Concept

Reverence (emotion)

Overview

Reverence is "a feeling or attitude of deep respect tinged with awe; veneration". Reverence involves a humbling of the self in respectful recognition of something perceived to be greater than the self.

The word "reverence" is often used in relationship with religion. This is because religion often stimulates this emotion through recognition of a god, the supernatural, and the ineffable. Like awe, it is an emotion in its own right, and can be felt outside of the realm of religion.

Whereas awe may be characterized as an overwhelming "sensitivity to greatness," reverence is seen more as "acknowledging a subjective response to something excellent in a personal (moral or spiritual) way, but qualitatively above oneself". Robert C. Solomon describes awe as passive, but reverence as active, noting that the feeling of awe (i.e., becoming awestruck) implies paralysis, whereas feelings of reverence are associated more with active engagement and responsibility toward that which one reveres.

Nature, science, literature, philosophy, great philosophers, leaders, artists, art, music, wisdom, and beauty may each act as the stimulus and focus of reverence.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

In the original texts

Passages from public-domain books where Reverence (emotion) is discussed.

I say, then, that, in order to prove that I am not irreverent to the Majesty of the Empire, it is requisite, in the first place, to see what reverence is. I say that reverence is no other than a confession of due submission by an evident sign; and, having seen this, it remains to distinguish between them. Irreverent expresses privation, not reverent expresses negation; and, therefore, irreverence is to disavow the…
Dante Alighieri, The Banquet
states what it is; names the idea; opens on it
Read the chapter · Open in the reader
_Euth._ Very true. _Soc._ But where reverence is, there is fear; for he who has a feeling of reverence and shame about the commission of any action, fears and is afraid of an ill reputation. [Sidenote: _Euthyphro in the hands of Socrates._] _Euth._ No doubt. _Soc._ Then we are wrong in saying that where there is fear there is also reverence; and we should say, where there is reverence there is also fear. But there…
Plato, The dialogues of Plato in five volumes, Vol. 2
names the idea; states what it is; opens on it
Read the chapter · Open in the reader
For the highest and rarest virtues unite and are lost in it, as an unfathomable sea absorbs the streams that flow from every side. The hand of the just man, who is called to sit in judgment, trembles no more when it holds the scales: he piles the weights inexorably against his own side, his eyes are not dimmed as the balance rises and falls, and his voice is neither hard nor broken when he pronounces the sentence…
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Thoughts Out of Season, Part II
states what it is; names the idea; opens on it
Read the chapter · Open in the reader
EUTHYPHRO: No doubt. SOCRATES: Then we are wrong in saying that where there is fear there is also reverence; and we should say, where there is reverence there is also fear. But there is not always reverence where there is fear; for fear is a more extended notion, and reverence is a part of fear, just as the odd is a part of number, and number is a more extended notion than the odd. I suppose that you follow me now?…
Plato, Euthyphro
names the idea; states what it is
Read the chapter · Open in the reader
For the Highest God dwells visible in that mystic unfathomable Visibility, which calls itself "I" on the Earth. 'Bending before men,' says Novalis, 'is a reverence done to this Revelation in the Flesh. We touch Heaven when we lay our hand on a human Body.' And the Body of one Dead;--a temple where the Hero-soul once was and now is not: Oh, all mystery, all pity, all mute _awe_ and wonder; _Super_-naturalism brought…
Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII.
names the idea; opens on it
Read the chapter · Open in the reader

Related ideas

Place in the tradition

Part of Romanticism.

Explore Reverence (emotion) in the interactive graph →