Happiness consists in self-application to something higher.

I answer that, The will can be changed in two ways. First, from within; in which way, since the movement of the will is nothing but the inclination of the will to the thing willed, God alone can thus change the will, because He gives the power of such an inclination to the intellectual nature. For as the natural inclination is from God alone Who gives the nature, so the inclination of the will is from God alone, Who causes the will.

When I behold what pleasure is Pursuit, What life, what glorious eagerness it is, Then mark how full Possession falls from this, How fairer seems the blossom than the fruit

Eric Fromm: "The need for . . . an object of devotion is deeply rooted in the conditions of human existence.

What are the assumptions that have to prove true in order for me to be able to succeed in this assignment?" List them. Are they within your control? Equally important, ask yourself what assumptions have to prove true for you to be happy in the choice you are contemplating. Are you basing your position on extrinsic or intrinsic motivators? Why do you think this is going to be something you enjoy doing? What evidence do you have?

fear brings about that which one is afraid of, and hyper-intention makes impossible what one wishes

Success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think of it.

I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved.

people have enough to live by but nothing to live for; they have the means but no meaning.

Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge.

It was Kierkegaard who told the wise parable that the door to happiness always opens 'outwards', which means it closes itself precisely against the person who tries to push the door to happiness 'inwards', so to speak.

To want and not to have, sent all up her body a hardness, a hollowness, a strain. And then to want and not to have- to want and want- how that wrung the heart, and wrung it again and again!