Happiness,... even the smallest happiness, is like a step out of Time, and the greatest happiness is sharing in Eternity.
Josef PieperWonder is defined by Thomas [Aquinas] in the Summa Theologiae [I-II, Q. 32, a. 8], as the desiderium sciendi, the desire for knowledge, active longing to know.
Josef PieperHe 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.
Josef PieperTo 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 PieperUnchaste abandon and the self-surrender of the soul to the world of sensuality paralyzes the primordial powers of the moral person: the ability to perceive, in silence, the call of reality, and to make, in the retreat of this silence, the decision appropriate to the concrete situation of concrete action.
Josef Pieper