Reverence Quotes
More Reverence Quotes
Ethics, too, are nothing but reverence for life . That is what gives me the fundamental principle of morality , namely, that good consists in maintaining, promoting, and enhancing life, and that destroying, injuring, and limiting life are evil .
— Albert Schweitzer, in Kulturphilosophie (1923), Vol. 2 : Civilization and Ethics
History shows that whenever an emergency arises, our national spirit is most emphatically manifested to advance the prestige and fortune of the nation. It is incumbent upon us to leave no stone unturned in order to promote loyalty and bravery on the home front as well, and to replenish and demonstrate our nation's powers, for which are required the inculcation of the spirit of reverence for deities and respect for ancestors, the renovation of national education and the of the people's physical strength.
mitsumasa yonai— alternate version: History shows that, whenever an emergency arises, our national spirit is manifested most emphatically to advance the prestige and bring about the prosperity of the nation. Nor must we be negligent in any way in promoting a loyal and heroic spirit among the home-front population so that national strength may be augmented and given full play. For this purpose, such measures as the fostering of the spirit of piety and of honouring ancestors, the renovation of national education and the improvement of the people's physical strength.
— Quoted in "Tokyo Gazette" - Page 343 - by Nihon Gaiji Kyokai. Also quoted in "Modern Japan and Shinto Nationalism" - Page 19 - by Daniel Clarence Holtom - 1963
Hatless, I take off My cycle-clips in awkward reverence.
— 1954 'Church Going'.
He could not sing for them a sweet song, or create a "thing of beauty" which should be "a joy for ever," or touch their hearts, or fire their spirits, or deepen their reverence or their fervour. He was not a Poet, a Priest, or a Prophet, but only a cold, clear, Intelligence, raying down pure white light, which brightened everything on which it fell, but warmed nothing—a Star of at least the second, if not of the first magnitude, in the Intellectual Firmament.
henry cavendish— George Wilson, The Life of the Honble Henry Cavendish (1851) p.186
Our rule is the works of mercy… It is the way of sacrifice, worship, a sense of reverence.
dorothy day— As quoted in The Encyclopedia of American Catholic History (1997)
— Variant: [Practicing] the works of mercy ... is our program, our rule of life.As quoted in The Catholic Worker after Dorothy : Practicing the Works of Mercy in a New Generation (2008) by Dan McKanan
That which concerns the mystery of the King's power is not lawful to be disputed; for that is to wade into the weakness of Princes, and to take away the mystical reverence that belongs unto them that sit in the throne of God.
james i of england— Speech in the Star Chamber (June 1616)
We may not pay Satan reverence, for that would be indiscreet, but we can at least respect his talents.
— Mark Twain, "Concerning the Jews", Harper's Magazine (September 1899)
One dwells in suffering if one is without reverence and deference. Now what ascetic or brahmin can I honour and respect and dwell in dependence on?
angulimalo— Angulimalo, in Anussati: the Recollections. with Quotes from the Pali Canon and Forest p.55
To reverence the King, as if he were Their conscience, and their conscience as their King, To break the heathen and uphold the Christ, To ride abroad redressing human wrongs, To speak no slander, no, nor listen to it, To honour his own words as if his God's.
Tennyson— 1859 Idylls of the King,'Guinevere', l.465-70.
Dear Lord and Father of mankind, Forgive our foolish ways! Re-clothe us in our rightful mind, In purer lives thy service find, In deeper reverence praise
john greenleaf whittier— 1872 'The Brewing of Soma'.
The other side of reverence is loathing.
martin firrell— quoting Howard Jacobson
A hundred thousand men were ledBy one calf near three centuries dead;They followed still his crooked wayAnd lost a hundred years a day;For thus such reverence is lentTo well-established precedent.
sam walter foss— The Calf-Path, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Science is not about control. It is about cultivating a perpetual sense of wonder in the face of something that forever grows one step richer and subtle than our latest theory about it. It is about reverence, not mastery.
richard powers— The Goldbug Variations
The permanent mental attitude which the sensitive intelligence derives from philosophy is an attitude that combines extreme reverence with limitless skepticism.
john cowper powys— pp. 27-28 (The Meaning of Culture (1929))
Knightly love is blent with reverence As heavenly air is blent with heavenly blue.
george eliot— Book 1 (The Spanish Gypsy (1868))
Humility, a sense of reverence before the sons of heaven of all the prizes that a mortal man might win, these, I say, are wisest; these are best.
