“Time, time only, can gradually wean us from our Epeolatry, or word-worship, by spiritualizing our ideas of the thing signified.”

—  Oliver Wendell Holmes

Source: The Professor at the Breakfast Table (1859), Ch. V.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Time, time only, can gradually wean us from our Epeolatry, or word-worship, by spiritualizing our ideas of the thing si…" by Oliver Wendell Holmes?
Oliver Wendell Holmes photo
Oliver Wendell Holmes 135
Poet, essayist, physician 1809–1894

Related quotes

Henri Barbusse photo

“I believe that the only thing which confronts the heart and the reason is the shadow of that which the heart and the reason cry for. I believe that around us there is only one word, the immense word which takes us out of our solitude, NOTHING. I believe that this does not signify our nothingness or our misfortune, but, on the contrary, our realisation and our deification, since everything is within us.”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

The Inferno (1917), Ch. XVII
Context: I have only one recourse, to remember and to believe. To hold on with all my strength to the memory of the tragedy of the Room.
I believe that the only thing which confronts the heart and the reason is the shadow of that which the heart and the reason cry for. I believe that around us there is only one word, the immense word which takes us out of our solitude, NOTHING. I believe that this does not signify our nothingness or our misfortune, but, on the contrary, our realisation and our deification, since everything is within us.

“The worshiping of other things, the showing of disrespect by thought, word, or deed, and the refusal to acknowledge our obligation to him—these things shut God out from our lives.”

Kirby Page (1890–1957) American clergyman

Source: Something More, A Consideration of the Vast, Undeveloped Resources of Life (1920), p. 85

Julien Offray de La Mettrie photo

“The soul is… but an empty word, of which no one has any idea, and which an enlightened man should use only to signify the part in us that thinks…”

Julien Offray de La Mettrie book Man a Machine

Man a Machine (1747)

“Our time’s the most precious thing we’ve got to offer folks, and the worst thing a body can do is to take it away from us.”

Charles de Lint (1951) author

“Saxophone Joe and the Woman in Black”, p. 212
The Ivory and the Horn (1996)

“All great things, in our time, can only be seen in fragments, by fragmentary people.”

V.S. Pritchett (1900–1997) British writer and critic

Source: London Perceived (1962), Ch. 5, p. 162
Context: Mass society destroys the things it is told are its inheritance. It is rarely possible to see the Abbey without being surrounded by thousands of tourists from all over the world. Like St. Peter's at Rome, it has been turned into a sinister sort of railway terminal. The aisles are as crowded as the pavements of Oxford Street or the alleys of a large shop, imagination is jostled, awe dispersed, and the mind never at rest. All great things, in our time, can only be seen in fragments, by fragmentary people.

“Worship from the heart in times of adversity implies an attitude of humble acceptance on our part of God's right to do as He pleases in our lives.”

Jerry Bridges (1929–2016) American writer

Source: Trusting God: Even When Life Hurts

Nikita Vasilyevich Smirnov photo

“We are the pilots of our life, we only know how to manage life. But from time to time, the fog prevents us from performing incredible tricks.”

Nikita Vasilyevich Smirnov (28)
Tom Robbins photo

“The truth, from my perspective, is that the world, indeed, is ending – and is also being reborn. It's been doing that all day, every day, forever. Each time we exhale, the world ends; when we inhale, there can be, if we allow it, rebirth and spiritual renewal. It all transpires inside of us. In our consciousness, in our hearts. All the time.”

Tom Robbins (1932) American writer

The Syntax of Sorcery (2012)
Context: Christians, and some Jews, claim we're in the "end times," but they've been saying this off and on for more than two thousand years. According to Hindu cosmology, we're in the Kali Yuga, a dark period when the cow of history is balanced precariously on one leg, soon to topple. Then there are our new-age friends who believe that this December we're in for a global cage-rattling which, once the dust has settled, will usher in a great spiritual awakening.
Most of this apocalyptic noise appears to be just wishful thinking on the part of people who find life too messy and uncertain for comfort, let alone for serenity and mirth. The truth, from my perspective, is that the world, indeed, is ending – and is also being reborn. It's been doing that all day, every day, forever. Each time we exhale, the world ends; when we inhale, there can be, if we allow it, rebirth and spiritual renewal. It all transpires inside of us. In our consciousness, in our hearts. All the time.
Otherwise, ours is an old, old story with an interesting new wrinkle. Throughout most of our history, nothing – not flood, famine, plague, or new weapons – has endangered humanity one-tenth as much as the narcissistic ego, with its self-aggrandizing presumptions and its hell-hound spawn of fear and greed. The new wrinkle is that escalating advances in technology are nourishing the narcissistic ego the way chicken manure nourishes a rose bush, while exploding worldwide population is allowing its effects to multiply geometrically. Here's an idea: let's get over ourselves, buy a cherry pie, and go fall in love with life.

Louisa May Alcott photo

“… and clung more closely to the dear human love, from which our Father never means us to be weaned, but through which He draws us closer to Himself.”

Louisa May Alcott book Little Women

Source: Little Women

“For this creating to take place (as it does from time to time) words have to be accepted as heirs of their forebears, as we are of ours. And in each case, what exists is often only a bankrupt inheritance; or the hinterlands of the unspoken.”

Geoffrey Hill (1932–2016) English poet and professor

A matter of timing: The Guardian, Saturday 21 September 2002 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2002/sep/21/featuresreviews.guardianreview28/print

Related topics