Joy

“Every man is worth just so much as the things about which he busies himself.”
― Marcus Aurelius, The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius

“...you don't really become a finer person just by reading lots of books.”
― Natsume Sōseki, Kokoro

“Our worst fears, like our greatest hopes, are not outside our powers, and we can come in the end to triumph over the former and to achieve the latter.”
― Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time

“We believe that we can change the things around us in accordance with our desires—we believe it because otherwise we can see no favourable outcome. We do not think of the outcome which generally comes to pass and is also favourable: we do not succeed in changing things in accordance with our desires, but gradually our desires change. The situation that we hoped to change because it was intolerable becomes unimportant to us. We have failed to surmount the obstacle, as we were absolutely determined to do, but life has taken us round it, led us beyond it, and then if we turn round to gaze into the distance of the past, we can barely see it, so imperceptible has it become.”
― Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time