The Lost Virtue of Happiness Quotes

“The current understanding of happiness identifies it as a pleasurable feeling. Pleasant feelings are surely better than unpleasant ones, but the problem today is that people are obsessively concerned with feeling happiness; people are slaves to their feelings. Feelings are wonderful servants but terrible masters. When people make happiness their goal, they do not find it and, as a result, start living their lives vicariously through identification with celebrities.”
― J.P. Moreland, Lost Virtue of Happiness: Discovering the Disciplines of the Good Life

“The gospel of the kingdom is an invitation to a different reality, a different way of living. The kingdom is a new way of relating as people. Where ordinary human life is based on competitiveness and defensiveness, domination and subjugation, treachery and violence, the kingdom is based on the self-giving love of God.”
― J.P. Moreland, Lost Virtue of Happiness: Discovering the Disciplines of the Good Life

“While forgiveness is an important part of the gospel, the good news goes beyond that. It amounts to the claim that the kingdom of God—the direct availability of God himself and His rule—is now available to anyone who will enter it through trust in Jesus.”
― J.P. Moreland, Lost Virtue of Happiness: Discovering the Disciplines of the Good Life

“Here we must examine the classical understanding of happiness proclaimed by Moses, Solomon, Jesus, Aristotle, Plato, the church fathers and medieval theologians, and many more—the understanding that has recently been replaced by “pleasurable satisfaction.” According to the ancients, happiness is a life well lived, a life of virtue and character, a life that manifests wisdom, kindness, and goodness.”
― J.P. Moreland, Lost Virtue of Happiness: Discovering the Disciplines of the Good Life