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. ~ L. A. Michael

The deep longing for redemption and release - consciously from ‘sins’, unconsciously from sexual tensions - is warded off. States of religious ecstasy are nothing other than conditions of sexual excitation of the vegetative nervous system, which can never be released. Religious excitation cannot be comprehended and therefore cannot be mastered, without first understanding the contradiction by which it is ruled. It is not only anti- sexual, but to a large extent sexual as well. It is not only moralistic; it is altogether unnatural. From a sex-economic point of view, it is unhygienic. ~ Wilhelm Reich

• 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.

• It is known from the treatment of mentally sick priests that an involuntary ejaculation often occurs at the height of religious ecstasy. Normal orgastic gratification is replaced by a general condition of physical excitation, which excludes the genitals and, as if by accident, brings about a partial release against one’s will.
  • Wilhelm Reich, The Mass Psychology of Fascism, (1933), p. 148.

• The deep longing for redemption and release - consciously from ‘sins’, unconsciously from sexual tensions - is warded off. States of religious ecstasy are nothing other than conditions of sexual excitation of the vegetative nervous system, which can never be released. Religious excitation cannot be comprehended and therefore cannot be mastered, without first understanding the contradiction by which it is ruled. It is not only anti- sexual, but to a large extent sexual as well. It is not only moralistic; it is altogether unnatural. From a sex-economic point of view, it is unhygienic.
  • Wilhelm Reich, The Mass Psychology of Fascism, (1933), p. 149.

• A shoemaker who loses himself in mystical ecstasy and begins to think of himself as a saviour of the people, sent by God, will inevitably cut the soles the wrong way and mess up his stitches. As time goes on, he will be faced with starvation. It is precisely by this process, on the other hand, that the politician becomes strong and rich.
  • Wilhelm Reich, The Mass Psychology of Fascism, (1933), p. 380.

• 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.