Of all the animals

"Of all the animals, man is the only one that is cruel. He is the only one who inflicts pain for the pleasure of doing it."

~Mark Twain

It is

It is a rather pleasant experience to be alone in a bank at night.

~Willie Sutton

We cannot

We cannot be more sensitive to pleasure without being more sensitive to pain.

~Alan Watts

If we opened our minds

If we opened our minds to enjoyment, we might find tranquil pleasures spread about us on every side. We might live with the angels that visit us on every sunbeam, and sit with the fairies who wait on every flower.

~Samuel Smiles

Some people

Some people want to recognize God only in some pleasant enlightenment - and then they get pleasure and enlightenment, but not God.

~Meister Eckhart

If we fail

"If we fail to nourish our souls, they wither, and without soul, life ceases to have meaning.... The creative process shrivels in the absence of continual dialogue with the soul. And creativity is what makes life worth living."

-- Marion Woodman

The imagination

The imagination is the spur of delights... all depends upon it, it is the mainspring of everything; now, is it not by means of the imagination one knows joy? Is it not of the imagination that the sharpest pleasures arise?

~Marquis De Sade

It is always

It is always by way of pain one arrives at pleasure.

~Marquis De Sade

Why not

"Why not seize the pleasure at once? How often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparation!"

~Jane Austen

Water

Water, thou hast no taste, no color, no odor; canst not be defined, art relished while ever mysterious. Not necessary to life, but rather life itself, thou fillest us with a gratification that exceeds the delight of the senses.

~Antoine De Saint-Exupery

There is

There is no small pleasure in water.

~Ovid

There are moments

There are moments, dark moments, monents of pain and hurt and aches and bruises. There are dark nights but they are part of the whole game. Without the dark night you cannot have a bright morning, and without the hurt, without the pain, you cannot enjoy either. They go together. Only dead people go beyond pain and then they go beyond pleasure too.

~Osho

True joy

True joy must spring from within. But if one is empty within and wholly given over to the world, idle pleasures come streaming in from without. This is what many people welcome as diversion. Those who lack inner stability and therefore need amusement, will always find opportunity of indulgence. They attract external pleasures by the emptiness of their natures. Thus they lose themselves more and more, which of course has bad results.

~I Ching

I have learned

I have learned that the ecstasy of mango juice on my tongue and union with Spirit are not as different as I once thought.

~Oriah Mountain Dreamer

There is always

There is always going to be pain. There is always going to be pleasure. But what is not always going to be there is balance, happiness. That is a personal decision.

~Dr Frederick Lenz

The greatest pleasure

The greatest pleasure I know, is to do a good action by stealth, and to have it found out by accident.

~Charles Lamb