The bitterness of joy lies in the knowledge that it cannot last. Nor should joy last beyond a certain season, for, after that season, even joy would become merely habit.
TANITH LEE
Delusion's Master
Man was made for joy and woe,
And when this we rightly know
Through the world we safely go.
WILLIAM BLAKE
"Auguries of Innocence", Poems from the Pickering Manuscript
Joy is more divine than sorrow; for joy is bread, and sorrow is medicine.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Joy's recollection is no longer joy,
While Sorrow's memory is a sorrow still.
LORD BYRON
Marino Faliero
Troubles loom up big when they're ahead,
And joys seem always sweeter when they're past.
EDGAR GUEST
"The Present"
Perhaps there could be no joy on this planet without an equal weight of pain to balance it out on some unknown scale.
STEPHENIE MEYER
The Host
Here below is not the land of happiness; I know it not; it is only the land of toil, and every joy which comes to us is only to strengthen us for some greater labor that is to succeed.
JOHANN GOTTLIEB FICHTE
Popular Works
Joy, rather than happiness, is the goal of life, for joy is the emotion which accompanies our fulfilling our natures as human beings.
ROLLO MAY
Man's Search For Himself
This is a catastrophic universe, always; and subject to hidden reversals, upheavals, changes, cataclysms, with joy never anything but the song of substance under pressure forced into new forms and shapes.
DORIS LESSING
Shikasta
Joy comes and fills the self-emptied heart; it abides with the peaceful; its reign is with the pure.
JAMES ALLEN
Morning and Evening Thoughts
It ain't no sin to be glad you're alive.
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN
"Badlands", Darkness on the Edge of Town
Pleasure is always derived from something outside you, whereas joy arises from within.
ECKHART TOLLE
The Power of Now
Joy cannot remain with the selfish; it is wedded to Love.
JAMES ALLEN
Morning and Evening Thoughts
What matters an eternity of damnation to someone who has found in one second the infinity of joy?
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
"Le Mauvais Vitrier," Le Spleen de Paris