The quote is by C. S. Lewis, from his essay/sermon The Weight of Glory (1941).
“The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things - the beauty - the memory of our own past - are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshipers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.”
Context
Lewis argues that beautiful things—books, music, memories—don’t contain the ultimate beauty themselves. They awaken a longing for something beyond them. If we mistake the art itself for the ultimate source, we end up disappointed.
