Saint Augustine counters the stoic philosophers and writes that realizing and understanding the transient nature of suffering does not reduce the pain felt or the sorrows we feel and writes:
"Its brevity (speaking of pain), therefore, does not clear it of misery, neither ought it to be called happiness because it is a brief misery."so if according to Saint Augustine, if happiness is not found in brief moments of solace that punctuate our lives, where is it? Saint Augustine writes further that
"For we are saved by hope: now hope which is seen is not hope; for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it." As, therefore, we are saved, so we are made happy by hope. And as we do not as yet possess a present, but look for a future salvation, so is it with our happiness.have you ever seen a man happy who did not have hope? I dare say no. Hope, as Saint Augustine writes is part of happiness and it must be secured and kept if we are to find happiness in this world.
