#revere

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

The ethics of reverence for life makes no distinction between higher and lower, more precious and less precious lives. It has good reasons for this omission. For what are we doing, when we establish hard and fast gradations in value between living organisms, but judging them in relation to ourselves, by whether they seem to stand closer to us or farther from us. This is a wholly subjective standard. How can we know what importance other living organisms have in themselves and in terms of the universe? ↗

— Albert Schweitzer

#life

Impiety. Your irreverence toward my deity. ↗

— Ambrose Bierce

#impiety #irreverence #toward #your

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

— Henry Bolingbroke

#contempt #defeats #end #esteem #into

Irreverence is easy - what's hard is wit. ↗

— Tom Lehrer

#hard #irreverence #wit

The inner world is very potent for me - I don't ascribe to any God or Jesus or Buddha - I just have a sense of it and revere it along with the natural world and human consciousness. ↗

— Annie Lennox

#any #ascribe #buddha #consciousness #god

Those who closely watched the campaign should not be surprised by Obama's hostility toward Israel, given his relations with pro-Palestinian, virulent critics of Israel and his voluntary membership in Reverend Wright's decidedly anti-Semitic church. Furthermore, his campaign website featured anti-Semitic posts. ↗

— David Limbaugh

#campaign #church #closely #critics #decidedly

Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world. ↗

— John Milton

#awe #bestows #change #encounter #everyday

In my first book, Under Fire, I wrote that I revered Ronald Reagan. That was a dozen years ago. I still feel that way. I think he changed the world for the better for my children and my children's children. ↗

— Oliver North

#better #book #changed #children #dozen