A Quote by Josef Pieper

... the greatest menace to our capacity for contemplation is the incessant fabrication of tawdry empty stimuli which kill the receptivity of the soul.

Josef Pieper

Quote Topics

Capacity Contemplation Empty Fabrication Greatest Incessant Menace Our Receptivity Soul Which

Quote Author

Josef Pieper
German - Philosopher
May 4, 1904 - November 6, 1997

The eye is a menace to clear sight, the ear is a menace to subtle hearing, the mind is a menace to wisdom, every organ of the senses is a menace to its own capacity.

Zhuangzi

Just as we believe by faith that the greatest happiness of the next life consists simply in the contemplation of this divine majesty, likewise we experience that we derive the greatest joy of which we are capable in this life from the same contemplation, even though it is much less perfect.

Rene Descartes

The activity of God, which is transcendent in blessedness, is the activity of contemplation; and therefore among human activities that which is most akin to the divine activity of contemplation will be the greatest source of happiness.

Aristotle

No country, however rich, can afford the waste of its human resources. Demoralization caused by vast unemployment is our greatest extravagance. Morally, it is the greatest menace to our social order.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

The stronghold of the contemplation of Christ's glory affords the soul rest, for it will be made evident that our troubles grow on the root of an over-valuation of temporal things. The mind is its own greatest troubler.

John Owen

The enemy bombards our front not only with a drumfire of artillery, but also with a drumfire of printed paper. Besides bombs, which kill the body, his airmen also throw down leaflets which are intended to kill the soul.

Paul von Hindenburg

The sense organs experience the external light, sound, etc. with difficulty; the different sense organs only have a so-called specific receptivity for particular stimuli.

Johannes P. Muller

The greatest of all our human concepts is the immortality of the personality and the eternal glory of the human soul. Throughout eternity you will be yourself and I will be myself, with quickened senses amplified powers of perception, and vastly increased capacity for reason, understanding, love, and happiness, all of which are qualities we may develop now. Our machines wear out, our barns fall down, and our substance goes back to the dust, but our finest collection of personal qualities will have eternal life.

Sterling W Sill

Tolerance of Cruelty in any form is a degraded state of mind and soul. When we freely allow the massacre and prolonged torture of defenseless creatures, it increases our receptivity to human cruelty and war and steals our humanity, peace and soul. Very little speeds and greases your way to Hell, like animal cruelty.

Russell Boyd

The centre of the soul is God; and, when the soul has attained to Him according to the whole capacity of its being, which is the strength and virtue of the soul, it will have reached the last and the deep centre of the soul, which will be when with all its powers it loves and understands and enjoys God.

John of the Cross

In the perception of the incongruous stimuli, the recognition process is temporarily thwarted and exhibits characteristics which are generally not observable in the recognition of more conventional stimuli.

Jerome Bruner

The contemplation of truth and beauty is the proper object for which we were created, which calls forth the most intense desires of the soul, and of which it never tires.

William Hazlitt

What distinguishes - in both senses of that word - contemplation is rather this: it is a knowing which is inspired by love. "Without love there would be no contemplation." Contemplation is a loving attainment of awareness. It is intuition of the beloved object.

Josef Pieper

Our knowledge springs from two fundamental sources of the mind; the first is the capacity of receiving representations (receptivity for impressions), the second is the power of knowing an object through these representations (spontaneity [in the production] of concepts).

Immanuel Kant

The Savior desires to save us from our inadequacies as well as our sins. Inadequacy is not the same as being sinful - we have far more control over the choice to sin than we may have over our innate capacity. . . . A sense of falling short or falling down is not only natural but essential to the mortal experience. Still, after all we can do, the Atonement can fill that which is empty, straighten our bent parts, and make strong that which is weak.