Idolatry Quotes - Page 9

• Surely nothing is more reproachful to a being endowed with reason, than to resign its powers to the influence of the air, and live in dependence on the weather and the wind, for the only blessings which nature has put into our power, tranquillity and benevolence. To look up to the sky for the nutriment of our bodies, is the condition of nature; to call upon the sun for peace and gaiety, or deprecate the clouds lest sorrow should overwhelm us, is the cowardice of idleness, and the idolatry of folly.

  Samuel Johnson

  Blessing, Clouds, Air

  Samuel Johnson, Peter Martin (2009). “Samuel Johnson: Selected Writings”, p.73, Harvard University Press

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• The huge problem in our society is the enormous ignorance of the ideas that underlie modern art.

  Thom Mayne

  Art, Ignorance, Ideas

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• The attempt to redefine the family as a purely voluntary arrangement grows out of the modern delusion that people can keep all their options open all the time.

  Christopher Lasch

  Family, People, Modern

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• The accusation that we've lost our soul resonates with a very modern concern about authenticity.

  Patricia Hewitt

  Soul, Authenticity, Modern

  "Reviving the love Labour's lost". Interview with Jackie Ashley, www.theguardian.com. September 28, 2003.

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• The tragedy of modern man is not that he knows less and less about the meaning of his own life, but that it bothers him less and less.

  Vaclav Havel

  Hero, Men, Tragedy

  "Letters to Olga". Book by Vaclav Havel, 1988.

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• What we need to affirm is that Jesus is neither a Democrat nor a Republican. Whenever we marry Jesus to a political party, we are committing the sin of idolatry. We are making Jesus into the image of our political party.

  Tony Campolo

  Jesus, Party, Political

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• Conservatives have no understanding of modern capitalism. They have a distorted understanding of the traditional values they claim to defend.

  Christopher Lasch

  Understanding, Conservative, Modern

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• It was my Uncle George who discovered that alcohol was a food well in advance of modern medical thought.

  P. G. Wodehouse

  Uncles, Discovery, Medicine

  The Inimitable Jeeves (1923) ch. 16

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• The education that you give to the upper classes will not uproot idolatry and prejudice, for it is amongst the masses that the error and prejudice will always maintain their power, and while you do not uproot those prejudices from the hearts of the masses, a handful of educated Hindus will never be able successfully to reform the country.

  Keshub Chandra Sen

  Country, Heart, Errors

  Speech delivered at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington Butts, London, May 24, 1870.

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• Patriotism is idolatry of the self.

  Simone Weil

  Responsibility, Self, Self Responsibility

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• He was my equal in beauty, a paragon of grace and charm, sparkling with wit, and burning with love. I adored him to distraction, to the point of idolatry: I loved him as one can never love twice.

  Voltaire

  Grace, Burning, Distraction

  Voltaire (1956). “Candide: or, Optimism”

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• Every unfulfilled aspiration of humanity in the past; all partial representation of perfect character; all sacrifices, nay, even those of idolatry, point to the fulfillment of what want, the answer to every longing--the type of perfect humanity, the Lord Jesus Christ.

  Frederick William Robertson

  Jesus, Character, Sacrifice

  Frederick William Robertson (1863). “Sermons Preached at Trinity Chapel, Brighton”, p.350, Boston : Fields, Osgood

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• Oh, only those whose souls have felt this one idolatry can tell how precious is the slightest thing affection gives and hallows.

  Letitia Elizabeth Landon

  Giving, Soul, Affection

  Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1841). “The Poetical Works of Miss Landon: Complete”, p.37

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• If there are still honest-smart men and women within those old and noble traditions, they should think carefully, observe and diagnose the illness. They should face the contradiction. Discuss the conflation. And then do as Warren Buffett and Bill Gates and many others have done. Choose the miracle of creative competition over an idolatry of cash. They should stand up.

  David Brin

  Smart, Men, Thinking

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• When literature becomes overly erudite, it means that interest in the art has gone and curiosity about the artist is what's important. It becomes a kind of idolatry.

  Isaac Bashevis Singer

  Art, Mean, Curiosity

  Isaac Bashevis Singer, Grace Farrell (1992). “Isaac Bashevis Singer: conversations”, Univ Pr of Mississippi

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• I won't put my ignorance on an altar and call it God. It feels like idolatry, like the worst kind of idolatry.

  Robert Charles Wilson

  Ignorance, Kind, Worst

  Robert Charles Wilson (2007). “Darwinia: A Novel of a Very Different Twentieth Century”, p.136, Macmillan

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• As a general rule, fans and idols should always be kept at arm's length, the length of the arm to be proportionate to the degree of sheer idolatry involved. Don't take a Beatle to lunch. Don't wait up to see if the Easter Bunny is real. Just enjoy the egg hunt.

  Shana Alexander

  Easter, Real, Idols

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• A lot of what I've written in criticism of my lust for virtue - my discovery that I've committed idolatry, making of the good an idol - is open to the charge of being still caught within the dialectic of idolatry. I've made a moral criticism of my moral consciousness. Meta-idolatry.

  Susan Sontag

  Discovery, Idols, Lust

  Susan Sontag (2012). “As Consciousness Is Harnessed to Flesh: Journals and Notebooks, 1964-1980”, p.330, Macmillan

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• I make an idol of my moral consciousness. My pursuit of the good is corrupted by the sin of idolatry.

  Susan Sontag

  Idols, Morality, Consciousness

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• I loved him as we always love the first time: with idolatry and wild passion.

  Voltaire

  Love, Passion, Firsts

  "Candide".

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• Our patriotism comes straight from the Romans. This is why French children are encouraged to seek inspiration for it in Corneille. It is a pagan virtue, if these two words are compatible. The word pagan, when applied to Rome, early possesses the significance charged with horror which the early Christian controversialists gave it. The Romans really were an atheistic and idolatrous people; not idolatrous with regard to images made of stone or bronze, but idolatrous with regard to themselves. It is this idolatry of self which they have bequeathed to us in the form of patriotism.

  Simone Weil

  Christian, Children, Inspiration

  "Prelude to Politics (1943)". "The Simone Weil Reader". Book edited by George A. Panichas, p. 220, 1957.

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• Idolatry is still a socially cohesive force - its original function.

  Julian Jaynes

  Force, Function, Stills

  Julian Jaynes (2000). “The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind”, p.347, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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