Great Rite Quotes & Sayings

If you look at a column of ants on the march you will see that there are some who are stragglers or have lost their way. The column has no time for them; it goes on. Sometimes the stragglers die. But even this has no effect on the column. There is a little disturbance around the corpse, which is eventually carried off - and then it appears so light. And all the time the great busyness continues, and that apparent sociability, that rite of meeting and greeting which ants travelling in opposite directions, to and from their nest, perform without fail. So — V.S. Naipaul

Biology sets the context, and that is critical, but obesity still boils down to whether a person eats too much or exercises enough. — Robin Marantz Henig

Working with the dying is like being a midwife for this great rite of passage of death. Just as a midwife helps a being take their first breath, you help a being take their last breath. — Ram Dass

And one day, out of Heaven knows what material, he spun the beast a wonderful name, and from that moment it grew into a god and a religion. The Woman indulged in religion once a week at a church near by, and took Conradin with her, but to him the church service was an alien rite in the House of Rimmon. Every Thursday, in the dim and musty silence of the tool-shed, he worshipped with mystic and elaborate ceremonial before the wooden hutch where dwelt Sredni Vashtar, the great ferret. — Jeff VanderMeer

If it is written and read with serious attention, a novel, like a myth or any great work of art, can become an initiation that helps us to make a painful rite of passage from one phase of life, one state of mind, to another. A novel, like a myth, teaches us to see the world differently; it shows us how to look into our own hearts and to see our world from a perspective that goes beyond our own self-interest. — Karen Armstrong

Boys", Buffy hissed through clenched teeth, "being quiet is an important part of sneaking."
"Oh, sorry", Xander said, reducing his voice to a whisper.
"Besides, ritual sacrifice is a religious rite", Giles went on quietly. "They wouldn't sacrifice just anyone at random. It's far more likely they'd suspect you of being a Roman spy scouting for the invasion and just outright kill you".
"Oh great! Great! Way to be encouraging Giles. And I suppose you'll just watch that happen, in your Watchery way. — Alice Henderson

When the great Greek cry breaks into the Latin of the Mass, as old as Christianity itself, it may surprise some to learn that there are a good many people in church who really do say kyrie eleison and mean exactly what they say. But anyhow, they mean what they say rather more than a man who begins a letter with "Dear Sir" means what he says. "Dear" is emphatically a dead word; in that place it has ceased to have any meaning. It is exactly what the Protestants would allege of Popish rites and forms; it is done rapidly, ritually, and without any memory even of the meaning of the rite. When Mr. Jones the solicitor uses it to Mr. Brown the banker, he does not mean that the banker is dear to him, or that his heart is filled with Christian love, even so much as the heart of some poor ignorant Papist listening to the Mass. — G.K. Chesterton

Humans have grown like a cancer. We're the biggest blight on the face of the earth. — Ingrid Newkirk

Maybe before you die, it's your ghosts you see. — Lauren Oliver

For me, therapy is partly translation therapy, the talking cure a second-language cure. My going to a shrink is, among other things, a rite of initiation: initiation into the language of the subculture within which I happen to live, into a way of explaining myself to myself. But gradually, it becomes a project of translating backward.
The way to jump over my Great Divine is to crawl backward over it in English. It's only when I retell my whole story, back to the beginning, and from the beginning onward, in one language, that I can reconcile the voices within me with each other; it is only then that the person who judges the voices and tells the stories begins to emerge. — Eva Hoffman

And when I look back I recognize now that I indeed do come from a large family of artists. Whether they necessarily realize it or not. — E.J. Bonilla

Story of our species ... everyone knows it's coming, but not so soon. — Michael Crichton

General relativity then establishes that objects move toward regions where time elapses more slowly; in a sense, all objects "want" to age as slowly as possible. From an Einsteinian perspective, that explains why an object falls when you let go of it. — Brian Greene

I am sure Lady Russell would like him. He is just Lady Russell's sort. Give him a book, and he will read all day long.'
'Yes, that he will!' exclaimed Mary tauntingly. 'He will sit poring over his book, and not know when a person speaks to him, or when one
drops ones' scissors, or anything that happens. — Jane Austen

Priceless virtues are love, peace, joy, kindness, gentleness, goodness, long-suffering, patience faithfulness and self-control. — Lailah Gifty Akita

These young folks, with that twerking, I thought, just like an old fart. — R.K. Lilley

Self confidence is greatest tool for success. — Lailah Gifty Akita

The toxicity of love coupled with pain can erode even the strongest heart. — Kevin Wilson

Dreams are today's answers to tomorrow's questions. — Edgar Cayce

I love to write. I have always loved writing. That was my first love. — Carol Burnett

I did not go into the film business to be symbolized as someone else's vision of me. — Sidney Poitier

I've always loved watches my whole life. When I was growing up, I always thought of having a great watch as that next step - of making it, of a rite of passage. — James Marsden

I've come to realize there's a world of difference between knowing something happened, even knowing why it happened, and believing it. Because when she cut off contact, yeah, I knew what had happened. But it took me a long, long time to believe it.
Some days, I still don't quite believe it. — Gayle Forman

Every ceremony or rite has a value if it is performed without alteration. A ceremony is a book in which a great deal is written. Anyone who understands can read it. One rite often contains more than a hundred books. — George Gurdjieff