Laudator Temporis Acti

Augustine, Sermons 231.5 (Patrologia Latina, vol. 38, col. 1107; tr. Edmund Hill):

In this life you cannot be happy. Nobody can. You're seeking a good thing, but this earth just isn't the region for the good thing you're seeking. What are you seeking? A happy life. Well, it isn't to be found here.

If you were looking for gold in a place where it isn't to be found, someone who knows it's not to be found there would tell you, "What are you digging for? What are you messing up the ground for? You're making a hole you can go down, not one where you can find anything." What are you going to answer the person giving you this warning?

"I'm looking for gold."

"I'm not telling you," he says, "that what you're looking for is nothing. It's a good thing you're looking for, but it isn't to be found where you're looking."

So also, when you say, "I want to be happy," it's a good thing you're looking for, but it's not to be found here.

In hac vita beatus esse non potes. Nemo potest. Bonam rem quaeris, sed terra ista non est regio eius rei quam quaeris. Quid quaeris? Beatam vitam. Sed non est hic. Aurum si quaereres in eo loco ubi non est, ille qui novit quia non est ibi, non tibi diceret: Quid fodis? quid terram sollicitas? Fossam facis quo descendas, non ubi aliquid invenias. Quid es responsurus admonenti te? Aurum quaero. Et ille: Non tibi dico: Nihil est quod quaeris, bonam rem quaeris, sed non est ubi quaeris. Sic et tu quando dicis: Beatus esse volo, bonam rem quaeris, sed non est hic.

To my ear this has the ring of authentic spoken Latin. See, e.g., Roy J. Deferrari, "Verbatim Reports of Augustine's Unwritten Sermons," Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 46 (1915) 35-45.