Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Reverence

"All the mystery which surrounds life and pervades life is really one mystery. It is God. Called by His name, taken up into His being, it is filled with graciousness. It is not longer cold and hard; it is all warm and soft and palpitating. It is love. And of this personal mystery of love – of God – it is supremely true that only by reverence, only by the hiding of the eyes, can He be seen." - Phillips Brooks

"Each society and each age must find the institutionalized form of reverence which derives vitality from its world image." - Erik Erickson

"Wonder is the attitude of reverence for the infinite values and meaning over God’s purpose and patience in it all." - George Walter Fiske

"Reverence for God is the beginning of wisdom." - Emmet Fox

"There is much in the world that cannot be explained without knowing what came before life and what is to come after it, and of that we know nothing, for faith is not knowledge. All that we can do is to take refuge, in reverence and submission." - Edward Grey, fully Sir Edward Grey,1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon

"Detachment of doctrine from devotion, detachment of reason from reverence, of scrutiny from the sense of the ineffable reduces God as a challenge to a logical hypothesis… God is relevant only when overwhelmingly urgent." - Abraham Joshua Heschel

"In visions of wisdom, in devotion to the good, in submission to beauty, and when overwhelmed by the holy, we awake to behold existence in this relationship. In reverence, suffering, and humility we discover our existence and find the bridge that leads from existence to God. And this is religion." - Abraham Joshua Heschel

"Reverence for God is shown in our reverence for man. The fear you must feel for offending or hurting a human being must be as ultimate as your fear of God. An act of violence is an act of desecration. To be arrogant toward man is to be blasphemous toward God." - Abraham Joshua Heschel

"It is our duty… to place our whole tumultuous life of feeling and will under the joint guidance of reverence and reason." - Julian Huxley, fully Sir Julian Sorell Huxley

"Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment… I am certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions. I think moderate imperfections had better be borne with; because, when once known, we accommodate ourselves to them, and find practical means of correcting their ill effects. But I know also that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors." - Thomas Jefferson

"Of all human and long-existent beliefs concerning religion, that one seems to me to be most probable and most justifiable which recognizes God as a power incomprehensible, source and preserver of all things; all goodness, all perfection, receiving and accepting in good part the honor and reverence which human beings render him under whatever form, under whatever name, and in whatever manner it may be." -

"Simple minds, less curious, less well instructed, are made good Christians, and through reverence and obedience hold their simple belief and abide by their laws." -

"If we follow what we love, if we live deeply and attentively in this moment, we will not feel bound by regret at the moment of our death. We will live with reverence for all things and a deep gratefulness for the gift of a single day upon the earth." - Wayne Muller

"Science is not about control. It is about cultivating a perpetual condition of wonder in the face of something that forever grows one step richer and subtler than our latest theory about it. It is about reverence, not mastery." - Richard Powers

"The world has the wealth and resources to provide everyone the opportunity to live a decent life. We consume too much when market relationships displace the bonds of community, compassion, culture, and place. We consume too much when consumption becomes an end in itself and makes us lose affection and reverence for the natural world." - Mark Sagoff

"In a human context, love means sharing an experience, showing compassion, and helping one another. But our love of God is akin to reverent love. God is infinite life. Thus the most elementary ethical principle, when understood by the heart, means that out of reverence for the unfathomable, infinite, and living Reality we call God, we must never consider ourselves strangers toward any human being." - Albert Schweitzer

"The most elementary ethical principle, when understood by the heart, means that out of reverence for the unfathomable, infinite, and living Reality we call God, we must never consider ourselves strangers toward any human being. Rather, we must bind ourselves to the task of sharing his experiences and try being of help to him." - Albert Schweitzer

"The view of Reverence for Life is ethical mysticism. It allows union with the Infinite to be realized [through] ethical action." - Albert Schweitzer

"In marriage reverence is more important even than love… A steady awareness in each that the other has a kinship with the eternal." - Frank Sheed

"Whatever you give to others, give with love and reverence. Gifts must be given in abundance, with joy, humility, and compassion." - Taittiriya Upanishad

"We live by Faith; but Faith is not the slave of text and legend. Reason’s voice and God’s, Nature’s and Duty’s, never are at odds. What asks our Father of His children, save justice and mercy and humility, a reasonable service of good deeds, pure living, tenderness to human needs, reverence and trust, and prayer for light to see the Master’s footprints in our daily ways? No knotted scourge nor sacrificial knife, but the calm beauty of an ordered life whose very breathing is unworded praise! A life that stands as all true lives have stood firm-rooted in the faith that God is good." - John Greenleaf Whittier

"A Humanist Code of Ethics: Do no harm to the earth, she is your mother. Being is more important than having. Never promote yourself at another's expense. Hold life sacred; treat it with reverence. Allow each person the dignity of his or her labor." - Arthur Dobrin

