What is it then that this desire and this inability proclaim to us, but that there was once in man a true happiness of which there now remain to him only the mark and empty trace, which he in vain tries to fill from all his surroundings, seeking from things absent the help he does not obtain in things present? But these are all inadequate, because the infinite abyss can only be filled by an infinite and immutable object, that is to say, only by God Himself.

Place: SECTION VII · ¶1188
License: Public domain · Source
The text is given as in the edition, unedited.

Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (WLC), CC BY 4.0

What is it then that this desire and this inability proclaim to us, bu… — Pensées