Does Virtue Lead to a Happy Life?

(St. Augustine)

“How then, according to reason, ought humans to live? Everyone wants to be happy. Everyone will agree with me on this almost before the words are out of my mouth.

. . . As to whether virtue leads us to the happy life, I hold that virtue is nothing other than the perfect love of God. Now, when it is said that virtue has a fourfold division, as I understand it, this is said according to the various movements of love. Thus, these four virtues (would that all had the strength of these virtues in their minds as they have their names in their mouths!), I do not hesitate to define them as follows: temperance is love giving itself entirely to the beloved; courage is love readily bearing all things for the sake of the beloved; justice is love serving only the beloved and therefore ruling rightly; prudence is love distinguishing wisely between what hinders it and what helps it. But, as we have said, the object of this love is nothing other than God, the sovereign good, the highest wisdom and the perfect harmony. We may, therefore, define these virtues as follows: temperance is love preserving itself entire and incorrupt for God; courage is love readily bearing all things for the sake of God; justice is love serving only God, and therefore ruling well everything else that is subject to the human person; prudence is love discerning well between what helps it toward God and what hinders it.”
~St. Augustine