Joy Of Living Quotes

The real joy of life is in its play. Play is anything we do for the joy and love of doing it, apart from any profit, compulsion, or sense of duty. It is the real joy of living. ~ Walter Rauschenbusch

There was always a quest for more minutes, more hours, faster progress to accomplish more in each day. The simple joy of living between summers was gone. ~ Mitch Albom

But I will admit, that most of my life has been with the thought of the reaper pacing behind me. I know he's there. He's not freaking me out or anything, but he's reminding me to grab at life with joy. I get a lot of joy from my writing.

And I hope the other writers are too, because it's a great thing to create a world of your own making. We'll beat back the reaper just a little while longer and enjoy the ride in the meantime. ~ Jamie Freveletti

Imagine if we had a food system that actually produced wholesome food. Imagine if it produced that food in a way that restored the land. Imagine if we could eat every meal knowing these few simple things: What it is we're eating. Where it came from. How it found its way to our table. And what it really cost. If that was the reality, then every meal would have the potential to be a perfect meal. We would not need to go hunting for our connection to our food and the web of life that produces it. We would no longer need any reminding that we eat by the grace of nature, not industry, and that what we're eating is never anything more or less than the body of the world. I don't want to have to forage every meal. Most people don't want to learn to garden or hunt. But we can change the way we make and get our food so that it becomes food again - something that feeds our bodies and our souls. Imagine it: Every meal would connect us to the joy of living and the wonder of nature. Every meal would be like saying grace. ~ Michael Pollan

Happiness does not depend on outward circumstances, but on the state of the heart. ~ J.C. Ryle

for Roberts talks chiefly of God's love and of the great joy of living in obedience to that love. ~ Evan Roberts

Oh the wild joys of living! The leaping from rock to rock ... the cool silver shock of the plunge in a pool's living waters. ~ Robert Browning

A feeling that greater possessions, no matter of what kind they may be, will of themselves bring contentment or happiness, is a misunderstanding. No person, place, or thing can give you happiness. They may give you cause for happiness and a feeling of contentment, but the JOY of Living comes from within. ~ Genevieve Behrend

The dance lives in all mankind as a necessary motor-rhythmic expression of excess energy and the joy of living. ~ Curt Sachs

What happiness is, no person can say for another. But no one, I am convinced, can be happy who lives only for himself. The joy of living comes from immersion in something that we know to be bigger, better, more enduring and worthier than we are. ~ John Mason Brown

Only those who have not paid a high price for the gentle joy of living and breathing can allow themselves feelings of melancholy, denial and lofty disdain of life. ~ Alexander Kushner

Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

There is no fire like greed, No crime like hatred, No sorrow like separation, No sickness like hunger of heart, And no joy like the joy of freedom. Health, contentment and trust Are your greatest possessions, And freedom your greatest joy. Look within. Be still. Free from fear and attachment, Know the sweet joy of living in the way. ~ Gautama Buddha

A Poem by Tecumseh

"So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours. Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people. Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide.
Always give a word or a sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, even a stranger, when in a lonely place. Show respect to all people and grovel to none.
When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself. Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of its vision.
When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song and die like a hero going home."
~ Chief Tecumseh ~ ~ Chief Tecumseh

I experienced the joy of living alone for the first time while also falling deeply in love with Eve. Genesis Eve. Mother of all the Living Eve. Paradise Lost Eve. Lover Eve. Sister Eve. My Eve. She, too, had made a decision that was both painful and liberating. I was thankful for her willingness to defy a rule for experience, for story, for possibility. --Kitty Taylor ~ Various

Happiness is never a negative affair; it is to be won by men who are fully alive, full of the joy of living ~ Aga Khan III

One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time. ~ Andre Gide

Once you have the gift of life, you are blessed. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

Noronha's Laws

1. No man works harder than he must.
2. The joy of living, lies in making little things big.
3. Try never to do what you do not want to do. The secret of a happy old age is in never doing what you do not want to do. ~ R.P. Noronha

