#revere

One of the surest signs of the Philistine is his reverence for the superior tastes of those who put him down. ↗

— Pauline Kael

#him #his #philistine #put #reverence

We have lived by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. And this has been based on the even flimsier assumption that we could know with any certainty what was good even for us. We have fulfilled the danger of this by making our personal pride and greed the standard of our behavior toward the world - to the incalculable disadvantage of the world and every living thing in it. And now, perhaps very close to too late, our great error has become clear. It is not only our own creativity - our own capacity for life - that is stifled by our arrogant assumption; the creation itself is stifled. We have been wrong. We must change our lives, so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption that what is good for the world will be good for us. And that requires that we make the effort to know the world and to learn what is good for it. We must learn to cooperate in its processes, and to yield to its limits. But even more important, we must learn to acknowledge that the creation is full of mystery; we will never entirely understand it. We must abandon arrogance and stand in awe. We must recover the sense of the majesty of creation, and the ability to be worshipful in its presence. For I do not doubt that it is only on the condition of humility and reverence before the world that our species will be able to remain in it. (pg. 20, "A Native Hill") ↗

— Wendell Berry

#creation #earth #humility #mystery #nature

Curiosity and irreverence go together. Curiosity cannot exist without the other. Curiosity asks, "Is this true?" "Just because this has always been the way, is the best or right way of life, the best or right religion, political or economic value, morality?" To the questioner, nothing is sacred. He detests dogma, defies any finite definition of morality, rebels against any repression of a free, open search of ideas no matter where they may lead. He is challenging, insulting, agitating, discrediting. He stirs unrest. ↗

— Saul D. Alinsky

#dogma #irreverence #life

Pride defeats its own end, by bringing the man who seeks esteem and reverence into contempt. ↗

— Henry Bolingbroke

#contempt #defeats #end #esteem #into

He’d never really given religion much thought himself. It was just there, one of the basic fundamentals of life and living; Heaven is generally good and one should aspire to end up there, and Hell is decidedly foul and one should generally direct their enemies there. ↗

— T.A. Miles

#enemies #evil #good #heaven #heaven-and-hell

My day is done, and I am like a boat drawn on the beach, listening to the dance-music of the tide in the evening. ↗

— Rabindranath Tagore

#endings #evening #reverence #wonder #music

That sense of sacredness, that thinking in generations, must begin with reverence for this earth. ↗

— Paul Tsongas

#earth #generations #must #reverence #sacredness

Worship means reverence and humility it means revering your real self and humbling delusions. ↗

— Bodhidharma

#delusions #humbling #humility #means #real

It is an unscrupulous intellect that does not pay to antiquity its due reverence. ↗

— Desiderius Erasmus

#does #due #intellect #pay #reverence

My vanity was flattered by having been mistaken for our revered sovereign. I ordered a banquet to be got ready for the following evening, under the trees before my house, and invited the whole town. ↗

— Adelbert von Chamisso

#been #before #evening #flattered #following