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The ultimate meaning of the active life is to make possible the happiness of contemplation.

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Repose, leisure, peace, belong among the elements of happiness. If we have not escaped from harried rush, from mad pursuit, from unrest, from the nece...more

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Earthly contemplation means to the Christian, we have said, this above all: that behind all that we directly encounter the Face of the incarnate Logos...more

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The common element in all the special forms of contemplation is the loving, yearning, affirming bent toward that happiness which is the same as God Hi...more

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The happy life does not mean loving what we possess, but possessing what we love." Possession of the beloved, St. Thomas holds, takes place in an act ...more

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No one can obtain felicity by pursuit. This explains why one of the elements of being happy is the feeling that a debt of gratitude is owed, a debt im...more

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Happiness and joy are not the same. For what does the fervent craving for joy mean? It does not mean that we wish at any cost to experience the psychi...more

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The "supreme good" and its attainment -- that is happiness. And joy is: response to happiness.

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Who among us has not suddenly looked into his child's face, in the midst of the toils and troubles of everyday life, and at that moment "seen" that ev...more

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The happy man needs nothing and no one. Not that he holds himself aloof, for indeed he is in harmony with everything and everyone; everything is "in h...more

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Here we must take account of one of St. Thomas's conceptual distinctions, which at first seems like unnecessary caviling. It is the distinction betwee...more

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... each gratification points to the ultimate one, and that all happiness has some connection with eternal beatitude. Some connection, if only this: t...more