Rites Quotes

There are things so horrible that even the dark is afraid of them. Most people don't know this and this is just as well because the world could not really operate if everyone stayed in bed with the blankets over their head, which is what would happen if people knew what horrors lay a shadow's width away. ~ Terry Pratchett

Mythology is the study of whatever religious or heroic legends are so foreign to a student's experience that he cannot believe them to be true ... Myth has two main functions. The first is to answer the sort of awkward questions that children ask, such as: 'Who made the world? How will it end? Who was the first man? Where do souls go after death?' ... The second function of myth is to justify an existing social system and account for traditional rites and customs. ~ Robert Graves

Ancient moon priestesses were called virgins. 'Virgin' meant not married, not belong to a man - a woman who was 'one-in-herself'. The very word derives from a Latin root meaning strength, force, skill; and was later applied to men: virle. Ishtar, Diana, Astarte, Isis were all all called virgin, which did not refer to sexual chasity, but sexual independence. And all great culture heroes of the past…, mythic or historic, were said to be born of virgin mothers: Marduk, Gilgamesh, Buddha, Osiris, Dionysus, Genghis Khan, Jesus - they were all affirmed as sons of the Great Mother, of the Original One, their worldly power deriving from her. When the Hebrews used the word, and in the original Aramaic, it meant 'maiden' or 'young woman', with no connotations to sexual chasity. But later Christian translators could not conceive of the 'Virgin Mary' as a woman of independent sexuality, needless to say; they distorted the meaning into sexually pure, chaste, never touched. When Joan of Arc, with her witch coven associations, was called La Pucelle - 'the Maiden,' 'the Virgin' - the word retained some of its original pagan sense of a strong and independent woman. The Moon Goddess was worshipped in orgiastic rites, being the divinity of matriarchal women free to take as many lovers as they choose. Women could 'surrender' themselves to the Goddess by making love to a stranger in her temple. ~ Monica Sjöö

Hindu fundamentalism," because Hinduism is a religion without fundamentals: no organized church, no compulsory beliefs or rites of worship, no single sacred book. The name itself denotes something less, and more, than a set of theological beliefs. In many languages - French and Persian amongst them - the word for "Indian" is "Hindu." Originally "Hindu" simply meant the people beyond the river Sindhu, or Indus. But the Indus is now in Islamic Pakistan; and to make matters worse, the word "Hindu" did not exist in any Indian language till its use by foreigners gave Indians a term for self-definition. ~ Shashi Tharoor

It is indeed remarkable that the nature of our dealings with our fellowmen will determine, in large measure, our status in the kingdom of heaven ... We may attend to rites and rituals and yet overlook the weightier matters such as brotherly kindness, honesty, mercy, virtue, and integrity. Let us never forget that if we omit them from our lives we may be found unworthy to come into His presence. ~ Mark E. Petersen

Do not economize on the hymeneal rites; do not prune them of their splendor, nor split farthings on the day when you are radiant. A wedding is not house-keeping. ~ Victor Hugo

I've always been a fan of melody and emotional melancholy, whether it was Rites of Spring or Tears for Fears or Neil Young. If I hear a song that has a sweet melody, I'm a sucker for it, whether it's Linkin Park or Little Richard. ~ Dave Grohl

Noah was a funeral pyre. He was burning. The flames rose to staggering heights and blazed in white, hot tongues. Jeremie had once told him a story of the burial rites of the Norse. They'd burn their dead, believing the high smoke carried their loved ones' souls to Valhalla.

Noah was beyond Valhalla. Beyond the creamy spaciousness above the clouds, beyond the limits of the very earth. He floated among the stars, joined them in holy communion, knew each one by name. Then they were within him, scores of them, bright and hot, turning his ribs into a furnace as they shifted and created constellations in his soul. And all the while, the summer sang in his lungs.

There was no space between him and Jeremie. Where one ended, the other began, and still Jeremie pulled him closer like the moon pulls the tide, gripping him tightly in the same way he'd gripped Noah's heart, had gripped his entire being. ~ Lily Velez

In the religion of the savage one is struck by the presence of two things. First is the performance of rites and ceremonies, the practice of magic or tabu and the worship of fetish or totem. The second thing that is noticeable is that the rites, ceremonies, magic, tabu, totem and fetish are conspicuous by their ~ M.M. Ninan

Words, I've come to learn, are pulleys through time. Portals into other minds. Without words, what remains? Indecipherable customs. Strange rites. Blighted hearts. Without words, we're history's orphans. Our lives and thoughts erased ~ Alena Graedon

For the believer, participating in ritual activity is a 're-enactment of profound truth,' that which makes one belong to a belief system drawing the believer and the community of believers near to God. Yet despite its central role, the essence of a religious belief cannot be grasped by simply observing ritual practice. Ritual can mark, identify and separate a community of believers, it can point to what is held most sacred in terms of rites and worship, but it can never quite capture faith, for faith transcends form and imagery. This is particularly true of Islam, where faith is presented a a gradual process from Islam (surrender) to iman (faith) to the final state of ihsan (doing good). Belief in God is a deeper state of awareness, of conviction and of humility, all of which ultimately lie beyond ritual. ~ Mona Siddiqui

