| Author Quoted | Josef Pieper |
| Title Quoted | Leisure, The Basis of Culture |
| Date (Year/Month/Day) | 1959/12/10 |
| Imprint | [S.l.] : [s.n.]. 1952 |
| Quotation | I have finally gotten around to reading Pieper's fine little book Leisure, The Basis of Culture. It is very sound and no amount of guilt should make us treat his view of contemplation as "pagan" as if that were to exclude "Christian." One thing is sure-we do not in this monastery have any faith in the basic value of otium sanctum [sacred leisure]. We believe only in the difficult and the unpleasant. That is why we, in practice, hate the contemplative life and destroy it with constant activity. |
| Quotation Source | A Search for Solitude: Pursuing the Monk's True Life. The Journals of Thomas Merton, Volume 3, 1952-1960.; Edited by Lawrence S. Cunningham. / San Francisco : Harper Collins. 1996, p. 356 |
| Letter to | |
| Notes | |
| Link to Merton's Copy |
(If there is a link above showing up as a number, click it to open another window with a full text version.) |