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Worship

act of religious devotion

Worshipis an act ofspiritualorreligiousdevotion usually directed towards adeity,divineessence,ideal,or specificbeing.The word is derived from the Old Englishweorþscipe,meaninghonour shown to an objectas indication of its "worthinessorworth-ship"—togiveworthto something.

Unless a man hates all the activity of this world, he cannot worship God. ~ Saint Isaiah the Solitary

Arranged alphabetically by author or source:
A·B·C·D·E·F·G·H·I·J·K·L·M·N·O·P·Q·R·S·T·U·V·W·X·Y·Z·Quran·Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations·Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers(1895)·See also·External links

A

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Nimrodsuggested to Abraham that since he had refused to worship hisfather'sidolsbecause of their want ofpower,he should worshipfire,which is very powerful: Abraham pointed out thatwaterhas power over fire. 'Well,' said Nimrod, 'let us declare watergod.' 'But,' replied Abraham,' thecloudsabsorb the water and even they are dispersed by thewind.' 'Then let us declare the wind our god.' 'Bear inmind,' continued Abraham, 'thatmanisstrongerthan wind, and canresistit and stand against it.'
Nimrod, becoming weary ofarguingwith Abraham, decided to cast him before his god--fire--andchallengedAbraham's deliverance by the God of Abraham, but God saved him out of the fiery furnace. ~Genesis Rabbah38.
  • Nimrodsuggested to Abraham that since he had refused to worship hisfather'sidolsbecause of their want ofpower,he should worshipfire,which is very powerful: Abraham pointed out thatwaterhas power over fire. 'Well,' said Nimrod, 'let us declare watergod.' 'But,' replied Abraham,' thecloudsabsorb the water and even they are dispersed by thewind.' 'Then let us declare the wind our god.' 'Bear inmind,' continued Abraham, 'thatmanisstrongerthan wind, and can resist it and stand against it.'
    Nimrod, becoming weary ofarguingwith Abraham, decided to cast him before his god--fire--andchallengedAbraham's deliverance by the God of Abraham, but God saved him out of the fiery furnace.

B

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It is not he whoknowsmost, nor he whohearsmost, nor yet he whotalksmost, but he who exercisesgracemost, who has most communion withGod.~Thomas Brooks
  • O ye men, whoever amongst you worshipped Muhammad, let him know that Muhammad is dead, and whoever amongst you worshipped Allah, let him know that Allah is Living, there is no death for Him.
  • WORSHIP, n. Homo Creator's testimony to the sound construction and fine finish of Deus Creatus. A popular form of abjection, having an element of pride.
  • He wales a portion with judicious care;
    And "Let us worshipGod!"he says, with solemn air.
  • Isocratesadviseth Demonicus, when he came to a strange city, to worship by all means the gods of the place.
    • Robert Burton,The Anatomy of Melancholy(1621), Part III, Section IV. Memb. 1. Subsec. 5.

E

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What greater calamity can fall upon anationthan the loss of worship? Then all things go to decay. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
  • I think, I find the causes of a decaying church and a wasting unbelief. And what greater calamity can fall upon a nation, than the loss of worship? Then all things go to decay.Geniusleaves the temple, to haunt the senate, or the market.Literaturebecomes frivolous.Scienceis cold. The eye of youth is not lighted by the hope of other worlds, and age is without honor. Society lives to trifles, and when men die, we do not mention them.
    • Ralph Waldo Emerson,in an address to the Senior Class in Divinity College, Cambridge (15 July 1838)].

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I

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  • Who is a worshiper? What is prayer? What is realreligion?Let me answer these questions.
    Good, honest, faithfulwork,is worship. The man who ploughs the fields and fells the forests; the man who works in mines, the man who battles with the winds and waves out on the wide sea, controlling the commerce of the world; these men are worshipers. The man who goes into the forest, leading his wife by the hand, who builds him a cabin, who makes a home in the wilderness, who helps to people and civilize and cultivate a continent, is a worshiper.
    Labor is the only prayer that Nature answers; it is the only prayer that deserves an answer, — good, honest, noble work.
  • Justiceis the only worship.
    Loveis the only priest.
    Ignoranceis the only slavery.
    Happinessis the only good.
    The time to be happy is now,
    The place to be happy is here,
    The way to be happy is to make others so.
    Wisdomis thescienceof happiness.
    • Robert G. Ingersoll,as quoted inFamiliar Quotations(1937) edited by Christopher Morley, p. 603.

M

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It is not the man who worships God with words alone who glorifies God in himself but he who for God's sake bears hardship and suffering in the quest for virtue. ~Saint Maximos the Confessor
  • How often from the steep
    Of echoing hill or thicket have we heard
    Celestial voices to the midnight air,
    Sole, or responsive each to other's note,
    Singing their great Creator?
  • Together kneeling, night and day,
    Thou, for my sake, at Allah's shrine,
    And I—at any God's for thine.
    • Thomas Moore,Lalla Rookh(1817), Fire Worshippers. Fourth Division, line 309.
  • So shall they build me altars in their zeal,
    Where knaves shall minister, and fools shall kneel:
    Where faith may mutter o'er her mystic spell,
    Written in blood—and Bigotry may swell
    The sail he spreads for Heav'n with blasts from hell!
    • Thomas Moore,Lalla Rookh(1817), Veiled Prophet of Khorassan.

