.
~ Eckhart Tolle
Pleasure is always derived from something outside you, where as joy arises from within.
~ Eckhart Tolle
Those who have not found their true wealth, which is the radiant joy of being and the deep, unshakable peace that comes with it, are beggars, even if they have great wealth.
~ Eckhart Tolle
Joy can be real only if people look upon their lives as a service and have a definite object in life outside themselves and their personal happiness.
~ Leo Tolstoy
To get the true value of joy you must have someone to divide it with.
~ Mark Twain
Let your joy be unconfined!
~ Mark Twain
Some people bring joy wherever they go, and some people bring joy whenever they go.
~ Mark Twain
Why should we all use our creative power….? Because there is nothing that makes people so generous, joyful, lively, bold and compassionate, so indifferent to fighting and the accumulation of objects and money.
~ Brenda Ueland
From joy springs all creation, by joy it is sustained, towards joy it proceeds, and unto joy it returns.
~ Upanishads
Where there is joy there is creation. Where there is no joy there is no creation: know the nature of joy.
~ Upanishads
We can laugh from either joy or happiness, but we weep only from grief or joy…Without the pain of farewell, there is no joy in reunion…without the pain of captivity, we don't experience the joy of freedom.
~ George Vallant
The highest thought is always a thought which contains joy.
~ Neale Donald Walsch
I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. It's hard to plan the day.
~ E. B. White
We should all do what, in the long run, gives us joy, even if it is only picking grapes or sorting laundry.
~ E. B. White
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.
~ Fritz William
Do what you love. Do what makes your heart sing. And never do it for the money. Don’t go to work to make money; go to work to spread joy.
~ Marianne Williamson
Joy is our goal, our destiny. We cannot know who we are except in joy. Not knowing joy, we do not know ourselves.
~ Marianne Williamson
Joy is what happens to us when we allow ourselves to recognize how good things really are. Joy is not necessarily what happens when things unfold according to our plans.
~ Marianne Williamson
When we are centered in joy, we attain our wisdom.
~ Marianne Williamson
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