Reverence

Reverence is a feeling or attitude of deep respect tinged with awe; veneration. The word "reverence" in the modern day is often used in relationship with religion. This is because religion often stimulates the emotion through recognition of God, the supernatural, and the ineffable. Reverence involves a humbling of the self in respectful recognition of something perceived to be greater than the self. Thus religion is commonly a place where reverence is felt.

One man received a thought and accepted it without examination. Another received a thought and tested its truth. Which of them acted with greater reverence? ~ Saint Mark the Ascetic

Arranged alphabetically by author or source:
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A

John Quincy Adams: The happiness of the individual is interwoven with that of his contemporaries: by the power of filial reverence and parental affection, individual existence is extended beyond the limits of individual love, and the happiness of every age is chained in mutual dependence upon that of every other.

• The happiness of the individual is interwoven with that of his contemporaries: by the power of filial reverence and parental affection, individual existence is extended beyond the limits of individual love, and the happiness of every age is chained in mutual dependence upon that of every other.
  • John Quincy Adams, in American Eloquence: A Collection of Speeches and Addresses by the ..., Volume 2, p. 251

• They have a traditionary reverence for the name of their countrymen Ovid, but, like the poor Neapolitans who believe that Virgil was a great magician...
  • Pastore Maremmano-Abruzzese, in Popular customs, sports and recollections of the south of Italy, p. 52

• I always consider the settlement of America with reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand scene and design in providence, for the illumination of the ignorant and the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth.
  • John Adams, in America's God and Country: Encyclopedia of Quotations, p. 5

• How can I, when the battle rages, send an arrow through Bheeshma and Drona, who should receive my reverence?
  • Arjuna in Bhagavad Gita, Bhagavad-Gita, p. 4

• In general, people are more easily swayed by fear than inspired by reverence.
  • Aristotle, in The Heart of Virtue: Lessons from Life and Literature Illustrating the ..., p. 58

• The generality of men are naturally apt to be swayed by fear rather than reverence, and to refrain from evil rather because of the punishment that it brings than because of its own foulness.
  • Aristotle, in Memorable Quotations: Philosophers of Western Civilization, p. 12

• Reverence the gods, save men. Life is brief; there is but one harvest of earthly existence, a holy disposition and neighborly acts - Reverence the gods, and help men. Short is life.
  • Marcus Aurelius, in Famous Quotes from 100 Great People, p. 119

B

Giordano Bruno:...that all motives of hope and fear from invisible powers, which are not immediately derived from, and absolutely coincident with, the reverence due to the supreme reason of the universe, are all alike dangerous superstitions.

• It is impossible for anyone who studies the life and character of the great Prophet of Arabia, who knew how he taught and how he lived, to feel anything but reverence for that mighty Prophet, one of the great messengers of the Supreme.
  • Annie Besant, in the “Life and Teachings of Mohammad”, quoted in Muhammad, the Messenger of Islam

• The reverence and obedience due to the Reformed Church here, and to the bishops and pastors therein, was cast off, and every Man became a Judge of Religion, and interpretor of Scriptures for himself.
  • Behemoth on Christianity, in Worship means reverence and humility it means revering your real self and humbling delusions.

• REVERENCE, n. The spiritual attitude of a man to a god and a dog to a man.
  • Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1911).

• Reverence does not die with mortals, nor does it perish whether they live or die.
  • Bodhidharma, in The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma, p. 105

• ...that all motives of hope and fear from invisible powers, which are not immediately derived from, and absolutely coincident with, the reverence due to the supreme reason of the universe, are all alike dangerous superstitions.
  • Giordano Bruno, in The Defence of Truth: Herbert of Cherbury and the Seventeenth Century, p,222

• Lying has a kind of respect and reverence with it. We pay a person the compliment of acknowledging his superiority whenever we lie to him.
  • Samuel Butler, in The Note-books of Samuel Butler ..., p. 300

C

G. K. Chesterton:When we reverence anything in the mature, it is their virtues or their wisdom, and this is an easy matter. But we reverence the faults and follies of children.

• When we reverence anything in the mature, it is their virtues or their wisdom, and this is an easy matter. But we reverence the faults and follies of children.
  • G. K. Chesterton, The Defendant: By Gilbert Keith Chesterton, p. 65

• When you have really exhausted an experience you always reverence and love it.
  • G.K. Chesterton, in Quotes about Experience, p. 5

• Instinct and study; love and hate; Audacity — reverence. These must mate, And fuse with Jacob's mystic heart, To wrestle with the angel —
  • Gail Coffler, in New Essays on Billy Budd, p. 62

• I appeal to Amherst men to reiterate the Amherst doctrine that the man who builds a factory builds a temple, that the man who works there worships there, and to each is due not scorn and blame but reverence and praise.
  • Calvin Coolidge, in The Tormented President: Calvin Coolidge, Death, and Clinical Depression, p. 78

D

• Since when have we Americans been expected to bow submissively to authority and speak with awe and reverence to those who represent us?
  • William O. Douglas, in Living the Bill of Rights - How to Be an Authentic American, p. 3

E

Deus Ex:C Denton: Electronic surveillance hardly inspires reverence. Perhaps fear and obedience, but not reverence. Morpheus: God and the gods were apparitions of observation, judgment, and punishment.