I'm only interested in rites of passage stories. ~ Pete Townshend

In fact a man in love or one consumed with hatred creates symbols for himself, as a superstitious man does, from a passion of conferring uniqueness on things or persons. A man who knows nothing of symbols is one of Dante's sluggards. This is why art mirrors itself in primitive rites or strong passions, seeking for symbols, revolving round the primitive taste for savagery, for what is irrational (blood and sex). ~ Cesare Pavese

Raith smiled. "There. You already feel yourself weakening. I've taken thousands like you, lovely child. Taken them and broken them. There was nothing they could do. There is nothing you can do. You were made to feel desire. I was made to use it against you. It is the natural cycle. Life and death. Mating and death. Predator and Prey."
Raith leaned closer with each word, and brushed his lips against Murphy's throat as he spoke. "Born mortal. Born weak. And easily taken."
...
"And that's only a taste, child. When you know what it is to be truly taken later this night, you will understand that your life ended the moment I wanted you. ~ Jim Butcher

The heart of compassion is the germ of benevolence; the heart of shame, of dutifulness; the heart of courtesy and modesty, of observance of the rites; the heart of right and wrong, of wisdom. Man has these four germs just as he has four limbs. For a man possessing these four germs to deny his own potentialities is for him to cripple himself. ~ Mencius

The sacred rites, although not instituted specifically for proving the truth of the dogmas of the Catholic Faith incontrovertibly, are effectively the living voice of Catholic Truth, the oft-sounded expression of it. For that very reason the true Church of Christ, even as she shows great zeal to guard inviolate those forms of divine worship - since they are hallowed and are not to be changed - sometimes grants or permits something novel in the performance of them in certain instances. This she does especially when they are in conformity with their venerable antiquity. ~ Pope Leo XIII

Before they could continue their sparring, Dr. Steele walked up to Vasile and asked to speak with him in private, so naturally the whole table got up and followed them.
Loftis, Quinn (2011-11-18). Blood Rites: Book 2 Grey Wolves Series (The Grey Wolves Series) (p. 112). Kindle Edition. ~ Quinn Loftis

I have a deep and ongoing love of Iceland, particular the landscape, and when writing 'Burial Rites,' I was constantly trying to see whether I could distill its extraordinary and ineffable qualities into a kind of poetry. ~ Hannah Kent

On either side of them the essence of honky tonk beach resort had now enclosed them: gas stations, fried clam stands, Dairy Treets, motels painted in feverish pastel colors, mini golf.

Larry was drawn two painful ways by these things. Part of him clamored at their sad and blatant ugliness and at the ugliness of the minds that had turned this section of a magnificent, savage coastline into one long highway amusement park for families in station wagons. But there was a more subtle, deeper part of him that whispered of the people who had filled these places and this road during other summers. Ladies in sunhats and shorts too tight for their large behinds. College boys in red and black striped rugby shirts. Girls in beach shifts and thong sandals. Small screaming children with ice cream spread over their faces. They were American people, and there was a kind of dirty, compelling romance about them whenever they were in groups never mind if the group was in an Aspen ski lodge or performing their prosaic/ arcane rites of summer along Route 1 in Maine. And now all these Americans were gone. ~ Stephen King

Other cultures make a clear delineation between childhood and adulthood; there are rites of passages and initiation ceremonies to mark these transitions. People expect and are willing to expose young people to hardship and pain, because it helps them grow. ~ Jeff Goins

At Camp Half-Blood. The Hades cabin needs a head counsellor. Have you seen the decor? It's disgusting. I'll have to renovate. And someone needs to do the burial rites properly, since demigods insist on dying heroically.'
'That's – that's fantastic! Dude!' Jason opened his arms for a hug, then froze. 'Right. No touching. Sorry.'
Nico grunted. 'I suppose we can make an exception.' Jason squeezed him so hard Nico thought his ribs would crack. ~ Rick Riordan

Between childhood, boyhood, adolescence and manhood (maturity) there should be sharp lines drawn with tests, deaths, feats, rites, stories, songs, and judgments. ~ Jim Morrison

The multitude of men and women choose the less adventurous way of the comparatively unconscious civic and tribal routines. But these seekers, too, are saved - by virtue of the inherited symbolic aids of society, the rites of passage, the grace-yielding sacraments, given to mankind of old by the redeemers and handed down through millenniums. It is only those who know neither an inner call nor an outer doctrine whose plight truly is desperate; that is to say, most of us today, in this labyrinth without and within the heart. Alas, where is the guide, that fond virgin, Ariadne, to supply the simple clue that will give us courage to face the Minotaur, and the means then to find our way to freedom when the monster has been met and slain? ~ Joseph Campbell

