HappinessThere's just no accounting for happiness, or the way it turns up like a prodigalwho comes back to the dust at your feethaving squandered a fortune far away. And how can you not forgive? You make a feast in honor of whatwas lost, and take from its place the finestgarment, which you saved for an occasionyou could not imagine, and you weep night and dayto know that you were not abandoned, that happiness saved its most extreme formfor you alone. No, happiness is the uncle you neverknew about, who flies a single-engine planeonto the grassy landing strip, hitchhikesinto town, and inquires at every dooruntil he finds you asleep midafternoonas you so often are during the unmercifulhours of your despair. It comes to the monk in his cell. It comes to the woman sweeping the streetwith a birch broom, to the childwhose mother has passed out from drink. It comes to the lover, to the dog chewinga sock, to the pusher, to the basket maker, and to the clerk stacking cans of carrotsin the night. It even comes to the boulderin the perpetual shade of pine barrens, to rain falling on the open sea, to the wineglass, weary of holding wine. .Jane Kenyon
About This Quote
There is no happiness in the world. The idea of happiness is something that comes from outside of ourselves, which makes it impossible for us to gain true happiness. Happiness should never be something that we focus on because it will only lead us down the wrong path. Happiness should be a function of how much you are able to do to help yourself.
If you are unable to help yourself, then you are being helped by something. If you are unable to help others, then they are being helped by something or someone else. The idea of happiness is so fragile that even rain falling on the open sea can bring about a sense of happiness.
Some Similar Quotes
- Promise YourselfTo be so strong that nothingcan disturb your peace of mind. To talk health, happiness, and prosperityto every person you meet. To make all your friends feelthat there is something in them To look at the sunny side of everythingand make your optimism come...
- They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.
- Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.
- Happiness is holding someone in your arms and knowing you hold the whole world.
- I know that's what people say-- you'll get over it. I'd say it, too. But I know it's not true. Oh, youll be happy again, never fear. But you won't forget. Every time you fall in love it will be because something in the man...
More Quotes By Jane Kenyon
- The poet's job is to put into words those feelings we all have that are so deep, so important, and yet so difficult to name, to tell the truth in such a beautiful way, that people cannot live without it.
- HappinessThere's just no accounting for happiness, or the way it turns up like a prodigalwho comes back to the dust at your feethaving squandered a fortune far away. And how can you not forgive? You make a feast in honor of whatwas lost, and take...
- To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoopin the oats, to air in the lunglet evening come. Let it come, as it will, and don'tbe afraid. God does not leave uscomfortless, so let evening come.
- Reading Aloud to My Father I chose the book haphazardfrom the shelf, but with Nabokov's firstsentence I knew it wasn't the thingto read to a dying man: The cradle rocks above an abyss, it began, and common sense tells us that our existenceis but a...
- OtherwiseI got out of bed on two strong legs. It might have been otherwise. I ate cereal, sweet milk, ripe, flawless peach. It might have been otherwise. <span style="margin:15px; display:block"></span>I took the dog uphill to the birch wood. All morning I did the work I...