A Quote by James Gould Cozzens
Be virtuous and you'll be happy Nonsense Be happy and you'll begin to be virtuous.
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I can at once become happy anywhere, for he is happy who has found himself a happy lot. In a word, happiness lies all in the functions of reason, in warrantable desires and virtuous practice.
The fact that only humans above a certain age can be morally virtuous, rather than babies or cats, means that that being moral requires some cognitive ability. If virtue is about desires, it is worth remembering that you can't desire some things without being able to conceive of them. Suppose a virtuous person will desire to make people happy and desire to tell the truth. You can't desire to make people happy without having the concept "happy" and you can't desire to be truthful if you don't have have the concept "lie", so a cat or a baby cannot desire these things.
It must not be supposed that happiness will demand many or great possessions; for self-sufficiency does not depend on excessive abundance, nor does moral conduct, and it is possible to perform noble deeds even without being ruler of land and sea: one can do virtuous acts with quite moderate resources. This may be clearly observed in experience: private citizens do not seem to be less but more given to doing virtuous actions than princes and potentates. It is sufficient then if moderate resources are forthcoming; for a life of virtuous activity will be essentially a happy life.
Be in general virtuous, and you will be happy.
Society can only be happy and free in proportion as it is virtuous.
Let me resolve to be virtuous, that I may be happy, that I may please Him, who is delighted to see me happy. Amen.
All human beings seek the happy life, but many confuse the means - for example, wealth and status - with that life itself. This misguided focus on the means to a good life makes people get further from the happy life. The really worthwhile things are the virtuous activities that make up the happy life, not the external means that may seem to produce it.
If you're doing nonsense it has to be rather awful, because there'd be no point. I'm trying to think if there's sunny nonsense. Sunny, funny nonsense for children — oh, how boring, boring, boring. As Schubert said, there is no happy music. And that's true, there really isn't. And there's probably no happy nonsense, either.
Being virtuous is wonderful thing, but feeling virtuous is a shortcut to vice.
The most virtuous are those who content themselves with being virtuous without seeking to appear so.
To be happy, one must rid oneself of prejudice, be virtuous, healthy, and have a capacity for enjoyment and for passion.
The virtuous will be sure to speak uprightly; but those whose speech is upright may not be virtuous.
The truth is . . . that the great artists of the world are never puritans, and seldom ever ordinarily respectable. No virtuous man - that is, virtuous in the YMCA sense - has ever painted a picture worth looking at, or written a symphony worth hearing, or a book worth reading, and it is highly improbable that the thing has ever been done by a virtuous woman.
The wise find pleasure in water; the virtuous find pleasure in hills. The wise are active; the virtuous are tranquil. The wise are joyful; the virtuous are long-lived.
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our own standpoint. Therefore we must be saved by the final form of love, which is forgiveness.
From a Buddhist point of view, the actual experience of death is very important. Although how or where we will be reborn is generally dependent on karmic forces, our state of mind at the time of death can influence the quality of our next rebirth. So at the moment of death, in spite of the great variety of karmas we have accumulated, if we make a special effort to generate a virtuous state of mind, we may strengthen and activate a virtuous karma, and so bring about a happy rebirth.
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