S

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  • Stoop, boys: this gate
    Instructs you how to adore the heavens and bows you
    To morning's holy office.
  • Let us take the word worship[…]. It is an old English wordworth-shipand it meant eminence gained by one's personal qualities of courage or honor. You could not inherit worshipfulness. It was solely due to your own nature and actions. Beginning in the thirteenth century, the word moved into a religiousconnotationwhich it did not have originally. And now it has lost its original meaning and has become solely a religious word.

T

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  • We believe that nothing worthy of our worship would want our worship.

Quran

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  • O mankind, worship your Lord, who created you and those before you, that you may becomerighteous.

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

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Every one's true worship was that which he found in use in the place where he chanced to be. ~Michel de Montaigne
Quotes reported inHoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations(1922), p. 918-19.
  • It is the Mass that matters.
    • Augustine Birrell,What, Then, Did Happen at the Reformation?,published in Nineteenth Century, April, 1896. Answered, July, 1896.
  • Ah, why
    Should we, in the world's riper years, neglect
    God's ancient sanctuaries, and adore
    Only among the crowd and under roofs
    That our frail hands have raised?
  • The heart ran o'er
    With silent worship of the great of old!—
    The dead, but sceptred sovereigns, who still rule
    Our spirits from their urns.
  • Man always worships something; always he sees the Infinite shadowed forth in something finite; and indeed can and must so see it in any finite thing, once tempt him well to fix his eyes thereon.
  • I don't like your way of conditioning and contracting with thesaints.Do this and I'll do that! Here's one for t'other. Save me and I'll give you a taper or go on a pilgrimage.
  • What though the spicy breezes
    Blow soft o'er Ceylon's isle;
    Though every prospect pleases,
    And only man is vile:
    In vain with lavish kindness
    The gifts of God are strown;
    The heathen in his blindness
    Bows down to wood and stone.
    • Reginald Heber,From Greenland's Icy Mountains,Missionary Hymn(1819), st. 1.
  • Ay, call it holy ground,
    The soil where first they trod.
    They have left unstained, what there they found—
    Freedomto worship God.
  • As the skull of the man grows broader, so do his creeds.
    And his gods they are shaped in his image and mirror hisneeds.
    And he clothes them withthundersandbeauty,
    He clothes them withmusicandfire,
    Seeing not, as he bows by their altars,
    That he worships his owndesire.
  • For all of the creeds are false, and all of the creeds are true;
    And low at the shrines where my brothers bow, there will I bow too;
    For no form of a god, and no fashion
    Man has made in his desperate passion,
    But is worthy some worship of mine;
    Not too hot with a gross belief,
    Nor yet too cold with pride,
    I will bow me down where my brothers bow,
    Humble, but open eyed.
  • Ev'n them who kept thy truth so pure of old,
    When all our fathers worshipp'd stocks and stones.
  • Every one's true worship was that which he found in use in the place where he chanced to be.
  • Yet, if he would, man cannot live all to this world. If not religious, he will be superstitious. If he worship not the trueGod,he will have hisidols.
    • Theodore Parker,Critical and Miscellaneous Writings,Essay I. A Lesson for the Day.

Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers(1895)

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Quotes reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert,Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers(1895).
  • Devotion is like thecandlewhich Michael Angelo used to take in his pasteboard cay), so as not to throw his shadow upon the work in which he was engaged.
  • The Christian life is a long and continual tendency of our hearts toward that eternal goodness which we desire on earth.All our happiness consists in thirsting for it. Now this thirst is prayer. Ever desire to approach your Creator, and you will never cease to pray. Do not think it necessary to pronounce many words.
  • There are two principal points of attention necessary for the preservation of this constant spirit of prayer which unites us withGod;we must continually seek to cherish it, and we must avoid every thing that tends to make us lose it.
  • The Christian is not always praying; but within his bosom is a heaven-kindled love, — fires of desire, fervent longings, — which make him always ready to pray, and often engage him in prayer.
  • Our activity should consist in placing ourselves in a state of susceptibility to Divine impressions, and pliability to all the operations of theEternalWord.
  • We must forget ourselves and all self-interest, and listen, and be attentive to God.
  • Real inward devotion knows no prayer but that arising from the depths of its own feelings.
  • All who wait upon the Lord shall rise higher and higher upon the mighty pinions of strong devotion, and with the unblinking eye of faith, into the regions of heavenly-mindedness; and shall approach nearer and nearer to God, the Sun of our spiritual day.
  • That holy, humble, meek, modest, retiring Form, sometimes called the Spirit of Prayer, has been dragged from the closet, and so rudely handled by some of her professed friends, that she has not only lost all her wonted loveliness, but is now stalking the street, in some places, stark mad.
  • Only in the sacredness of inward silence does the soul truly meet the secret, hiding God.'The strength of resolve, which afterward shapes life, and mixes itself with action, is the fruit of those sacred, solitary moments.There is a divine depth in silence. We meetGodalone.
  • "Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you." Keep near to the fountain-head, and "with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation."
  • This is the spirit of prayer — sincere, humble, believing, submissive. Other prayer than this the Bible does not require — God will not accept.

See also

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