Success, I would find out, is interior. It has to do with self-fulfillment and the joy of living. ~ Sophia Loren

Drink freely the wine life offers you and don't worry how much you spill. ~ Marty Rubin

He explained how once we began to chime the hour, we lost the ability to be satisfied. There was always a quest for more minutes, more hours, faster progress to accomplish more in each day. The simple joy of living between sunrises was gone. ~ Mitch Albom

You will be hollow. We shall squeeze you empty, and then we shall fill you with ourselves. ~ George Orwell

Only pains of life too intense to be borne could lead a man to forgo all response, to give up completely the joy of living as other men live. (153) ~ Sheldon B. Kopp

Life is too short to be unhappy in business. If business were not a part of the joy of living, we might almost say that we have no right to live, because it is a pretty poor man who cannot get into the line for which he is fitted. ~ George L. Brown

I find my joy of living in the fierce and ruthless battles of life, and my pleasure comes from learning something. ~ August Strindberg

How was it this easy? When had Josephine Somerhall's presence become something he required to find...happiness? Since when did he need to be in her company to find the burden of responsibility temporarily banished, the long-forgotten laughter and carefree joy of living reinstated with a single smile? ~ Kelly Bowen

To be a Christian is not a pious pose. It is not a long list of restrictions. Christianity flings open the windows to the real joy of living. Those who have been truly converted to Jesus Christ know the meaning of abundant living. ~ Billy Graham

We knew toil and hardship and hunger and thirst; and we saw men die violent deaths as they worked among the horses and cattle, or fought in evil feuds with one another; but we felt the beat of hardy life in our veins, and ours was the glory of work and the joy of living. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

Humility makes us more friendly
Happiness makes us more lively.
Love makes us more caring
Dream makes us more daring.
Trust makes us more forgiving
Kindness makes us more loving.
Hope gives us the joy of dreaming
Peace gives us the joy of living. ~ Debasish Mridha

…Yes, these were grand and boisterous evenings, full of life and filled to capacity with the rough joy of living. To-morrow? Well, perhaps the news would be bad again. But this was the day, and this was the hour to grasp and save and cherish. And as we walked back to our tents and felt the night breeze play on our faces and heard the little slapping of the lake water on the shore, I think that we all realised the extent of our happiness and knew that it could not be lasting. For things that last grow stale too soon, and joys are all the greater for their un-expected capture. ~ Malcolm James

The awareness of God's greatness gives joy and inner peace. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

When you rise in the morning, give thanks for the light, for your life, for your strength. Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason to give thanks, the fault lies in yourself. ~ Tecumseh

Because the biological mechanisms that affect our health and well-being are so dynamic, when people change their diet and lifestyle, they usually feel so much better, so quickly; it reframes the reason for changing from fear of dying to joy of living. Also, the support that patients give each other is a powerful motivator. ~ Dean Ornish

There are thousands of books on the joy of gardening and cooking. Alas, there are only few on the joy of living. ~ Robert Muller

Carlos, your mysophobia does affect my health. I feel freer – more alive, more vivacious and, ironically enough, healthier – if I'm not constantly made to worry about germs and unhealthy choices. Whether it's for a moment of spontaneous kissing in a phone booth or eating an occasional hamburger…Obsessing about your health doesn't actually make you healthier. The fact of the matter is, Carlos, our bodies are decaying at every moment, regardless of what we do. Living is bad for your health."

"It doesn't have to be."

