1001Philosophers

Joseph Pieper Quotes on Justice

Joseph Pieper was a German Catholic philosopher and one of the most widely read twentieth-century interpreters of Thomas Aquinas. This page collects quotes attributed to Joseph Pieper on the topic of justice, drawn from across the philosopher's works.

Quotes

  • Attributed to Joseph Pieper:

    “Justice unites human beings; injustice separates them.”

  • “Leisure stands in a perpendicular position with respect to the working process — in just the same way as the "simple gaze" of intellectus does not consist in the "duration" (so to speak) of ratio' s working-out process, but instead cuts through it at the perpendicular (the ancients compared the ratio with time, the intellectus with the "always now" of eternity).”

    p. 34
  • “All just order in the world is based on this, that man give man what is his due.”

    The Four Cardinal Virtues: Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, Temperance(1965) | Justice (1955)
  • “Justice is a habit (habitus), whereby a man renders to each one his due with constant and perpetual will.”

    The Four Cardinal Virtues: Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, Temperance(1965)