• It is an irony of fate that myself have been the recipient of excessive admiration and reverence from my fellow-beings, through no fault or merit of my own.
  • Albert Einstein, in The Ultimate Quotable Einstein, p. 14

• The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are inaccessible; but all natural objects make a kindred impression when the mind is open to their influence.
  • Ralph Waldo Emerson, in Essays and Lectures: (Nature: Addresses and Lectures, Essays: First and ..., p. 8

• It is an unscrupulous intellect that does not pay to antiquity its due reverence.
  • Desiderius Erasmus, in Due Reverence: Antiques in the Possession of the American ..., Volume 203], p. 3

G

• Not everything in religion is precious or deserving of reverence. There is an inheritance of anthropocentrism, the ugly fantasy that the Earth exists to serve humans, which most secular humanists share.
  • John N. Gray, in Gray's Anatomy: Selected Writings, p. 335

H

Abraham Joshua Heschel:A return to reverence is the first prerequisite for a revival of wisdom, for the discovery of the world as an allusion to God.

• An Acquisitive Society reverences the possession of wealth, as a Functional Society would honour, even in the person of the humblest and most laborious craftsman, the arts of creation.
  • Professor Hayek, in The Acquisitive Society, quoted in The Essence of Stigler, p. 339

• We think of beauty as being most worthy of reverence. But what is most worthy of reverence lights up only where the magnificent strength...
  • Martin Heidegger, in Nietzsche: The will to power as art, p. 125

• A return to reverence is the first prerequisite for a revival of wisdom, for the discovery of the world as an allusion] to God.
  • Abraham Joshua Heschel, in God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism, p. 78

• We have rudiments of reverence for the human body, but we consider as nothing the rape of the human mind.
  • Eric Hoffer, in Quote Unquote (A Handbook of Quotations), p. 210

• I have in my heart a small shy plant called reverence; I cultivate that on Sunday mornings.
  • Oliver Wendel Holmes Sr., in “The Heart of Virtue: Lessons from Life and Literature Illustrating the ...”], p. 58

I

• Man was created to praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord and in this way to save his soul. The other things on Earth were created for man's use, to help him reach the end for which he was created.
  • Saint Ignatius, in Letters & Writings of St. Ignatius of Loyola First Principle and Foundation

• The eyes of a poet discover in each person a unique and irreplaceable humanity. While arrogant intellect seeks to control and manipulate the world, the poetic spirit bows with reverence before its mysteries.
  • Daisaku Ikeda, in Dialogue with Nature and Interreligious Encounter:Toward a Comparative Theology of the Sense of Wonder

J

Julian (emperor):Set a strong watch upon yourself: reverence us and us alone, and of men him that is like us and none other. You see what tricks self-consciousness and dumb foundering, faint-heartedness have played with yonder idiot.

• ...the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their w:Legislaturelegislature would “make no law respecting an establishment;
  • Thomas Jefferson, in In Defense of the Religious Right: Why Conservative Christians Are the .., p. 38

• Set a strong watch upon yourself: reverence us and us alone, and of men him that is like us and none other. You see what tricks self-consciousness and dumb foundering, faint-heartedness have played with yonder idiot.
  • Julian (emperor), in The Emperor Julian, Paganism and Christianity: With Genealogical ..., p. 138

K

Helen Keller:The retaining hand of tolerance is laid upon the inquisitor and the humanist utters a message of peace to the persecuted. Instead of the cry “Burn the heretic!” men study the human soul with sympathy, and there enters into their hearts a new reverence for that which is unseen.

• The retaining hand of tolerance is laid upon the inquisitor and the humanist utters a message of peace to the persecuted. Instead of the cry “Burn the heretic!” men study the human soul with sympathy, and there enters into their hearts a new reverence for that which is unseen.
  • Helen Keller, in Optimism - An Essay by Helen Keller - Special Edition, p. 13

• His reverence will assert that there is too much philosophy in the book; His Right Reverence’s mental eye will seek in vain for what the congregation, especially in our day, needs so very much, the genuinely speculative.
  • Søren Kierkegaard, in Kierkegaard's Writings, VI: Fear and Trembling/Repetition

• Can one blame the atheist for assuming His Reverence to be a bit lunatic, quite literally understood? The difficult discourse with which the orthodox began has become balderdash.
  • Søren Kierkegaard, in Kierkegaard's Writings, XII: Concluding Unscientific Postscript to, p. 595

L

• I demand for the unmarried mother, as a sacred channel of life, the same reverence and respect as for the married mother; for Maternity is a cosmic thing and once it has come to pass, our conversation must not be permitted to blaspheme it.
  • Ben Lindsey, in Philippines Free Press, Volume 62, Issues 46-52, p. 44

• Luminous past,...Wise with the history of its own frail heart, With reverence and sorrow, and with love, Broad as the world, for freedom and for man. ...
  • James Russel Lowell, in Pometheus Voices of the true-hearted, p. 227

M

Herman Melville:Instinct and study; love and hate;
Audacity — reverence.These must mate,
And fuse with Jacob ’s mystic heart,
To wrestle with the Angel -Art ...