"Maybe if you live in an antiseptic bubble specially designed by the CDC it doesn't. But in a place like New York City, you're fighting a pointless battle. You can either embrace the dirt and the germs as part of the risky joy of living in an exciting, overpopulated metropolis, or you can spend lots of mental real estate obsessing over whether you touched a few extra microbes when you got on the subway. ~ Zack Love

We all need a space to just let things be, a place to remember who we are and what is important to us, an interval of time that allows the happiness and joy of living back into our consciousness. ~ Nina Sankovitch

My purpose of life is very simple; I live just for the joy of living. ~ Debasish Mridha

Appreciation is a wonderful thing. It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well. ~ Voltaire

Life is a wonderfully fine thing. Go live it. ~ Fennel Hudson

I must cease living the false life of an imposter, and stop worrying about the future or risk sacrificing the joy of living in the moment. I am a seeker. I shall listen to the teaching my blood whispers and ecstatically accept life unfolding in whatever manner my innate material demands. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

It is the experiences, the great triumphant joy of living to the fullest extent in which real meaning is found. God it's great to be alive! ~ Christopher McCandless

So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours. Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people. Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide. Always give a word or a sign of salute when meeting or passing afriend, even a stranger, when in a lonely place. Show respect to all people and grovel to none. When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself. Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of its vision. When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song and die like a hero going home."

- Chief Tecumseh, Shawnee Nation ~ Chief Tecumseh Shawnee Nation

You can't let your past define your future. Once you get that figured out, you begin to understand the joy of living in the present. And the present is full of tiny gifts that we can only see when we stop looking behind and ahead of us. Sometimes, these gifts land right at our feet. Sometimes, it's our feet that carry us toward them, running at full-speed until our hearts nearly give out. Either way, never stop noticing them, and never stop wishing. ~ Cassia Leo

Gratitude is the best feeling I would ever have, the ultimate joy of living. ~ Lewis B. Smedes

- So you're a masochist.
- I know. But what's life rather than walking barefoot? ~ Cristian Peter Marinescu-Ivan

How much the making of a garden, no matter how small, adds to the joy of living, only those who practice the arts and the science can know. ~ Ernest Henry Wilson

One takes what the river offers, both good and bad. The joy of living by running water far outweighs the sorrow. ~ Matt Goldman

Clearly, the pleasures wines afford are transitory - but so are those of the ballet, or of a musical performance. Wine is inspiring and adds greatly to the joy of living. ~ Napoleon Bonaparte

Whoever, through too great love, which is monstrous after all, dies of his misery, is born again to know neither love nor hate, but to enjoy. And this joy of living, because it is unnaturally acquired, is a poison which eventually vitiates the whole world. Whatever is created beyond the normal limits of human suffering, acts as a boomerang and brings about destruction. ~ Henry Miller

The true purpose of life is the perfection of humanity through individual effort, under the guidance of God's inspiration. Real life is response to the best within us. To be alive only to appetite, pleasure, pride, money-making, and not to goodness and kindness, purity and love, poetry, music, flowers, stars, God and eternal hopes, is to deprive one's self of the real joy of living. ~ David O. McKay

Children should have the joy of living in far lands, in other persons, in other times - a delightful double existence; and this joy they will find, for the most part, in their story books. Their lessons, too, history and geography, should cultivate their conceptive powers. If the children do not live in the times of his history lesson, be not at home in the climate his geography book describes, why, these lessons will fail of their purpose. ~ Charlotte Mason

Joy of living is sustainable; fear of dying is not. ~ Dean Ornish

The joy of living is the heart of thanksgiving. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

Rejoice in the abundance of being able to awaken each morning and experience a new day. Be glad to be alive, to be healthy, to have friends, to be creative, to be a living example of the joy of living. Live to your highest awareness. Enjoy your transformationa l process. ~ Louise Hay

God made us for joy. God is joy, & the joy of living reflects the original joy that God felt in creating us. ~ Pope John Paul II

Homes should mean something to us humans. They are a basic instinct. A home, with a life that centers only on food and sleep, is not really a home, it's a house. Beauty and graciousness, joy of living, being used in every part, these are the things that make a house a home. (chapter header quote from Popular Home Decorations, 1940) ~ Ellen Baker

