There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state with another.

Often presented as a reflective line from a narrative voice emphasizing that people judge their lives by contrast—how things are now versus how they were before or could be otherwise—rather than by any absolute measure of happiness or suffering.

The idea is that feelings like happiness and misery are relative. What we call either one depends on comparing our current situation to another situation, memory, or expectation, so the same circumstances can feel different depending on what they’re contrasted with.