Ancestor Worship Quotes

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

Building the future holds more attraction than ancestor worship, whichever ancestor we're talking about. ~ Douglas Alexander

In many parts of the world, ghosts are not considered to be a creation of local folklore, but a fact of life. In China the dead are understood to co-exist with the living, a belief which gave rise to the practice of ancestor worship, while in South America the deceased are honoured with annual festivals known as the Day of the Dead which suggests that the material world and the spirit world might not be as distinct as we might like to believe. In the Eastern and Asiatic religions it is believed that death is not the end, but simply a transition from one state of being to another. The Hindu Upanishads, for example, liken each human soul to a lump of salt taken from the ocean which must ultimately return to the source. ~ Paul Roland

Conscience is strong in women. Children are very violently taught that they owe all to their parents, and the parents are not slow in foreclosing the mortgage. But the home is not a debtor's prison - to girls any more than to boys. This enormous claim of parents calls for extermination. Do they in truth do all for their children; do their children owe all to them? Is nothing furnished in the way of safety, sanitation, education, by that larger home, the state? What could these parents do, alone, in never so pleasant a home, without the allied forces of society to maintain that home in peace and prosperity. These lingering vestiges of a patriarchal cult must be left behind. Ancestor-worship has had victims enough. Girls are human creatures as well as boys, and both have duties, imperative duties, quite outside the home. ~ Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Orthodox devotions that do not let in the light of modern knowledge are no more than a form of ancestor worship. ~ E.L. Doctorow

All pre-Abrahamic cultures understood the tremendous importance of remaining closely connected to the past if the present was to be invested with any spiritually significant meaning. They also understood that the most personally relevant and accessible portal to the empowering wisdom and goodness of the past was through their own direct ancestors, those who shared their particular bloodline and DNA. It was for this reason that all traditional cultures engaged in what is often called ancestor worship (pitri-puja). There is no pre-Abrahamic culture on Earth that did not honor its ancestors in one form or another. This is a very important spiritual practice and tradition that used to be practiced universally by families in the ancient past. The process of ancestor worship now needs to be revived in the modern world if we are to not lose our sacred connection with our own cultural-spiritual heritage. Ancestor worship must become a regular practice again. ~ Dharma Pravartaka Acharya

We rarely quote nowadays to appeal to authority ... though we quote sometimes to display our sapience and erudition. Some authors we quote against. Some we quote not at all, offering them our scrupulous avoidance, and so make them part of our "white mythology." Other authors we constantly invoke, chanting their names in cerebral rituals of propitiation or ancestor worship. ~ Ihab Hassan

I envy those Hindus and Buddhists who have in their religion philosophy and ancestor worship which build in the believer a continuity with the past, and that most important ingredient in the building of a nation - memory. ~ F. Sionil Jose

We were not the victims of ancestor worship. We had the benefits of a fresh start. ~ Matthew D. Miller

Chinese culture in general is not very religious. Confucianism is more a code of ethics than a religion, and ancestor worship is a way for parents to control you even after they're dead. ~ David Henry Hwang

Ancestor worship must be an appealing idea to those who are about to become ancestors. - Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works ~ Daniel C. Dennett

Behind everything in London is something else, and, behind that, is something else still; and so on through the centuries, so that London as we see her is only the latest manifestation of other Londons, and to lover her is to plunge into ancestor-worship. ~ Henry Vollam Morton

a Philosopher could not grasp the modern idea of progress ... until he was willing to abandon ancestor worship, until he analyzed away his inferiority complex toward the past, and realized that his own generation was superior to any yet known ~ Carl Becker

Choose for yourselves today the one you will worship. Joshua 24:15 ~ Beth Moore

Worship is not about having a fantastic voice. ~ Temi Peters

If you have ever said, "I didn't get anything out of worship today," you worshiped for the wrong reason. Worship isn't for you. It's for God. ~ Rick Warren

Don't neglect your calling all in the name of employment ~ Sunday Adelaja

The devil doesn't come to you with a red face and horns, he comes to you disguised as everything you've ever wanted. ~ Oscar Auliq-Ice

THINGS perplex me
irritate and disgust me
THINGS disaffect me
when they try
to make me crawl.

THINGS persecute me
Those which try to usurp me
THINGS that have
no meaning
without me.

THINGS annoy me
when others worship them
THINGS that approximate I
to me and are
put in my place.

THINGS nauseate me,
good, bad, indifferent
THINGS; like flies
in a calabash
of sour milk.

I prefer people
laughter and comfort
the use and pleasure of science.
But my head aches when all I hear is
THINGS, THINGS, THINGS. ~ Lenrie Peters

Worship without honor is meaningless ~ Sunday Adelaja

One thing I learned going through a storm and that is, you can Praise God in the dark! If God makes light to shine out of darkness, well bless God, I can call forth light into my situation. I am the light of God. Praising Him is not determined by day or night. In whatever state I find myself in, I will continue to acknowledge Him. Then and only then, He will direct my path. ~ Shelena Griffiths

It was strange that someone whose need to worship was so intense could be so dismissive of religion. ~ Deirdre Madden

God created us for this: to live our lives in a way that makes him look more like the greatness and the beauty and the infinite worth that he really is. This is what it means to be created in the image of God. ~ John Piper

One of the great things about America is we should not judge until we know the facts. ~ Stanley A. McChrystal

This worship of Humanity, with its rituals of Liberty and Equality, always struck me as like being a revival of the ancient cults, in which animals were gods or the gods bore the heads of animals. ~ Pessoa

For what is idolatry if not this: to worship the gifts in place of the Giver himself? ~ John Calvin

The Bible tells us that the small groups in New Testament times pursued the biblical purposes of fellowship, discipleship, ministry, evangelism, and worship. ~ Steve Gladen

