Bliss

Ecstasy redirects here.  For the empathogenic drug, see ecstasy (drug).  Euphoria also redirects here.

Bliss is a state of profound satisfaction, happiness and joy, a constant state of mind, undisturbed by gain or loss.

Quotes

St. Francis in Ecstasy: Ecstasies enjoyed by religious mystics are usually called religious experiences no matter what the nature of the ecstasy or the trigger inducing it

• Health is the greatest gift, contentment is the greatest wealth, a trusted friend is the best relative, Nibbana is the greatest bliss.
  • Gautama Buddha, Dhammapada, (verse 202), translator: Narada Maha Thera

• Follow your bliss.
  • Joseph Campbell, Joseph Campbell and The Power of Myth with Bill Moyers (1988), Episode 1, Chapter 15.

• Ignorance is Bliss
  • Thomas Gray Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College.

• Ecstasies enjoyed by religious mystics are usually called religious experiences no matter what the nature of the ecstasy or the trigger inducing it.
  • L. A. Michael in L. A. Michael (1 December 2007). The Principles of Existence & Beyond. Lulu.com. p. 118. ISBN 978-1-84799-199-7. .

• But such a sacred and home-felt delight,
  Such sober certainty of waking bliss,
  I never heard till now.
  • John Milton, Comus (1637), line 262.

• The sum of earthly bliss.
  • John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667; 1674), Book VIII, line 522.

• Some place the bliss in action, some in ease,
  Those call it pleasure, and contentment these.
  • Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man (1733-34), Epistle IV, line 21.

• Condition, circumstance, is not the thing;
  Bliss is the same in subject or in king.
  • Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man (1733-34), Epistle IV, line 57.

• The spider's most attenuated thread
  Is cord, is cable, to man's tender tie
  On earthly bliss; it breaks at every breeze.
  • Edward Young, Night Thoughts (1742-1745), Night 1, line 178.

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 72-73.

• To bliss unknown my lofty soul aspires,
  My lot unequal to my vast desires.
  • John Arbuthnot, Gnothi Seaton, line 3.

• Thin partitions do divide
  The bounds where good and ill reside;
  That nought is perfect here below;
  But bliss still bordering upon woe.
  • Weekly Magazine, Edinburgh, Volume XXII, p. 50 (1770).

• The hues of bliss more brightly glow,
  Chastis'd by sabler tints of woe.
  • Thomas Gray, Ode on the Pleasure arising from Vicissitude, line 45.

• Alas! by some degree of woe
  We every bliss must gain;
  The heart can ne'er a transport know,
  That never feels a pain.
  • George Lyttelton, 1st Baron Lyttelton, Song.

• And my heart rocked its babe of bliss,
  And soothed its child of air,
  With something 'twixt a song and kiss,
  To keep it nestling there.
  • Gerald Massey, On a Wedding Day, Stanza 3.

• Bliss in possession will not last;
  Remember'd joys are never past;
  At once the fountain, stream, and sea,
  They were,—they are,—they yet shall be.
  • James Montgomery, The Little Cloud.

• The way to bliss lies not on beds of down,
  And he that had no cross deserves no crown.
  • Francis Quarles, Esther.

• I know I am—that simplest bliss
  The millions of my brothers miss.
  I know the fortune to be born,
  Even to the meanest wretch they scorn.
  • Bayard Taylor, Prince Deukalion, Act IV.

• We thinke no greater blisse than such
  To be as be we would,
  When blessed none but such as be
  The same as be they should.
  • William Warner, Albion's England, Book X, Chapter LIX, Stanza 68.