Sex and magic are intertwined experiences - sex is one kind of magic (and can be made more magical without being concerned with sex-magic at any point), and magic can be, while erotic and arousing, not necessarily sexual in the way that is often understood. There is a commonly-held belief that those who practice sex-magic are indulging themselves in wild orgiastic rites at every opportunity. This is rarely the case. After all, if you need to go through lots of occult rigmarole just to get laid, then you're a bit sad, aren't you? Then again, the occult subculture is full of SAD people, desperate to finally get laid and attempting to turn to sex-magic as a last resort. ~ Phil Hine

For the first few hundred years of American history, food preparation was generally approached in a no-nonsense manner. Even as late as twenty-five years ago, the general attitude was that "feeding your face" was all right, but to make too much fuss about it was somehow decadent. In the past two decades, of course, the trend has reversed itself so sharply that earlier misgivings about gastronomic excesses seem almost to have been justified. Now we have "foodies" and wine freaks who take the pleasures of the palate as seriously as if they were rites in a brand-new religion. Gourmet ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

A divine revelation should not consist only in uprooting us from the world's profanity in order to install us statically within a sacred world, in the bosom of which we could continue to lead almost the same life we led in the profane world. To enter into revelation is not merely to change objects as we do furniture. It is to be converted. Not to be converted once, but to be converted always. Sacred forms, rites, symbols and the Scriptures are basically conversion-makers, which means that we are never done with converting, never done with understanding, because they perplex and surpass all understanding. ~ Jean Borella

If I must die young, bury me
in a music box. I'll be the pale ballerina with dirt
in her hair. Attach my painless feet to metal springs
and open the lid when you visit.

Watch me rise and pirouette, my arms overhead tickling
the dark night's belly until I'm dizzy, until the stars
melt and spiral into a halo over my head
and I've stirred my death into the sky. ~ Jalina Mhyana

There are, then, three sorts of religious experiences. The ancient rites, which are essentially propitiatory. The mysteries, which purge the soul and allow us to glimpse eternity. And philosophy, which attempts to define not only the material world but to suggest practical ways to the good life, as well as attempting to synthesize (as Iamblichos does so beautifully) all true religion in a single comprehensive system. ~ Gore Vidal

When the great Greek cry breaks into the Latin of the Mass, as old as Christianity itself, it may surprise some to learn that there are a good many people in church who really do say kyrie eleison and mean exactly what they say. But anyhow, they mean what they say rather more than a man who begins a letter with "Dear Sir" means what he says. "Dear" is emphatically a dead word; in that place it has ceased to have any meaning. It is exactly what the Protestants would allege of Popish rites and forms; it is done rapidly, ritually, and without any memory even of the meaning of the rite. When Mr. Jones the solicitor uses it to Mr. Brown the banker, he does not mean that the banker is dear to him, or that his heart is filled with Christian love, even so much as the heart of some poor ignorant Papist listening to the Mass. ~ G.K. Chesterton

The Rites of Beauty also seduce women by meeting their current hunger for color and poetry. As they make their way into male public space that is often prosaic and emotionally dead, beauty's sacraments glow brighter than ever. As women are inundated with claims on their time, ritual products give them an alibi to take some private time for themselves. At their best they give women back a taste of mystery and sensuality to compensate them for their days spent in the harsh light of the workplace. ~ Naomi Wolf

Religion, charity, pure benevolence, and morals, mingled up with superstitious rites and ferocious cruelty, form in their combination institutions the most powerful and the most pernicious that have ever afflicted mankind. ~ John Quincy Adams

When a man dies, his wife is burned alive with him, but if the wife dies before her husband, the man does not suffer the same fate. If a man dies before marriage, he is given a posthumous wife. The women passionately want to be burned because they believe they will enter paradise. ~ Mas'udi

Then, idly scratching his nose, he walks to the bookcase in the living room and stoops before a set of drab brown Victorian volumes gathering dust on the second shelf from the bottom.

How amusing, he thinks, as he withdraws one of them-amusing that a key to dark and ancient rites should survive in such innocuous-looking form.

A young fool like Freirs would probably refuse to believe it. Like the rest of his doomed kind, he'd probably expect such lore to be found only in ancient leather-bound tomes with gothic lettering and portentously sinister titles. He'd search for it in mysterious old trunks and private vaults, in the "restricted" sections of libraries, in intricately carved wood chests with secret compartments.

But there are no real secrets, the Old One knows. Secrets are ultimately too hard to conceal. The keys to the rites that will transform the world are neither hidden nor rare nor expensive. They are available to anyone. You can find them on the paperback racks or in any second-hand bookshop. ~ T.E.D. Klein

Behind every preventable threat to the future of the human race lurks a boy in a man's body with both hands buried deep in the cookie jar set aside for future generations. ~ Daniel Prokop

Fernanda was scandalized that she did not understand the relationship of Catholicism with life but only its relationship with death, as if it were not a religion but a compendium of funeral conventions. ~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez

I can't believe it's actually happening. This is independent adulthood, this is what it feels like. Shouldn't there be some sort of ritual? In certain remote African tribes there'd be some incredible four day rites of passage ceremony involving tattooing and potent hallucinogenic drugs extracted from tree-frogs, and village elders smearing my body with monkey blood, but here,rites of passage is all about three new pairs of pants and stuffing your duvet in a bin-liner. ~ David Nicholls

