Freedom To Feel Joy Quotes

There are three absolute freedoms that we have that no one can take away; freedom to think, freedom to love and freedom to feel the joys of life. ~ Debasish Mridha

And then, if you make it to bedtime, you feel the joy of cheating death out of one more day," she said. "Do you see? ~ Suzanne Collins

I did believe that I could opt out of feeling vulnerable, so when it happened- when the phone rang with unimaginable news; or when I was scared; or when I loved so fiercely that rather than feeling gratitude and joy I could only prepare for loss- I controlled things. I managed situations and micromanaged the people around me. I performed until there was no energy left to feel. I made what was uncertain certain, no matter what the cost. I stayed so busy that the truth of my hurting and my fear could never catch up. I looked brave on the outside and felt scared on the inside. ~ Brene Brown

It is impossible to exercise free will as long as we are operating from within the system. Free will requires consciousness, and our pervasive and deep-seated patterns of thought are unconscious; they are outside of our awareness and therefore outside of our control. While we remain in the system, we see the world through the eyes of carnism. And as long as we look through eyes other than our own, we will be living in accordance to a truth that is not of our own choosing. We must step outside the system to find our lost empathy and make choices that reflect what we truly feel and believe, rather than what we've been taught to feel and believe. ~ Melanie Joy

There's only one thing we can be sure of, and that is the love that we have for our children, for our families, for each other. The warmth of a small child's embrace, that is true. The memories we have of them, the joy that they bring, the wonder we see through their eyes, that fierce and boundless love we feel for them, a love that takes us out of ourselves and binds us to something larger, we know that's what matters. We know we're always doing right when we're taking care of them, when we're teaching them well, when we're showing acts of kindness. We don't go wrong when we do that. ~ Barack Obama

Kaitlyn remebered the things he'd given her, the sun-flooded afternoons, and the cool healing ocean waves, and the music he'd written. He'd given her everything that was best in him, everything he was.
She wanted to give him the same thing back.
I don't know how you can love me. The words came soflty, as if he were thinking them to himself. You've seen what I am.
That's why I do love you, Kaitlyn told him. I hope you'll still love me when you see what I am.
"I know what you are, Kait. Everything beautiful and brave and gallant and..." He stopped as if his throat had closed. "Everything that makes me want to be better for you. That makes me sorry I'm such a stupid mess..."
You looked like a knight with that shard, Kaitlyn said, moving toward him.
"Really?" He laughed shakily.
My knight. And I never said thank you.
She was almost touching him, now. Looking up into his eyes. What she could feel in him was something she'd only felt before when she gave him her life energy. Childlike, marveling joy. Trust and vulnerability. And such love...
Then she was in his arms and they weren't separate beings any longer. Their minds were together, sharing thoughts, sharing happiness beyond thought. Sharing everything.
She never even knew whether he kissed her. ~ L.J. Smith

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 m ~ Mark Nepo

And maybe that was how it was supposed to be ... Joy and sadness were part of the package; the trick, perhaps,was to let yourself feel all of it, but to hold on to the joy just a little more tightly ... ~ Kristin Hannah

To feel the joy of presence, do not try to express or impress. ~ Debasish Mridha

Wrath held her even closer, right to his beating chest. ". . . a son?"
"Yes. A son."
All of a sudden, he felt the biggest, widest, happiest grin hit his face, the g*dd*mn thing stretching his cheeks until they hurt, making his eyes water from the strain, pulling at his temples until they burned.
And the joy wasn't just on his puss.
A flush so great it burned him alive flooded through his body, cleansing him in places he didn't know were dirty, washing out cobwebs that had crept into his corners, making him feel alive in a way he hadn't been in a very, very long time.
Before he knew what he was doing, he burst to his feet with Beth in his arms, leaned back, and hollered at the top of his lungs, with more pride than his six-foot-nine frame could hold.
"A soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooon! I'm having a soooooooooooooooooooooooon!"

