The Heart of the Matter

by Graham Greene

so much of life was a putting off of unhappiness for another time. Nothing was ever lost by delay. He had a dim idea that perhaps if one delayed long enough, things were taken out of one’s hands altogether by death.

The truth, he thought, has never been of any real value to any human being—it is a symbol for mathematicians and philosophers to pursue. In human relations kindness and ties are worth a thousand truths.

Despair is the price one pays for setting oneself an impossible aim. It is, one is told, the unforgivable sin, but it is a sin the corrupt or evil man never practises. He always has hope. He never reaches the freezing-point of knowing absolute failure. Only the man of goodwill carries always in his heart this capacity for damnation.

him—that no human being can really understand another, and no one can arrange another’s happiness.

What an absurd thing it was to expect happiness in a world so full of misery.

Point me out the happy man and I will point you out either extreme egotism, evil—or else an absolute ignorance.