Rite Quotes

• Every positive change - every jump to a higher level of energy and awareness - involves a rite of passage. Each time to ascend to a higher rung on the ladder of personal evolution, we must go through a period of discomfort, of initiation. I have never found an exception.

  Dan Millman

  Change, Courage, Energy

  Dan Millman (1992). “No Ordinary Moments: A Peaceful Warrior's Guide to Daily Life”, p.81, H J Kramer

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• The problem for me, still today, is that I write purely with one dramatic structure and that is the rite of passage. I'm not really skilled in any other. Rock and roll itself can be described as music to accompany the rite of passage.

  Pete Townshend

  Writing, Rocks, Rock And Roll

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• KISS, n. A word invented by the poets as a rhyme for "bliss." It is supposed to signify, in a general way, some kind of rite or ceremony appertaining to a good understanding; but the manner of its performance is unknown to this lexicographer.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Kissing, Understanding, Lexicographer

  Ambrose Bierce (2016). “The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World”, p.120, 谷月社

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• My rule of life prescribed as an absolutely sacred rite smoking cigars and also the drinking of alcohol before, after and if need be during all meals and in the intervals between them.

  Winston Churchill

  Drinking, Beer, Funny Sarcastic

  Uttered during a lunch with the Arab leader, Ibn Saud

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• It has always been the prime function of mythology and rite to supply the symbols that carry the human spirit forward.

  Joseph Campbell

  Spirit, Prime, Function

  Joseph Campbell (2008). “The Hero with a Thousand Faces”, p.7, New World Library

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• 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.

  G. I. Gurdjieff

  Book, Hundred, Ceremony

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• As artists and traders in medieval cities began to form organizations, they instituted tough initiation ceremonies. Journeymen in Bergen, Norway, were shoved down a chimney, thrown three times into the sea, and soundly whipped. Such rites made belonging to the guild or corporation more precious to those who were accepted, and survived.

  Isaac Asimov

  Artist, Sea, Cities

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• Lovers can do their amorous rites by their own beauties

  William Shakespeare

  Love, Romantic Romeo And Juliet, Amorous

  William Shakespeare (1853). “The life and beauties of Shakespeare: comprising careful selections from each play, with a general index, digesting them under proper heads”, p.294

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• The real important function of the church is to present the symbol, to perform the rite, to let you behold this divine message in such a way that you are capable of experiencing it. What the relationship of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost to each other might be, in technical terms, is not half important as you, the celebrant, feeling the Virgin Birth within you, the birth of the mystic, mythic being that is your own spiritual life.

  Joseph Campbell

  Spiritual, Father, Real

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• The Roman Pontiffs have always...held that all those rites should be preserved which deviate neither from accuracy in matters of faith, nor from what is fitting.

  Pope Pius IX

  Matter, Fitting, Should

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• Guide them by edicts, keep them in line with punishments, and the common people will stay out of trouble but will have no sense of shame. Guide them by virtue, keep them in line with the rites, and they will, besides having a sense of shame, reform themselves.

  Confucius

  Punishment, People, Reform

  Confucius (1992). “Confucius: The Analects”

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• But there were some things I believed in. Some things I had faith in. And faith isn't about perfect attendance to services, or how much money you put on the little plate. It isn't about going skyclad to the Holy Rites, or meditating each day upon the divine. Faith is about what you do. It's about aspiring to be better and nobler and kinder than you are. It's about making sacrifices for the good of others - even when there's not going to be anyone telling you what a hero you are.