-Wrath & Beth ~ J.R. Ward

I am ugly, Uncle. There is no other way to put it. But that does not mean I am without pride, without
joy, without the same entitlement to feel deserving of love from those not obligated by blood to give
it. I may be ugly, but I can hardly imagine a reason to act like it. ~ Brian McGreevy

I know now why caring about another person is so damn scary. It's not that they won't care about you back, because that either happens or it doesn't. You live with it or you do everything you can to change it. The really scary thing is the moment you realize that for the rest of your life, you'll feel twice the pain, twice the joy, twice the fear.
Twice as helpless to control it all, too. ~ Cora Carmack

Find people who can handle your darkest truths, who don't change the subject when you share your pain, or try to make you feel bad for feeling bad. Find people who understand we all struggle, some of us more than others, and that there's no weakness in admitting it. Find people who want to be real, however that looks and feels, and who want you to be real, too. Find people who get that life is hard, and who get that life is also beautiful, and who aren't afraid to honor both of those realities. Find people who help you feel more at home in your heart, mind and body, and who take joy in your joy. Find people who love you, for real, and who accept you, for real. Just as you are. They're out there, these people. Your tribe is waiting for you. Don't stop searching until you find them. ~ Scott Stabile

Wow!" My whole body exploded with joy and excitement to see this magnificent sight. Overwhelmed by their presence, my stomach fluttered right along with them. Butterflies of every color, looking as if they were painted with patches of bold bright reds, oranges, blues, purples, and yellows, all intertwined, overlapping each other. As I continued to follow their path, I squinted at the brilliant sun in the cloudless sky. It blinded me for a split second, and then I saw that the butterflies were returning, circling around Michael and me - all of them dancing in the sky. Each knew its location and position with such precision, never colliding while reaching higher and higher to form a tunnel. Countless butterflies, circling around us, gave me chills as I could feel the air gently flowing from their wings. It was incredible to experience such beauty of color and grace so close within reach. ~ C. Gockel

Dear universe... I am ready and OPEN to receive ALL the blessings of joy, abundance, and prosperity you have in store for me today!!! Right NOW - I AM present - and opening the gift of this PRESENT moment! Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!!!! I AM SO HAPPY AND THANKFUL to be alive in a world that provides a full buffet of exciting choices! I feel overjoyed knowing I have the POWER to sort through my inner thoughts and outer experiences and CHOOSE the things that I want in order to create "my perfect world" around me!!! I AM - THE CREATOR OF MY OWN REALITY!!! ~ Adi Atar

I might be killed any day, by whites or hostile Indians, I might be run down by a grizzly or a pack of buffalo wolves, but I rarely did anything I didn't feel like doing, and maybe this was the main difference between the whites and the Comanches, which was the whites were willing to trade all their freedom to live longer and eat better, and the Comanches were not willing to trade any of it. ~ Philipp Meyer

One woman sent me on a letter written to her by her daughter, and the young girl's words are a remarkable statement about artistic creation as an infinitely versatile and subtle form of communication:
'...How many words does a person know?' she asks her mother. 'How many does he use in his everyday vocabulary? One hundred, two, three? We wrap our feelings up in words, try to express in words sorrow and joy and any sort of emotion, the very things that can't in fact be expressed. Romeo uttered beautiful words to Juliet, vivid, expressive words, but they surely didn't say even half of what made his heart feel as if it was ready to jump out of his chest, and stopped him breathing, and made Juliet forget everything except her love?
There's another kind of language, another form of communication: by means of feeling, and images. That is the contact that stops people being separated from each other, that brings down barriers. Will, feeling, emotion - these remove obstacles from between people who otherwise stand on opposite sides of a mirror, on opposite sides of a door.. The frames of the screen move out, and the world which used to be partitioned off comes into us, becomes something real... And this doesn't happen through little Audrey, it's Tarkovsky himself addressing the audience directly, as they sit on the other side of the screen. There's no death, there is immortality. Time is one and undivided, as it says in one of the poems. "At the table are great-grandfathers ~ Andrei Tarkovsky

John Berryman: The Song of the Tortured Girl

After a little I could not have told -
But no one asked me this – why I was there.
I asked. The ceiling of that place was high
And there were sudden noises, which I made.
I must have stayed there a long time today:
My cup of soup was gone when they brought me back.

Often 'Nothing worse now can come to us'
I thought, the winter the young men stayed away,
My uncle died, and mother broke her crutch.
And then the strange room where the brightest light
Does not shine on the strange men: shines on me.
I feel them stretch my youth and throw a switch.

