"In the vicissitudes of a long life I have noticed that periods of the sweetest delight and most intense pleasure are not those to which memory draws me and touches me most. These short moments of delirium and passion, however intense they may be, are, despite their intensity, only occasional points on the path of life. They are too rare and fleeting to constitute a state of being, and the happiness my heart yearns for is not made up of fleeting moments, but is a simple and permanent state that has no intensity in itself, though its duration increases its charm to the point that I finally find in it supreme happiness.
Everything on earth is in continual flux. Nothing keeps a fixed and constant form, and our affections, which attach themselves to external things, invariably pass and change as they do. Always before or behind us, they recall the past that no longer exists or foretell the future that often is not to be. There is nothing firm to which the heart can attach itself. Therefore we have hardly anything but passing pleasure here below. As for happiness that lasts---I doubt it is known here. In our most intense pleasures there is hardly an instant when our heart can truly say to us: I wish this moment to last forever. And how can we call happiness a fleeting state, since it still leaves our heart anxious and empty, and makes us yearn for something in advance or still yearn for something afterward?
But if it is a state in which the spirit finds a base solid enough on which to rest and gather there all its being without needing to recall the past or step into the future; a state in which time is nothing for the spirit, in which the present lasts forever without, nevertheless, marking its duration, and without a trace of succession, without any other feeling of deprivation or delight, pleasure or suffering, desire or fear, except that of our mere existence: such a feeling alone can fill the soul completely. As long as this state lasts, he who finds himself in it can call himself happy, not with an imperfect happiness that is poor and relative, of the kind one finds in the pleasures of life, but a happiness that is sufficient, perfect, and complete, that leaves in the soul no emptiness that it feels it must fill. Such was the state in which I often found myself on the Isle of St. Pierre in my solitary reveries, lying in my boat floating at the water's will, or sitting on the shores of the restless lake, or elsewhere on the banks of a beautiful river or a brook murmuring over pebbles.
What does one enjoy in such a situation? Nothing external to oneself, nothing if not oneself and one's own existence. As long as this state lasts one is sufficient unto oneself, like God. The feeling of existence stripped of all other attachment is in itself a precious feeling of contentment and peace, which would suffice by itself to render this existence dear and sweet to whoever can cast off all the sensual and earthly impressions that here below ceaselessly come to distract us from this feeling and disturb its sweetness. But most men, agitated by continual passions, hardly know this state, and, having tasted it imperfectly for a few moments, have kept only an obscure and confused notion of it that does not let them feel its charm. In the present constitution of things it would not even be good. Avid for these sweet ecstasies, most men become disgusted with their busy lives, which constantly recurring needs prescribe as a duty. But the unfortunate man who has been cut off from society and who can no longer do anything useful and good for others and for himself here below can find in this state compensation for all human felicity, which fortune and men cannot take from him."
Everything on earth is in continual flux. Nothing keeps a fixed and constant form, and our affections, which attach themselves to external things, invariably pass and change as they do. Always before or behind us, they recall the past that no longer exists or foretell the future that often is not to be. There is nothing firm to which the heart can attach itself. Therefore we have hardly anything but passing pleasure here below. As for happiness that lasts---I doubt it is known here. In our most intense pleasures there is hardly an instant when our heart can truly say to us: I wish this moment to last forever. And how can we call happiness a fleeting state, since it still leaves our heart anxious and empty, and makes us yearn for something in advance or still yearn for something afterward?
But if it is a state in which the spirit finds a base solid enough on which to rest and gather there all its being without needing to recall the past or step into the future; a state in which time is nothing for the spirit, in which the present lasts forever without, nevertheless, marking its duration, and without a trace of succession, without any other feeling of deprivation or delight, pleasure or suffering, desire or fear, except that of our mere existence: such a feeling alone can fill the soul completely. As long as this state lasts, he who finds himself in it can call himself happy, not with an imperfect happiness that is poor and relative, of the kind one finds in the pleasures of life, but a happiness that is sufficient, perfect, and complete, that leaves in the soul no emptiness that it feels it must fill. Such was the state in which I often found myself on the Isle of St. Pierre in my solitary reveries, lying in my boat floating at the water's will, or sitting on the shores of the restless lake, or elsewhere on the banks of a beautiful river or a brook murmuring over pebbles.
What does one enjoy in such a situation? Nothing external to oneself, nothing if not oneself and one's own existence. As long as this state lasts one is sufficient unto oneself, like God. The feeling of existence stripped of all other attachment is in itself a precious feeling of contentment and peace, which would suffice by itself to render this existence dear and sweet to whoever can cast off all the sensual and earthly impressions that here below ceaselessly come to distract us from this feeling and disturb its sweetness. But most men, agitated by continual passions, hardly know this state, and, having tasted it imperfectly for a few moments, have kept only an obscure and confused notion of it that does not let them feel its charm. In the present constitution of things it would not even be good. Avid for these sweet ecstasies, most men become disgusted with their busy lives, which constantly recurring needs prescribe as a duty. But the unfortunate man who has been cut off from society and who can no longer do anything useful and good for others and for himself here below can find in this state compensation for all human felicity, which fortune and men cannot take from him."