"When a small child, I thought that success spelled happiness. I was wrong, happiness is like a butterfly which appears and delights us for one brief moment, but soon flits away"
About this Quote
Pavlova punctures the most durable fairy tale of modern ambition: that achievement will finally cash out as contentment. Coming from a dancer whose fame was built on making the impossible look weightless, the confession lands with extra bite. Ballet is a discipline where “success” is measurable (roles, reviews, tours) and brutal (injury, aging, the constant audition of the body). In that world, happiness isn’t a trophy you keep; it’s a sensation you borrow.
The butterfly image isn’t just pretty. It’s tactical. Butterflies can’t be clenched without being destroyed, which quietly indicts the grasping impulse behind careerism: the harder you try to possess joy, the faster you ruin it. “Appears and delights us” suggests happiness arrives as an encounter, not a possession. It visits. It doesn’t move in. That framing makes her earlier childhood belief sound not merely naive, but consumerist: success as a guarantee, like a product with a warranty.
There’s also an artist’s subtext here about performance itself. Onstage, Pavlova could manufacture transcendence for an audience while knowing that the feeling is timed to music, applause, and the curtain’s fall. The brief moment is part of the design. Read this way, the quote isn’t self-help; it’s a critique of confusing public validation with private peace. She’s not renouncing success so much as refusing to let it masquerade as a stable emotional home.
The butterfly image isn’t just pretty. It’s tactical. Butterflies can’t be clenched without being destroyed, which quietly indicts the grasping impulse behind careerism: the harder you try to possess joy, the faster you ruin it. “Appears and delights us” suggests happiness arrives as an encounter, not a possession. It visits. It doesn’t move in. That framing makes her earlier childhood belief sound not merely naive, but consumerist: success as a guarantee, like a product with a warranty.
There’s also an artist’s subtext here about performance itself. Onstage, Pavlova could manufacture transcendence for an audience while knowing that the feeling is timed to music, applause, and the curtain’s fall. The brief moment is part of the design. Read this way, the quote isn’t self-help; it’s a critique of confusing public validation with private peace. She’s not renouncing success so much as refusing to let it masquerade as a stable emotional home.
Quote Details
| Topic | Happiness |
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