Way to Happiness

Contrast is needed to help us see each thing as being vividly itself.

The first law. If you are ever to have a good time, you cannot plan your life to include nothing but good times. Pleasure is like beauty; it is conditioned by contrast.

The second way of preserving ourselves from an unseemly greed is the heroic way . . . the way of complete detachment from wealth, as practiced by St. Francis of Assissi and all those who take the vows of poverty.

Since every increase in quantity among the things we love brings a decrease in the quality of love, there are two ways by which we may hope to keep love pure. One is to give away in proportion as we receive:

The quality of his love diminishes with the number of objects offered for his love . . . as a river has less depth, the more it spreads over the plains.

This is because of their mistaken belief that their hunger for Infinity can be satisfied by an infinity of material things: what they really wish is the Infinity of Divine Love.

The Saviour of the world Himself told us that the best joys come only after we have purchased them by prayer and fasting:

Full happiness is understood only by those who have denied themselves some legitimate pleasures in order to obtain deferred joys.

The best view is from the mountain-top, but it may be arduous to reach it.