Quotes about Joy
If you are happy, all of us will profit from it. Society will profit from it. All living beings will profit from it.
— Thich Nhat Hanh
We can judge our success at work in many ways. Usually we judge it by how much money we make, what title we have, and how much others recognize our achievements. But if you can go to work each day as a bodhisattva, if your presence at work brings you and others joy, then you have a successful work life. You have succeeded in the present moment, the only moment that exists.
— Thich Nhat Hanh
The most precious inheritance parents can leave their children is their own happiness. Parents' happiness is the most valuable gift they can give their children
— Thich Nhat Hanh
If we want to be happy and joyful, then we must be determined to let go of attachment. Free from attachment, we are no longer caught in the circle of samsara—not burdened by anxiety nor restlessly searching for what is unwholesome. The absence of attachment leads to true peace and joy.
— Thich Nhat Hanh
There is no way to happiness - happiness is the way.
— Thich Nhat Hanh
My life for yours: it may mean three seconds of my time to redeem some thoughtless bit of self-indulgence on the part of someone else, or it may mean, or did mean, Golgotha, where My Life for Yours was supremely dramatized and entails our eternal joy.
— Thomas Howard
The happiest moments of my life have been the few which I have passed at home in the bosom of my family
— Thomas Jefferson
If you write for God you will reach many men and bring them joy. If you write for men--you may make some money and you may give someone a little joy and you may make a noise in the world, for a little while. If you write for yourself, you can read what you yourself have written and after ten minutes you will be so disgusted that you will wish that you were dead.
— Thomas Merton
We thank Him less by words than by the serene happiness of silent acceptance. It is our emptiness in the presence of His reality, our silence in the presence of His infinitely rich silence, our joy in the bosom of the serene darkness in which His light holds us absorbed, it is all this that praises Him.
— Thomas Merton
Do not look for rest in any pleasure, because you were not created for pleasure: you were created for spiritual joy. And if you do not know the difference between pleasure and spiritual joy you have not yet begun to live.
— Thomas Merton
The earthly desires men cherish are shadows. There is no true happiness in fulfilling them. Why, then, do we continue to pursue joys without substance? Because the pursuit itself has become our only substitute for joy. Unable to rest in anything we achieve, we determine to forget our discontent in a ceaseless quest for new satisfactions. In this pursuit, desire itself becomes our chief satisfaction.
— Thomas Merton
A happiness that is sought for ourselves alone can never be found: for a happiness that is diminished by being shared is not big enough to make us happy.
— Thomas Merton