Every art and every inquiry, and similarly everyaction and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim.

-Aristotle
Nicomachean Ethics, bk.1, ch.1,1093 (translated by Sir David Ross).

The inquiry of truth, which is the love-making, or wooing of it, the knowledge of truth, which is the presence of it, and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it, is the sovereign good of human nature.

-Bacon, Francis,Viscount St Albans
  Essays, no.1,'Of  Truth'.