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The essence of education is that it be religious. Pray, what is religious education? A religious education is an education which inculcates duty and reverence. Duty arises from our potential control over the course of events. Where attainable knowledge could have changed the issue, ignorance has the guilt of vice. And the foundation of reverence is this perception, that the present holds within itself the complete sum of existence, backwards and forwards, that whole amplitude of time, which is eternity.

Alfred North Whitehead#22

EducationEthicsDutyRespectReverenceTime

About this quote

What does it mean?
Education should teach duty and reverence for the present as containing all time.
In plain terms
Learn your duties and respect the value of now.
What can you take from it?
Treat every moment as significant.

Where it applies

  • teaching
  • parenting
  • personal growth

Putting it to work

  • teach responsibility
  • value the moment
  • act with care

Questions to consider

  • What duties guide you?
  • How do you value time?

Another view

Reverence for time is a subjective spiritual stance.

More from Alfred North Whitehead

  1. The consequences of a plethora of half-digested theoretical knowledge are deplorable.

    Permalink to quote #21
  2. That knowledge which adds greatness to character is knowledge so handled as to transform every phase of immediate experience.

    Permalink to quote #23
  3. For successful education there must always be a certain freshness in the knowledge dealt with. It must be either new in itself or invested with some novelty of…

    Permalink to quote #20

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