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.
Josef PieperRead
Being precedes Truth, and ... Truth precedes the Good.
Interpretation
The essence of being informs what is true, and truth forms the basis of goodness.
This quote by Josef Pieper suggests a foundational relationship between existence, truth, and morality. It implies that our understanding of what it means to exist ('being') shapes our perception of truth, and that this truth is essential for discerning what is good. In essence, we must first understand the nature of being before we can seek truth, and only with truth can we define or achieve goodness in our lives and actions.
In practice
This quote can be used in a philosophy class to discuss the relationship between existence and ethics.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The property a man has in his own industry, is violated, whenever he is forbidden the free exercise of his faculties or talents, except insomuch as they would interfere with the rights of third parties.
Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none about his or her own.
The ultimate goal of theology isn't knowledge, but worship. If our learning and knowledge of God do not lead to the joyful praise of God, we have failed. We learn only that we might laud, which is to say that theology without doxology is idolatry. The only theology worth studying is a theology that can be sung!
Your pretty empire took so long to build, now, with a snap of history's fingers, down it goes.
Have mountains, and waves, and skies, no significance but what we consciously give them, when we employ them as emblems of our thoughts?
They say it grows so cold up here in winter that a manβs laughter freezes in his throat and chokes him to death,β Ned said evenly. βPerhaps that is why the Starks have so little humor.
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