One of the most encouraging things is to see that so many of these young musicians and worship leaders are really concerned with doing a good job representing the truth of Jesus in their songs, and not just concerned with creative and musical progression. ~ Matt Redman

The god-who-serves-ME requires flattery, not worship. ~ Tom Wells

This here," he said playing with it, "is a stone, and will, after a certain time, perhaps turn into soil, and will turn from soil into a plant or animal or human being. In the past, I would have said: This stone is just a stone, it is worthless, it belongs to the world of the Maja; but because it might be able to become also a human being and a spirit in the cycle of transformations, therefore I also grant it importance. Thus, I would perhaps have thought in the past. But today I think: this stone is a stone, it is also animal, it is also god, it is also Buddha, I do not venerate and love it because it could turn into this or that, but rather because it is already and always everything - and it is this very fact, that it is a stone, that it appears to me now and today as a stone, this is why I love it and see worth and purpose in each of its veins and cavities, in the yellow, in the gray, in the hardness, in the sound it makes when I knock at it, in the dryness or wetness of its surface. There are stones which feel like oil or soap, and others like leaves, others like sand, and every one is special and prays the Om in its own way, each one is Brahman, but simultaneously and just as much it is a stone, is oily or juicy, and this is this very fact which I like and regard as wonderful and worthy of worship. ~ Hermann Hesse

Artificial selection turned the wolf into the shepherd, and the wild grasses into wheat and corn. In fact, almost every plant and animal that we eat today was bred from a wild, less edible ancestor. If artificial selection can work such profound changes in only ten or fifteen thousand years, what can natural selection do operating over billions of years? The answer is all the beauty and diversity of life. ~ Neil DeGrasse Tyson

I am not likely to obtain the result flowing from the worship of God by laying myself prostrate before Satan. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Whatever you worship will consume you, Dong-Sing wrote one week. Bob Wright worships money. Wyatt Earp worships justice. Eddie Foy worships applause. Doc worships home and family, as I do. How will this consume us? ~ Mary Doria Russell

There is a little plant called reverence in the corner of my soul's garden, which I love to have watered once a week. ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Despite the many iniquities that have found entrance into the practices of image-worship as it is in vogue now, I do not condemn it. Ay, where would I have been if I had not been blessed with the dust of the holy feet of that orthodox, image-worshipping Brahmin! ~ Swami Vivekananda

In his eloquent defenses of the traditional Mass, Dietrich von Hildebrand speaks often of the need for an attitude of reverence prior to all acts of worship; he appeals to the influence of silence on the human soul, which, after the Fall, tends to be in a state of noisy flux. The liturgy exemplifies the truth that in love, silence speaks louder than words. The ~ Peter Kwasniewski

The best-known connection between footfall, knowledge and memory is the Aboriginal Australian vision of the Songlines. According to this cosmogony, the world was created in an epoch known as the Dreamtime, when the Ancestors emerged to find the earth a black, flat, featureless terrain. They began to walk out across this non-place, and as they walked they broke through the crust of the earth and released the sleeping life beneath it, so that the landscape sprang up into being with each pace. As Bruce Chatwin explained in his flawed but influential account, 'each totemic ancestor, while travelling through the country, was thought to have scattered a trail of words and musical notes along the line of his footprints'. Depending on where they fell, these foot-notes became linked with particular features of the landscape. Thus the world was covered by 'Dreaming-tracks' that 'lay over the land as "ways" of communication', each track having its corresponding Song.... To sing out was–-and still is, just about, for the Songs survive, though more and more of them slip away with each generation–-therefore to find one's way, and storytelling was indivisible from wayfaring. ~ Robert Macfarlane

Worship your intellect, being seing as smart - you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge og being found out. And so on. ~ David Foster Wallace

When I am dead, I am certain that the imprint of my love will be found on my heart. It is impossible to worship as I do without leaving some visible trace behind when life is over. ~ Juliette Drouet

If we worship another, then we remain in duality. We have not fully entered the path within.

Through awareness, we learn to worship the essence of our nature and the truth of existence within the temple of our own consciousness. Our worship is a realization of truth and oneness. It is rejoicing within our being.

True worship is to fill ourselves with the awareness of eternity, to know our godliness as beings of light.

Worship no person, or image -- only the awareness of who you are becoming. ~ Robert S. Cosmar

Do I worship God or what other people think of me? ~ Andy Mineo

Each of these men illustrates the true meaning of worship. They feared the Lord and maintained their rightful position before Him in their hearts. They were so devoted to the Lord that their worship continued even in extremely difficult circumstances. Those who simply "draw near with their words" and whose reverence for Him "consists of tradition learned by rote" (Isaiah 29:13) have no understanding of real worship. Although they may experience a certain vague sense of His presence as they sing hymns and choruses, their revelation of Him will be extremely superficial. ~ Steve Gallagher

Purpose is the essence of life ~ Sunday Adelaja

The Devil is primordial Evil, the Heart of Chaos Who is eternal. He was and He will be. The j.c. conception is just one of many human concepts; it will be destroyed as all human concepts will be. You can find the Devil's shadow in every human religion, because everyone knows that Evil exists. It's not evil of people who all will die. It's Eternal Evil that will destroy the Universe. ~ Anonymous

Life existed on Earth for nearly four billion years before anything remotely resembling a human being showed up. And even then, when we started to branch off from other apes about 10,000,000 years ago, our ancestors looked pretty different. ~ Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Put it this way: if your idea of God, if your idea of the salvation offered in Christ, is vague or remote, your idea of worship will be fuzzy and ill-formed. The closer you get to the truth, the clearer becomes the beauty, and the more you will find worship welling up within you. That's why theology and worship belong together. The one isn't just a headtrip; the other isn't just emotion. ~ N. T. Wright