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Ceremony leads her bigots forth, prepared to fight for shadows of no worth. While truths, on which eternal things depend, can hardly find a single friend. -- William Cowper
A graduation ceremony is an event where the commencement speaker tells thousands of students dressed in identical caps and gowns that 'individuality' is the key to success. -- Robert Orben
Marriage: a ceremony in which rings are put on the finger of the lady and through the nose of the gentleman. -- Herbert Spencer
Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea. -- Henry James
This ceremony and the intellectual aura associated with the Nobel Prizes have grown from the wisdom of a practical chemist who wrote a remarkable will. -- Stanford Moore
Not every religion has to have St. Augustine's attitude to sex. Why even in our culture marriages are celebrated in a church, everyone present knows what is going to happen that night, but that doesn't prevent it being a religious ceremony. -- Ludwig Wittgenstein
Even though I disagree with many of the changes, when I see the privates graduate at the end of the day, when they walk off that drill field at the end of the ceremony, they are still fine privates; outstanding, well motivated privates. -- R. Lee Ermey
In this outward and physical ceremony we attest once again to the inner and spiritual strength of our Nation. As my high school teacher, Miss Julia Coleman, used to say: 'We must adjust to changing times and still hold to unchanging principles.' -- Jimmy Carter
Ceremony is all backbone. -- Thomas Chandler Haliburton
Ceremony is necessary as the outwork and defense of manners. -- Lord Chesterfield
If you're at an award ceremony, you're against your mates. -- Imelda Staunton
Ceremony and great professing renders friendship as much suspect as it does religion. -- William Wycherley
Ceremonies are different in every country, but true politeness is everywhere the same. -- Oliver Goldsmith
Friendship should be surrounded with ceremonies and respects, and not crushed into corners. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
I learned enough Hebrew to stagger through a meaningless ceremony that I scarcely remember. -- David Antin
There is a good reason they call these ceremonies 'commencement exercises'. Graduation is not the end; it's the beginning. -- Orrin Hatch
The ceremony took six minutes. The marriage lasted about the same amount of time though we didn't get a divorce for almost a year. -- Hedy Lamarr
I love Opening Ceremony, Kenzo - anything Humberto Leon and Carol Lim touch. I drool over Christopher Kane, Mary Katrantzou, Delpozo, and Wes Gordon. -- Gillian Jacobs
Those who seek to satisfy the mind of man by hampering it with ceremonies and music and affecting charity and devotion have lost their original nature. -- Zhuangzi
The notion of religious liberty is that you cannot be forced to participate in a religious ceremony that's not of your choosing simply because you're out-voted. -- Ira Glasser
Ceremony keeps up things: 'tis like a penny glass to a rich spirit, or some excellent water; without it the water were spilt, and the spirit lost. -- John Selden
We must learn which ceremonies may be breached occasionally at our convenience and which ones may never be if we are to live pleasantly with our fellow man. -- Amy Vanderbilt
Hearing Mass is the ceremony I most favor during my travels. Church is the only place where someone speaks to me and I do not have to answer back. -- Charles de Gaulle
There was no religious ceremony connected with marriage among us, while on the other hand the relation between man and woman was regarded as in itself mysterious and holy. -- Charles Alexander Eastman
Ceremony forbids us to express by words things that are lawful and natural, and we obey it; reason forbids us to do things unlawful and ill, and nobody obeys it. -- Michel de Montaigne
I do look at fashion, and I love going to Opening Ceremony and seeing what they have. Seeing what Jeremy Scott is doing. And this designer Bernhard Wilhelm. Proenza Schouler. -- Jim Drain
Ceremony is-really a protection, too, in times of emotional involvement, particularly at death. If we have a social formula to guide us and do not have to extemporize, we feel better able to handle life. -- Amy Vanderbilt
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
Few people have ever seriously wished to be exclusively rational. The good life which most desire is a life warmed by passions and touched with that ceremonial grace which is impossible without some affectionate loyalty to traditional form and ceremonies. -- Joseph Wood Krutch
Haiti itself was also photographed, some of the streets, some of the mountains, rivers, streams, etc. were photographed before talking with me about how I felt about Haiti. Then the camera went to our voodoo temple and saw a serious ceremony, a real ceremony. -- Katherine Dunham
The task of an American writer is not to describe the misgivings of a woman taken in adultery as she looks out of a window at the rain but to describe four hundred people under the lights reaching for a foul ball. This is ceremony. -- John Cheever
Before I took the veil, I was ornamented for the ceremony, and was clothed in a rich dress belonging to the Convent, which was used on such occasions; and placed not far from the altar in the chapel, in the view of a number of spectators who had assembled, perhaps about forty. -- Maria Monk
Getting married isn't going to make your relationship better. It's just a ceremony. -- Rob Lowe
There are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea. -- Henry James
I have always thought beach weddings are beautiful. A sunset ceremony with a beautiful sky, white drapes and fire lanterns. -- Ricky Whittle
Even the most understated ceremony involves a certain respect for ritual and pageantry. No one plays more of a significant role than the bride's attendants. -- Vera Wang
If I was courting the Muslim vote, I wouldn't have put establishing the partnership ceremony at the forefront of my first term, would I? I go all around London advocating lesbian and gay rights. -- Ken Livingstone
The yogi offers his labyrinthine human longings to a monotheistic bonfire dedicated to the unparalleled God. This is indeed the true yogic fire ceremony, in which all past and present desires are fuel consumed by love divine. -- Paramahansa Yogananda
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
The prenup needs to be drawn up months before the wedding, not days - it's not something you slap together and sign in the car on the way to the ceremony. A shotgun prenup might not hold up in court. -- Suze Orman
There was once a caustic comment from someone suggesting I was breeding a new race. Fans from different countries have married, amazing things like that. I've been to some of the weddings. I went to one here the other day, a pagan ceremony. -- Terry Pratchett
Before I was an actor I was a break dancer, one of those street performers you see. I guess my introduction into the professional world of performing was a stint as back up dancer for Lionel Richie and I performed at the closing ceremony at the '84 Olympics. -- Cuba Gooding, Jr.
