Ritual Quotes - page 3

[T]he centre of interest... lies in natural science and technology because... the sciences of society were first embodied in tradition and ritual and only took shape under the influence and on the model of the natural sciences. (John Desmond Bernal)
There is a single main definition of the object of all magical Ritual. It is the uniting of the Microcosm with the Macrocosm. The Supreme and Complete Ritual is therefore the Invocation of the Holy Guardian Angel or, in the language of Mysticism, Union with God. View quote
Aleister Crowley
But the innermost and actually religious level of Hindu culture is an individual affair. And it could not have been otherwise. Action and ritual may be community affairs, but the basis of real religion is a culture of consciousness, and consciousness is individual. View quote
Koenraad Elst
The object of a ceremony is not to be beautiful, though that is a valuable element. The object of a ceremony is to be ceremonious. Ritual is a need of the human soul - nay, it is rather a need of the human body, like exercise. A man does not take off his hat to a lady because he looks nicer without it; the instance of bald men would be alone sufficient to upset such an explanation. He does it because you must positively do something when you meet a lady, or your whole civilisation goes to pieces; and taking off your hat is easier than taking off your necktie or lying face downwards on the pavement. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
Ritual will always mean throwing away something: destroying our corn or wine upon the altar of our gods. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
I hate writing. I so intensely hate writing - I cannot tell you how much. The moment I am at the end of one project I have the idea that I didn't really succeed in telling what I wanted to tell, that I need a new project - it's an absolute nightmare. But my whole economy of writing is in fact based on an obsessional ritual to avoid the actual act of writing. View quote
Slavoj Žižek
When you're writing‚ you're conjuring. It's a ritual‚ and you need to be brave and respectful and sometimes get out of the way of whatever it is that you're inviting into the room. View quote
Tom Waits
However, Hoover had converted the simple business ritual of reassurance into a major instrument of public policy. View quote
John Kenneth Galbraith
Circumcision is startling, all right, particularly when performed by a garlicked old man upon the glory of a newborn body, but then maybe that's what the Jews had in mind and what makes the act seem quintessentially Jewish and the mark of their reality. Circumcision makes it clear as can be that you are here and not there, that you are out and not in - also that you're mine and not theirs.... Quite convincingly, circumcision gives the lie to the womb-dream of life in the beautiful state of innocent prehistory, the appealing idyll of living "naturally," unencumbered by man-made ritual. To be born is to lose all that. The heavy hand of human values falls upon you right at the start, marking your genitals as its own. View quote
Philip Roth
On questions of taste there is notoriously the widest divergence of opinion./.../ if, from a survival point of view, one taste be as good as another, it is not the varieties in taste which should cause surprise so much as the uniformities. To be sure, the uniformities have often no deep aesthetic roots. They represent /.../ tendencies to agreement, which govern our social ritual, and thereby make social life possible. View quote
Arthur Balfour
TV is not good at covering single events. It needs a ritual, a rhythm, and a pattern...[TV] tends to fosters patterns rather than events. (Marshall McLuhan)
If I wanted a full-scale manifestation, one that was apparent to other people, then I would do a ritual. I have displayed the snake god to other people. Or I have consciously hypnotised them into accepting my psychotic belief system, given them drugs, and made them think they are having the experience I have. Whatever you want. I'm not fussed. View quote
Alan Moore
Going to see Godzilla at the Palais of the Cannes Film Festival is like attending a satanic ritual in St. Peter's Basilica. It's a rebuke to the faith that the building represents. Cannes touchingly adheres to a belief that film can be intelligent, moving and grand. Godzilla is a big, ugly, ungainly device to give teenagers the impression they are seeing a movie. It was the festival's closing film, coming at the end like the horses in a parade, perhaps for the same reason. View quote
Roger Ebert
We decided that my character had a pre-show tradition, like a ritual, which was to sing the lyrics to "I Want You To Want Me" by Cheap Trick into the mirror. Because, more than anything else, as much as he says he's bringing the truth, he just wants to be liked. View quote
Stephen Colbert
The straightening board was created because of warped wood, and the plumb line came into being because of things that are not straight. Rulers are established and ritual and rightness are illuminated because the nature is evil. View quote
Xun Zi
A questioner asks: If human nature is evil, then where do ritual and rightness come from? I reply: ritual and rightness are always created by the conscious activity of the sages. View quote
Xun Zi
A person who is transformed by the instructions of a teacher, devotes himself to study, and abides by ritual and rightness may become a noble person, while one who follows his nature and emotions, is content to give free play to his passions, and abandons ritual and rightness is a lesser person. View quote
Xun Zi
When people lack teachers, their tendencies are not corrected; when they do not have ritual and moral principles, then their lawlessness is not controlled. View quote
Xun Zi
Since the nature of people is bad, to become corrected they must be taught by teachers and to be orderly they must acquire ritual and moral principles. View quote
Xun Zi
Religious ritual invariably offers a sacrificial display of commitment to supernatural agents that is materially costly and emotionally convincing. Such ritual conveys willingness to cooperate with a community of believers by signaling an open-ended promise to help others whenever there is true need. These expensive and sincere displays underscore belief that the gods are always vigilant and will never allow society to suffer those who cheat on their promises. Such a deep devotion to the in-group habitually generates intolerance toward out-groups. This, in turn, leads to constant rivalry and unending development of new and syncretic religious forms. View quote
Scott Atran
Religious ritual survives cultural transmission by embedding episodes of intense, life-defining personal experiences in public performances. These performances involve sequential, socially interactive movement and gesture (chant, dance, murmur, sway) and formulaic utterances that rhythmically synchronize affective states among group members in displays of cooperative commitment. This is often accompanied by sensory pageantry, which further helps to emotionally validate and sustain the moral consensus. (Scott Atran)
Although the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original black box, they still remembered to use stones. View quote
Shirley Jackson
Ritual is necessary for us to know anything. View quote
Ken Kesey
Modern bodybuilding is ritual, religion, sport, art, and science, awash in Western chemistry and mathematics. Defying nature, it surpasses it. View quote
Camille Paglia
Naturally, the little wars were dressed up in ritual and significance. War spear challenge was followed by war dance, and invocation of demons, the one-eyed snake and diverse totems. I bowed to none of these, having seen early the vulgarity and impotence of the tribal pantheon. Generally men create gods in their own image. View quote
Tanith Lee