There is, of course, no joy so great as the cessation of pain; in fact all joy, active or passive, is the cessation of some pain, since it must be the satisfaction of a longing, even perhaps an unconscious longing.
Man was made for joy and woe, and when this we rightly know through the world we safely go. Joy and woe are woven fine, a clothing for the soul to bind.
You know that kind of quiver that trembles around through you when you are seeing something so strange and enchanting and wonderful that it is just a fearful joy to be alive and look at it; and you know how you gaze, and your lips turn dry and your breath comes short, but you wouldn't be anywhere but there, not for the world.
Man's freedom is never in being saved from troubles, but it is the freedom to take trouble for his own good, to make the trouble an element in his joy.
I dreamt and saw that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was duty. I served and found that duty was joy. See Life a Duty, Ellen Sturgis Hooper, (1816-1841) Topics: beauty, duty & Life I slept, and dreamed that life was Beauty; I woke, and found that life was Duty.
Each human being has the right to seek out joy, joy being understood as something which makes one content - not necessarily that which makes others content.