As translated by Paul Harrison <!-- Fifth dialogue ?-->
Cause, Principle, and Unity (1584)
Context: The Universe is one, infinite, immobile. The absolute potential is one, the act is one, the form or soul is one, the material or body is one, the thing is one, the being in one, one is the maximum and the best... It is not generated, because there is no other being it could desire or hope for, since it comprises all being. It does not grow corrupt. because there is nothing else into which it could change, given that it is itself all things. It cannot diminish or grow, since it is infinite.
“Worship itself is a given — or it does not exist at all.”
Source: Leisure, the Basis of Culture (1948), Leisure, the Basis of Culture, p. 59
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Josef Pieper 45
German philosopher 1904–1997Related quotes
“Fear is always in relation to something; it does not exist by itself.”
There is fear of what happened yesterday in relation to the possibility of its repetition tomorrow; there is always a fixed point from which relationship takes place. How does fear come into this? I had pain yesterday; there is the memory of it and I do not want it again tomorrow. Thinking about the pain of yesterday, thinking which involves the memory of yesterday’s pain, projects the fear of having pain again tomorrow. So it is thought that brings about fear. Thought breeds fear; thought also cultivates pleasure. To understand fear you must also understand pleasure — they are interrelated; without understanding one you cannot understand the other. This means that one cannot say ‘I must only have pleasure and no fear’; fear is the other side of the coin which is called pleasure. Thinking with the images of yesterday’s pleasure, thought imagines that you may not have that pleasure tomorrow; so thought engenders fear. Thought tries to sustain pleasure and thereby nourishes fear. Thought has separated itself as the analyzer and the thing to be analyzed; they are both parts of thought playing tricks upon itself. In doing all this it is refusing to examine the unconscious fears; it brings in time as a means of escaping fear and yet at the same time sustains fear.
Beyond Violence (1973), p. 66, ISBN 0-06-064839-2
1970s
Source: "The Masters of Suspicion", p. 84
De Pace Fidei (The Peace of Faith) (1453)
Towards a Systems Theory of Organization, 1985, From Data to Wisdom, 1989
1840s, Letters from New York (1843)
Source: Letters from New York http://www.bartleby.com/66/63/12263.html, vol. 1, letter 18