I love perfumes. Every morning when my girlfriend and I come

Alan Rickman once said: “I love perfumes. Every morning when my girlfriend and I come down to the courtyard in our block of flats we’re assailed by the most delicious scent—jasmine round a doorway. It almost makes me swoon.” At first glance, this is a gentle reflection on a fragrance. Yet within it lies an ancient truth: that beauty often enters our lives not through grand spectacles, but through fleeting, delicate sensations—like a fragrance carried on the air.

The power of scent is unlike any other. While sights may dazzle and sounds may inspire, it is fragrance that goes straight to memory and emotion, stirring the heart in ways the mind cannot explain. In the morning, when the day is still being born and the world has not yet weighed us down, such a fragrance as jasmine can lift the spirit, reminding us that life’s richest treasures are not always bought or sought, but freely given.

The ancients knew this truth well. In Greece and Rome, perfumes and flowers were not mere luxuries; they were offerings to the gods, symbols of purity, passion, and fleeting joy. In India, the jasmine flower has long been sacred, woven into garlands as a sign of love and devotion. Its fragrance carried with it the reminder that though life is transient, beauty can pierce through the ordinary and make us feel immortal for a breath of time.

Rickman’s memory of the courtyard also teaches us that beauty thrives in simplicity. Not in gilded palaces or in theaters of grandeur alone, but in the humble threshold of a block of flats, where a doorway dressed in flowers could make a man of wisdom and renown feel as though the heavens themselves had descended. The swoon he describes is not weakness, but reverence—a surrender to the wonder that comes unbidden.

History provides many parallels. Marcel Proust wrote of how the taste of a madeleine cake dipped in tea released a flood of childhood memories. In the same way, Rickman’s jasmine is a gate to memory, love, and gratitude. These small sensory moments—be it a taste, a sound, or a fragrance—hold the power to bind us to our past and to those we cherish, more strongly than any monument or trophy could.

The meaning of his words is also this: that to live fully is to be awake to the subtle. Many rush through life seeking glory or possession, blind to the small gifts that line the path. Yet those who pause, those who breathe in the perfume of jasmine in the dawn, know the truth—that the soul is nourished as much by small delights as by great achievements.

Therefore, the lesson is clear: do not wait for extraordinary moments to feel alive. Seek out the fragrance, the quiet joy, the gentle beauty that the world hides in corners and courtyards. Let your mornings be marked not only by duties but by wonder. For when you allow yourself to be moved by something as fleeting as jasmine in bloom, you have learned the wisdom of the ancients: that the essence of life is not in its length or grandeur, but in the depth with which we savor its smallest gifts.