Janus found himself drawn to the edge of the rink, staring fixedly at Candace as she approached: grinning, puffing steam, her cheeks flushed, her brown hair peeking out from under a knitted cap, her hazel eyes sparkling green and gold in the bright winter sun. She wore a wool riding coat, brilliant red trimmed with black, which stood out amid the ice like a ruby on white gold. Janus thought she had never looked more beautiful than she did in that moment, with all her cares and duties laid aside for the pure joy of living. Janus wanted to freeze the moment in his memory and carry it forever: This is what happiness looks like. I never knew. ~ Chris Lester

Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world. We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy. ~ Joseph Campbell

To wake up on a gloriously bright morning, in a tent pitched beneath spruce trees, and to look out lazily and sleepily for a moment from the open side of the tent, across the dead camp-fire of the night before, to the river, where the light of morning rests and perhaps some early-rising[240] native is gliding in his birch canoe; to go to the river and freshen one's self with the cold water, and yell exultingly to the gulls and hell-divers, in the very joy of living; or to wake at night, when you have rolled in your blankets in the frost-stricken dying grass without a tent, and to look up through the leaves above to the dark sky and the flashing stars, and hear far off the call of a night bird or the howl of a wolf: this is the poetry, the joy of a wild and roving existence, which cannot come too often ~ Josiah Edward Spurr

She saw dark, triumphant crimson in herself. What was making her glow so much? Boredom… Yes, in spite of everything there was fire under it, there was fire even when it represented death. Maybe this was the joy of living. ~ Clarice Lispector

Such is the joy of concluding a day performing duties earnestly leaving ends upon His feet! I have nothing to gain here except virtues, nothing to lose except love, O Lord, I am here to breathe the beauty of life! ~ Preeth Nambiar

The problem with self righteousness is that it seems almost impossible to recognize in ourselves. We will own up to almost any other sin. but not the sin of self-righteousness. When we have this attitude, though, we deprive ourselves of the joy of living in the grace of God. Because you see, grace is only for sinners. ~ Jerry Bridges

Ukrainian proverb: The fear of death takes away the joy of living ~ Andy Szpuk

Each one of us has the power - and must develop the will - to be the hero of his own life. We believe in goals, in purposes, in achievement and in the joy of living. ~ Andrew Bernstein

The end of consumerism and accumulation is the beginning of the joy of living. ~ Vandana Shiva

My life for your life.' That means while we live, we share the joy of living with each other. 'My death for your life.' I would be willing to lay down my life to save yours. 'My life for your death.' I will spend my life avenging your death, if I can't prevent it. 'My death for your death.' A part of me will die when you do. ~ Tracy Hickman

Don't ever believe that you are going to be peaceful-life is not like that. When you are changing all the time, you've got to continue to keep adjusting to change, which means that you are going to be constantly facing new obstacles. That's the joy of living. And once you are involved in the process of becoming, there is no stopping. You're doomed! You're gone! But what a fantastic journey! Every day is new. Every flower is new. Every face is new. Everything in the world is new, every morning of your life. Stop seeing it as a drag! ~ Leo Buscaglia

The birth of a child is a joy to the parent and the world. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

The Irish ... are full of the fear of the Lord and the joy of living, and they don't know how to combine the two, but they'll sure have a good time trying. ~ Mercedes McCambridge

A small red face ringed in soft black curls looked up at him for one moment, registered that he wasn't the milk-providing parent, and erupted back into a howl. There was no telling Lucia that she was a pebble on the shores of eternity. She was a living, breathing, adorable source of chaos, and he loved her so much that it felt as if his heart were beating outside his body. ~ Eloisa James

Our whole idea about ourselves is based on the opinion of others. We may answer that such and such is our name, we work or study at such and such places. But is our identity confined to these outer features? ~ Shivanshu K. Srivastava

Seek something outside your nine-to-five job as an additional source of fulfillment and as a way to feel the joy of helping others. ~ Harold S. Kushner

There can be as much joy of giving pleasure as to receive it. ~ Marina Anderson

The path of a cosmonaut is not an easy, triumphant march to glory. You have to get to know the meaning not just of joy but also of grief, before being allowed in the spacecraft cabin. ~ Yuri Gagarin