With all my soul I longed to be in a position to join with the people in performing the rites of their faith, but I could not do it. I felt that I would be lying to myself, mocking what was sacred to me, if I were to go through with it. ~ Leo Tolstoy

Without the letters of condolence, telegrams of congratulations, and occasional postcards, the friendship of a separated friend is not a social reality. It has no existence without the rites of friendship. Social rituals create a reality which would be nothing without them. It is not too much to say that ritual is more to society than words are to thought. For it is very possible to know something and then find words for it. But it is impossible to have social relations without symbolic acts. ~ Mary Douglas

Donnez-moi la main! I see we worship the same God, in the same spirit, though by different rites. ~ Charlotte Bronte

To Selene (Moon)

Hear, Goddess queen, diffusing silver light, bull-horn'd and wand'ring thro' the gloom of Night.
With stars surrounded, and with circuit wide Night's torch extending, thro' the heav'ns you ride:
Female and Male with borrow'd rays you shine, and now full-orb'd, now tending to decline.
Mother of ages, fruit-producing Moon [Mene], whose amber orb makes Night's reflected noon:
Lover of horses, splendid, queen of Night, all-seeing pow'r bedeck'd with starry light.
Lover of vigilance, the foe of strife, in peace rejoicing, and a prudent life:
Fair lamp of Night, its ornament and friend, who giv'st to Nature's works their destin'd end.
Queen of the stars, all-wife Diana hail! Deck'd with a graceful robe and shining veil;
Come, blessed Goddess, prudent, starry, bright, come moony-lamp with chaste and splendid light,
Shine on these sacred rites with prosp'rous rays, and pleas'd accept thy suppliant's mystic praise. ~ Orpheus

What most puzzled Rome about the Jews was not their unfamiliar rites or their strict devotion to their laws, but rather what the Romans considered to be their unfathomable superiority complex. ~ Reza Aslan

In 1914... [German] history, poetry, dream and the individual moment were all combined in one exhilarating sensation...The nation was a creation of one's imagination, a poetic truth, an ethical, not a social, construct... blind obedience was the true value... the stronger a person is... the more he obeys. ~ Modris Eksteins, The Rites Of Spring

The quarrels and divisions about religion were evils unknown to the heathen. The reason was because the religion of the heathen consisted rather in rites and ceremonies than in any constant belief. ~ Francis Bacon

collect As many tripods as you think you'll need, Together with the other kinds of vessels That the rites of sacrifice require: cauldrons, Shallow basins, bowls; pour tall jugs full 8860 Of purest water from the sacred spring; Have ready wood that's dry and quick to catch; And finally, be sure a sharp knife's there. All else I leave to you." Those ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Many of the rites of passage, those rituals of growing up found in our society, are in the form of such comic, practical joking affairs
which we ignore in the belief that they possess no deeper significance. Yet it is precisely in their being regarded as unimportant that they take on importance. For in them we ritualize and dramatize attitudes which contradict and often embarrass the sacred values which we proclaim through our solemn ceremonies and rituals of nationhood. ~ Ralph Ellison

Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,
Towards Phoebus' lodging: such a wagoner
As Phaethon would whip you to the west,
And bring in cloudy night immediately.
Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night,
That runaway's eyes may wink and Romeo
Leap to these arms, untalk'd of and unseen.
Lovers can see to do their amorous rites
By their own beauties; or, if love be blind,
It best agrees with night. Come, civil night,
Thou sober-suited matron, all in black,
And learn me how to lose a winning match,
Play'd for a pair of stainless maidenhoods:
Hood my unmann'd blood, bating in my cheeks,
With thy black mantle; till strange love, grown bold,
Think true love acted simple modesty.
Come, night; come, Romeo; come, thou day in night;
For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night
Whiter than new snow on a raven's back.
Come, gentle night, come, loving, black-brow'd night,
Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun.
O, I have bought the mansion of a love,
But not possess'd it, and, though I am sold,
Not yet enjoy'd: so tedious is this day
As is the night before some festival
To an impatient child that hath new robes
And may not wear them. O, here comes my nurse,
And she b ~ William Shakespeare

But happiness is a difficult thing-it is, as Aristotle posited in The Nicomachean Ethics, an activity, is is about good social behavior, about being a solid citizen. Happiness is about community, intimacy, relationships, rootedness, closeness, family, stability, a sense of place, a feeling of love. And in this country, where people move from state to state and city to city so much, where rootlessness is almost a virtue ("anywhere I hang my hat ... is someone else's home"), where family units regularly implode and leave behind fragments of divorce, where the long loneliness of life finds its antidote not in a hardy, ancient culture (as it would in Europe), not in some blood-deep tribal rites (as it would in the few still-hale Third World nations), but in our vast repository of pop culture, of consumer goods, of cotton candy for all-in this America, happiness is hard. ~ Elizabeth Wurtzel

