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'.
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'.
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.
Love is in the pleasure of possession, but in the Love of Allah there is no pleasure of possession, because the stations of the Reality are wonderment, the cancelling of the debt which is owed, and the blinding of vision. The Love of the human being for God is a reverence which penetrates the very depths of his being, and which is not permitted to be given except to Allah alone. The Love of Allah for the human being is that He Himself gives proof of Himself, not revealing Himself to anything that is not He.
al-hallaj— As quoted in "Husayn ibn Mansur al-Hallaj" at Sidi Muhammad Press
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).
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))
Here, too, was the guide, the beacon, for such times as humanity might be in danger; here was the Guardian of Whom all humans knew — not an exterior force, nor an awesome Watcher in the sky, but a laughing thing with a human heart and a reverence for its human origins, smelling of sweat and new-turned earth rather than suffused with the pale odor of sanctity.
theodore sturgeon— Chapter 3, p. 186
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.
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))
With me poetry has been not a purpose, but a passion; and the passions should be held in reverence: they must not they cannot at will be excited, with an eye to the paltry compensations, or the more paltry commendations, of mankind.
edgar allan poe— The Raven and Other Poems (1845), Preface
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.
The moment I have realized God sitting in the temple of every human body, the moment I stand in reverence before every human being and see God in him - that moment I am free from bondage , everything that binds vanishes, and I am free.
— Swami Vivekananda (2006), in Vivekananda, World Teacher: His Teachings on the Spiritual Unity of Humankind, p.91
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)
Love is in the pleasure of possession, but in the Love of Allah there is no pleasure of possession, because the stations of the Reality are wonderment, the cancelling of the debt which is owed, and the blinding of vision. The Love of the human being for God is a reverence which penetrates the very depths of his being, and which is not permitted to be given except to Allah alone. The Love of Allah for the human being is that He Himself gives proof of Himself, not revealing Himself to anything that is not He.
— As quoted in "Husayn ibn Mansur al-Hallaj" at Sidi Muhammad Press
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))
For cleanness of body was ever esteemed to proceed from a due reverence to God, to society, and to ourselves.
Francis Bacon— Francis Bacon, Advancement of Learning.
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)
"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)
The ethic of reverence for Life is the ethic of Love widened into universality.
Albert Schweitzer— Out of My Life and Thought, An Autobiography (1933) translated by C. T. Campion, Epilogue, p. 235
