What a test that is: more than devotion, admiration, passion. If you long and long for someoneβs company you love them.
Iris MurdochRead
I daresay anything can be made holy by being sincerely worshipped.
Interpretation
Sincere appreciation and devotion can elevate the ordinary to the sacred.
Iris Murdoch's quote suggests that the act of sincere worship or devotion can transform anything into something holy. This implies that holiness is not merely an inherent quality but can be cultivated through genuine appreciation and commitment, pointing to the power of perspective and intention in shaping our experiences and values.
In practice
In a speech about finding meaning in everyday life, this quote can illustrate how recognizing the sacred in the mundane enriches our experiences.
What a test that is: more than devotion, admiration, passion. If you long and long for someoneβs company you love them.
The bicycle is the most civilized conveyance known to man. Other forms of transport grow daily more nightmarish. Only the bicycle remains pure in heart.
Man's creative struggle, his search for wisdom and truth, is a love story.
All art deals with the absurd and aims at the simple. Good art speaks truth, indeed is truth, perhaps the only truth.
A bad review is even less important than whether it is raining in Patagonia.
Perhaps when distant people on other planets pick up some wavelength of ours all they hear is a continuous scream.
Time sanctifies everything; even the most arrant theft in the hands of the robber's grandchildren becomes sacred and inviolable property.
It is from the midst of this putrid sewer that the greatest river of human industry springs up and carries fertility to the whole world. From this foul drain pure gold flows forth.
The flame of Christian ethics is still our highest guide.
Heroes who shed their blood and lost their lives! You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours. You, the mothers, who sent their sons from far away countries wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well.
And I saw that truly nothing happens by accident or luck, but everything by God's wise providence. If it seems to be accident or luck from our point of view, our blindness and lack of foreknowledge is the cause; for matters that have been in God's foreseeing wisdom since before time began befall us suddenly, all unawares; and so in our blindness and ignorance we say that this is accident or luck, but to our Lord God it is not so.
If people say Jeet Kune Do is different from this or from that, then let the name of Jeet Kune Do be wiped out, for that is what it is, just a name. Please don't fuss over it.
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