I would sink into the relief I felt from having friends like these girls. Smart. Patient. Good daughters and sisters. That's who I ran with. That being said, I still went through the young-girl rites of passage, including being kicked out of the group. Almost every girl goes through this weird living nightmare, where you show up at school and realize people have grown to hate you overnight. It's a Twilight Zone moment when you can't figure out what is real. It is a group mind-fuck of the highest kind, and it makes or breaks you. I got through it by keeping my head down, and a few weeks passed and all the girls liked me again. We all pretended it never happened. There should be manuals passed out to teach girls how to handle that inevitable one-week stretch when up is down and the best friend who just slept over at your house suddenly pulls your hair in front of everyone and laughs. ~ Amy Poehler

But there is a more catholic understanding of the term apostolic: it means missional. The apostles were those called together to learn (as disciples) so they could be sent out on a mission (which is what both the Greek root for apostle and the Latin root for mission mean). From this vantage point, disciples are apostles-in-training; Christian discipleship (or spiritual formation ) is training for apostleship, training for mission. From this understanding we place less emphasis on whose lineage, rites, doctrines, structures, and terminology are right and more emphasis on whose actions, service, outreach, kindness, and effectiveness are good. ~ Brian D. McLaren

It is not only the weary Homo faber, who objectifies the world in the 'doing' mode, who must vacate his place on the logical stage; the time has also come for Homo religiosus, who turns to the world above in surreal rites, to bid a deserved farewell. Together, workers and believers come into a new category. It is time to reveal humans as the beings who result from repetition. Just as the nineteenth century stood cognitively under the sign of production and the twentieth under that of reflexivity, the future should present itself under the sign of the exercise. ~ Peter Sloterdijk

I think it is quite remarkable actually that Pope Benedict has a sense of the variety of ways in which it is possible to be a Catholic. I think he is more comfortable with a plurality of expressions of Catholicism in different rites, traditions than many of us are. ~ Vincent Nichols

A Poem I Like:

With a hand that is greater than mine
she gently makes my coarse life fine
and all the reasons that meant the world
evaporate like smoke unfurled.

How can one so lacking force
house the heart where dwells the source
of power which turns the darkness lite
turns deadly games to lover's rites

by Jack Edison ~ Brie Edison

We feel closest to God in humility. No outward rites and ceremonies are necessary, for they don't make us humble. ~ Meeta Ahluwalia

HOLLY TREE (Ilex aquifolium) is a symbol of good will and is associated with sun gods. In Rome the holly was sacred to Saturn and was employed in the rites of the Saturnalia, where it was a symbol of health and happiness. The holly is an evergreen and therefore is associated with the sun god. ~ Raven Grimassi

Your coming to Christ is not for you to fill up the seats or to take part in rites ~ Sunday Adelaja

Mysteries, like the Masonic rites, are ones parents and elders are sworn not to reveal to the uninitiated, which include all children. And so we sought for signs. ~ Anthony Hecht

Down in adoration falling, Lo! the sacred Host we hail; Lo! o'er ancient forms departing, Newer rites of grace prevail; Faith for all defects supplying, Where the feeble senses fail. ~ Thomas Aquinas

You're wise to be cautious. People taking the last rites have a way of dying on cue. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

1] The absence of the personal story: in order for magical rites to pass from generation to generation, the sorcerer (shaman) must forget all he learned before his initiation into magic. According to tradition, a man or women who are tied to his past, will in the end allow himself to be governed by his parents' way of thinking, or that of the society in which he lives. This is why all those who are initiated choose a new name and seek to free themselves from their memories, both good and bad. ~ Paulo Coelho

He is the real Guru Who can reveal the form of the formless before your eyes; who teaches the simple path, without rites or ceremonies; Who does not make you close your doors, and hold your breath, and renounce the world; Who makes you perceive the Supreme Spirit whenever the mind attaches itself; Who teaches you to be still in the midst of all your activities. Fearless, always immersed in bliss, he keeps the spirit of yoga in the midst of enjoyments. ~ Kabir

When I am furious about something, I sometimes beat the ground or a tree with my walking stick. But I certainly do not believe that the ground is to blame or that my beating can help anything ... And all rites are of this kind. ~ Ludwig Wittgenstein

Shall the dire day break when life
finds us merely husband and wife
with passion not so much denied
as neatly laundered and put aside
and the old joyous insistence
trimmed to placid coexistence?

Shall we sometime arise from bed
with not a carnal thought in our head
look at each other without surprise
out of wide awake uncandid eyes
touch and know no immediate urge
where all mysteries converge?

Speak for the sake of something to say
and now and then put on a display
of elaborate mimicry of the past to prove
that ritual reigns where once ruled love
and calmly observe those bleak rites
that once made splendour of our nights?