Through leafless branches the sweet wind blows
Making a mild sound, softer than a moan;
High in a pass once where we put our tent,
Minutes I lay awake to hear my joy.
- I no longer remember what they want. -
Minutes I lie awake to hear my joy. ~ John Berryman

As so much music is listened to via MP3 download, many will never experience the joy of analog playback, and for them, I feel sorry. They are missing out. ~ Henry Rollins

It's great to feel happy. Go, do what makes you feel happy. Do it shabbily and get shallow happiness; Do it hard and feel the hardest happiness! ~ Israelmore Ayivor

What draws me to the type of snowboarding that I'm doing now is, I go through every emotion in life when I'm climbing these mountains. The fear. The anticipation before that. Getting to the top and the joy of standing on top, and then the adrenaline on going down, and then the kind of overwhelming emotions that I get at the bottom. That whole process is really addicting, and makes me feel alive. ~ Jeremy Jones

The only advice, indeed, that one person can give another about reading is to take no advice, to follow your own instincts, to use your own reason, to come to your own conclusions. If this is agreed between us, then I feel at liberty to put forward a few ideas and suggestions because you will not allow them to fetter that independence which is the most important quality that a reader can possess. After all, what laws can be laid down about books? The battle of Waterloo was certainly fought on a certain day; but is Hamlet a better play than Lear? Nobody can say. Each must decide that question for himself. To admit authorities, however heavily furred and gowned, into our libraries and let them tell us how to read, what to read, what value to place upon what we read, is to destroy the spirit of freedom which is the breath of those sanctuaries. Everywhere else we may be bound by laws and conventions-there we have none. ~ Virginia Woolf

Your personal freedom to experience yourself and life as you wish is not being limited. Step into your choices and stop telling yourself that you can't, when what you really mean is that you don't want other people to feel the way you think that are going to feel when they see you making the choices you really want to make. ~ Neale Donald Walsch

But the tears of joy had washed anxiety away and lifted them to a height where nothing was impossible. Ryuji was as if paralyzed: the sight of familiar places, places they had visited together, failed to move him. That Yamashita Park and Marine Tower should now appear just as he had often pictured them seemed only obvious, inevitable. And the smoking drizzle of rain, by softening the too distinct scenery and making of it something closer to the images in memory, only heightened the reality of it all. Ryuji expected for some time after he disembarked to feel the world tottering precariously beneath his feet, and yet today more than ever before, like a piece in a jigsaw puzzle, he felt snugly in place in an anchored, amiable world. ~ Yukio Mishima

To feel free is to feel eternity. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

I'd like to make something about someone who hasn't existed so that I don't have to tread so carefully and can feel a little bit more creative freedom. ~ Sam Taylor-Johnson

I remember the sad case of a very godly man whom I knew who had two daughters who were the most excellent women. They had reached middle life when I met them. They lived, in a sense, for the things of God, and yet neither of them had ever become a member of a Christian church, or ever taken communion at the Lord's Table. As regards their life and conduct, you could not think of better people, and yet they had never become members of the church and they had never partaken of the bread and the wine. Why? They said they did not feel they were good enough. What was the matter with them? They were looking at themselves instead of at the finished, perfect work of Christ. You look at yourself and, of course, you will miserable, for within there is blackness and darkness. The best saint when he looks at himself becomes unhappy; he sees things that should not be there, and if you and I spend our whole time looking at ourselves we shall remain in misery, and we shall lose the joy. Self-examination is all right, but introspection is bad. Let us draw the distinction between these two things. We can examine ourselves in the light of Scripture, and if we do that we shall be driven to Christ. But with introspection a man looks at himself and continues to do so, and refuses to be happy until he gets rid of the imperfections that are still there. Oh, the tragedy that we should spend our lives looking at ourselves instead of looking at Him who can set us free! ~ D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Oh, if only I could hurt with such misery once again, to feel the powers of love here inside my heart, the joys of heaven and the pains of hell! ~ Victor Villasenor

I feel I want to quit this constant ageing of mind and body, with incessant argument and nicety concerning ancient decaying things, and to feel the joy of a free and vigorous life; to have, ⎯ be they good or bad, ⎯ broad, unhesitating, unfettered ideas and aspirations, free from everlasting friction between custom and sense, sense and desire, desire and action.

If only I could set utterly and boundlessly free this hampered life of mine, I would storm the four quarters and raise wave upon wave of tumult all round; I would career away madly, like a wild horse, for very joy of my own speed! But I am a Bengali, not a Bedouin! I go on sitting in my corner, and mope and worry and argue. I turn my mind now this way up, now the other ⎯ as a fish is fried ⎯ and the boiling oil blisters first this side, then that.