Euripides— Bacchæ l. 1150.
Oh Lord deliver us from the elements We at your mercy and your reverence Oh Lord deliver us from the elements We've no defence we are impotent
colin moulding— "Deliver Us From The Elements"
Every tradition grows ever more venerable the more remote its origin, the more confused that origin is. The reverence due to it increases from generation to generation. The tradition finally becomes holy and inspires awe.
friedrich nietzsche— I.96. (Human, All Too Human (1878))
A man's body and his mind, with the utmost reverence to both I speak it, are exactly like a jerkin and a jerkin's lining; rumple the one, you rumple the other.
Laurence Sterne— Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1760-1767), Book III, Chapter IV.
My Lord! How can I, when the battle rages, send an arrow through Bheeshma and Drona , who should receive my reverence?
— Arjuna; Chapter 2, verse 4; Shri Purohit Swami translation
When men in prayer declare the Unity of the Holy Name in love and reverence, the walls of earth's darkness are cleft in twain, and the Face of the Heavenly King is revealed, lighting up the universe.
— p.196 (From A Book of Jewish Thoughts, ed. Joseph H. Hertz, 1920)
Commerce has set the mark of selfishness, The signet of its all-enslaving power Upon a shining ore, and called it gold; Before whose image bow the vulgar great, The vainly rich, the miserable proud, The mob of peasants, nobles, priests, and kings, And with blind feelings reverence the power That grinds them to the dust of misery. But in the temple of their hireling hearts Gold is a living god, and rules in scorn All earthly things but virtue.
Percy Bysshe Shelley— Percy Bysshe Shelley, Queen Mab (1813), Part V, Stanza 4.
Religious Naturalists will be known for their reverence and awe before Nature, their love for Nature and natural forms, their sympathy for all living things, their guilt for enlarging the ecological footprints, their pride in reducing them, their sense of gratitude directed towards the matrix of life, their contempt for those who abstract themselves from natural values, and their solidarity with those who link their self-esteem to sustainable living.
— Loyal Rue - Religion is not about God, Rutgers University Press, 2005, page 367, ISBN 0813535115
Although the Protestant Church is accused of much disastrous bigotry, one claim to immortal fame must be granted it: by permitting freedom of inquiry in the Christian faith and by liberating the minds of men from the yoke of authority, it enabled freedom of inquiry in general to take root in Germany, and made it possible for science to develop independently. German philosophy, though it now puts itself on an equal basis with the Protestant Church or even above it, is nonetheless only its daughter; as such it always owes the mother a forbearing reverence.
— Heinrich Heine, “The Romantic School,” The Romantic School and Other Essays, J. Hermand, ed. (1985), P. 24
Thus we give, as is meet, a respectful reception to what is revealed through the medium of nature, at the same time that we fully reserve our reverence for all we have been accustomed to hold sacred, not one tittle of which it may ultimately be found necessary to alter.
— p.390 (Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844))
However often we turn to it [the Qur'an] at first disgusting us each time afresh, it soon attracts, astounds, and in the end enforces our reverence... Its style, in accordance with its contents and aim is stern, grand, terrible ever and anon truly sublime Thus this book will go on exercising through all ages a most potent influence.
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, quoted in Dictionary of Islam (1895), by T.P. Hughes, p. 526
How much reverence can you have for a Supreme Being who finds it necessary to include such phenomena as phlegm and tooth decay in his divine system of creation?
joseph heller— Joseph Heller, Catch 22. (H)
...a knowledge not gained by words but by touch , sight , sound , victories , failures , sleeplessness, devotion, love the human experiences and emotions of this earth and of oneself and of other men; and perhaps, too.... reverence for things you can not see.
— Adlai Stevenson, in Princeton Alumni Weekly, Volume 85, Issues 1-20, p.29
"reverence for parents" stands written among the three laws of most revered righteousness.
Aeschylus— l. 707. Alternately reported with "Honour thy father and thy mother" in place of "Reverence for parents", in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