Dear, when we stop being outrageous
and no longer find contagious
the innumerable ecstasies we find
in rise of hand or leap of mind -
not now or then, love, need we fear thus;
those two sad people will not be us. ~ Christy Brown

Your mother was a hero. She developed a spell for gnomeatic fever. And she was the youngest headmaster in Watford history."
Baz is looking at Penny like they've never met.
"And," Penny goes on, "she defended your father in three duels before he accepted her proposal."
"That sounds barbaric," I say.
"It was traditional," Baz says.
"It was brilliant," Penny says. "I've read the minutes."
"Where?" Baz asks her.
"We have them in our library at home," she says "My dad loves marriage rites. Any sort of family magic, actually. He and my mother are bound together in five dimensions. ~ Rainbow Rowell

The zeal and virtue of Ali were never outstripped by any recent proselyte. He united the qualifications of a poet, a soldier, and a saint; his wisdom still breathes in a collection of moral and religious sayings; and every antagonist, in the combats of the tongue or of the sword, was subdued by his eloquence and valour. From the first hour of his mission to the last rites of his funeral, the apostle was never forsaken by a generous friend, whom he delighted to name his brother, his vicegerent, and the faithful Aaron of a second Moses. ~ Edward Gibbon

Jacquelyn, Luna, Mate. You have many names. Each of them holds a special meaning, but the only thing I want to call you is mine.
Loftis, Quinn (2011-11-18). Blood Rites: Book 2 Grey Wolves Series (The Grey Wolves Series) (p. 233). Kindle Edition. ~ Quinn Loftis

Dating back to the Iliad, ancient Egypt and beyond, burial rites have formed a critical function in most human societies. Whether we cremate a loved one or inter her bones, humans possess a deep-set instinct to mark death in some deliberate, ceremonial fashion. Perhaps the cruelest feature of forced disappearance as an instrument of war is that it denies the bereaved any such closure, relegating them to a permanent limbo of uncertainty. ~ Patrick Radden Keefe

O fools, awake! The rites ye sacred hold
Are but a cheat contrived by men of old
Who lusted after wealth and gained their lust
And died in baseness-and their law is dust. ~ Al-Ma'arri

You know the fairy-tale drill, especially from the Disney versions: the heroines endure awful stuff in rites of passage that lead to a joyous resolution of, usually, marriage to a prince. 'Into the Woods' follows that template, then asks, 'What happens after Happy Ever After?' ~ Richard Corliss

Through many countries and over many seas
I have come, Brother, to these melancholy rites,
to show this final honour to the dead,
and speak (to what purpose?) to your silent ashes,
since now fate takes you, even you, from me.
Oh, Brother, ripped away from me so cruelly,
now at least take these last offerings, blessed
by the tradition of our parents, gifts to the dead.
Accept, by custom, what a brother's tears drown,
and, for eternity, Brother, 'Hail and Farewell'. ~ Catullus

I, schooled in misery, know many purifying rites, and I know where speech is proper and where silence. ~ Aeschylus

In keeping with the Laws of the Prophet Bubba and the Code of the UIL, as set forth in the Book of First Downs, as the sun sets on Friday nights the rites of the Texas state religion are celebrated: high school, smash-mouth football. 'And lo, the children of Jim Bob do take to the roads in caravans and they do go up unto the stadium by tribes, the Indians of Groveton, the Panthers of Lufkin, the Mustangs of Overton, and the very Wildcats of Palestine, and who shall withstand the traffic jams thereof?' Thus is it written, and so it is and shall be. ~ Markham Shaw Pyle

Sometimes decent people must do indecent things. ~ John Hennessy

We live in the age of Noah (a.s.) in the sense that a flood of distraction accosts us. It is a slow and subtle drowning. For those who notice it, they engage in the remembrance of God. The rites of worship and devotion to God's remembrance (dhikr) are planks of the ark. When Noah (a.s.) started to build his ark, his people mocked him and considered him a fool. But he kept building. He knew what was coming. And we know too. ~ Hamza Yusuf

As artists and traders in medieval cities began to form organizations, they instituted tough initiation ceremonies. Journeymen in Bergen, Norway, were shoved down a chimney, thrown three times into the sea, and soundly whipped. Such rites made belonging to the guild or corporation more precious to those who were accepted, and survived. ~ Isaac Asimov

Isn't she doing this too? Connecting and disconnecting. Facing grief then turning from it. One minute she is caught up in minutiae. Will her feet get sore standing in heels at the church? Have they made enough food? Will the kitten get scared by dozens of strangers in the house? Should she shut him in a room upstairs? The next moment she is weeping uncontrollably, taken over by pain so profound she can barely move. Then there was the salad bowl incident; her own fury scared her. But maybe these are different ways of dealing with events for all of them. Molly and Luke are infantile echos of her, their emotions paired down, their reactions simpler but similar. For if they have difficulty taking in what has happened, then so too does she. Why is she dressing up, for instance? Why can't she wear clothes to reflect the fact that she is at her lowest end? A tracksuit, a jumper full of holes, dirty jeans? Why can't she leave her hair a mess, her face unmade up? The crazed and grieving Karen doesn't care about her appearance. Yet she must go through with this charade, polish herself and her children to perfection. She, in particular, must hold it together. Oh, she can cry, yes, that's allowed. People expect that. They will sympathize. But what about screaming, howling, and hurling plates like she did yesterday? She imagines the shocked faces as she shouts and swears and smashes everything. But she is so angry, surely others must feel the same. Maybe a plate throwing ceremony would be ~ Sarah Rayner

