If we define morality as any of the following, then happiness is a shadow of morality, and morality is the substance of happiness.

1. The quality of being in accord with standards of right or good conduct.

2. A system of ideas of right and wrong conduct: religious morality; Christian morality.

3. Virtuous conduct.

4. A rule or lesson in moral conduct.

Aristotle: Happiness Quote

Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.

It is the lot of those who grow old to amass enough lessons in life to know the value of morality. If we had only lived out our standards of right or good conduct we would have been much happier.

Yet, Unknown Author: Happiness Quote

Blessed is the person who can laugh at himself - he’ll never cease to be amused.

Albert Camus: Happiness Quote

But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads?

A wicked life has never brought happiness to any individual or those who lived around them. We might say that anyone who thought, spoke and acted with right and loving conduct was worth more than an other person, place or thing in this life. 

Aristotle: Happiness Quote

“Happiness depends on ourselves.”

More than Socrates and Plato, Aristotle enshrines happiness as a central purpose of human life and a goal in itself. 

We cannot say that as children we were happy, anymore than we can say that an acorn is a tree, for the potential for a rich human life is not yet actual.

As Aristotle says, “for as it is not one swallow or one fine day that makes a spring, so it is not one day or a short time that makes a man blessed and happy.”

( Nichomachean Ethics,1098a18)

The Greeks and the Jews are two of the three foundations of Western Civilization, with Egypt being the third. The Greeks did brilliant with their definition of happiness. But, the Jews and especially Jesus Christ are the definitive edge for Western Civilization.

John: 13:17: If ye know these things, happy are you if you do them.

Socrates said, “Know thyself.” 

What do we really desire? Your true desire is you. It takes a life-time to realize the things that bring true happiness, but life lived with virtue is the best life and the only life that ends in happiness.