Happiness in this world, when it comes, comes incidentally. Make it the object of pursuit, and it leads us a wild goose chase, and is never attained. Follow some other object, and very possibly we may find that we have caught happiness without dreaming of it; but likely enough it is gone the moment we say to ourselves, “Here it is!” like the chest of gold that treasure-seekers find.
—Nathaniel Hawthorne, Passages from the American Note-Books (1879)
Showing posts with label happiness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label happiness. Show all posts
threadbare language
How threadbare the language of happiness!
—Osip Mandelstam, from poem “Tristia,” Osip Mandelstam: The Eyesight of Wasps (Ohio State U. Press, 1989), translated by James Greene
—Osip Mandelstam, from poem “Tristia,” Osip Mandelstam: The Eyesight of Wasps (Ohio State U. Press, 1989), translated by James Greene
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