Swaddling Quotes & Sayings

The questioning spirit is the rebellious spirit. A rebellion is always either a cloak to hide a prince, or the swaddling wrapper of a new rule. — Honore De Balzac

Kings are for nations in their swaddling-clothes: France has attained her majority. — Victor Hugo

If we approach with faith, we too will see Jesus ... for the Eucharistic table takes the place of the crib. Here the Body of the Lord is present, wrapped not in swaddling clothes but in the rays of the Holy Spirit. — Saint John Chrysostom

Mary was able to turn a stable into a home for Jesus, with poor swaddling clothes and an abundance of love. She is the handmaid of the Father who sings his praises. She is the friend who is ever concerned that wine not be lacking in our lives. She is the woman whose heart was pierced by a sword and who understands all our pain. — Pope Francis

In many people Christ lives the life of the Host. Our life is a sacramental life.

This Host life is like the Advent life, like the life of the Child in the womb, the Child in the swaddling bands, the Christ in the tomb. It is a life of dependence upon creatures, of silence and secrecy, of hidden light. It is the life of a prisoner. — Caryll Houselander

My age fallen away like white swaddling
Floats in the middle distance, becomes
An inhabited cloud. — Philip Larkin

The cave floor rumbled. A large stone emerged from the dirt-a smooth, oval rock exactly the same size and weight as a baby god ... She wrapped the stone in swaddling clothes and gave the real baby Zeus to the nymphs to take care of ... She marched right up to King Cannibal and shouted, This is the best baby yet! A fine little boy named, uh, Rocky! — Rick Riordan

The shepherds were invited to come and see. They saw. They trembled. They testified. They rejoiced. They saw Him wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger, the Prince of Peace ...
"At this Christmas season I extend to you the gift of determination to come and see ...
"A young man in deep trouble and despair said to me recently, 'It's all right for others to have a merry Christmas, but not me. It's no use. It's too late.'
" ... We can stay away and complain. We can stay away and nurse our sorrows. We can stay away and pity ourselves. We can stay away and find fault. We can stay away and become bitter.
"Or we can come and see! We can come and see and know! — Marvin J. Ashton

Our life is a faint tracing on the surface of mystery, like the idle curved tunnels of leaf miners on the face of a leaf. We must somehow take a wider view, look at the whole landscape, really see it, and describe what's going on here. Then we can at least wail the right question into the swaddling band of darkness, or, if it comes to that, choir the proper praise. — Annie Dillard

The Bible became a jewel in the hands of the Reformers not because it was a "handbook for happy living" or a "primer of metaphysics about God," but because in it the Christian possessed the "the swaddling clothes in which Christ lies."85 — Matthew Barrett

In Britain, where the social safety net is more like a social swaddling cloth, crime rates other than murder are significantly higher than in the United States. — Ben Shapiro

Humanity cherishes its swaddling clothes; but it shall not grow up unless it can free itself from them. Turning down his mother's breast does not make the weaned child ungrateful ... Rise up naked, valiant; make the sheaths crack; push aside the stakes; to grow straight you need no more than the thrust of your sap and the call of the sun. — Andre Gide

nurse woke me at 4:30 a.m. on November 1, 1962, to announce the messiah had been wrapped in swaddling and was christened Anthony Kiedis. — Blackie Dammett

It's a secondhand world we're born into. What is novel to us is only so because we're newborn, and what we cannot see, that has come before- what our parents have seen and been and done- are the hand-me-downs we begin to wear as swaddling clothes, even as we ourselves are naked. The flaw runs through us, implicating us in its imperfection even as it separates us, delivers us onto opposite sides of a chasm. It is both terribly beautiful and terribly sad, but it is, finally, the fault in the universe that gives birth to us all. — Katherine Min

Think of it, half the race is over, and I still stand here at the starting line - me, the first one out of his swaddling clothes and into his track suit! a hundred and fifty-eight points of I.Q., and still arguing with the authorities about the rules and regulations! disputing the course to be run! calling into question the legitimacy of the track commission! — Philip Roth

6And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. 7And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. — Anonymous

Still other winters average their rain months into a long, cold season of relentless sog and little color. At such times, looking out through the spattered glass, I feel, deep in some spongy, unignorable organ, that we will have floods, and damage, and losses; we will have gray till the cows come home, and there will be no more cows
they'll all just rot, drown, or simply wash away. We will have rain until the very hills dissolve. And when the dirty cotton swaddling of fog finally falls away, we will all be desperate for vital signs. — Robert Michael Pyle