I remember coming back from training one day and Simon Poidevin was talking to a priest. I thought ... this was going to be some rough encounter because there's Poido getting the last rites before the test's even started ~ Phil Kearns

There is no insurmountable solitude. All paths lead to the same goal: to convey to others what we are. And we must pass through solitude and difficulty, isolation and silence in order to reach forth to the enchanted place where we can dance our clumsy dance and sing our sorrowful song - but in this dance or in this song there are fulfilled the most ancient rites of our conscience in the awareness of being human and of believing in a common destiny. ~ Pablo Neruda

I looked at Lucas with the pang that a parent feels when he knows his child will be hurt and that it's no one's fault and that to try to preempt the rites of passage is an act of contempt for the child's courage. ~ James Lee Burke

I was in the habit of calling a kiss a peck. Bulkaen had said "a smack." As erotic language, such as we use in dalliance, is a kind of secretion, a concentrated juice that flows from the lips only in moments of the most intense emotion, of plaint, as this language is, in other words, the essential expression of passion, each pair of lovers has its own peculiar language, a language which has a perfume, an odor sui generis which belongs only to that couple ... intimacy ... the secret rites of a deep love. ~ Jean Genet

In the broader spiritual realities, no rites or rituals are necessary to know God. NONE. Any religion that insists you can come to intimate knowledge of the Divine by any means other than stillness, self-awareness, and unity with consciousness is deceptive. So-called holy texts are about religion, not necessarily about God. They are really owners manuals for faith traditions. I am not denouncing them altogether, as I love the Bible and have studied it reverently all my life. But I don't view the Bible as the inspired word OF God as much as the inspired word of men ABOUT God, as they perceive God through their often jaded, human perspectives. Again, I respect these so-called sacred writings. I would just like to see them read and placed in their proper, less idolatrous, place. ~ Carlton D. Pearson

All young people believed they were immortal, and he had personal experience of the methods they used to cull themselves - base-jumping, sky-diving, hard drugs, alcohol. Over the years he'd come to see solid sense in the ways so-called savage peoples formalised their rituals of manhood; without such regulation, young men seemed compelled to invent their own, even more lethal, rites of passage. ~ Alison Fell

In course of time, religion came with its rites invoking the aid of good spirits which were even more powerful than the bad spirits, and thus for the time being tempered the agony of fears. ~ Paul Harris

I don't believe in demons and pitchforks. But I think, if you had to define hell, you could take a good man and deny him the rites he believed in, and condemn his soul to a slow process of corruption until it was nothing but a mass of rage and hate and seething evil that his true self would have loathed. I think that would be hell. ~ K.J. Charles

But everywhere dark shapes were already melting into the night, seeking asylum in the undergrowth and the jungle. Those not caught in the first haul headed for the mountains, stealing canoes and boats to make their way upstream; they were unarmed, almost naked, but determined to return to the way of life of their ancestors, somewhere the whites would not be able reach them. As they passed the outlying plantations, they spread the news amongst their own people, and ten, twenty, more men would abandon their work, deserting the fields of indigo and clover, to swell the numbers of the runaways. And in parties of one hundred, two hundred at a time, followed by their wives carrying children, they moved off into the interior, through thickets and crags, in search of a place they could build a palisade. As they fled they scattered mullein seeds in the streams and rivulets, so that fish would be poisoned and infect the water with their miasma as they putrefied. Beyond this torrent, beyond that mountain clothed in waterfalls, Africa would begin again; they would go back to forgotten tongues, to the rites of circumcision, to the worship of the earlier gods, who had preceded the recent gods of Christianity. The undergrowth closed behind men who were retracing the course of history, to regain an age when Creation had been ruled by the fertile Venus, with her huge breasts and her ample belly, who was worshipped in deep caves where a hand was haltingly tracing its first configurations of th ~ Alejo Carpentier

In alien lands I keep the body
Of ancient native rites and things:
I gladly free a little birdie
At celebration of the spring.
I'm now free for consolation,
And thankful to almighty Lord:
At least, to one of his creations
I've given freedom in this world! ~ Alexander Pushkin

Nor turned I ween Adam from his fair spouse, nor Eve the rites Mysterious of connubial love refused: Whatever hypocrites austerely talk Of purity and place and innocence, Defaming as impure what God declares Pure, and commands to some, leaves free to all. ~ John Milton

From a short distance, the few attending mourners under the blue tarp looked on silently as each ritualistic movement necessary to properly complete the last rites of the dead were respectively adhered to. Not surprisingly, only the constant raindrops marred the utter silence of the occasion, and
not a single teardrop fell. Not a whimper or a shudder. Not for this man. Not today. Not ever again. It took all Skye had not to walk over to the hole, lift up her skirt, and piss on the man who had repeatedly raped her as a child. Good riddance, you nasty bastard. Now you are in God's hands. Have fun with that, you piece of garbage. ~ Sahar Abdulaziz

