“There is no such thing as happiness. Life bends joy and pain, beauty and ugliness, in such a way that no one may isolate them. No one should want to. Perfect joy, or perfect pain, with no contrasting element to define them, would mean a monotony of consciousness, would mean death” WayWantShouldMayMeanPainJoyPerfectConsciousnessElementsUglinessLife HappinessMonotonyJoy And Pain Author:Jean Toomer
“Art is the distillate of life, the winnowed result of the experience of a people, the record of the joyous adventure of the creative spirit in us toward a higher world; a world in which all ideas, thoughts, and forms are pure and beautiful and completely clear, the world Plato held to be perfect and eternal. All works that have in them an element of joy are records of this adventure.” PeopleWorldArtIdeasBeautifulFormJoySpiritPerfectResultsCreativeClearRecordsAdventureHigherPureElementsEternalArt IsPlatoJoyousCreative Spirit Author:Lawren Harris
“The states in which we infuse a transfiguration and a fullness into things and poetize about them until they reflect back our fullness and joy in life... three elements principally: sexuality, intoxication and cruelty all belonging to the oldest festal joys.” StatesJoyThreeElementsSexualityCrueltyBelongingFullnessIntoxicationTransfiguration Author:Friedrich Nietzsche
“It is imperative that we find that vital element that brings us alive... the true vitality that waits beneath all occupations for us to tap into, if we can discover what we love. If you feel energy and excitement and a sense that life is happening for the first time, you are probably near your God-given nature. Joy in what we do is not an added feature; it is a sign of deep health.” IfsFeelsFirstsLife IsJoyEnergyGivenWaitingAliveElementsHappeningsFirst TimeFeaturesExcitementOccupationVitalityImperatives Author:Mark Nepo
“Pain happens, but suffering is optional. When pain comes, make use of the experience, but do not wallow in it. When you accidentally place your finger in a flame, it is supposed to hurt just long enough for you to pull it out. If you think there is value in keeping it there, you will be a crispy critter. Pain is a minor element of life, unless you are indulging it. Then it becomes suffering. Get the message and then get on with your life, which is far more about joy than sorrow.” IfsThinkingLongEnoughUseHappensPainJoySufferingValuesHurtSorrowElementsMessagesFingersFlamesMinorsOptionalCrittersElements Of Life Author:Alan Cohen
“... But all the feelings that evoke in us the joy or the misfortune of a real person are only produced in us through the intermediary of an image of that joy or that misfortune; the ingeniousness of the first novelist was in understanding that, in the apparatus of our emotions, since the image is the only essential element, the simplification which consists of purely and simply suppressing the factual characters is a definitive improvement.” FirstsPersonsRealCharacterFeelingsJoyUnderstandingEmotionFictionEssentialsElementsImprovementNovelistsMisfortunesEvokeFactualReal PersonSimplificationSuppressing Author:Marcel Proust
“I believed even then that if I could transform my experience into poetry I would give it the value and dignity it did not begin to possess on its own. I thought too that if I could write about it I could come to understand it; I believed that if I could understand my life—or at least the part my work played in it—I could embrace it with some degree of joy, an element conspicuously missing from my life.” IfsGivingWritingJoyValuesMissingDegreesElementsDignityEmbraceIf I Could Author:Philip Levine
“If you focus on literature through only one small element of it, like the more scientific element of linguistics, then where is the joy that brought us literature in the first place, which is to have a story?” IfsFirstsStoriesJoyLiteratureFocusElementsLinguistics Author:T.C. Boyle
“In theory there is a possibility of perfect happiness: To believe in the indestructible element within one, and not to strive towards it.” BelieveHappinessJoyPerfectPossibilityTheoryElementsLaughterStriveIndestructiblePerfect Happiness Book:Shorter works [of] Franz Kafka Source: Shorter works [of] Franz Kafka
“Laughter, and the broader category of humor, are key elements in helping us go on with our life after a loss.” HelpingHumorHappinessJoyLossOur LivesKeysGoes OnElementsLaughterCategories Author:Allen Klein