  Jim Butcher

  Hero, Sacrifice, Perfect

  Jim Butcher (2010). “Changes: A Novel of the Dresden Files”, p.167, Penguin

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• Well, Lord Debonair and Lady Lethal, if we can have a minute of your time, we do have a psycho to hunt. (Allen) (Jess glared over his shoulder at Allen, but before he could comment, Syra shot another bolt from her crossbow. Allen went flying and landed flat on his back in the snow. Syra walked over to him and stared down.) I don’t particularly like Squires and I really hate the Blood Rites. So save yourself some pain and don’t speak to me again. (Syra)

  Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Pain, Hate, Blood

  Sherrilyn Kenyon (2010). “Dance With the Devil”, p.193, St. Martin's Paperbacks

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• Who would condescend to strike down the mere things that he does not fear? Who would debase himself to be merely brave, like any common prizefighter? Who would stoop to be fearless--like a tree? Fight the thing that you fear. You remember the old tale of the English clergyman who gave the last rites to the brigand of Sicily, and how on his death-bed the great robber said, 'I can give you no money, but I can give you advice for a lifetime: your thumb on the blade, and strike upwards.' So I say to you, strike upwards, if you strike at the stars.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Stars, Fighting, Giving

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.201, Simon and Schuster

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• Living men are bound by time... Thus, their lives have an urgency. This gives them ambition. Makes them choose those things that are most important, cling more tightly to that which they hold dear. Their lives have seasons, and rites of passage, and consequences. And ultimately, an end. But what of a life with no urgency? What then of ambition? What then of love?

  Seth Grahame-Smith

  Love, Ambition, Men

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• These are used solely for Blood Rites. (Leo) Is that like special ed? (Susan)

  Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Blood, Special, Used

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• I really hate Squires. (Syra) (She pulled another flat bolt out and loaded it, then shot it at Otto. Moving so fast he could hardly be seen, the Squire turned around and caught it without flinching. He held the bolt up to his nose and inhaled it lovingly.) Mmm. Rose. My favorite. (Otto) Perhaps we should leave you two alone. (Jess) Yeah, this does remind me a bit of the mating rites of the mean and the surly. (Allen)

  Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Hate, Moving, Mean

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• Time goes on crutches till love have all his rites.

  William Shakespeare

  Time, Goes On, Crutches

  1598 Claudio. Much Ado About Nothing, act 2, sc.1, l.334-5.

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• Between childhood, boyhood, adolescence & manhood (maturity) there should be sharp lines drawn w/ Tests , deaths, feats, rites stories, songs, & judgements.

  Jim Morrison

  Song, Maturity, Childhood

  "Wilderness".

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• To plot is to live. […] We start out lives in chaos, in babble. As we surge up into the world, we try to devise a shape, a plan. There is dignity in this. Your whole life is a plot, a scheme, a diagram. It is a failed scheme but that's not the point. To plot is to affirm life, to seek shape and control. Even after death, most particularly after death, the search continues. Burial rites are an attempt to complete the scheme, in ritual. Picture a state funeral, Jack. It is all precision, detail, order, design. The nation holds its breath. - (WN 292)

  Don DeLillo

  Order, Design, Funeral

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• Allowing yourself to stop reading a book - at page 25, 50, or even, less frequently, a few chapters from the end - is a rite of passage in a reader's life, the literary equivalent of a bar mitzvah or a communion, the moment at which you look at yourself and announce: Today I am an adult. I can make my own decisions.

  Sara Nelson

  Book, Reading, Decision

  Sara Nelson (2004). “So Many Books, So Little Time: A Year of Passionate Reading”, p.38, Penguin

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• I'm only interested in rites of passage stories.

  Pete Townshend

  Stories, Passages, Rite Of Passage

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• There aren't a lot of opportunities for that rite of passage that makes you a man. War is one of them, and violent sports are another.

  Sylvester Stallone

  Sports, War, Opportunity

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• I think it's sort of a rite of passage for a British actor to try and get the American accent and have a good crack at doing that.

  Orlando Bloom

  Thinking, Trying, Cracks

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• There's a very generous donation in the parish's future if you make this fast. Ten minutes, at the most." Frowning, the man fumbled open his liturgy. "There's an established rite, Your Grace. Marriage must be entered into with solemnity and consideration. I don't know that I can rush--" "Ten minutes. One thousand guineas." The liturgy snapped closed. "Then again, what do a few extra minutes signify to an eternal God?" He beckoned Amelia with a fluttering, papery hand. "Make haste, child. You're about to be married.

  Tessa Dare

  Children, Men, Hands

  Tessa Dare (2010). “One Dance with a Duke”, p.95, Ballantine Books

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