Piety Quotes - Page 10

• When Poetry thus keeps its place as the handmaiden of piety, it shall attain not a poor perishable wreath, but a crown that fadeth not away.

  John Wesley

  Crowns, Wreaths, Poor

  John Wesley (1797). “A Collection of Hymns, for the use of the people called Methodists ... A new edition”, p.4

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• Learning without piety produces a proud device; piety without learning produces a useless one.

  Jean-Baptiste de La Salle

  Teacher, Teaching, Useless

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• Character is in turn the enduring source of virtue. It stands by itself and excites admiration in others. It is not obedience to authority, and while it is often consistent with and reinforced by religious belief, it is not piety.

  E. O. Wilson

  Religious, Character, Atheism

  E. O. Wilson (2014). “Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge”, p.365, Vintage

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• If certain critics and poetasters had their way, 'Ordinary Piety' and its child, Dullness, would be the masters of poetry.

  Edith Sitwell

  Children, Poetry, Ordinary

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• Piety and holiness of life will propitiate the gods.
  [Lat., Deos placatos pietas efficiet et sanctitas.]

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Religion, Holiness

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• In England we see people lulled sleep with solid and elaborate discourses of piety, who would be warmed and transported out of themselves by the bellowings and distortions of enthusiasm.

  Joseph Addison

  Sleep, People, Would Be

  Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steele (1832). “The Spectator: with notes and general index, from the London stereotype edition ...”

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• Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses; whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future, predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings. Far from me, and far from my friends be such frigid philosophy as may conduct us indifferent and unmoved over any ground which has been dignified by wisdom, bravery, or virtue. That man is little to be envied whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Ionia.

  Samuel Johnson

  Philosophy, Thinking, Past

  'A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland' (1775) 'Inch Kenneth'

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• I maintain, against the enemies of the stage, that patterns of piety, decently represented, may second the precepts.

  John Dryden

  Drama, Enemy, May

  John Dryden (1970). “The Works of John Dryden, Volume X: Plays: The Tempest, Tyrannick Love, An Evening's Love”, p.109, Univ of California Press

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• We fancy that our afflictions are sent us directly from above; sometimes we think it in piety and contrition, but oftener in moroseness and discontent.

  Walter Savage Landor

  Thinking, Sorrow, Affliction

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• Piety is different from superstition. To carry piety to the extent of superstition is to destroy it. The heretics reproach us with this superstitious submission. It is doing what they reproach us with.

  Blaise Pascal

  Different, Superstitions, Submission

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• piety is like garlic: a little goes a long way.

  Rita Mae Brown

  Long, Littles, Way

  Rita Mae Brown (2011). “Bingo”, p.218, Bantam

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• We are too ready to imagine that we are religious, because we know something of religion. We appropriate to ourselves the pious sentiments we read, and we talk as if the thoughts of other men's heads were really the feelings of our own hearts. But piety has not its seat in the memory, but in the affections, for which however the memory is an excellent purveyor, though a bad substitute.

  Hannah More

  Religious, Memories, Heart

  Hannah More (1814). “The Works of Hannah More: Including Several Pieces Never Before Published ...”, p.98

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• One task of literature is to formulate questions and construct counterstatements to the reigning pieties. And even when art is not oppositional, the arts gravitate toward contrariness. Literature is dialogue: responsiveness. Literature might be described as the history of human responsiveness to what is alive and what is moribund as cultures evolve and interact with one another.

  Susan Sontag

  Art, Tasks, Culture

  Susan Sontag, Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels (2003). “Susan Sontag: Ansprachen aus Anlass der Verleihung”

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• Religion itself becomes offensively monotonous. On every point of vantage are pagodas -- stupid stalagmites of stagnant piety.

  Aleister Crowley

  Stupid, Asia, Monotonous

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• It is not scholarship alone, but scholarship impregnated with religion, that tells on the great mass of society. We have no faith in the efficacy of mechanic's institutes, or even of primary and elementary schools, for building up a virtuous and well conditioned peasantry, so long as they stand dissevered from the lessons of Christian piety.

  Thomas Chalmers

  Christian, Education, School

  Thomas Chalmers (1833). “On Political Economy: In Connexion with the Moral State and Moral Prospects of Society”, p.342

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• The gospel chargeth us with piety towards God, and justice and charity to men, and temperance and chastity in reference to ourselves.

  John Tillotson

  Men, Justice, Charity

  John Tillotson (1680). “Sermons Preach'd Upon Several Occasions: By John Tillotson, D.D. Dean of Canterbury, Preacher to the Honourable Society of Lincolns-Inn, and One of His Majesties Chaplains in Ordinary. The First Volume”, p.174

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• A contemplative life has more the appearance of a life of piety than any other; but it is the divine plan to bring faith into activity and exercise.

  Lord David Cecil

  Exercise, Contemplative Life, Appearance

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• Not alone to know, but to act according to thy knowledge, is thy destination,--proclaims the voice of my inmost soul. Not for indolent contemplation and study of thyself, nor for brooding over emotions of piety,--no, for action was existence given thee; thy actions, and thy actions alone, determine thy worth.

  Johann Gottlieb Fichte

  Voice, Soul, Emotion

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• There are minerals called hydrophanous, which are not transparent till they are immersed in water, when they become so; as the hydrophane, a variety of opal. So it is with many a Christian. Till the floods of adversity been poured over him, his character appears marred and clouded by selfishness and worldly influences. But trials clear away the obscurity, and give distinctness and beauty to his piety.

  Roswell Dwight Hitchcock

  Christian, Character, Adversity

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• A good deal of so-called atheism is itself, from my point of view, theologically significant. It is the working of God in history, and judgement upon the pious. An authentic prophet can be a radical critic of spurious piety, of sham spirituality.

  James Luther Adams

  Views, Judgement, Atheism

  James Luther Adams (1986). “The Prophethood of All Believers”, Beacon Press (MA)

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• Vice gets more in this vicious world than piety.

  John William Fletcher

  Vices, World, Vicious

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• Marriage is the strictest tie of perpetual friendship, and there can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity; and he must expect to be wretched, who pays to beauty, riches, or politeness that regard which only virtue and piety can claim.

  Samuel Johnson

  Marriage, Integrity, Ties

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1836). “The works of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: with an essay on his life and genius”, p.41

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• All holy piety in public, and all peeled grapes and self-indulgence in private.

  Terry Pratchett

  Self, Holy, Grapes

  Terry Pratchett (2008). “Small Gods: (Discworld Novel 13)”, p.232, Random House

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• The fear of death has been raised too much and set up on high, especially by preachers, like the brazen serpent in the wilderness over the heads of the Israelites; but not with so good excuse as that symbol had, for this fear has not been curative, I think, nor made into pleasant or graceful shape, but rather a horrid spectacle, to affright people. For that men can be frightened into piety has been one of the legacies of religion which barbarous ages have bequeathed us plentifully.

  James Vila Blake

  Men, Thinking, People

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• The signal instances of Providential goodness which we have experienced and which have now almost crowned our labors with complete success demand from us in a peculiar manner the warmest returns of gratitude and piety to the Supreme Author of all good.

  George Washington

  Gratitude, Return, Peculiar

  George Washington, John Clement Fitzpatrick, David Maydole Matteson (1778). “The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources, 1745-1799”

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