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 Himself, and which is the aim and purpose of all that happens in the world.
Josef Pieper
Repose, leisure, peace, belong among the elements of happiness. If we have not escaped from harried rush, from mad pursuit, from unrest, from the necessity of care, we are not happy. And what of contemplation? Its very premise is freedom from the fetters of workaday busyness. Moreover, it itself actualizes this freedom by virtue of being intuition.
leisure happiness contemplation freedom busyness
happiness contemplation god
Happiness,.. Even the smallest happiness, is like a step out of Time, and the greatest happiness is sharing in Eternity.
happiness eternity
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 impossible to pay. Now, we do not owe gratitude to ourselves. To be conscious of gratitude is to acknowledge a gift.
happiness gratitude
The ultimate meaning of the active life is to make possible the happiness of contemplation.
life happiness contemplation
Happiness is essentially a gift; we are not the forgers of our own felicity.
happiness
.. Each gratification points to the ultimate one, and that all happiness has some connection with eternal beatitude. Some connection, if only this: that every fulfillment this side of Heaven instantly reveals its inadequacy. It is immediately evident that such satisfactions are not enough; they are not what we have really sought; they cannot really satisfy us at all.
satisfaction happiness
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