“There is no greater grief than to find no happiness, but happiness in what is past.”
Source: The Powerbook
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Jeanette Winterson 187
English writer 1959Related quotes
“Can there be any happiness greater than the happiness of salvation?”
Source: Life of Pi
“What greater happiness is there than the privilege of being bored together?”
Source: American Wife
Variant: People see the past better than it was, the present worse than it is and the future less resolved than it’ll be.
“There is no greater sorrow
Than to be mindful of the happy time
In misery.”
Canto V, lines 121–123 (tr. Longfellow).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno
“There is no greater sorrow
Than to be mindful of the happy time
In misery.”
Inferno, canto v, line 121.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Source: The City and the Stars (1956), Chapter 23 (pp. 174-175)
Letter of advice to British diplomat Tom Fletcher's son. https://twitter.com/TFletcher/status/1033597850729570304
2000s, 2008
“Happiness is beneficial for the body but it is grief that develops the powers of the mind.”
Le bonheur est salutaire pour le corps, mais c'est le chagrin qui développe les forces de l'esprit.
Source: In Search of Lost Time, Remembrance of Things Past (1913-1927), Vol. VII: The Past Recaptured (1927), Ch. III: "An Afternoon Party at the House of the Princesse de Guermantes"