Quotes About Rites

Having lost the training and rites that prepare a girl for becoming truly queenly, a mature woman, we have instead beauty-queen contests for five-year-olds.

There is no surer sign of decay in a country than to see the rites of religion held in contempt.

Mankind invents cultures—and cultures invent myths to justify and explain their existence. Prominent among these are the myths and ceremonies of the rites of passage for boys. The passage from boyhood to manhood. This is the time when the boy is separated from his mother and the other women. In some primitive cultures the boys go and live with the men—and never see their mothers again.

But, nevertheless, we do not build temples, and ordain priests, rites, and sacrifices for these same martyrs; for they are not our gods, but their God is our God.

Since most of 'Mean Girls' consists of the outsider Cady observing the tribal rites of her new setting and laying it all out in narration, this movie is just like home for the meticulous and ruthless deadpan that Ms. Fey has perfected for the satirical 'S.N.L.' newscast in which she and Jimmy Fallon are the anchors.

In better times the religion of the tribe or state has nothing in common with the private and foreign superstitions or magical rites that savage terror may dictate to the individual.

The Marquesas! What strange visions of outlandish things does the very name spirit up! Naked houris—cannibal banquets—groves of cocoanut—coral reefs—tattooed chiefs—and bamboo temples; sunny valleys planted with bread-fruit-trees—carved canoes dancing on the flashing blue waters—savage woodlands guarded by horrible idols—HEATHENISH RITES AND HUMAN SACRIFICES. Such

When I was growing up in Nigeria - and I shouldn't say Nigeria, because that's too general, but in Afikpo, the Igbo part of the country where I'm from - there were always rites of passage for young men. Men were taught to be men in the ways in which we are not women; that's essentially what it is.

I like books that explore identity and youth culture or rites of passage.

The school was meant to set apart, to break bonds that were better off broken, confined to childhood. Sarah and David accepted this as the sort of poignant rite their exceptional lives would require.

The term initiation in the most general sense denotes a body of rites and oral teachings whose purpose is to produce a decisive alteration in the religious and social status of the person to be initiated.

It has often been said that one of the characteristics of the modern world is the disappearance of any meaningful rites of initiation.

The cosmic order is continually troubled, first of all by the Great Serpent, which threatens to reduce the world to chaos, and then by men's crimes, faults, and errors, which must be expiated and purged by the help of various rites.

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'.

For thousands of years, rites of initiation have been teaching spiritual rebirth; yet, strangely enough, man forgets again and again the meaning of divine procreation.

A man's life from birth to death was a series of transition rites which brought him nearer and nearer to his ancestors.

La vida de un hombre desde el nacimiento hasta la muerte era una serie de ritos de paso que le acercaban cada vez más a sus antepasados.

Religious phenomena are naturally arranged in two fundamental categories: beliefs and rites. The first are states of opinion, and consist in representations; the second are determined modes of action.

When many people are killed, they should be mourned and lamented. Those who are victorious in war should follow the rites of funerals.

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

There is no surer sign of decay in a country than to see the rites of religion held in contempt.

The suppression of women's rights began with the suppression of women's rites.

Here was a place sacred to the dead, who were not the living ceased, but almost another species, requiring rites and prayers that belonged uniquely to them.

In their prayers, in their rites, at each salient moment in the passage of a lifetime, they had reminded themselves of their attachment to that Promised Land and the transient nature of their separation from its shores.