• One man received a thought and accepted it without examination. Another received a thought and tested its truth. Which of them acted with greater reverence?
  • Saint Mark the Ascetic, On Those who Think that They are Made Righteous by Works, in Philokalia

• Instinct and study; love and hate;
  Audacity — reverence.These must mate,
  And fuse with Jacob ’s mystic heart,
  To wrestle with the Angel -Art …
  • Herman Melville, in Savage Eye: Melville and the Visual Arts, p. 36

• Advertising treats all products with the reverence and the seriousness due to sacraments.
  • Thomas Merton Uncharitable: How Restraints on Nonprofits Undermine Their Potential, p. 108

• 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, p. Gratitude in Grief: Finding Daily Joy and a Life of Purpose Following the ..., p. 133

N

• Bending before men is a reverence done to this Revelation in the Flesh. We touch Heaven, when we lay our hand on a human body....
  • Novalis, in Victorian Transformations: Genre, Nationalism and Desire in...

• I really believe in science. It is a faith. It is a reverence akin to religion. But as we always say, it's different from religion in that, as near as we can tell, it exists outside of us. It has an objective quality, the process of science.
  • Bill Nye, in Eye to eye with Bill Nye the Science Guy

P

Edgar Allan Poe: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.

• With reverence be it spoken... The only thing bad is their excuse…
  • Blaise Pascal, in Pensees (Thoughts), p. 1

• Let parents then bequeath to their children not riches but the spirit of reverence.
  • Plato, in The Laws, p. 71

• 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, in Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography, p. xv

• Above the cloud with its shadow is the star with its light. Above all things reverence thyself.
  • Pythagoras, in Between the Motion and the Act, p. 47

R

François Rabelais:Reverence thy preceptors: shun the conversation of those whom thou desirest not to resemble, and receive not in vain the graces which God has bestowed upon thee.

• Reverence thy preceptors: shun the conversation of those whom thou desirest not to resemble, and receive not in vain the graces which God has bestowed upon thee.
  • François Rabelais, in Gargantua and Pantagruel: Book Ii.; Book Iii.; Book Iv.; Book V, p. 248

• Man's only true happiness is to live in hope of something to be won by him. Reverence something to be worshipped by him, and love something to be cherished by him, forever.
  • John Ruskin, in about Humankind, p. 21

S

Socrates:Where there is reverence there is fear, but there is not reverence everywhere that there is fear, because fear presumably has a wider extension than reverence.

• By having a reverence for life, we enter into a spiritual relation with the world By practicing reverence for life we become good, deep, and alive.
  • Albert Schweitzer, in Unified English, p. 247

• Where there is reverence there is fear, but there is not reverence everywhere that there is fear, because fear presumably has a wider extension than reverence.
  • Socrates, in Quotes by Socrates, p. 9

• Reverence does not die with mortals, nor does it perish whether they live or die.
  • Sophocles, in The Beginning of All Wisdom: Timeless Advice from the Ancient Greeks, p. 69

T

• Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.
  • Henry David Thoreau, in Thoreau and the Art of Life: Precepts and Principles, p. 27

U

• The most common trait of all primitive peoples is a reverence for the life-giving earth, and the Native American shared this elemental ethic: The land was alive to his loving touch, and he, its son, was brother to all creatures.
  • Stewart Udall, in A Natural History Guide to Great Smoky Mountains National Park, p. 31

V

Leonardo da Vinci:Many will think they may reasonably blame me by alleging that my proofs are opposed to the authority of certain men held in the highest reverence by their inexperienced judgments; not considering that my works are the issue of pure and simple experience, who is the one true mistress;

• Many will think they may reasonably blame me by alleging that my proofs are opposed to the authority of certain men held in the highest reverence by their inexperienced judgments; not considering that my works are the issue of pure and simple experience, who is the one true mistress.
  • Leonardo da Vinci, in The Literary Works of L. Da Vinci, Volume 1, Part 1, p. 15

• 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, in Vivekananda, World Teacher: His Teachings on the Spiritual Unity of Humankind, p. 91

W

• Reverence is an emotion that we can nurture in our very young children, respect is an attitude that we instill in our children as they become school-agers, and responsibility is an act that we inspire in our children as they grow through the middle years and become adolescents.
  • Zoe Weil, in Above All, Be Kind: Raising a Humane Child in Challenging Times, p. 41

• Respect the masterpiece. It is true reverence to man. There is no quality so great, none so much needed now.
  • Frank Lloyd Wright, in Inspire! What Great Leaders Do, p. 196

Y

• 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 improvement of the people's physical strength.
  • Admiral Mitsumasa Yonai, in Modern Japan and Shinto Nationalism: A Study of Present-day Trends in Japanese Religions, p. 19

See also

• Faith
• Piety