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Josef Pieper Biography

Josef Pieper (German: [ˈpiːpɐ]; 4 May 1904 – 6 November 1997) was a German Catholic philosopher and an important figure in the resurgence of interest in the thought of Thomas Aquinas in early-to-mid 20th-century philosophy. Among his most notable works are The Four Cardinal Virtues: Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, Temperance; Leisure, the Basis of Culture; and Guide to Thomas Aquinas (published in England as Introduction to Thomas Aquinas).

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Josef Pieper Quotes

The happy life does not mean loving what we possess, but possessing what we love. " Possession of the beloved, St. Thomas holds, takes place in an act of cognition, in seeing, in intuition, in contemplation.

Act, Happy Life, Intuition, Love, Mean, Seeing

The common element in all the special forms of contemplation is the loving, yearning, affirming bent toward that happiness which is the same as God Himself, and which is the aim and purpose of all that happens in the world.

Bent, Elements, Purpose, Special, Toward, World

Beauty, however, must here be understood in its original meaning: as the glow of the true and the good irradiating from every ordered state of being, and not in the patent significance of immediate sensual appeal.

Appeal, Irradiating, Original, Patents, Sensual, States

The brave man uses wrath for his own act, above all in attack, 'for it is peculiar to wrath to pounce upon evil. Thus fortitude and wrath work directly upon each other.

Brave, Evil, Man, Men, Pounce, Wrath

Only the silent hear and those who do not remain silent do not hear.

Christian Inspirational, Faith, Hear, Inspiration, Remain, Silent

The eye of perfected friendship with God is aware of deeper dimensions of reality, to which the eyes of the average man and the average Christian are not yet opened.

Christian, Eye, Man, Opened, Reality

The "supreme good" and its attainment -- that is happiness. And joy is: response to happiness.

Attainment, Good, Happiness, Joy, Response

Contemplation does not ignore the 'historical Gethsemane', does not ignore the mystery of evil, guilt and its bloody atonement. The happiness of contemplation is a true happiness, indeed the supreme happiness; but it is founded upon sorrow.

Bloody, Contemplation, Evil, Guilt, Historical, Sorrow

If in this supreme test, in face of which the braggart falls silent and every heroic gesture is paralyzed, a man walks straight up to the cause of his fear and is not deterred from doing that which is good -- which ultimately means for the sake of God, and therefore not from ambition or from fear of being taken for a coward -- this man, and he alone, is truly brave.

Ambition, Fall, Heroic, Paralyzed, Silent, Taken

He who knows does not feel wonder. It could not be said that God experiences wonder, for God knows in the most absolute and perfect way.

Doe, God, Perfect, Said, Way, Wonder

Happiness and joy are not the same. For what does the fervent craving for joy mean? It does not mean that we wish at any cost to experience the psychic state of being joyful. We want to have reason for joy, for an unceasing joy that fills us utterly, sweeps all before it, exceeds all measure.

Experience, Joy, Mean, Psychic, Psychics, Unceasing

Being precedes Truth, and … Truth precedes the Good.

Good, Precedes, Truth

Leisure is only possible when we are at one with ourselves. We tend to overwork as a means of self-escape, as a way of trying to justify our existence.

Justify, Mean, Self, Tend, Trying, Way

The essence of leisure is not to assure that we may function smoothly but rather to assure that we, embedded in our social function, are enabled to remain fully human.

Embedded, Essence, Fully, Leisure, May, Remain

To celebrate a festival means: to live out, for some special occasion and in an uncommon manner, the universal assent to the world as a whole.

Celebrate, Live, Mean, Special, World

Surrender to sensuality paralyzes the powers of the moral person.

Abstinence, Moral, Paralyzes, Powers, Surrender

The inmost significance of the exaggerated value which is set upon hard work appears to be this: man seems to mistrust everything that is effortless; he can only enjoy, with a good conscience, what he has acquired with toil and trouble; he refused to have anything as a gift.

Conscience, Hard Work, Men, Mistrust, Set, Toil

All just order in the world is based on this, that man give man what is his due.

Due, Give, Giving, Men, Order, World

No one can obtain felicity by pursuit. This explains why one of the elements of being happy is the feeling that a debt of gratitude is owed, a debt impossible to pay. Now, we do not owe gratitude to ourselves. To be conscious of gratitude is to acknowledge a gift.

Elements, Feeling, Feelings, Gratitude, Owed, Pursuit

[T]o know means to reach the reality of existing things[. ]

Existing, Know Me, Mean, Reach, Reality, Things

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