Venerate

31 In our youthful years we still venerate and despise without the art of nuance, which is the best gain of life, and we have rightly to do hard penance for having fallen upon men and things with Yea and Nay.

To crush fanaticism and to venerate the infinite, such is the law.

“If his Eminence,” said he, “did not have personal motives—” The cardinal saw what the king was about to say and interrupted him: “Pardon me,” said he; “but the instant Your Majesty considers me a prejudiced judge, I withdraw.” “Come,” said the king, “will you swear, by my father, that Athos was at your residence during the event and that he took no part in it?” “By your glorious father, and by yourself, whom I love and venerate above all the world, I swear it.” “Be so kind as to reflect, sire,” said the cardinal.

why should I venerate and be ceremonious?

I was strong when this simpering club of bread-eaters and wine-drinkers who venerate the sheep-savior was weak.

Why, what else than to venerate the gods and bless them, and to do good to men, and to practise tolerance and self-restraint;47 but as to everything which is beyond the limits of the poor flesh and breath, to remember that this is neither thine nor in thy power.

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.