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“The first thing to be understood about happiness is that it cannot be practiced. It has only to be allowed, because it is not something that you create. Whatsoever you create is going to remain something smaller than you, tinier than you. What you create cannot be bigger than you. The painting cannot be bigger than the painter himself and the poetry cannot be bigger than the poet. Your song is bound to be something smaller than you.”
― Joy: The Happiness That Comes from Within
― Joy: The Happiness That Comes from Within
“Happiness has nothing to do with success. Happiness has nothing to do with ambition, happiness has nothing to do with money, power, prestige. It is a totally different dimension. Happiness has something to do with your consciousness, not with your character. Let me remind you—character is not you, it is something you have cultivated. You can become a saint, and still you will not be happy if your sainthood is nothing but a practiced sainthood.”
― Joy: The Happiness That Comes from Within
― Joy: The Happiness That Comes from Within
“Whatever you possess in this world you possess at somebody else’s expense, at the cost of somebody else’s pleasure. There is no other way. If you really want not to be inimical to anybody in the world, you have to drop the whole idea of possessiveness. Use whatever happens to be with you in the moment, but don’t be possessive. Don’t try to claim that it is yours. Nothing is yours, all belongs to existence.”
― Joy: The Happiness That Comes from Within
― Joy: The Happiness That Comes from Within
“Happiness is always with you. It has nothing to do with the weather, it has nothing to do with chopping wood, it has nothing to do with digging a hole in the garden. Happiness has nothing to do with anything. It is just the nonexpectant, relaxed, at-ease state of your being with existence. And it is there; it does not come and go. It is always there, just like your breathing, your heartbeat, the blood circulating in your body.”
― Joy: The Happiness That Comes from Within
― Joy: The Happiness That Comes from Within
“A real education will not teach you to compete; it will teach you to cooperate. It will not teach you to fight and come first. It will teach you to be creative, to be loving, to be blissful, without comparing yourself to others. It will not teach you that you can be happy only when you are the first—that is sheer nonsense. You can’t be happy just by being first, and in trying to be first you go through such misery that by the time you become the first you are habituated to misery.”
― Joy: The Happiness That Comes from Within
― Joy: The Happiness That Comes from Within
Patrick’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Patrick’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
4,403 books
|
60 friends
509 books
|
184 friends
155 books
|
56 friends
236 books
|
60 friends
378 books
|
108 friends
80 books
|
22 friends
52 books
|
58 friends
3 books
|
57 friends
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