Family members have a personal stake in honoring and mourning their dead and objecting to unwarranted public exploitation that, by intruding upon their own grief, tends to degrade the rites and respect they seek to accord to the deceased person who was once their own. ~ Anthony Kennedy

Of all the doctors I have known, psychoanalysts, a congregation of lay priests with bible, rites, and the faithful, constitute the most sinister, the most ridiculous, the most unwholesome of the species. ~ Antonio Lobo Antunes

The bee has round it a mysterious inscription, which has been variously interpreted. It contains an allusion to beeswax, and one scholar has suggested that the tesserae were druggists' tokens for the purpose of advertising the sale of beeswax. Another explanation is that the inscription might be one of the mysterious magic formulae used as charms, and that the tokens might be charms to call the bees home when swarming; but the most plausible solution seems to be that the tesserae were connected with the secret rites of Artemis, especially as the stag of the goddess is the one on the reverse side of the tokens.

One of the most important animals connected with the worship of the Asiatic Great-Mother was the lion, and it is a curious fact that we often find a connection between bees and lions. At the old Hittite town of Carchemish behind her a long line of priestesses bearing various articles. We do not suggest that these were called Melissae, but in the jewellry we see how the goddess with her lions merges in or is connected with the 'Bee-goddess. ~ Hilda M. Ransome

He walked over to Jacque, whose head was bowed and turned so that her neck was bared. It was like she knew instinctively to submit so as to not provoke the dominant wolf and hopefully she would subdue him in her surrender. Fane's wolf must have been the one in control of the wheel because he leaned down over Jacque and growled low. He placed his face against her neck, breathing deep, and his voice was guttural when he spoke. "Mine."
Jacque turned her head slightly and did what no other would ever be able to do when this Alpha was at this point, she looked him in the eyes. "Yes, I am yours." As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Fane pulled his power in and all of a sudden it was like a weight had been lifted and they could breathe again.
Loftis, Quinn (2011-11-18). Blood Rites: Book 2 Grey Wolves Series (The Grey Wolves Series) (p. 95). Kindle Edition. ~ Quinn Loftis

Here kitty." ~ Dex to Brutus ~ Arthur Rites

In learning to learn again, we can learn of this wisdom and allow our children (and so ourselves) to become the free, whole individuals this good earth has prepared us to be. ~ Joseph Chilton Pearce

To glorify God is not just to do so in religious worship, singing praise and enacting the traditional rites of the church. To glorify God is to reveal his character by being who we were created to be-the embodiment of the image of God in human form. ~ James W. Sire

Living men are bound by time ... Thus, their lives have an urgency. This gives them ambition. Makes them choose those things that are most important, cling more tightly to that which they hold dear. Their lives have seasons, and rites of passage, and consequences. And ultimately, an end. But what of a life with no urgency? What then of ambition? What then of love? ~ Seth Grahame-Smith

the physical world gone down in flames
mountains, rivers and lakes
and pulling with it all those human rhythms that bind us together and draw the world into a community, those daily
rites, rhythms and rituals
upholding the world like solar bones, that rarefied amalgam of time and light whose extension through every minute of the day is visible from the moment I get up in the morning and stand at the kitchen window with a mug of tea in my hand, ~ Mike McCormack

The ceremonies that persist - birthdays, weddings, funerals - focus only on ourselves, marking rites of personal transition. […]
We know how to carry out this rite for each other and we do it well. But imagine standing by the river, flooded with those same feelings as the Salmon march into the auditorium of their estuary. Rise in their honor, thank them for all the ways they have enriched our lives, sing to honor their hard work and accomplishments against all odds, tell them they are our hope for the future, encourage them to go off into the world to grow, and pray that they will come home. Then the feasting begins. Can we extend our bonds of celebration and support from our own species to the others who need us?
Many indigenous traditions still recognize the place of ceremony and often focus their celebrations on other species and events in the cycle of the seasons. In a colonist society the ceremonies that endure are not about land; they're about family and culture, values that are transportable from the old country. Ceremonies for the land no doubt existed there, but it seems they did not survive emigration in any substantial way. I think there is wisdom in regenerating them here, as a means to form bonds with this land. ~ Robin Wall Kimmerer

I really hate Squires. (Syra)
(She pulled another flat bolt out and loaded it, then shot it at Otto. Moving so fast he could hardly be seen, the Squire turned around and caught it without flinching. He held the bolt up to his nose and inhaled it lovingly.)
Mmm. Rose. My favorite. (Otto)
Perhaps we should leave you two alone. (Jess)
Yeah, this does remind me a bit of the mating rites of the mean and the surly. (Allen) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

These are used solely for Blood Rites. (Leo)
Is that like special ed? (Susan) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

It was passed on by the hook-nosed herdsmen of the grasslands, from the dwellers in tents to the dwellers in the squat stone cities where kings with curled blueblack beards worshipped round-bellied gods with curious rites. ~ Robert E. Howard