Great Throughts Treasury

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

Worship

"Religion worships God, while superstition profanes that worship." -

"To worship rightly is to love each other, each smile a hymn, each kindly deed a prayer." - John Greenleaf Whittier

"The inner and unconscious ideal which guides [the parents’] lives is precisely what touches the child; their words, their remonstrances, their punishments, their bursts of feeling even, are for him merely thunder and comedy; what they worship, that it is which his instinct divines and reflects." - Henri Frédéric Amiel

"Essence beyond essence, Nature increate, Framer of the world, I set thee, Lord, before my face. I lift up my soul to thee, I worship thee on my knees, and humble myself under thy mighty hand." -

"Susan B. Anthony (– I pray every single second of my life – not on my knees but with my work… Work and worship are one with me." -

"All true and acceptable worship to God is offered in the inward and immediate moving and drawing of His own Spirit, which is neither limited to places, times, or persons." - Robert Barclay

"All true prayer is worship – the ascription of worth to the Eternal. Without adoration, thanksgiving may become a miserliness, petition a selfish clamor, intercession a currying of special favors for our friends, and even contemplation may turn into a refined indulgence." - George Arthur Buttrick

"Thinking is not worship, but if it is initiated by a wrench of sorrow which banishes the half-gods of our superfician existence, God may appear." - Richard Clarke Cabot

"Whenever beauty overwhelms us, whenever wonder silences our chattering hopes and worries, we are close to worship." - Richard Clarke Cabot

"Our mind cannot conceive of God without ascribing some worship of Him." -

"How can you worship a homeless man on Sunday and ignore one on Monday?" - Coalition for the Homeless NULL

"Visible worship is not condemned, but God is leased by invisible piety." - Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus, sometimes known as Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam

"Granted that ritual in any realm from courtesy to worship can become formal, empty, and stiff. Nevertheless, with all its dangers it is an absolute necessity. We cannot… train children in the spirit of religion if the appropriate activities of worship and devotion are forgotten." -

"God is no dictator. He leaves us the freedom to master ourselves." - Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu

"While we fight among ourselves about doctrine we are united in the common worship of money and material success." - Eric Gill, fully Arthur Eric Rowton Gill

"Without the worship of the heart liturgical prayer becomes a matter of formal routine; its technically finished performance may give aesthetic pleasure, but the spirit has gone out from it." - Aelred Graham

"I believe that, for the rest of the world, contemporary America is an almost symbolic concentration of all the best and the worst of our civilization. On the one hand, there are its profound commitment to enhancing civil liberty and to maintaining the strength of its democratic institutions, and the fantastic developments in science and technology which have contributed so much to our well-being; on the other, there is the blind worship of perpetual economic growth and consumption, regardless of their destructive impact on the environment, or how subject they are to the dictates of materialism and consumerism, or how they, through the omnipresence of television and advertising, promote uniformity, and banality instead of a respect for human uniqueness." - Václav Havel

"Ultimately all idolatry is worship of the self projected and objectified: all idolization is self-idolization." -

"Religion declined not because it was refuted but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive, insipid. When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendor of the past; when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion – its message becomes meaningless." - Abraham Joshua Heschel

"Worship is a way of living, a way of seeing the world in the light of God. To worship is to rise to a higher level of existence, to see the world from the point of view of God." - Abraham Joshua Heschel

"The same principles [that apply in polytheism] naturally deify mortals, superior in power, courage, or understanding, and produce hero-worship." - David Hume

"Among all nations there should be vast temples raised where people might worship Silence and listen to it, for it is the voice of God." -

"Wisdom precedes, religion follows; for the knowledge of God comes first, His worship is the result of knowledge." -

"Segregation in the church violates something that is basic in the nature of the church. How can a church exclude from “the church of God” those who are children of God? How can it, as “the body of Christ,” withhold the privilege of worship from those who have been brought into union with Christ." - T. B. Maston, fully Thomas Buford Maston

"Devotion to an ideal is worship; the higher the ideal, the nobler the worship." -

"Power-worship blurs political judgment because it leads almost unavoidably, to the belief that present trends will continue. Whoever is winning at the moment will always seem invincible." -

"Theology is reflection upon the reality of worship and explication of it. As such it is a rational affair… faith seeking to understand." - Albert Cook Outler

"To know whom you worship, let me see you in your shop, let me hear you in your trade, let me know how you rent your houses, how you get your money, how you kept it and how you spent it." - Theodore Parker

"Worship does not consist in fasts and prayers, but in the offering of a pure and contrite heart. The musk is in the deer but it thinks that the fragrance comes from outside and so hunts for it restlessly. God is in us and we have only to turn within to realize the truth." - Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, fully Sir or Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan

