If I keep a green bough in my heart, the singing bird will come.

-Chinese Proverb

“If you want others to be happy,
practice compassion.
If you want to be happy,
practice compassion.”

-The Dalai Lama

And Joy is Everywhere;
It is in the Earth's green covering of grass;
In the blue serenity of the Sky;
In the reckless exuberance of Spring;
In the severe abstinence of gray Winter;
In the Living flesh that animates our bodily frame;
In the perfect poise of the Human figure, noble and upright;
In Living;
In the exercise of all our powers;
In the acquisition of Knowledge;
in fighting evils...
Joy is there Everywhere.

-"Joy," by Rabindranath Tagore

“If we are not happy and joyous at this season,
for what other season shall we wait and
for what other time shall we look?”

-Abdul-Baha

We find greatest joy, not in getting, but in expressing what we are... Men do not really live for honors or for pay; their gladness is not the taking and holding, but in doing, the striving, the building, the living. It is a higher joy to teach than to be taught. It is good to get justice, but better to do it; fun to have things but more to make them. The happy man is he who lives the life of love, not for the honors it may bring, but for the life itself.

-R.J. Baughan

"Did you know...that when you walk past a flower, whether it be in
somebody's garden or on a vacant hillside, the flower will always smile at you. The most polite way to respond, I've been told, is to cheerfully return the smile."

-Ron Atchison

We shall find peace. We shall hear angels.
We shall see the sky sparkling with diamonds.

-Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.

-Marcel Proust

The pleasantest things in the world are pleasant thoughts: and the great art of life is to have as many of them as possible.

-Montaigne

The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other's life. Rarely do members of one family grow up under the same roof.

-Richard Bach

Time spent laughing is time spent with the gods.

-Japanese Proverb

When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life so that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice.

-Cherokee Expression

Happiness is to take up the struggle in the midst of the raging storm
and not to pluck the lute in the moonlight or recite poetry among the
blossoms.

-Ding Ling

Happiness comes of the capacity to feel deeply, to enjoy simply, to think freely, to risk life, to be needed.

-Storm Jameson

A man traveling across a field encountered a tiger. He fled, the tiger after him. Coming to a precipice, he caught hold of the root of a wild vine and swung himself over the edge.

The tiger sniffed at him from above. Trembling, the man looked down to where, far below, another tiger was waiting to eat him. Only the vine sustained him.

Two mice, one white and one black, little by little started to gnaw away the vine. The man then saw a luscious strawberry near him. Grasping the vine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other.

How sweet it tasted.

Zen Poem

“Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.”

-Thich Nhat Hanh

Such as are your habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of your mind; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts.
Aurelius, Marcus

It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the more important.
Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan

It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.
Lincoln, Abraham

Freedom is nothing else but a chance to be better
Camus, Albert

All great truths begin as blasphemies.
Shaw, George Bernard

There are two ways of spreading light; to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.
Wharton, Edith

What we do today, right now, will have an accumulated effect on all our tomorrows.
Stoddard, Alexandra

Live all you can; it's a mistake not to. It doesn't so much matter what you do in particular, so long as you have your life. If you haven't had that what have you?
James, Henry

If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.
Blake, William

The only joy in the world is to begin.
Pavese, Cesare

Celebrate the happiness that friends are always giving, make every day a holiday and celebrate just living.
Bradley, Amanda

The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.
Dickinson, Emily

It is eternity now. I am in the midst of it. It is about me and the sunshine.
Jefferies, Richard

If my heart can become pure and simple like that of a child, I think there probably can be no greater happiness than this.
Nishida, Kitaro

If you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it's your world for the moment
O'Keefe, Georgia

The reason angels can fly is that they take themselves so lightly.
Chesterton G. K.

Slow down and enjoy life. It's not only the scenery you miss by going too fast-you also miss the sense of where you are going and why.
Cantor, Eddie

Man is not free to refuse to do the thing which gives him more pleasure than any other conceivable action
Stendhal

Everyone is unique. Compare not yourself with anyone else lest you spoil God's curriculum.
Tov, Baal Shem

Put your heart, mind, intellect and soul even to your smallest acts. This is the secret of success.
Sivanda, Swami

Fun has a sacred dimension
Diaz, Adriana

It is extraordinary how extraordinary the ordinary person is.
Will George S

The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.
Miller, Henry

To be surprised, to wonder, is to begin to understand.
Ortega Y Gasset, Jose

Life is playfulness... we need to play so that we can rediscover the magical around us.
Colao, Flora

Today I live in the quiet, joyous expectation of good.
Holmen, Ernest

More important than talent, strength, or knowledge is the ability to laugh at yourself and enjoy the pursuit of your dreams
Grant, Amy

When you delight in the game, the effort seems unimportant.
Anonymous

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
Gibran, Kahlil