“No less incommensurable with the working-world than the philosophical question is the sound of true poetry. […] The lover, too, stands outside the tight chain of efficiency of this working world, and [so does] whoever else approaches the margin of existence through some deep existential disturbance (which always brings a "shattering" of one's environment), or through, say, the proximity of death.”

—  Josef Pieper

Source: Leisure, the Basis of Culture (1948), The Philosophical Act, pp. 67–68

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 "No less incommensurable with the working-world than the philosophical question is the sound of true poetry. […] The lov…" by Josef Pieper?
Josef Pieper photo
Josef Pieper 45
German philosopher 1904–1997

Related quotes

Stanley Baldwin photo

“No Government in this country to-day, which has not faith in the people, hope in the future, love for his fellow-men, and which will not work and work and work, will ever bring this country through into better days and better times, or will ever bring Europe through or the world through.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in the House of Commons (16 February 1923), quoted in On England, and Other Addresses (1926), pp. 59-60.
1923
Context: I am myself of that somewhat flabby nature that always prefers agreement to disagreement... When the Labour Party sit on these benches, we shall all wish them well in their effort to govern the country. But I am quite certain that whether they succeed or fail there will never in this country be a Communist Government, and for this reason, that no gospel founded on hate will ever seize the hearts of our people— the people of Great Britain. It is no good trying to cure the world by spreading out oceans of bloodshed. It is no good trying to cure the world by repeating that pentasyllabic French derivative, "Proletariat." The English language is the richest in the world in thought. The English language is the richest in the world in monosyllables. Four words, of one syllable each, are words which contain salvation for this country and for the whole world, and they are "Faith," "Hope," "Love," and "Work." No Government in this country to-day, which has not faith in the people, hope in the future, love for his fellow-men, and which will not work and work and work, will ever bring this country through into better days and better times, or will ever bring Europe through or the world through.

“How does the philosophical question differ from the non-philosophical question? To philosophize means, we said, to direct one's view toward the totality of the world. So is that a philosophical question (and that alone) which has for its explicit and formal theme the sum-total of all existing things? No! What is peculiar and distinctive about a philosophical question is that it cannot be posed, considered, or answered (so far at least as an answer is possible) without "God and the world" also coming into consideration, that is, the whole of what exists.”

Josef Pieper (1904–1997) German philosopher

Since "the answers of the special sciences" do not reach "the horizon of total reality", they are given "without having to speak at the same time of 'God and the world.'" (p. 96)
Source: Leisure, the Basis of Culture (1948), The Philosophical Act, p. 95

“Now it is not our purpose here to condemn this world, from the standpoint of some "holiday-world" of philosophy. No words need be wasted on saying that this work-a-day world is very much with us, that in it the foundations of our physical existence are secured, without which no one can philosophize at all! Nevertheless, let us also recall, that among the voices which fill the workplace and the markets ("How do you get this or that item of daily existence?" "Where do you get that?" etc.) — in the midst of all these voices suddenly one calls above the rest: "Why is there anything at all, and not nothing?" — asking that age-old question, which Heidegger called the basic question of all metaphysics! Must we explicitly state how unfathomable this philosopher's question is, in comparison with that everyday world of needs and purposefulness? If such a question as this were asked, without introduction or interpretation, in the company of those people of efficiency and success, wouldn't the questioner be considered rather … mad?”

Josef Pieper (1904–1997) German philosopher

Source: Leisure, the Basis of Culture (1948), The Philosophical Act, pp. 66—67

Bruce Lee photo

“The Western approach to reality is mostly through theory, and theory begins by denying reality — to talk about reality, to go around reality, to catch anything that attracts our sense-intellect and abstract it away from reality itself. Thus philosophy begins by saying that the outside world is not a basic fact, that its existence can be doubted and that every proposition in which the reality of the outside world is affirmed is not an evident proposition but one that needs to be divided, dissected and analyzed. It is to stand consciously aside and try to square a circle.”

Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker

Source: Striking Thoughts (2000), p. 15 - 16

Viktor Schauberger photo

“This civilization is the work of man, who high-handedly and ignorant of the true workings of Nature, has created a world without meaning or foundation, which now threatens to destroy him, for through his behavior and his activities, he, who should be her master, has disturbed Nature's inherent unity.”

Viktor Schauberger (1885–1958) austrian philosopher and inventor

Callum Coats: Water Wizard
Viktor Schauberger: Our Senseless Toil (1934)

“There's this saying: in an all-blue world, colour doesn't exist… If something seems strange, you question it; but if the outside world is too distant to use as a comparison then nothing seems strange.”

Alex Garland book The Beach

Source: The Beach

Sam Cooke photo

“All day long they work so hard
Till the sun is goin' down.
Working on the highways and byways
And wearing, wearing a frown.
You hear them moanin' their lives away.
Then you hear somebody say:"That's the sound of the men working on the chain gang.
That's the sound of the men working on the chain gang."”

Sam Cooke (1931–1964) American singer-songwriter and entrepreneur

Chain Gang
Song lyrics, Singles

W.B. Yeats photo

“Words are always getting conventionalized to some secondary meaning. It is one of the works of poetry to take the truants in custody and bring them back to their right senses.”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

Letter to Ellen O'Leary (3 February 1889)

W.E.B. Du Bois photo

“The return from your work must be the satisfaction which that work brings you and the world's need of that work. With this, life is heaven, or as near heaven as you can get. Without this — with work which you despise, which bores you, and which the world does not need — this life is hell.”

W.E.B. Du Bois (1868–1963) American sociologist, historian, activist and writer

To His Newborn Great-Grandson, address on his ninetieth birthday (1958)

Ursula K. Le Guin photo

“What would that be, a world without war? It would be the real world. Peace was the true life, the life of working and learning and bringing up children to work and learn. War, which devoured work, learning, and children, was the denial of reality.”

Ursula K. Le Guin book Four Ways to Forgiveness

"Betrayals", p. 1; first published in Blue Motel (1994)
Four Ways to Forgiveness (1995)

Related topics