"We are told that your religion was given to your forefathers and has been handed down from father to son. We also have a religion which was given to our forefathers and has been handed down to us, their children. We worship in that way. It teaches us to be thankful for all the favors we receive, to love each other, and to be united. We never quarrel about religion." - Red Jacket, aka Sagoyewatha NULL

"You say that you are sent to instruct us how to worship the Great Spirit agreeably to His mind; and, if we do not take hold of the religion which you white people teach, we shall be unhappy hereafter. You say that you are right and we are lost. How do we know this to be true? We understand that your religion is written in a book. If it was intended for us, as well as you, whey has not the Great Spirit given to tus, and not only to us, but what did He not give to our forefathers the knowledge of that book, with the means of understanding it rightly? We only know what you tell us about it. How shall we know when to believe, being so often deceived by the white people? Brother, you say there is but one way to worship and serve the Great Spirit. If there is but one religion, why do you white people differ so much about it? Why not all agreed, as you can all read the book?" - Red Jacket, aka Sagoyewatha NULL

"You say there is but one way to worship and serve the Great Spirit. If there is but one religion, why do you white people differ so much about it? Why not all agreed, as you can all read the book?" - Red Jacket, aka Sagoyewatha NULL

"It is customary to blame secular science and anti-religious philosophy for the eclipse of religion in modern society. It would be more honest to blame religion for its own defeats. Religion declined not because it was refuted, but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive, insipid. When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendor of the past; when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion, its message becomes meaningless." - Fritz A. Rothschild

"Most religions are absolutist. Claims to revelation militate against rational argument and compromise. In this sense all religions contain totalitarian possibilities; for totalitarianism, which welds the state into a single body “knit together as one man” is really the religious impulse, the worship of leadership and ideology, the cult of Person or Book, directed towards secular ends." - Malise Ruthven

"The Catholic Church rejects nothing which is true and holy in these religions… In Hinduism, men probe the mystery of God and express it with a rich fund of myths, and a penetrating philosophy… In the various forms of Buddhism the basic inadequacy of this changing world is recognized and men are taught with confident application how they can achieve a state of complete liberation… The Church also regards with esteem the Muslims who worship the one, subsistent, merciful and almighty God… They venerate Jesus as a prophet… Given the great spiritual heritage common to Christians and Jews, it is the wish of this sacred Council to foster and recommend a mutual knowledge and esteem." - Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, aka Vatican II

"The more you impress the truth upon the subconscious by love and worship, the more it will send it back to you. This is where you are the master. For, by forgiving the untruths and letting go of them, you will find that you have mastered them. You are above and beyond them; they are forgiven and forgotten." - Baird T. Spalding

"[Idolatry as] the moments when we forget who we really are and instead of remembering that we are sparks of the Divine, we start giving up our power to a guru, an ideology, a romantic obsession, a stressful job that begins to define us, or an unhealthy habit we think we can’t live without. Even is we no longer build or worship physical idols like in ancient times, we have modern-day addictions and pressures that cause us to forget that our purpose here is to be a vehicle for Divine energies." - Ted Falcon

"Having criticized the idea that God gives life meaning by assigning a purpose to us collectively or to each one of us individually, this does not mean that God is irrelevant to the meaning of life. It does not exclude the idea that part of the meaning of life consists in the contemplation or worship of the divine…" - Garrett Thomson

"Traditionally, the relation between the divine and the human is that the divine confers meaning on our finite and otherwise petty lives. The idea… is that the divine has qualities that are meaningful because of our possible response to them. In other words, rather than starting from the divine and understanding the meaning of our lives in terms of that, we should start from meaningful activities, such as contemplation and worship, that constitute an appropriate response to the divine, and from this, try to make sense of the divine." - Garrett Thomson

"Article 18 - Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others, and in public or in private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance." - United Nations NULL

"This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future career." - Albert Einstein

"To bring joy to a single heart is better than to build many shrines for worship." -

"To bring joy to a single heart is better than to build many shrines for worship." - Abu Sa’id ibn abi Khayr

"To bring joy to a single heart is better than to build many shrines for worship." -

"We too often mistake the form of an experience for its essence. We worship the physical manifestation of the Holy Spirit, and not the Spirit itself." - Alan Cohen

"We too often mistake the form of an experience for its essence. We worship the physical manifestation of the Holy Spirit, and not the Spirit itself." -

"We too often mistake the form of an experience for its essence. We worship the physical manifestation of the Holy Spirit, and not the Spirit itself." -

"So long as men worship the Caesars and Napoleans, Caesars and Napoleans will duly arise and make them miserable." -

"The moralists cease to be realistic and commit idolatry inasmuch as they worship, not God, but their own ethical ideals, inasmuch as they treat virtue as an end in itself and not as the necessary condition of the knowledge and love of God – a knowledge and love without which that virtue will never be made perfect or even socially effective." -

"So long as men worship the Caesars and Napoleans, Caesars and Napoleans will duly arise and make them miserable." -