Those who, possessed of the maturer judgment of later life, can direct their gaze upon the starry heavens and surrender themselves unreservedly to admiration of the revelations of the Higher Powers, are in a like manner ripening their senses for the acquisition of knowledge with regard to the supersensible worlds. So is it also with those who can admire the powers ruling over human life itself. It is by no means of small importance for a fully matured man to be able to feel veneration highest degree for other people whose worth he senses or recognizes. For it is only where veneration such as this is present that a vista of the higher worlds can be revealed. Those who possess no sense of reverence will never go very far in their attainment of cognition; for from those who decline to appreciate anything in this world, the essence of all things will assuredly be withheld.

Rudolf Steiner. An Outline of Occult Science