Only those are called liberal or free which are concerned with knowledge; those which are concerned with utilitarian ends... are called servile...The question is... can man develop to the full as a functionary and a worker and nothing else; can a full human existence be contained within an exclusively workaday existence? Stated differently and translated back into our terms: is there such a thing as a liberal art?
Josef PieperThe brave man uses wrath for his own act, above all in attack, 'for it is peculiar to wrath to pounce upon evil. Thus fortitude and wrath work directly upon each other.
Josef PieperOnly those are called liberal or free which are concerned with knowledge; those which are concerned with utilitarian ends... are called servile...The question is... can man develop to the full as a functionary and a worker and nothing else; can a full human existence be contained within an exclusively workaday existence? Stated differently and translated back into our terms: is there such a thing as a liberal art?
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 PieperRepose, 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 Pieper