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Leisure stands in a perpendicular position with respect to the working process — in just the same way as the "simple gaze" of intellectus does not consist in the "duration" (so to speak) of ratios working-out process, but instead cuts through it at the perpendicular (the ancients compared the ratio with time, the intellectus with the "always now" of eternity).

— Josef Pieper Leisure, the Basis of Culture (1948)

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More quotes by Josef Pieper

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

The Four Cardinal Virtues: Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, Temperance (1965)

Worship itself is a given — or it does not exist at all.

Leisure, the Basis of Culture (1948)

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.

Leisure, the Basis of Culture (1948)

Since "the answers of the special sciences" do not reach "the horizon of total reality", they are given "without having to speak at the same time of 'God and the world.'

Leisure, the Basis of Culture (1948)

It pertains to the very nature of a philosophical question that its answer will not be a "perfectly rounded truth" (as Parmenides said it), grasped in the hand like an apple plucked from a tree.

Leisure, the Basis of Culture (1948)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Josef Pieper (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.