Quotes About Rituals

Family traditions counter alienation and confusion. They help us define who we are; they provide something steady, reliable and safe in a confusing world.

He'd seen a lot of bizarre items left at gravesides, like a carton of eggs, a pair of reading glasses, a bag of licorice, smooth stones, a spoon.

Lightheartedness was a treasure in a world too full of sorrows, a treasure little regarded and widely forfeited to agression, greed and horrendous tribal rituals.

This makes me feel ritually unclean.

Good habits make for good fortunes

There are no superstitions but those you invent

rituals, like burning paper money... all fake, just something we do to comfort ourselves or for others to see.

in the face of horror, ancient rituals regained their meaning

One of the most significant lessons Jesus taught his disciples was to stop looking for God's life in the regimen of rituals and rules. He came not to refurbish religion, but to offer them a relationship.

Burials in Cahokia could be astonishingly elaborate. In one, a man was buried on a bed of twenty thousand beads of shell. Nearby three people were buried at teh same time along with eight hundred arrowheads and a host of other objects. These were probably close relatives, sacrifieced at the death of the great man. Also nearby, more than fifty women between the ages of eighteen and twenty-three were interred, evidently strangled as part of a funeral ceremony.

the Dalai Lama evolved daily habits that have remained largely unchanged up to the present. He rises at 4 a.m. and drinks warm water and a Tibetan medicinal drink. He spends five of the day's hours in prayer.

It was a time of chaos, of bombs and floods, when love songs streamed from the radios and wept down the streets. Music sustained weddings, births, rituals, work, marching, boredom, confrontation and death; music and stories, even in times like these, were a refuge, a passport, everywhere.

In this respect, I think I was an effective parent—one who understood that family time was precious, and unrecoverable—and so in my own family a lot of time was spent in family rituals and encouraging each other's particular skills and interests.

I have neither the talent nor the patience for the usual mating rituals—the stalking, the accidental encounters, the blind dates, the silly gifts, the awkward phone calls, the referrals from friends, the endless Internet chatting. Nor do I have the guts to go online and lie about myself to strange women. And, I fear I'm forever scorched and gun-shy from the Judith disaster. How can one human possess so much meanness? Naomi

But rituals are important to the men who run prisons, and nothing gets their adrenaline pumping like an execution. Their little lives are mundane and monotonous, but occasionally the world tunes in when it's time to kill a killer. No effort at heightened drama is to be missed.

I think now that is the nature of hymns-they make us want to repeat them...they are a part of any service, and often the only part of a funeral service, that makes us feel everything is acceptable.

Rituals are comforting; rituals combat loneliness.

Not only did Catholics kneel and mutter litanies and creeds without ceasing, but they ritualized any hope of contact with God to such an extent that Owen felt they'd interfered with his ability to pray—to talk to God DIRECTLY, as Owen put it.

Rituals are important. Nowadays it's hip not to be married. I'm not interested in being hip.

I'm not religious, but I've always been attracted to the rituals of religion; as a kid, Sunday church was the closest thing I had to an interactive, theatrical experience.

If a pagan asks you to show him your faith, take him into church and place him before the icons.

Cross your fingers, throw salt over your shoulder, knock on wood...simple folk remedies for unfortunate situations. Silly superstitions...but were they based in truth from a past long forgotten? I didn't know, but it wouldn't hurt to just do it and let the Universe do its job if it was of a mind to. Don't you think?

Catholicism is not a soothing religion. It's a painful religion. We're all gluttons for punishment.

It was always the meaningless tasks that endure: the washing, the cooing, the clearing, the cleaning. Never anything majestic or significant, just the tiny rituals that hold together the seams of human life.