"When The problem to be faced is: how to combine loyalty to one's own tradition with reverence for different traditions." - Abraham Joshua Heschel

"Fullness of knowledge always and necessarily means some understanding of the depths of our ignorance, and that is always conducive to both humility and reverence." - Robert A. Millikan, fully Robert Andrews Millikan

"Let the young soul look back upon its life and ask: What up to now have you truly loved, what has raised up your soul, what ruled it and at the same time made it happy? Line up these objects of reverence before you, and perhaps by their sequence they will yield to you a basic law of your true self. Compare them and see how they form a ladder on which you have so far climbed up toward yourself." -

"Ethics, too, are nothing but reverence for life. This 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

"The view of Reverence for Life is ethical mysticism. It allows union with the Infinite to be realized [though] ethical action." - Albert Schweitzer

"The only way in which one can make endurable man's inhumanity to man, and a man's destruction of his own environment, is to exemplify in your own lives man's humanity to man and man's reverence for the place in which he lives." - Alan Stewart Paton

"The only way in which one can make endurable man's inhumanity to man, and a man's destruction of his own environment, is to exemplify in your own lives man's humanity to man and man's reverence for the place in which he lives." -

"The Western world is now suffering from the limited moral outlook of the three previous generations. Also the assumption of the bare valuelessness of mere matter led to a lack of reverence in the treatment of natural or aesthetic beauty…" - Alfred North Whitehead

"Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control. These three alone lead life to sovereign power." -

"Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control; these three alone lead to sovereign power." -

"Modesty is bred of self-reverence. Find manners are the mantle of fair minds." - Amos Bronson Alcott

"Nor do we accept as genuine the person not characterized by this blushing bashfulness, this youthfulness of heart, this sensibility to the sentiment of suavity, and self-respect. Modesty is bred of self-reverence. Fine manners are the mantle of fair minds. None are truly great without his ornament." - Amos Bronson Alcott

"If men think that a ruler is religious and has a reverence for the God, they are less afraid of suffering injustice at his hands." - Aristotle NULL

"Reverence is one of the signs of strength; irreverence one of the surest indications of weakness. No man will rise high who jeers at sacred things. The fine loyalties of life must be reverenced or they will be forsworn in the day of trial." - Author Unknown NULL

"Kill reverence and you’ve killed the hero in man." - Ayn Rand, born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum

"As the years accumulate do you find yourself more sympathetic and tolerant, with a higher reverence for the nobility of your fellow men? That is the essential test of growth." - Bruce Barton

"From Wakan Tanka, the Great Spirit, there came a great unifying life force that flowed in and through all things - the flowers of the plains, blowing winds, rocks, trees, birds, animals - and was the same force that had been breathed into the first man. Thus all things were kindred, and were brought together by the same Great Mystery. Kinship with all creatures of the earth, sky, and water was a real and active principle. In the animal and bird world there existed a brotherly feeling that kept the Lakota safe among them. And so close did some of the Lakotas come to their feathered and furred friends that in true brotherhood they spoke a common tongue. The animals had rights - the right of man’s protection, the right to live, the right to multiply, and the right to freedom, and the right to man’s indebtedness - and in recognition of these rights the Lakota never enslaved an animal, and spared all life that was not needed for food and clothing. This concept of life and its relations was humanizing, and gave to the Lakota an abiding love. It filled his being with the joy and mystery of living; it gave him reverence for all life; it made a place for all things in the scheme of existence with equal importance to all. The Lakota could despise no creature, for all were of one blood, made by the same hand, and filled with the essence of the Great Mystery. In spirit, the Lakota were humble and meek. “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” - this was true for the Lakota, and from the earth they inherited secrets long since forgotten. Their religion was sane, natural, and human." -

"Always and in everything let there be reverence." - Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL

"Reverence for superiors, respect for equals, regard for inferiors - these form the supreme trinity of the virtues." - Felix Adler

"Cleanness of the body was ever deemed to proceed from a due reverence to God." - Francis Bacon

"No soul is desolate as long as there is a human being for whom it can feel trust and reverence." -

"A parent must respect the spiritual person of his child, and approach it with reverence." - George MacDonald

"Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence." - Henry David Thoreau, born David Henry Thoreau

"There is no surer mark of a low and unregenerate nature than this tendency of power to loudness and wantonness instead of quietness and reverence." - James Martineau

"Things infinite and divine… are given not so much for definition as for trust; are less the objects we think of than the very tone and color of our thought, the tension of our love, the unappeasable thirst of grief and reverence." - James Martineau

"All real joy and power of progress... depend on finding something to reverence, and all the baseness and misery of humanity begin in a habit of disdain." - John Ruskin

"To yield reverence to another, to hold ourselves and our lives at his disposal, is not slavery; often, it is the noblest state in which a man can live in this world." - John Ruskin