Piety is an attitude difficult to cultivate in a generally impious world. With its associated virtues of reverence and devotion, piety moves us to build our shrines and protect our inheritances of nature and culture. Wallace Stevens writes: "The poet feels abundantly the poetry of everything." His accent on abundant feeling could be applied to piety, which is an attitude that grows out of the generosity of our spirit to experience life fully. If we are not pious generally, it's because we don't think we can bear our feelings, and so we keep our emotions and attachments in reserve. Withholding oneself is the opposite of piety.

Thomas Moore, The Re-enchantment of Everyday Life