John Steinbeck, The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights (1976), Appendix, letter to Elizabeth Otis (9 July 1958),
“
Let us take the word worship[…]. It is an old English word worth-ship and it meant eminence gained by one's personal qualities of courage or honor. You could not inherit worshipfulness. It was solely due to your own nature and actions. Beginning in the thirteenth century, the word moved into a religious connotation which it did not have originally. And now it has lost its original meaning and has become solely a religious word.
— John Steinbeck on Worship
What It Means
This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Let us take the word worship[…]. It is an old English word worth-ship and it meant eminence gained by one's personal qualities of courage or honor. You could not inherit worshipfulness. It was solely due to your own nature and actions. Beginning in the thirteenth century, the word moved into a religious connotation which it did not have originally. And now it has lost its original meaning and has become solely a religious word." in the context of "John Steinbeck, The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights (1976), Appendix, letter to Elizabeth Otis (9 July 1958)," to mean that wisdom is timeless.
Source: Wikiquote: "Worship" (S)
The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
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About John Steinbeck
John Ernst Steinbeck Jr. (27 February 1902 – 20 December 1968) was an American writer. A recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962, his works include the novella Of Mice and Men (1937) and the novel The Grapes of Wrath (1939, Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, 1940), both of which examine the lives of the working class and migrant workers during the Great Depression.
About John Steinbeck
John Ernst Steinbeck Jr. (27 February 1902 – 20 December 1968) was an American writer. A recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962, his works include the novella Of Mice and Men (1937) and the novel The Grapes of Wrath (1939, Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, 1940), both of which examine the lives of the working class and migrant workers during the Great Depression.
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