Our inner male and female sides are expressed on the outside as relationships. Often our longer and deeper relationships with an outer man or woman are a mirror of our own inner man or woman. ~ Swami Dhyan Giten

Just as the light of the sun, while it invigorates a living and animated body, produces effluvia in a carcass; so it is certain that the sacraments where the Spirit of faith is not present, breathes mortiferous rather than vital odour. ~ John Calvin

Women living in America in the mid-1800s were the legal property of their husbands. A married woman had no right to property, no right to buy and sell real estate in her own name, no right to bequeath any property whatsoever to an heir. A married woman of the time had no right even to her own children. And, needless to say, she had no right to the vote. ~ Stephen Cope

As you pass from sunlight into darkness and back again every hour and a half, you become startlingly aware how artificial are thousands of boundaries we've created to separate and define. And for the first time in your life you feel in your gut the precious unity of the Earth and all the living things it supports. ~ Rusty Schweickart

I think the Swedish Academy wished to manifest its solidarity with the living spirit of Greece today. ~ Giorgos Seferis

I remember, I remember
The roses, red and white,
The violets, and the lily-cups,
Those flowers made of light!
The lilacs, where the robin built,
And where my brother set
The laburmum on his birthday,-
The tree is living yet. ~ Thomas Hood

My life is ending, I know that well, but every day that is left me I feel how earthly life is in touch with a new infinite, unknown, but approaching life, the nearness of which sets my soul quivering with rapture, my mind glowing and my heart weeping with joy. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I don't know when the Return of the Living Dead are happening. That's been on the Internet for years. ~ Tobe Hooper

We are living in a time of trouble and bewilderment, in a time when none of us can foresee or foretell the future. But surely it is in times like these, when so much that we cherish is threatened or in jeopardy, that we are impelled all the more to strengthen our inner resources, to turn to the things that have no news value because they will be the same to-morrow that they were to-day and yesterday - the things that last, the things that the wisest, the most farseeing of our race and kind have been inspired to utter in forms that can inspire ourselves in turn. ~ Laurence Binyon

Now, I'm the only living member of that group. There was the six of us originally and they're now all gone. ~ Martin Denny

That Jem makes beautiful things and I destroy them. That it really ought to be me dying and not him. I mean, what's the point of living if you can't even enjoy it? Yet Jem enjoys all the life he's got. It's not fair. ~ Cassandra Clare

VIII
O when so much has been and gone
behind you - grief, to say the least
expect no help from anyone.
Board a train, get to the coast.
It's wider and it's deeper. This
superiority's not a thing
of joy especially. Mind you, if
one has to feel as orphans do,
better in places where the view
stirs somehow and cannot sting. ~ Joseph Brodsky

It wasn't until I slowed the car and rolled down the windows that I realized I spend most of my days driving 'through' life without driving 'in' life. So, I've decided to walk because the pace is slower and the windows are always down. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

Lewis, anything but dull, suffered from an excess of misguided cleverness: he could disparage himself brilliantly in a matter of seconds. He knew literature, art, the theater, history; and his knowledge surpassed what a college normally provides. His knowledge led nowhere, certainly not into the world where he was supposed to earn a living. Lewis had once gone to work in the bookstore of his school because he loved handling books and looked forward to being immersed in them. He was then instructed to keep careful accounts of merchandise that might as well have been canned beans. He soon lost interest in his simple task, failed to master it, and quit after three days. Eight years later, he was still convinced of his practical incompetence. College friends familiar with his tastes would suggest modest ways for him to get started: they knew of jobs as readers in publishing houses, as gofers in theatrical productions, as caretakers at galleries. Lewis rejected them all. While he saw that they might lead to greater things, they sounded both beneath and beyond him--the bookstore again. Other chums who had gone on to graduate school urged their choice on him. Lewis harbored an uneasy scorn for the corporation of scholars, who seemed as unfit for the world as he. He remained desperate, lonely, and spoiled. ~ Harry Mathews

