Josef Pieper's Insights On A Few Virtues

I was reading A Brief Reader on the Virtues of the Human Heart by Josef Pieper, and I found several of Pieper's thoughts to be very insightful. First, I was impressed by his description of patience. He says that patience is not the indiscriminate acceptance of any kind of evil, but is rather the ability to not allow the serenity and discernment to be taken away from one's soul. People often get patience confused with indifference, but as Pieper shows, it is much stronger than that. Patience is rather a recognition the evil, but yet some kind of strong resistance to it.

Also, I am encouraged by his description of discipline. Pieper explains that discipline is selfless self-preservation. Contrastingly, indiscipline is self-destruction through selfish debasement of powers intended for self-preservation. People seem to confuse discipline with a selfish ambition, but it is interesting to note that discipline's opposite is in fact the real selfish quality. There have been times when I felt discouraged because I questioned if much of my hard work (whether it is in school, at work, at the gym, or even around the house) was for selfish ambition. Pieper’s description gave me an encouraging new revelation on the nature of discipline.

Finally, his insight that anger is not necessarily a vice is very interesting. In the power of being angry, the human nature speaks most clearly. So, anger can be used in overcoming licentiousness, I think through clearly seeing the lack of real satisfaction that licentiousness brings. Whatever he was trying to get at, I think his insight on anger is interesting.