Sacredness
Sacredness
Sacred describes something that is dedicated or set apart for the service or worship of a deity; is considered worthy of spiritual respect or devotion; or inspires awe or reverence among believers. The property is often ascribed to objects, or places.
"Before the sacred, people lose all sense of power and all confidence; they occupy a powerless and humble attitude toward it. And yet no thing is sacred of itself, but by my declaring it sacred, by my declaration, my judgment, my bending the knee."
"That man who does not believe that each day contains an earlier, more sacred, and auroral hour than he has yet profaned, has despaired of life, and is pursuing a descending and darkening way."
"The invasion of technique desacralizes the world in which man is called upon to live. For technique nothing is sacred, there is no mystery, no taboo. ... Technique worships nothing, respects nothing. It has a single role: to strip off externals, to bring everything to light, and by rational use to transform everything into means. ... Science brings to the light of day everything man had believed sacred. Technique takes possession of it and enslaves it."
"Don’t let anything remain sacred in a man’s soul—and his soul won’t be sacred to him. Kill reverence and you’ve killed the hero in man."
"To theology, ... only what it holds sacred is true, whereas to philosophy, only what holds true is sacred."
"In every well-governed state, wealth is a sacred thing; in democracies it is the only sacred thing."
"Why is it so important—what others have done? Why does it become sacred by the mere fact of not being your own?"
"The sacred interest is the uninteresting, because it is an absolute interest, an interest for its own sake, irrespective of whether you actually take an interest in it or not. You are obligated to make it your interest. It is not originally yours. It is not born not from you, but rather from the eternal, the common, the purely human. It is uninteresting, because no consideration is to be given to you or your interests. It is an interest with no interested parties, because it is a general interest, an interest of man. And because you are not the owner of yourself, but must rather become the disciple of man, the servant of man, egoism therefore ceases opposing itself to man, and true “disinteresteness” begins."
