The Greek word for 'return' is nostos. Algos means 'suffering'. So nostalgia is the suffering caused by an unappeased yearning to return. To express that fundamental notion most Europeans can utilize their own vernacular. They can say, for instance, 'Sehnsucht' in German, 'nostalgie' in French, and 'nostalgia' in English. And in each language, the word conjures up its own unique array of associations—whole dimensions of emotion, experience, and thought. In the broadest sense, nostalgia is the suffering of the exile, of the person torn away from his homeland and the past.
~Milan Kundera
(Book: Ignorance)
(Art: Photograph by Thomas Goldblum)
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