“There is no happiness without knowledge. But knowledge of happiness is unhappy; for knowing ourselves happy is knowing ourselves passing through happiness, and having to, immediatly at once, leave it behind. To know is to kill, in happiness as in everything. Not to know, though, is not to exist.”
Ibid., p. 328
The Book of Disquiet
Original: Não há felicidade senão com conhecimento. Mas o conhecimento da felicidade é infeliz; porque conhecer-se feliz é conhecer-se passando pela felicidade, e tendo, logo já, que deixá-la atrás. Saber é matar, na felicidade como em tudo. Não saber, porém, é não existir.
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Fernando Pessoa288
Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publi… 1888–1935Related quotes
Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica
Variant: If what Proust says is true, that happiness is the absence of fever, then I will never know happiness. For I am possessed by a fever for knowledge, experience, and creation.
“To sense the peace of extinguished passion, happiness in not knowing the ultimate knowledge.”
Dejan Stojanovic book The Sign and Its Children
"The Over-Sky Sign," p. 5
The Sign and Its Children (2000)
Arthur Rubinstein (1887–1982) Polish-American classical pianist
Statement made to a correspondent in Paris in 1976 — reported in John Callcott, United Press International (December 21, 1982) "Arthur Rubinstein, At Age 95; Concert Pianist and Bon Vivant, Boston Globe.
Attributed
“It is a kind of happiness to know how unhappy we must be.”
François de La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680) French author of maxims and memoirs
C’est une espèce de bonheur, de connaître jusqu’à quel point on doit être malheureux.
Maxim 8 of the Maximes supprimées.
Later Additions to the Maxims
“If you aren't unhappy sometimes you don't know how to be happy.”
Madeleine L'Engle book A Wrinkle in Time
Source: A Wrinkle in Time
“Man is unhappy because he doesn't know he's happy. It's only that.”
Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821–1881) Russian author
Part II, Ch. I
The Possessed (1872)
“Happiness is the best revenge, you know? Just be happy. It's a choice.”
Emily Giffin (1972) American writer
Source: Heart of the Matter