No Greater Joy

There is no greater joy nor greater reward than to make a fundamental difference in someone’s life.
– Sr. Mary Rose McGeady

La Esperanza, Colombia

Joy can be real only if people look upon their life as a service,
and have a definite object in life outside themselves and their
personal happiness.
-Leo Tolstoy

Katmandu, Nepal

Shared joy is a double joy
-Swedish Proverb

Pul i Khumri, Afghanistan

To get the full value of a joy you must have
somebody to divide it with.
– Mark Twain

Rome, Italy

Jaipur, India

Let a joy keep you.
Reach out your hands and take it when
it runs by.
– Carl Sandburg

Afghanistan

Kashmir

A leaf fluttered in through the window this morning,
as if supported by the rays of the sun,
a bird settled on the fire escape,
joy in the task of coffee,
joy accompanied me as I walked.
– Anais Nin

Tibet

Find ecstasy in life;
the mere sense of living is joy enough.
– Emily Dickinson

Rome

Joy is not in things;
it is in us.
– Richard Wagner

Mali

Joy is the serenity of heaven.
– John Donne

Mumbai, India

Rajasthan, India

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

Afghanistan

My mind to me a kingdom is,
such present joys therein I find,
That it excels all other bliss
– Sir Edward Dyer
1543 – 1607

Holi festival, India

Myanmar/Burma

When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.
– Rumi, 1207-1273

Myanmar/Burma

In time of care and sorrow, keep a fountain of joy alive in you.
– Dietrich Bonhoffer

This woman lives joyfully despite her poverty and physical disability.
Vrindivan, India

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.

– Rabindranath Tagore, 1861-1941
Nobel Prize in Literature, 1913