Being precedes Truth, and ... Truth precedes the Good.
Josef PieperRead
Of course the world of work begins to become - threatens to become - our only world, to the exclusion of all else. The demands of the working world grow ever more total, grasping ever more completely the whole of human existence.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects on how work can dominate our lives, overshadowing other important aspects of existence.
Josef Pieper highlights the potential danger of allowing the world of work to consume our entire existence. He warns that as work demands increase, they may command our full attention and energy, leading to a life where other vital experiences, such as relationships, leisure, and contemplation, are neglected. This serves as a reminder to maintain a balanced life that encompasses more than just professional obligations.
Themes
WorkExistenceBalancePhilosophyLife
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be shared during a seminar on work-life balance.
More from Josef Pieper
All quotes →Repose, leisure, peace, belong among the elements of happiness. If we have not escaped from harried rush, from mad pursuit, from unrest, from the necessity of care, we are not happy. And what of contemplation? Its very premise is freedom from the fetters of workaday busyness. Moreover, it itself actualizes this freedom by virtue of being intuition.
Josef PieperRead
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.
Josef PieperRead
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.
Josef PieperRead
The happy man needs nothing and no one. Not that he holds himself aloof, for indeed he is in harmony with everything and everyone; everything is "in him"; nothing can happen to him. The same may also be said for the contemplative person; he needs himself alone; he lacks nothing.
Josef PieperRead
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.
Josef PieperRead
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