We never taste a perfect joy; our happiest successes are mixed

The great dramatist Pierre Corneille once wrote, “We never taste a perfect joy; our happiest successes are mixed with sadness.” Within these words lies a truth older than time itself—a truth that echoes through every human heart. For in this world, joy and sorrow are not separate rivers, but twin currents flowing through the same sea of existence. The sweetness of triumph is forever tinged with the salt of loss, and the brightness of dawn is only made visible by the shadow it dispels.

From the dawn of creation, mankind has sought perfect joy, a moment unbroken by grief or imperfection. Yet, as the ages have shown, no such joy endures untainted. When we grasp the rose, its thorns remind us of the price of beauty. When we climb the mountain of success, the thin air reminds us of what we have left behind below. Corneille, a man who witnessed both glory and ruin in the theatres of France, spoke not from despair but from understanding. He knew that the human soul is shaped not by joy alone, but by the interplay of triumph and pain, light and shadow, gain and loss.

Consider the tale of King Midas, who wished that all he touched might turn to gold. At first, he rejoiced, drunk with the splendor of his new power. But soon, as his food turned to metal and his beloved daughter became a lifeless statue in his arms, he wept bitterly. His greatest success became his deepest sorrow. Thus the gods taught him—and through him, us—that joy without sorrow is an illusion, and that fulfillment without limit becomes its own destruction. So it is in our own lives: every dream realized carries a hidden ache, and every victory whispers of what was lost to win it.

Even the greatest among men have tasted this mingling of happiness and pain. When Alexander the Great conquered the known world, he wept, for there were no more worlds left to conquer. His joy in victory was swallowed by the emptiness of completion. Likewise, when a mother sees her child grown and leaving home, her heart swells with pride and breaks with longing in the same breath. Such is the paradox of the human condition—that every success bears the shadow of its own ending, and that every joy is the echo of a deeper longing that no achievement can silence.

But we must not despair at this. For the imperfection of joy is what gives it depth, and its fragility is what makes it precious. A song is beautiful not because it lasts forever, but because it ends. A flower moves us not because it is eternal, but because it blooms and fades. If joy were endless, we would cease to feel it. The sorrow within joy is not a curse, but a reminder of our humanity—the pulse of mortality that makes every moment shimmer with meaning.

Let us then learn to embrace imperfection. To rejoice without demanding permanence. To love, knowing that love carries the risk of loss. To celebrate victory, knowing that the path to it was paved with struggle. When we accept that joy and sorrow are partners, not enemies, we begin to taste a deeper kind of happiness—the kind born not of denial, but of understanding.

The lesson of Corneille’s wisdom is this: seek not perfect joy, for it does not belong to this world. Instead, seek whole joy—the kind that holds both laughter and tears in the same open hand. When you succeed, pause to remember the path that brought you there, and honor the sacrifices along the way. When you rejoice, allow yourself to feel the faint ache that hides beneath the smile—it is the sign that your heart is alive, that you have lived and loved fully.

Thus, my child, when life grants you happiness, do not chase away the shadow that accompanies it. Welcome it, for it deepens your joy and sanctifies it. For as the ancients taught, the cup of life is sweetest when it is shared with both sunlight and shadow, both glory and grief. Only then can the soul, in all its fragile splendor, truly say it has tasted life.