Meaning of “Blessedness is not the reward of virtue, but…”

The Consolation of Philosophy, Book III, Chapter XI, H. R. James translation (Elliot Stock, 1897), printed page 149 in Project Gutenberg #14328. Lady Philosophy reaches ‘All things, then, seek the good’ after arguing that things naturally seek continued existence and unity, and that unity and goodness are the same. This remains late-antique metaphysical/philosophical argument mediated by translation, not an empirical description of every human motive or modern behavioral science.

Orthodoxy, Chapter VII, “The Eternal Revolution,” Project Gutenberg #130. “Angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly” appears inside Chesterton’s explicitly Christian paradox contrasting levity, pride, humility and self-forgetfulness. It remains apologetic and metaphorical religious prose rather than a literal scientific claim about angels, gravity or psychology.

Autobiography, Chapter V; Mill states this within his post-crisis philosophy of pursuing ends beyond happiness itself.

Thus Spake Zarathustra, “Reading and Writing,” Thomas Common translation.

Essays of Montaigne, Book I, Chapter XXV, ‘Of the Education of Children,’ Charles Cotton translation edited by William Carew Hazlitt (1877); Project Gutenberg Volume 05 #3585 / Complete Essays #3600. The cheerfulness sentence belongs to Montaigne’s account of philosophy as forming a serene, active way of life rather than a gloomy scholastic display.

Utilitarianism, Chapter II, “What Utilitarianism Is,” Project Gutenberg #11224. Mill’s “human being dissatisfied / pig satisfied” comparison occurs in his argument that some pleasures associated with higher faculties have greater quality, alongside his appeal to dignity and competent judges. It is nineteenth-century normative moral philosophy, not an empirical measure of happiness or human worth.