Indeed, man wishes to be happy even when he so lives as to make happiness impossible.

Augustine observes a paradox at the heart of human desire: everyone seeks happiness, yet people often choose patterns of life—disordered loves, vice, self-deception—that undermine the very fulfillment they want. In Augustine’s moral psychology, the will can be divided against itself: we can sincerely desire the good in general (beatitude) while clinging to lesser goods in ways that produce misery. The line also implies a critique of purely external or hedonistic notions of happiness; for Augustine, lasting happiness is inseparable from rightly ordered love and ultimately from God. The quote’s force lies in its realism about human inconsistency and its implicit call to conversion of desire rather than mere pursuit of pleasure.