...Enduring comprises a strong activity of the soul, namely, a vigorous grasping of and clinging to the good; and only from this stout-hearted activi….

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….

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 i….

Only those are called liberal or free which are concerned with knowledge; those which are concerned with utilitarian ends... are called servile...The….

... the greatest menace to our capacity for contemplation is the incessant fabrication of tawdry empty stimuli which kill the receptivity of the soul..

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

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

The eye of perfected friendship with God is aware of deeper dimensions of reality, to which the eyes of the average man and the average Christian are….

Contemplation does not ignore the 'historical Gethsemane', does not ignore the mystery of evil, guilt and its bloody atonement. The happiness of cont….

If God really became incarnate, and if His Incarnation can with justice compel man to change his life,then we have no alternative but to conceive of ….

Happiness,... even the smallest happiness, is like a step out of Time, and the greatest happiness is sharing in Eternity..

The inmost significance of the exaggerated value which is set upon hard work appears to be this: man seems to mistrust everything that is effortless;….

Modern religious teaching have little or nothing to say about the place of prudence in life or in the hierarchy of virtues..

What distinguishes - in both senses of that word - contemplation is rather this: it is a knowing which is inspired by love. "Without love there would….

Wonder is defined by Thomas [Aquinas] in the Summa Theologiae [I-II, Q. 32, a. 8], as the desiderium sciendi, the desire for knowledge, active longin….

Unchaste abandon and the self-surrender of the soul to the world of sensuality paralyzes the primordial powers of the moral person: the ability to pe….

Unless we regain the art of silence and insight, the ability for nonactivity, unless we substitute true leisure for our hectic amusements, we will de….

Of course the world of work begins to become - threatens to become - our only world, to the exclusion of all else. The demands of the working world g….

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 ….

Only the silent hear and those who do not remain silent do not hear..

Leisure is only possible when we are at one with ourselves. We tend to overwork as a means of self-escape, as a way of trying to justify our existenc….