I actually enjoyed changing diapers and I enjoyed swaddling. I don't mind being swaddled either, on occasion. — Jason Bateman

No worldly mind would ever have suspected that He Who could make the sun warm the earth would one day have need of an ox and an ass to warm Him with their breath; that He Who, in the language of Scriptures, could stop the turning about of Arcturus would have His birthplace dictated by an imperial census; that He, Who clothed the fields with grass, would Himself be naked; that He, from Whose hands came planets and worlds, would one day have tiny arms that were not long enough to touch the huge heads of the cattle; that the feet which trod the everlasting hills would one day be too weak to walk; that the Eternal Word would be dumb; that Omnipotence would be wrapped in swaddling clothes; that Salvation would lie in a manger; that the bird which built the nest would be hatched therein - no one would ever have suspected that God coming to this earth would ever be so helpless. And that is precisely why so many miss Him. Divinity is always where one least expects to find it. — Fulton J. Sheen

Our wisdom is slavish prejudice, our customs consist in control,
constraint, compulsion. Civilised man is born and dies a slave.
The infant is bound up in swaddling clothes, the corpse is nailed
down in his coffin. All his life long man is imprisoned by our
institutions. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

And she brought forth her firstborn son, wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn.
Luke 2:7 — Anonymous

All our wisdom consists in servile prejudices. All our practices are only subjection, impediment, and constraint. Civil man is born, lives, and dies in slavery. At his birth he is sewed in swaddling clothes; at his death he is nailed in a coffin. So long as he keeps his human shape, he is enchained by our institutions. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

I reached out and touched a tiny pink toe that peeked from Kaden's swaddling shirt. "He's beautiful," I said. "How are you feeling?"
"Well enough," she answered, rolling her eyes, "considering I just paraded my lady parts to a killer barbarian." She sighed. "But I suppose, compared to what you've been through, it's a small indignity to bear. — Mary E. Pearson

Since God has descended to us in swaddling clothes and in hanging on a cross, we should not consider any calling menial or unimportant. When Christ - the God of the universe - wrapped a towel around his waist to wash his disciples' feet, Calvin observes, he dignified the humblest callings. No one and no service is "beneath us" if it benefits others. — Michael S. Horton

Let us not flutter too high, but remain by the manger and the swaddling clothes of Christ, 'in whom dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.' — Martin Luther

According to St. Augustine, the left hand represented the temporal, the mortal, and the bodily, as opposed to the right, which stood for "God, eternity, the years of God which fail not."25 For centuries the preference for the right hand over the left governed how people fished, ploughed fields, twisted rope, and ate their meals. The Greeks and Romans, for example, always reclined on the left side, propped on the left elbow, leaving the right hand free for the business of eating and drinking. Plutarch noted that parents taught children to eat right-handed from a young age, and "if they do put forth the left hand, at once we correct them."26 The prejudice against the left hand persisted during the Renaissance, with parents freeing a child's right hand from its swaddling clothes to ensure right-handedness at the dinner table as well as at the writing desk. — Ross King

On the spur of the moment she decided to go and view the blossoms by herself in the dark night. It was a strange decision for a timid and unadventurous young woman, but then she was in a strange state of mind and she dreaded the return home. That evening all sorts of unsettling fancies had burst open in her mind.
("Swaddling Clothes") — Yukio Mishima

1And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2aThis census first took place while Quirinius was governing Syria. 3So all went to be registered, everyone to his own city. 4Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, to bthe city of David, which is called Bethlehem, cbecause he was of the house and lineage of David, 5to be registered with Mary, dhis betrothed 1wife, who was with child. 6So it was, that while they were there, the days were completed for her to be delivered. 7And eshe brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a 2manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. — Anonymous

Struggling in my father's hands,
Striving against my swaddling bands,
Bound and weary, I thought best
To sulk upon my mother's breast. — William Blake

She could walk through a lightning storm without being touched; grab a bolt of lightning in the palm of her hand; use the heat of lightning to start the kindling going under her medicine pot. She turned the moon into salve, the stars into swaddling cloth, and healed the wounds of every creature walking up on two or down on four. — Gloria Naylor