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.… — Josef Pieper Copy Share Image
Happiness is essentially a gift; we are not the forgers of our own felicity. — Josef Pieper Copy Share Image
The delight we take in our senses is an implicit desire to know the ultimate reason for things, the highest cause. The desire for… — Josef Pieper Copy Share Image
“The vacancy left by absence of worship is filled by mere killing of time and by boredom, which is directly related to inability to… — Josef Pieper Copy Share Image
“Patience is not the indiscriminate acceptance of any sort of evil: "It is not the one who does not flee from evil who is… — Josef Pieper Copy Share Image
Contemplation does not ignore the 'historical Gethsemane', does not ignore the mystery of evil, guilt and its bloody atonement. The happiness of contemplation is… — Josef Pieper Copy Share Image
Justice is a habit (habitus), whereby a man renders to each one his due with constant and perpetual will. — Josef Pieper Copy Share Image
The happy life does not mean loving what we possess, but possessing what we love." Possession of the beloved, St. Thomas holds, takes place… — Josef Pieper Copy Share Image
The brave man uses wrath for his own act, above all in attack, 'for it is peculiar to wrath to pounce upon evil. Thus… — Josef Pieper Copy Share Image
What distinguishes - in both senses of that word - contemplation is rather this: it is a knowing which is inspired by love. "Without… — Josef Pieper Copy Share Image
Beauty, however, must here be understood in its original meaning: as the glow of the true and the good irradiating from every ordered state… — Josef Pieper Copy Share Image
Unless we regain the art of silence and insight, the ability for nonactivity, unless we substitute true leisure for our hectic amusements, we will… — Josef Pieper Copy Share Image
If God really became incarnate, and if His Incarnation can with justice compel man to change his life,then we have no alternative but to… — Josef Pieper Copy Share Image
