The ineffable joy of forgiving and being forgiven forms an ecstasy that might well arouse the envy of the gods.

No matter what, I always make it home for Christmas. I love to go to my Tennessee Mountain Home and invite all of my nieces and nephews and their spouses and kids and do what we all like to do – eat, laugh, trade presents and just enjoy each other… and sometimes I even dress up like Santa Claus!

There is a fine balance between honoring the past and losing yourself in it. For example, you can acknowledge and learn from mistakes you made, and then move on and refocus on the now. It is called forgiving yourself.

Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.

Never forget the three powerful resources you always have available to you: love, prayer, and forgiveness.

Young men soon give, and soon forget, affronts; old age is slow in both.

We could never learn to be brave and patient, if there were only joy in the world.

Men create gods after their own image, not only with regard to their form but with regard to their mode of life.

Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary.

Your successes and happiness are forgiven you only if you generously consent to share them.

But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?

Reversing your treatment of the man you have wronged is better than asking his forgiveness.

In South Korea, they believe that when you turn 60, you’ve become a baby again and the rest of your life should be totally about joy and happiness, and people should leave you alone, and I just think that that’s the height of intelligence.

I shall allow no man to belittle my soul by making me hate him.

If in prayer I come before a throne of grace, the faults of my prayer will be overlooked.

Friendship improves happiness and abates misery, by the doubling of our joy and the dividing of our grief.

What we need to understand is that when traditions become laws, rules, obligations and expectations others put on us that we don’t want to fulfill, then they lose real meaning and steal the joy from our lives. And if we’re too religious, we won’t be able to be led by the Holy Spirit and enjoy an intimate relationship with Him.

Joy in looking and comprehending is nature’s most beautiful gift.

When you make a mistake and the devil comes and tells you ‚You’re no good,‘ you don’t have to take on the guilt and condemnation he wants to put on you. No! You can immediately confess your mistake to God, thank Him for forgiving you and cleansing you with the blood of Jesus, and move forward in the victory of His grace and forgiveness.

I’ve looked on many women with lust. I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times. God knows I will do this and forgives me.

Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee, and I’ll forgive Thy great big joke on me.

The child in you, like all children, loves to laugh, to be around people who can laugh at themselves and life. Children instinctively know that the more laughter we have in our lives, the better.

Life is too short for long-term grudges.

You can live your life angry, bitter, mad at somebody or even guilty, not letting go of your own mistakes, but you won’t receive the good things God has in store.

There’s nothing better than having a baby. I’ve always loved children. I used to work summers at the YMCA and be in charge of, like, 30 preschool kids. I knew that when I had a child, I’d be overwhelmed, and it’s true… I can’t tell you how much my attitude has changed since we’ve got Frances. Holding my baby is the best drug in the world.

The joy and love that I get from playing football are unbelievable. It is such a feeling that I want to give everything that I have got. I just enjoy it, I am living a life that I never even dreamt of.

Find joy and solace in the simple, and cultivate your utopia by feeling the Tao in every cubic inch of space.

Love is the most powerful thing in the world, and you know, what love brings is joy.

There is no injustice in the grace of God. God is as just when He forgives a believer as when He casts a sinner into hell.

Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.

There are some cases in which the sense of injury breeds not the will to inflict injuries and climb over them as a ladder, but a hatred of all injury.

In my later years, I have looked in the mirror each day and found a happy person staring back. Occasionally I wonder why I can be so happy. The answer is that every day of my life I’ve worked only for myself and for the joy that comes from writing and creating. The image in my mirror is not optimistic, but the result of optimal behavior.

Without forgiveness, there’s no future.

Better than worshiping gods is obedience to the laws of righteousness.

There is no delight in owning anything unshared.

I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.

As I got older, I guess I became more mellow and more forgiving and more loving.

I was called a terrorist yesterday, but when I came out of jail, many people embraced me, including my enemies, and that is what I normally tell other people who say those who are struggling for liberation in their country are terrorists.

Nevertheless, whether in occurrences lasting days, hours or mere minutes at a time, I have experienced happiness often, and have had brief encounters with it in my later years, even in old age.

There’s an ecstatic side to writing. It’s like jazz. It just has a life.

Let not a libation of tears be the only offering at the shrine of Jesus; let us also rejoice with joy unspeakable. If we have need to lament our sin, how much more to rejoice at our pardon!

Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to cast a stone.

Rejoicing in our joy, not suffering over our suffering, makes someone a friend.

There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comes when one is most alive, and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive.

In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this.

We don’t laugh because we’re happy – we’re happy because we laugh.

Though men determine, the gods doo dispose: and oft times many things fall out betweene the cup and the lip.

Since you get more joy out of giving joy to others, you should put a good deal of thought into the happiness that you are able to give.

The joy of doing well as a batsman for your country is much more than that little joy of going for a party and enjoying music. It is a completely different high, and I get high by performances. That’s what I enjoy now.

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.

Tears of joy are like the summer rain drops pierced by sunbeams.

When the gods wish to punish us they answer our prayers.

Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childhood days, recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth, and transport the traveler back to his own fireside and quiet home!

I believe that a trusting attitude and a patient attitude go hand in hand. You see, when you let go and learn to trust God, it releases joy in your life. And when you trust God, you’re able to be more patient. Patience is not just about waiting for something… it’s about how you wait, or your attitude while waiting.

If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl.

But by reading them again and again finally I was able to grasp the essential part. What emotion, enthusiasm, enlightenment and confidence they communicated to me! I wept for joy.

Those whom the gods love grow young.

As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport.

Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.

All gods are homemade, and it is we who pull their strings, and so, give them the power to pull ours.

Love. Fall in love and stay in love. Write only what you love, and love what you write. The key word is love. You have to get up in the morning and write something you love, something to live for.