Let it pass. Since I cannot be thoroughly wild, it is but proper that I should make an endeavour to be thoroughly civil. Why foment a quarrel between the two? ~ Rabindranath Tagore

[...]her mouth curved into that smile that always teased every one of his senses. Amusement. She could feel it and give him that sense of playfulness and joy that she seemed to have in abundance. ~ Christine Feehan

I have to blame myself for not finding any way of reaching him, but I can't feel that either Ruth or I had anything much to do with his corruption.
His personal motives were freedom and pleasure, and he misread them both. ~ Wallace Stegner

There are some who apparently feel that the fight for freedom is separate from the Gospel. They express it in several ways, but it generally boils down to this: Just live the gospel; there's no need to get involved in trying to save freedom and the Constitution or stop communism ... Should we counsel the people, 'Just live your religion - there's no need to get involved in the fight for freedom?' No we should not, because our stand for freedom is a most basic part of our religion. ~ Ezra Taft Benson

When you ask most American parents why they want to have kids, it's to bring more joy into their lives. So, when you don't feel that all-encompassing joy, it must be that something is wrong with you. I think it's dissatisfaction that the expectation was different than the reality. ~ Jessica Valenti

If depression has taught me one thing, it is this: what a rare and beautiful treasure is the simple human gift of joy. For me now, joy - our capacity to delight in one another and in the world - is the reason why we are here. It is as simple as that. And I feel compelled to spread the word. ~ Giles Andreae

I feel like I'd have a different approach to football now after doing music. ~ Vance Joy

This," Racath shouted to them. "Is freedom! Feel it, let it carry you! ~ S.G. Night

God's reality is displayed to us in His Word or His world and we do not then feel in our heart any grief or longing or hope or fear or awe or joy or gratitude or confidence, then we may dutifully sing and pray and recite and gesture as much as we like, but it will not be real worship. ~ John Piper

And now I know why they invented words for love, why they had to: It's the only thing that can come close to describing what I feel in that moment, the baffling mixture of pain and pleasure and fear and joy, all running sharply through me at once. ~ Lauren Oliver

Sustainability is today's freedom crusade, because the next generation will not live free - will not have the freedom to pursue its economic dreams or to delight in all that nature has to offer - if our approach to the financial world and the natural are not grounded in sustainable values. That lack of sustainability will constrict everything in our lives. It will limit everything we might want to do. Unless we become less dependent on hydrocarbons, and unless we find a balance between the need for markets to be free enough to reward innovation and risk-taking but not so free as to reward recklessness that can destabilize the whole global economy, our lives will be reduced, redacted, and restricted. We will be overwhelmed by all the toxic assets we will produce in the Market and in Mother Nature. It will feel worse than had the Soviet Union won the Cold War, because we and our children will be enslaved by our financial debts and constricted by our ecological debts. ~ Thomas L. Friedman

Like many men, I am not ashamed to admit that my principal joys are domestic. I love cooking, and I love looking after my children. Indeed, the times that I have with them are the only ones when I feel unconditionally happy. ~ Louis De Bernieres

This is my depressed stance. When you're depressed, it makes a lot of difference how you stand. The worst thing you can do is straighten up and hold your head high because then you'll start to feel better. If you're going to get any joy out of being depressed, you've got to stand like this. ~ Charles M. Schulz

I wish not to tell you how I feel,
I choose silence so that you leave,
Kiss me goodbye and set me free... ~ Sanhita Baruah

I would just like to say this about all the married people working together on the set: it was just a joy. That is the great joy to go to work with people that you love, whether they be people that you are in love with or people that you just love and be creative and artistic and make things that you want to send out into the world and make people feel good. It was a great environment to work in for me. ~ Julia Roberts

I felt melancholy, I felt joy, I felt dread, I felt a sadness so deep it cannot be described in words. I felt emotions that have not been given names, I felt emotions that have been given the wrong names, I saw what it meant to feel and I saw that it was all the same feeling and I felt big feelings, the old feelings, the ones before language, before the mind had language, before the mind had learned to tell a fake story called consciousness and developed anxiety when it invented time, and danger, and risk, and probability, and the future. ~ Charles Yu

Only through the light of love can I see you. Only through the light of joy can I feel you. Only through a Divine delight I like to vanish in you. ~ Debasish Mridha

He used to hide his true self because he feared people wouldn't like him, or would judge him for being too much this and not enough that. He found himself acting like everyone else, even though his heart wanted to express itself in ways that felt different than much of what he was seeing in the world.

His heart grew louder, and he longed to taste a different kind of freedom, one his mind had worked hard to contain in order to keep him feeling safe. But that safety came with a price: his authenticity. Then it occurred to him, some people would judge him no matter who he was or what he did.

And that if he was going to be judged anyway, he may as well live his life as authentically as possible and at least be judged for his truth. He also knew some people would love him no matter who he was or what he did, and how much better it would feel to be loved for being real. ~ Scott Stabile