“What happens when our eye sees a rose? What do we do when that happens? Our mind does something, to be sure, in the mere fact of taking in the object, grasping its color, its shape, and so on. We have to be awake and active. But all the same, it is a "relaxed" looking, so long as we are merely looking at it and not observing or studying it, counting or measuring its various features. Such observation would not be a "relaxed" action; it would be what Ernst Jünger termed an "act of aggression." But simply looking at something, gazing at it, "taking it in," is merely to open our eyes to receive the things that present themselves to us, that come to us without any need for "effort" on our part to "possess" them.”

— Josef Pieper

Source: Leisure, the Basis of Culture (1948), Leisure, the Basis of Culture, p. 9
The Ernst Jünger quote is from Blätter und Steine (Hamburg, 1934), p. 202.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "What happens when our eye sees a rose? What do we do when that happens? Our mind does something, to be sure, in the mer…" by Josef Pieper?

Josef Pieper45

German philosopher 1904–1997

Related quotes

“I believe that appreciation is a holy thing, that when we look for what's best in the person we happen to be with at the moment, we're doing what God does; so in appreciating our neighbor, we're participating in something truly sacred.”

Fred Rogers (1928–2003) American television personality

Commencement Address at Middlebury College May, 2001 http://web.archive.org/web/20030906163501/http://www.middlebury.edu/offices/pubaff/general_info/addresses/Fred_Rogers_2001.htm

“The idea of an object is the idea of its effects, of what it will do, and of what will happen to it, under various conditions.”

Otis Hamilton Lee (1902–1948) American philosopher

Source: [The Review of Metaphysics, 1, 4, June 1948, 32–58, Pragmatism and Existence, https://www.pdcnet.org/revmetaph/content/revmetaph_1948_0001_0004_0032_0058]

“That is what we are supposed to do when we are at our best — make it all up — but make it up so truly that later it will happen that way.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald (28 May 1934); published in Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters 1917–1961 (1981) edited by Carlos Baker

“What would happen if everyone did it? If everyone gave their wealth away what would we do for capital? If everyone loved their enemies who would ward off the Communists? This argument could be met on other levels, but here our only point is to observe that such reasoning would have been preposterous in the early church and remains ludicrous whenever committed Christians accept realistically their minority status. Far more fitting than "What if everybody did it" would be its inverse, "What if nobody else acted like a Christian, but we did?"”

John Howard Yoder (1927–1997) 20th century American Mennonite theologian

Source: The Priestly Kingdom (1984), p. 139

“Life has its rhythm ad we have ours. They’re designed to coexist in harmony, so that when we do what is ours to do and otherwise let life be, we garner acceptance and serenity. (285)”

Victoria Moran (1950) American writer

Source: Younger by the Day: 365 Ways to Rejuvenate Your Body and Revitalize Your Spirit

“I don't agree with the notion that some are putting out there — including scientists — that somehow, there are actions we can take today that would actually have an impact on what's happening in our climate. Our climate is always changing. And what they have chosen to do is take a handful of decades of research, and say that this is now evidence of a longer-term trend that's directly and almost solely attributable to manmade activity.”

Marco Rubio (1971) U.S. Senator from state of Florida, United States; politician

This Week http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/week-transcript-defense-secretary-chuck-hagel-sen-marco/story?id=23667691, ABC News, , quoted in * 2014-05-11 Marco Rubio Says Scientists Are Wrong: 'Human Activity' Does Not Cause Climate Change David Crooks and Liars http://crooksandliars.com/2014/05/marco-rubio-says-scientists-are-wrong 2014-05-17 2010s, 2014