You don't come into this life wanting to be anything other than happy.
What is man's ultimate direction in life? It is to look for love, truth, virtue, and beauty.
man is by nature designed to live in the polis, the highest form of koinonia, community; that is man's end or goal if he achieves the full potentiality of his nature.
The intention to live as long as possible isn't one of the mind's best intentions, because quantity isn't the same as quality.
Virtue is not an end in itself. Virtue is not its own reward or sacrificial fodder for the reward of evil. Life is the reward of virtue-and happiness is the goal and the reward of life.
Ultimately, all human activities have as their goal the realization of happiness. Why, then, have we ended up producing the opposite result? Could the underlying cause be our failure to correctly understand the true nature of happiness?
Happiness is the object and design of our existence.
The two-fold goal of all human striving is the avoidance of pain, and the fulfillment of happiness.
For Zen, man is the goal; man is the end unto himself. God is not something above humanity, God is something hidden within humanity. Man is carrying God in himself as a potentiality.
The great end of life is not knowledge but action.
We must not forget that health is only a means to an end. If health were the end, we would be like animals; animals rarely become unhealthy.
I believe the ultimate aim of all human beings is to obtain happiness and a sense of fulfillment... I have always stressed the importance of combining both the mental and material approach to achieving happiness for humankind.
What is the highest of all goods achievable by action? ...both the general run of man and people of superior refinement say that it is happiness ...but with regard to what happiness is they differ.
