"man’s intrinsic good (his own act done well) is called subjective happiness, while the object of that act, his extrinsic good, is called objective happiness. We can now see that most properly speaking the final end of man is objective happiness, rather than the subjective attainment of that end or the delight in attaining it."
"The intrinsic final end of human life is thus to do the act with reason in accordance with those qualities that enable this act to be done well, namely, the intellectual and moral virtues."
"The purpose of the knife is not just to cut, but to cut well. To do its own act well, a thing needs a certain quality or qualities, traditionally called ‘virtues.’ The virtue of a knife is sharpness because sharpness is the quality that enables a knife to cut well. So we can say that the intrinsic good of anything that has an act of its own is to do its own act with its own virtue."
"A little boy does not know very distinctly what his final end is, and so he can be easily deceived about what contributes to it. His parents therefore command him to do certain things that help him begin to attain his good."
"So his desire for them is caused by his desire for a complete perfection—it is only because he desires complete perfection that he desires them at all."
"Natural things do not merely wish to continue existing, they wish to complete and perfect their natures."
"anything that acts at all must have something analogous to a desire for the good. This is because action is simply unintelligible without reference to some end or goal, since the final cause is the cause of causes. Aristotle shows in the Physics that natural things are things which have internal principle of motion and that this motion is toward an end. Even inanimate things seem to have at least a tendency to remain in existence and resist destruction."
"The good itself is the primary thing—it is ultimately that which makes the activity of attaining it desirable. It is because the truth is good that the philosopher wants to know it. It is because a person is good that another person wants to befriend him."
"For example, we can distinguish between learning a truth, the truth itself, and delighting in the truth. Or we can distinguish between taking steps to become friends with someone, the friend himself, and delighting in the friend. Delight in an honorable good can itself be an honorable good, but the good in which one delights is better than the delight. Delight in attaining a truth is an honorable good, but it is natural to love the truth itself more than one’s delight in it."
"A man who sacrifices friendship or justice for pleasure is rightly called a ‘pig,’ because pleasure is a good of the senses, which we have in common with animals, whereas honorable goods are goods of rational nature. An honorable good is not wanted for the sake of getting something else, not even pleasure, it is wanted for its own sake... useful goods are primarily wanted for their usefulness in getting other goods, pleasant goods for pleasure, and honorable goods simply because they are good a...
"Many economists claim that in any free exchange each party must think that they are getting something better out of the deal. But people are not such fools. A widow who sells her wedding ring in order to buy food is fully aware that her ring is better than the food, but she also realizes that food is more necessary. Far from being pleased at the ‘free’ exchange giving her something better, she is sad that cruel necessity forces her to exchange the better for the worse."
"Health and medicine are both good, but medicine is for the sake of health, and health is better than medicine. Studying is good and knowing is good, but studying is for the sake of knowing and knowing is better than studying."
"A whole chair is better than part of a chair. A whole car is better than part of a car. A whole garden is better than one flower."
"In reality, virtue and wisdom are better and the Athenians only prefer pleasure and wealth out of ignorance; they do not know wisdom and virtue well enough to see how good they are."
"a definition of a cause by its effect. The good is a cause. It is the final cause, the end or purpose. Aristotle famously distinguishes four different causes: the material of which something is made, the form that that material has, the agent that gives the material its form, and the end for the sake of which the agent gives the material its form."
"a great many examples of basic desires and their objects, and argues that in each case the object is not good because it is desired, but desired because it is good. Hunger is the desire for food, but food is not good because there is hunger. Rather, there is hunger because food is good and necessary for the preservation of one’s substance."
"And this is the first definition of the good that Aristotle gives: the good is what all want, or desire."
Full Text | by Edmund Waldstein, O.Cist. | "The following thirty-seven theses give a basic overview of the Aristotelian-Thomist account of the good, as interpreted by Laval School Thomists such as Charles De Koninck , Duane Berquist , and Marcus Berquist."
"Catholic Integralism is a tradition of thought that, rejecting the liberal separation of politics from concern with the end of human life, holds that political rule must order man to his final goal. Since, however, man has both a temporal and an eternal end, integralism holds that there are two powers that rule him: a temporal power and a spiritual power. And since man’s temporal end is subordinated to his eternal end, the temporal power must be subordinated to the spiritual power."
" The Josias – seeking to articulate an authentically Catholic political stance from which to approach the present order of society." ** Website
sections: 1. Keeping Contact with Life 2. Knowing How to Relax 3. Accepting our Trials 4. Appreciating our Joys 5. Looking Forward to Fruits
sections: 1. Writing 2. Detachment from Self and the World 3. Constancy, Patience, Perseverance 4. Doing Things Well and Finishing Everything 5. Attempting Nothing Beyond One's Powers
sections: 1. How to Take Notes 2. How to Classify Notes 3. How to Use One's Notes
sections: 1. What Things Are to be Remembered 2. In What Order They Are to be Remembered 3. How They Can be Remembered
sections: 1. Not Reading Much 2. Choosing Well 3. Four Kinds of Reading 4. Contact with Writers of Genius 5. Reconciling Instead of Accenting Opposites 6. Assimilating and Living by One's Reading
sections: 1. Ardor in Research 2. Concentration 3. Submission to Truth 4. Breadth of Outlook 5. The Sense of Mystery
sections: 1. Comparative Study 2. Thomism, the Ideal Framework for Knowledge 3. Our Specialty 4. Necessary Sacrifices
sections: 1. Continuity of Work 2. The Work of Night 3. Mornings and Evenings 4. The Moments of Plenitude
sections: 1. Simplification 2. Solitude 3. Cooperation with One’s Fellows 4. Cultivation of Necessary Contacts 5. Safeguarding the Necessary Element of Action 6. Preservation of Interior Silence
sections: 1. The Common Virtues 2. Virtue Proper to the Intellectual 3. Spirit of Prayer 4. Discipline of the Body