Christians are a people of hope to the extent that others can find in us a source of strength and joy. If not, our profession of faith 'by the power of the Holy Spirit He was born of the Virgin Mary and became man' is as academic, tentative, and hopeless as the alcoholic who promises, 'I'll quit tomorrow. ~ Brennan Manning

Animal spirits often will appear during the hours between dusk and dawn; also known as the "tween times". They will always give you something. It may be just a simple pause within the chaos of life to remind you that there is more to life than the details of living it, working it and paying for it. It may be a shred of insight or a flash of recognition that comes to you in a fleeting thought or maybe in a dream in the tween times of your own mind. ~ Kate McGahan

As I prepare to leave she walks with me, half deaf and blind, under several ladders in her living room that balance paint and workmen, into the garden where there is a wild horse, a 1930 car splayed flat on its axles and hundreds of flowering bushes so that her eyes swim out into the dark green and unfocussed purple. There is very little now that separates the house from the garden. Rain and vines and chickens move into the building. Before I leave, she points to a group photograph of a fancy dress party that shows herself and my grandmother Lalla among the crowd. She has looked at it for years and has in this way memorized everyone's place in the picture. She reels off names and laughs at the facial expressions she can no longer see. It has moved, tangible, palpable, into her brain, the way memory invades the present in those who are old, the way gardens invade houses here, the way her tiny body steps into mine as intimate as anything I have witnessed and I have to force myself to be gentle with this frailty in the midst of my embrace. ~ Michael Ondaatje

Martin Scorcese is probably America's greatest living director, and while he is not a titan like John Ford or Alfred Hitchcock or Federico Fellini, he is certainly consistently more interesting than Steven Spielberg, Brian de Palma, Francis Ford Coppola or Woody Allen. Even a failure like Gangs of New York or a curiosity like The Aviator is more interesting and ambitious than Munich, The Black Dahlia or Scoop. ~ Joe Queenan

People "died" all the time ... Parts of them died when they made the wrong kinds of decisions-decisions against life. Sometimes they died bit by bit until finally they were just living corpses walking around. If you were perceptive you could see it in their eyes; the fire had gone out ... you always knew when you made a decision against life. The door clicked and you were safe inside-safe and dead. ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh

How wonderful it is being a sheep in the flock of God. Our shepherd is the one that created the grass that we need for pasture, He is the one that created the rivers and the waters, He is the one who holds everything in His hand and He is my Shepherd. ~ Edmond Sanganyado

They were being driven to a prison, through no fault of their own, in all probability for life. In comparison, how much easier it would be to walk to the gallows than to this tomb of living horrors! ~ Nellie Bly

But God does not neglect his lost creature. He plans to re-create his image in man, to recover his first delight in his handiwork. He is seeking in it his own image so that he may love it. But there is only one way to achieve this purpose and that is for God, out of sheer mercy, to assume the image and form of fallen man. But this restoration of the divine image concerns not just a part, but the whole image of divine nature. It is not enough for man to simply recover right ideas about God, or to obey his will in the isolated actions of his life. No, man must be re-fashioned as a living whole in the image of God. His whole form, body, soul and spirit, must once more bear that image on earth. Such is God's purpose and destiny for man. His good pleasure can rest only on his perfected image. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Living our vocation to be protectors of God's handiwork is essential to a life of virtue; it is not an optional or a secondary aspect of our Christian experience. ~ Pope Francis

I think that when enough time has passed, when you've survived that which you didn't imagine you could, there's a dignity in that. Something you can own. A pride in knowing the pain made you stronger. The pain made you fight to succeed. Someday, when I'm living my dreams, I'm going to think of all the things that broke my heart and I'm going to be thankful for them. ~ Mia Sheridan

What is it that makes us who we are and what we are? Is it only our blood, the color of our hair, our skin, and our eyes? Or is it believing in what we believe and living the way we live? ~ Aleksandra Layland