Josef Pieper Quotes

The vacancy left by absence of worship is filled by mere killing of time and by boredom, which is di...

Leisure is only possible when we are at one with ourselves. We tend to overwork as a means of self-e...

Happiness and joy are not the same. For what does the fervent craving for joy mean? It does not mean...

It is possible to pray in such a way that one does not transcend the world, in such a way that the d...

No one can obtain felicity by pursuit. This explains why one of the elements of being happy is the f...

The happy life does not mean loving what we possess, but possessing what we love." Possession of the...

The common element in all the special forms of contemplation is the loving, yearning, affirming bent...

Material things have closed boundaries; they are not accessible, cannot be penetrated, by things out...

Happiness,... even the smallest happiness, is like a step out of Time, and the greatest happiness is...

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

Who among us has not suddenly looked into his child's face, in the midst of the toils and troubles o...

The happy man needs nothing and no one. Not that he holds himself aloof, for indeed he is in harmony...

The ultimate meaning of the active life is to make possible the happiness of contemplation.

The "whole good" cannot be had, it would seem, without mustering all the strength of our inner life....

Earthly contemplation means to the Christian, we have said, this above all: that behind all that we ...

Repose, leisure, peace, belong among the elements of happiness. If we have not escaped from harried ...

What distinguishes - in both senses of that word - contemplation is rather this: it is a knowing whi...

... the greatest menace to our capacity for contemplation is the incessant fabrication of tawdry emp...

The restoration of man’s inner eyes can hardly be expected in this day and age — unless, first of al...

Here we must take account of one of St. Thomas's conceptual distinctions, which at first seems like ...

Divine worship means the same thing where time is concerned, as the temple where space is concerned....

The inmost significance of the exaggerated value which is set upon hard work appears to be this: man...

The delight we take in our senses is an implicit desire to know the ultimate reason for things, the ...

A man who needs the unusual to make him "wonder" shows that he has lost the capacity to find the tru...

... each gratification points to the ultimate one, and that all happiness has some connection with e...