why does what was beautiful shatter in hindsight because it concealed dark truths?
Bernhard SchlinkRead
Sometimes the memory of happiness cannot stay true because it ended unhappily.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Happiness can be fleeting, and our memories of it may be tainted by subsequent sadness.
This quote reflects on the nature of happiness and memory, suggesting that the joy we once felt can be overshadowed by later negative experiences. It highlights the complex relationship between our past happiness and the eventual unhappiness that can alter our memories, indicating that the essence of joy can be lost when it is followed by sorrow.
Themes
HappinessMemorySadnessExperienceContrast
In practice
Example use cases
Using this quote in a discussion about the impermanence of happiness during a support group.
More from Bernhard Schlink
All quotes βThe tectonic layers of our lives rest so tightly one on top of the other that we always come up against earlier events in later ones, not as matter that has been fully formed and pushed aside, but absolutely present and alive. I understand this. Nonetheless, I sometimes find it hard to bear.
Bernhard SchlinkRead
It wasn't that I forgot Hanna. But at a certain point the memory of her stopped accompanying me wherever I went. She stayed behind, the way a city stays behind as a train pulls out of the station. It's there, somewhere behind you, and you could go back and make sure of it. But why should you?
Bernhard SchlinkRead
She was struggling, as she always had struggled, not to show what she could do but to hide what she couldn't do. A life made up of advances that were actually frantic retreats and victories that were concealed defeats.
Bernhard SchlinkRead
Desires, memories, fears, passions form labyrinths in which we lose and find and then lose ourselves again.
Bernhard SchlinkRead
...I had to point at Hanna. But the finger I pointed at her turned back to me. I had loved her. I tried to tell myself that I had known nothing of what she had done when I chose her. I tried to talk myself into the state of innocence in which children love their parents. But love of our parents is the only love for which we are not responsible. ...And perhaps we are responsible even for the love we feel for our parents.
Bernhard SchlinkRead
Similar quotes
The good life consists in deriving happiness by using your signature strengths every day in the main realms of living. The meaningful life adds one more component: using these same strengths to forward knowledge, power, or goodness. A life that does this is pregnant with meaning, and if God comes at the end, such a life is sacred.
Martin SeligmanRead
The consuming desire of most human beings is deliberately to plant their whole life in the hands of some other person. I would describe this method of searching for happiness as immature. Development of character consists solely in moving toward self-sufficiency.
Quentin CrispRead
Don't you stay at home of evenings? Don't you love a cushioned seat in a corner, by the fireside, with your slippers on your feet?
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.Read
There are two ways of being happy: We must either diminish our wants or augment our means - either may do - the result is the same and it is for each man to decide for himself and to do that which happens to be easier.
Benjamin FranklinRead
You traverse the world in search of happiness which is within the reach of every man. A contented mind confers it on all.
HoraceRead
It is not possible to sin enough to be happy. It isn't possible to buy enough to be happy, or to entertain or indulge or pamper ourselves enough to be happy. It is not possible to hide enough or run far enough away from trials and troubles to be happy. Happiness and joy come only when we are living up to who we are... I have never met anyone who was happier because he was immoral, or because he was addicted to something, or because he was dishonest and compromised his integrity.
Sheri L. DewRead