So we never live, but we hope to live; and, as we are always preparing to be happy, it is inevitable we should never be so.
Blaise Pascal Pensées, Pensée 172 (1670) Translated by W. F. Trotter
Source checked by an editor
When and why it was written
- When
- From the Pensées, published in 1670.
- Why
- Pascal is observing how rarely the mind rests in the present moment.
What it means
We live in plans and memories, Pascal says, and keep preparing for a happiness that never arrives because we are never here to receive it.
The remedy is not more planning. It is being where you are.
Our reading of the passage cited above, not a quotation from a commentary.
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Pensées, 1670
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