Quotes About Observances

Torah is not merely a collection of prohibitions, rigid strictures and boring observances. Rather, it is a narrative of the blessings and promises of God initially offered to one person and family, but through which the whole world will ultimately be blessed.

I always have had, and always shall have, a profound regard for Christianity, the religion of my fathers, and for its rights, its usages and observances.

the yamas and niyamas are actually emphatic declarations of what we are when we are connected to our true nature.4 The yamas, or "outer observances," and the niyamas, or "inner observances," are often referred to as the inner and outer "restraints.

Another study notes about Bali: "Babies are encouraged to acquire quickly the capacity to sleep under any circumstances, including situations of high stimulation, musical performances, and other noisy observances which reflect their more complete integration into adult social activities." As

Superstition, without a veil, is a deformed thing; for, as it addeth deformity to an ape, to be so like a man, so the similitude of superstition to religion, makes it the more deformed. And as wholesome meat corrupteth to little worms, so good forms and orders corrupt, into a number of petty observances.

Our Constitution recognises no other power than that of persuasion, for enforcing religious observances.

The Jews are forbidden to leave their houses when it rains or snows.34 Jewish women are obliged to expose their faces in public.35 They must cover themselves with a two–coloured izar.36 The men must not wear fine clothes, the only material permitted them being a blue cotton fabric. They are forbidden to wear matching shoes. Every Jew is obliged to wear a piece of red cloth on his chest. A Jew must never overtake a Muslim on a public street. He is forbidden to talk loudly to a Muslim.

In the first place we can discount the tendency—which has been popular in Christendom—to over-estimate the extent of the use of force in the propagation of Islam. The show of adherence to the religion exacted by the Prophet's successors was limited to the performance of a small number of not very onerous external observances….

Among the many memorials and observances for the victims, one thing became clear: There is a unique power within the human heart to overcome hate and racism.

I only attend church for hatches, matches, and dispatches.

The observances of the church concerning feasts and fasts are tolerably well-kept, since the rich keep the feasts and the poor keep the fasts.

It is certain, that, in every religion, however sublime the verbal definition which it gives of its divinity, many of the votaries, perhaps the greatest number, will still seek the divine favor, not by virtue and good morals, which alone can be acceptable to a perfect being, but either by frivolous observances, by intemperate zeal, by rapturous extasies, or by the belief of mysterious and absurd opinions.

When people no longer love God with their whole heart, religious observances with the greatest of potential become only hollow rituals, and the integrity of life and word is gone, draining events of their power to communicate the faith.

Feasts and festivals are a feature of all major religions.

Mme. d'Aiglemont had lost her mother in her early childhood; and as a natural consequence in her bringing-up, she had felt the influence of the relaxed notions which loosened the hold of religion upon France during the Revolution. Piety is a womanly virtue which women alone can really instil; and the Marquise, a child of the eighteenth century, had adopted her father's creed of philosophism, and practised no religious observances.

When prayer, rituals and ascetic life are just a means of self-indulgence, they are harmful rather than beneficial. This is quite obvious to people nowadays, when it is widely recognised that fixations are not the same as valuable and laudable observances. One should not pray if that prayer is vanity; rituals are wrong when they provide lower satisfactions, like emotional stimulus instead of enlightenment; he or she should not be an ascetic who is only enjoying it.

The onslaught of scruples is a problem well attested in the spiritual life, especially among the young, where religious observances must be done perfectly to achieve a certain result.

As late as the twelfth century only the higher classes faithfully observed the Christian rites; while the old pagan ceremonies were still common among the peasantry. And even now the Saints of the Calendar are in some places only thinly disguised heathen deities and pagan rites and superstitions mingle with Christian observances.

the offices could feel quite cosmopolitan, with a conspicuous diversity of accents and religious observances. But the second-generation Sacklers showed no trace of humble origins.