Makes You Think

I read this in a book last night and it struck me as one of the truest things I had ever read.

For many millennia,
man has been striving after happiness;
but he is not happy. Why not?
Because he cannot achieve it,
because he does not know the way -
both these reasons.
Above all, however,
because in our earthly lives
there must not be ultimate happiness,
but only the aspiration towards it,
in the future;
there has to be suffering,
because it's through suffering,
in the struggle between good and evil,
that the spirit is forged.

- Andrey A. Tarkovsky
Instant Light: Tarkovsky Polaroids