What better is there to sigh for than happiness, yesterday's or

The words of Ben Hecht—“What better is there to sigh for than happiness, yesterday’s or tomorrow’s”—are woven from the quiet silk of longing, that most human of emotions. Beneath their simplicity lies a truth both tender and eternal: that the heart is forever reaching—backward toward memory, and forward toward hope—in its endless pursuit of happiness. This is the sigh of the soul, the gentle exhalation of a being who has tasted joy and knows that, though fleeting, it is worth every ache of its absence. In these words, Hecht captures the paradox of existence: that our deepest yearning is not merely for happiness itself, but for the dream of it, whether it lived once in the past or glimmers faintly in the future.

In the ancient way, this longing was considered sacred, a sign that the human spirit is never content with stillness. To sigh for happiness is to affirm that life holds meaning beyond survival—that we are creatures who remember light and seek its return. The philosopher Plato, in his tale of the soul’s origin, taught that all desire is the memory of perfection, the echo of beauty once beheld in a higher realm. Hecht’s words echo this sentiment. He does not speak with bitterness, but with reverence, as though to say: even sorrow is holy if it springs from the remembrance of joy. The sigh is not defeat—it is prayer.

The mention of “yesterday’s happiness” evokes the sweetness of nostalgia—the golden haze of memory that softens even the sharpest of pains. We sigh for what once was not because it is gone, but because it was real. It reminds us that we have lived, that we have loved, that our hearts have once danced in the sunlight of meaning. The ancients called this pathos, the ache of beauty remembered. To sigh for it is not weakness, but gratitude dressed in melancholy. For every joy we mourn is a jewel that once illuminated our path.

And yet, Hecht also speaks of “tomorrow’s happiness”, that fragile hope which keeps the weary walking forward. The sigh for the future is the breath of endurance—it is faith in disguise. To yearn for a joy not yet found is to defy despair, to declare that the well of life has not run dry. In every sigh for tomorrow, there is a seed of creation, for the heart that hopes is a heart still alive. Hope, as the ancients said, is the flame that outlasts the storm. Without it, even kings crumble; with it, even the poor are rich.

Consider the story of Helen Keller, who, struck blind and deaf in infancy, might have lived in a world without color or sound. Yet she learned to find happiness not only in memory but in the promise of what could still be. Her sighs were not of despair, but of determination—each breath a reaching toward tomorrow’s light. Her teacher, Anne Sullivan, once wrote that Helen’s joy came from her ability to see with the soul. She transformed longing into strength, and in doing so, proved that to sigh for happiness—whether past or future—is to keep the spirit from turning to stone.

There is wisdom, too, in Hecht’s quiet acceptance. He does not command us to chase happiness, nor to possess it. He merely asks us to honor the sigh—the moment of stillness when the heart remembers and hopes at once. In that breath lies the full measure of humanity: the balance between joy and sorrow, the awareness that happiness, like the sun, cannot be held but only felt. To sigh is to acknowledge our longing without surrendering to it, to let it move through us as wind through the leaves, carrying both memory and desire.

From this reflection comes a clear teaching: do not despise your longing. When you find yourself sighing for yesterday’s peace or tomorrow’s joy, know that it is your soul reminding you of what matters most. Let your memories soften you, not bind you; let your hopes lift you, not blind you. The past is the teacher, the future the promise—but the sigh belongs to the present, where both converge.

Thus, Ben Hecht’s words are not a lament, but a benediction. They remind us that to sigh for happiness is to love life deeply enough to miss it when it fades, and to trust it enough to await its return. So sigh, but do not despair. Breathe in remembrance, breathe out hope—and let that sacred rhythm become your prayer. For there is, indeed, nothing better to sigh for than the light we have known, and the light we still believe will come again.