Quotes About Rituals

Humanity's always been weird at heart. Look at how societies form, rituals, practices, even rock n' roll. Humanity really is dark and twisted.

I don't walk under a ladder, or open an umbrella in a room. I have always been superstitious.

I'm unbelievably superstitious.

In the Mexican culture, we never miss a baptism, a birthday, a baby shower, a wedding shower, a wedding. You must show up. Otherwise, you'll be in big trouble.

Hunchbacks danced at my wedding for luck. It's a thing you don't see nowadays.

People need what they think of as a poem to be read at their bar mitzvah, their wedding, a funeral, whatever. And people are looking for hope and inspiration. I understand that.

Rituals are the kindergarten of religion. They are absolutely necessary for the world as it is now; only we shall have to give people newer and fresh rituals. A party of thinkers must undertake to do this. Old rituals must be rejected and new ones substituted.

give a mental assent to the customs of their forefathers

when Sabastain asks for a mandake root harvested by the the new moon at crossroads, Garnet responds)...... Why not just ask for it grown under a gallows?

As recently as the twentieth century, some cultures retained religious prohibitions asserting the "uncleanliness" of believers eating at the same table as musicians.

Generally speaking, the Smritikars never care to explain the why and the how of their dogmas.

I love Christmas. At this very special time of year, when the sun appears only fleetingly to those of us living in the northern hemisphere, I feel a deep connection with ancient ancestors.

I enjoyed coming home to Crown Heights. There was a certain order to life there. You know, Shabbos, spending time with your family, eating and being in 'shul.' Prayers at nighttime, prayers in the morning. Everyone knows everybody; you walk your kids everywhere.

There are so many spiders, and their rituals, their mating rituals, their courtship ritual, can be very, very different.

Dabbling in astrology is like carrying a lucky rabbit's foot as an omen of good luck which costs us very little and might have some beneficial effects.

With mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage.

Something old something new Something borrowed something blue.

Man is the child of customs, not the child of his ancestors.

Man is an essentially superstitious and fearful animal. Take away the herd's Christian gods and saints and they will without failing come to worship...something else.

No one is so thoroughly superstitious as the godless man.

That, as far as she could tell, was the purpose of the religion she had been brought up in: it made people feel better when really horrible things happened, and it offered a repertoire of ceremonies that were used to add a touch of class to such goings-on as shacking up with someone and throwing dirt on a corpse. None of which especially bothered Zula or made her doubt its worthwhileness. Making sad people feel better was a fine thing to do.

Ninety-nine percent of everything that goes on in most Christian churches has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual religion. Intelligent people all notice this sooner or later, and they conclude that the entire one hundred percent is bullshit, which is why atheism is connected with being intelligent in people's minds.

Many Americans don't mourn in public anymore - we don't wear black, we don't beat our chests and wail.

I'm more interested in the meaning of funerals and the mourning that people do. It's not a retail experience. It's an existential one.