The joy of life is natural to animals, children and saints: to animals, because they lack reason, which, if falsely directed, would deprive them of this joy; to children, because their reason has not yet been corrupted; to saints, because life gives them that which they desire: the possibility to perfect themselves and move closer to God.
A sorrow that has passed becomes a memory that is as pleasant as a past, future and present pleasure. And so, as it is only the sorrows of the future and the present that torments us, there is a remarkable preponderance of pleasure in our world, which is increased still further by our constant pursuit of it, which in many cases we can confidently foresee, whereas it is much rarer that we can predict our future sorrow.
— Lichtenberg
You ought to be glad in thinking how much more beauty God has made, than human eyes can ever see; but not glad in thinking how much more evil man has made, than his own soul can ever conceive, much more than his hands can ever heal.
— John Ruskin
Happiness is pleasure without remorse.
Oh, how happy we are, living without hatred for those who hate us; how happy we are if we live among the haters!…
Oh, how happy we are, we who are free from greed among the greedy! Among people consumed by greed, we live free from it!…
Oh, how happy we are, we who call nothing our own! We are akin to bright gods, drunk with holiness!…
— The Dhammapada
“Hear another parable. There was a man who was a master of a household who planted a vineyard, set a hedge about it, dug a wine press in it, built a tower, leased it out to farmers, and went into another country. When the season for the fruit came near, he sent his servants to the farmers to receive his fruit. The farmers took his servants, beat one, killed another, and stoned another. Again, he sent other servants more than the first; and they treated them the same way. But afterward he sent to them his son, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But the farmers, when they saw the son, said among themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and seize his inheritance.’ So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard, then killed him. When therefore the lord of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those farmers?” They told him, “He will miserably destroy those miserable men, and will lease out the vineyard to other farmers who will give him the fruit in its season” (Matthew 21:33–41).
Human beings have been given a garden, which they did not plant, and, in order for them to enjoy life, they must merely fulfill the condition under which the garden was given to them. They are not fulfilling it and are blaming the owner of the garden instead of themselves.
You seek paradise, you want to be in a place where there is no suffering or enmity—free your heart, make it pure and bright, and already here and now you will have the paradise that you desire.
If life does not seem to you to be a great, undeserved joy, then it is only because your reason is falsely directed.
