Piety Quotes - Page 12

• Piety is the most solid goodness, and the vilest of what is evil is vice.

  Abu Bakr

  Evil, Vices, Goodness

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• You see, Africa makes a fool of our idea of justice. It makes a farce of our idea of equality. It mocks our pieties. It doubts our concern. It questions our commitment. Because there is no way we can look at what's happening in Africa, and if we're honest, conclude that it would ever be allowed to happen anywhere else.

  Bono

  Commitment, Equality, Ideas

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• Piety is not an end, but a means: a means of attaining the highest culture by the purest tranquility of soul. Hence it may be observed that those who set up piety as an end and object are mostly hypocrites.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Hypocrite, Mean, Soul

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2013). “Delphi Works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Illustrated)”, p.3516, Delphi Classics

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• There are who mistake the spirit of pugnacity for the spirit of piety, and thus harbor a devil instead of an angel.

  John Lancaster Spalding

  Mistake, Angel, Devil

  John Lancaster Spalding (1901). “Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion”

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• The child is father of the man: And I could wish my days to be Bound each to each by natural piety.

  William Wordsworth

  Children, Father, Men

  "My Heart Leaps Up When I Behold" l. 1 (1807). Wordsworth also used the last three lines as the epigraph for his poem "Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood" (1807). See Milton 43

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• Why could you not have left me as I was, in the sea of being?" "Because the world has need of your humility, your piety, your great teaching and your Machiavellian scheming.

  Roger Zelazny

  Teaching, Humility, Sea

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• The great Christian art did not die because all possible forms had been used up; it died because faith was being transformed into piety. Now, the same conquest of the outside world that brought in our modern individualism, so different from that of the Renaissance, is by way of relativizing the individual. It is plain to see that man's faculty of transformation, which began by a remaking of the natural world, has ended by calling man himself into question.

  Andre Malraux

  Christian, Art, Men

  "The Voices of Silence". Book by Andre Malraux, Doubleday, Part IV, Chapter VI, 1953.

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• The intellectual's ... playfulness, in its various manifestations, is likely to seem to most men a perverse luxury; in the United States the play of the mind is perhaps the only form of play that is not looked upon with the most tender indulgence. His piety is likely to seem nettlesome, if not actually dangerous. And neither quality is considered to contribute very much to the practical business of life.

  Richard Hofstadter

  Men, Play, Luxury

  "Anti-Intellectualism in American Life". Book by Richard Hofstadter (p. 33), 1974.

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• The whole life of Christians ought to be an exercise of piety, since they are called to sanctification. It is the office of the law to remind them of their duty and thereby to excite them to the pursuit of holiness and integrity. But when their consciences are solicitous how God may be propitiated, what answer they shall make, and on what they shall rest their confidence, if called to his tribunal, there must then be no consideration of the requisitions of the law, but Christ alone must be proposed for righteousness, who exceeds all the perfection of the law.

  John Calvin

  Christian, Integrity, Exercise

  John Calvin (1985). “On God and Political Duty: Calvin”, Prentice Hall

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• Every object in nature is impressed with God's footsteps, and every day repeats the wonders of creation. There is not an object, be it pebble or pearl, weed or rose, the flower-spangled sward beneath, or the star-spangled sky above, not a worm or an angel, a drop of water or a boundless ocean, in which intelligence may not discern, and piety adore, the providence of Him who took our nature that He might save our souls.

  Thomas Guthrie

  Weed, Nature, Stars

  "Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers" by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, p. 427, 1895.

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• Young men, you who have any piety at all, what sort is it? Is it a hot-house plant, which must be framed and glassed, lest March, that bold young fellow, should shake the life out.of it in his rough play among the flowers? or is it a hardy shrub, which rejoices when the wild winds course along the heather or howl above the crest of Lebanon ' We need, believe me, the bravery of godliness to bear true witness for our Master now.

  William Morley Punshon

  Flower, Believe, Men

  William Morley Punshon (1873). “Lectures and Sermons”, p.9, Adam, Stevenson

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• My heart leaps up when I behold
  A rainbow in the sky:
  So was it when my life began;
  So is it now I am a man;
  So be it when I shall grow old,
  Or let me die!
  The Child is father of the Man;
  I could wish my days to be
  Bound each to each by natural piety.

  William Wordsworth

  Beauty, Children, Father

  "My Heart Leaps Up When I Behold" l. 1 (1807). Wordsworth also used the last three lines as the epigraph for his poem "Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood" (1807). See Milton 43

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• I beseech those whose piety will permit them reverently to petition, that they will pray for this union, and ask that He who buildeth up and pulleth down nations will, the mercy preserve and unite us. For a Nation divided against itself cannot stand. I wish, if this Union must be dissolved, that its ruins may be the monument of my grave, and the graves of my family. I wish no epitaph to be written to tell that I survive the ruin of this glorious Union.

  Sam Houston

  Wish, Ruins, Unions

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• The effort to reconcile science and religion is almost always made, not by theologians, but by scientists unable to shake off altogether the piety absorbed with their mother's milk.

  H. L. Mencken

  Mother, Science, Effort

  H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.248, Knopf

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• True piety admits no other rule than that whatsoever things have been faithfully received from our fathers the same are to be faithfully consigned to our children; and that it is our duty, not to lead religion whither we would, but rather to follow religion whither it leads; and that it is the part of Christian modesty and gravity not to hand down our own beliefs or observances to those who come after us, but to preserve and keep what we have received from those who went before us.

  Vincent of Lerins

  Christian, Children, Father

  Vincent of Lerins, Aeterna Press (2016). “The Commonitory of Vincent of Lerins”, p.11, Aeterna Press

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• Never, my dear Sir, do you take it into your head that I do not love you; you may settle yourself in full confidence both of my love and my esteem; I love you as a kind man, I value you as a worthy man, and hope in time to reverence you as a man of exemplary piety.

  Samuel Johnson

  Love, Friendship, Men

  Samuel Johnson (2014). “The Letters of Samuel Johnson, Volume II: 1773-1776”, p.267, Princeton University Press

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• Christians often equate holiness with activism and spiritual disciplines. And while it's true that activism is often the outgrowth of holiness and spiritual disciplines are necessary for the cultivation of holiness, the pattern of piety in the Scripture is more explicitly about our character. We put off sin and put on righteousness. We put to death the deeds of the flesh and put on Christ. To use the older language, we pursue mortification of the old man and the vivification of the new.

  Kevin DeYoung

  Christian, Spiritual, Character

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• A love of flowers would beget early rising, industry, habits of close observation, and of reading. It would incline the mind to notice natural phenomena, and to reason upon them. It would occupy the mind with pure thoughts, and inspire a sweet and gentle enthusiasm; maintain simplicity of taste; and ... unfold in the heart an enlarged, unstraightened, ardent piety.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Education, Sweet, Reading

  Henry Ward Beecher (1859). “Plain and Pleasant Talk about Fruits, Flowers and Farming”, p.120

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• Be faithful in all your exercises of piety and virtue; be always resigned; be satisfied, in the superior part of your soul, to taste, without relish, the contentment of doing God's will. Thus after the winter the spring will come, with its flowers, and you will hear the voice of the turtle-dove in this land.

  Paul of the Cross

  Spring, Flower, Exercise

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• We are not to consider ourselves, while here, as at church or school, to listen to the harangues of speculative piety; we are here to talk of the political interests committed to our charge.

  Fisher Ames

  School, Political, Church

  Fisher Ames (1871). “Speeches of Fisher Ames in Congress, 1789-1796”, p.12

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• Things of heaven cannot be obtained by perseverance; they are the grace of God. To open to this and trust in it is how belief is crystallized into faith. We cannot pay for it in any form, in any way, by our goodness, by our piety, by our great qualities, merits, or virtues; nothing. It is a gift, and all we can do is receive it.

  Hazrat Inayat Khan

  Spiritual, Perseverance, Heaven

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• Ancestor worship, or filial piety so characteristic of Asian cultures, for example, does not really resonate with Americans who favor children, not grandparents.

  Alan Dundes

  Children, Grandparent, Asian Culture

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• Ibn Ata' Allah said: "God may open up for you the gates of obedience, but without opening up for you the gates of acceptance. On the other hand, He may Allow you to fall into disobedience which happens to lead you to the right path. DISOBEDIENCE that teaches you HUMILITY is better than PIETY that fills you with VANITY and ARROGANCE.

  Yusuf al-Qaradawi

  Fall, Humility, Acceptance

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• The world is a wonderfully weird place, consensual reality is significantly flawed, no institution can be trusted, certainty is a mirage, security a delusion, and the tyranny of the dull mind forever threatens -- but our lives are not as limited as we think they are, all things are possible, laughter is holier than piety, freedom is sweeter than fame, and in the end it's love and love alone that really matters.

  Tom Robbins

  Laughter, Reality, Thinking

  "Gracie goes to schooner school" by Tom Robbins, www.seattlepi.com. May 24, 2007.

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• Filipinos everywhere are known for their love of God, their fervent piety and their warm devotion to Our Lady and her rosary

  Pope Francis

  Rosary, God Love, Devotion

  Pope Francis (2016). “Men of Mercy: Pope Francis Speaks to Priests”, p.74, BookBaby

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