One thing that happens when you're pregnant is that as your stomach starts to stretch. It itches! So I have to keep my belly really lubricated. Every morning, there's a buttering ceremony after I get out of the shower. It's really like basting a turkey with body butter. -- Padma Lakshmi
As a teenager, in my songbook, I used to script what my lighting would be like. I used to dance in my roo;, it was like putting myself in a trance, and making myself feel good about things, almost like a private ceremony of begging people to like you. -- Mika
I was profoundly moved to be the first United Nations Secretary-General to attend the Peace Memorial Ceremony in Hiroshima. I also visited Nagasaki. Sadly, we know the terrible humanitarian consequences from the use of even one weapon. As long as such weapons exist, so, too, will the risks of use and proliferation. -- Ban Ki-moon
The magnificent lobby of the Chrysler Building - faced with rare marbles, aglitter with decorative metalwork, and surmounted by a ceiling painted with a totemic image of the tower itself - leads to elevator cabs inlaid with exotic woods in fanciful patterns. The entire route from street to office is invested with ceremony, dignity, and delight. -- Martin Filler
I'll co-host 'TODAY' from Los Angeles Saturday morning and then make my way up to Merced for that evening's graduation ceremony. I'm still touching up my remarks, but my challenge to the Class of 2010 will be to break through the deafening and too often negative echo chamber of the digital era and become critical and independent thinkers. -- Lester Holt
Brain surgery is a fairly aggressive process. There's a lot to get through. There's the beautiful, delicate shaving first, which is really lovely. There's a wonderful ceremony of putting all the covers on, so only the little bit you're operating on is revealed. But once they make the incision and tear the skin back, the drill comes out. -- James Nesbitt
Funerals are all abstract ceremony. -- Chuck Palahniuk
Truth and ceremony are two things. -- Marcus Aurelius
Gun stripping is the tea ceremony of America. -- Steve Aylett
Friendship cannot live with ceremony, nor without civility. -- E. F. L. Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax
What war has always been is a puberty ceremony. -- Kurt Vonnegut
The opening ceremony was good, although I missed it. -- Graeme Le Saux
Everything is ceremony in the wild garden of childhood. -- Pablo Neruda
A methodology's weight is a product of its size and ceremony. -- Jim Highsmith
An outward observance without any real inward meaning is only a ceremony. -- Alfred Edersheim
How but in custom and in ceremony are innocence and beauty born? -- William Butler Yeats
AT&T to wed T-Mobile. Following the ceremony there will be no reception. -- Richard Lerner
Disobey n:To celebrate with an appropriate ceremony the maturity of a command -- Ambrose Bierce
... I doubt the capacity of the human animal for being dignified in ceremony. -- Virginia Woolf
To dispense with ceremony is the most delicate mode of conferring a compliment -- Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton
Instead of reading vows at the wedding ceremony, they read hacked Sony emails. -- David Letterman
To dispense with ceremony is the most delicate mode of conferring a compliment. -- Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
I treat my relationships like marriages. The ceremony isn't that important to me. -- Charlize Theron
This afternoon, I've arranged for this ceremony to be illuminated by solar power. -- Jimmy Carter
Higher education is the only business that has a ceremony for firing its customers. -- Elliott Masie
Is everybody in? Is everybody in? Is everybody in? The ceremony is about to begin. -- Jim Morrison
The vows one makes privately are more binding than any ceremony or even a Shubert contract. -- Beatrice Lillie
But prices for the opening ceremony and some events' final competition should be a little bit higher. -- Liu Jingmin
The first task of the Magician in every ceremony is therefore to render his Circle absolutely impregnable. -- Aleister Crowley
I believe in ceremony. I think ceremony is important, pomp and circumstance, tradition. I'm into those things. -- Rob Lowe
It was only long after the ceremony that we learned why we got married in the first place. -- Lois Wyse
Millions upon millions will attain your ceremony, but don't think all of them are in a ceremonius mood. -- Michael Bassey Johnson
...then he stretched himself alongside her to smoke a cigarette with all the ceremony of an opium dreamer. -- Anais Nin
Songwriting requires some sort of ceremony to even get the process started, and it can be somewhat arbitrary. -- Andrew Bird
Politics resemble religion; attempting to divest either of ceremony is the most certain mode of bringing either into contempt. -- Oliver Goldsmith
BATH, n. A kind of mystic ceremony substituted for religious worship, with what spiritual efficacy has not been determined. -- Ambrose Bierce
Male circumcision has been practiced for thousands of years and is a deeply important ceremony for two major religions. -- Brad Sherman
I do love the ceremony of putting on a record but I don't have space for a vinyl collection. -- Annie E. Clark
I remember, particularly, a trip to Bosnia where the welcoming ceremony had to be moved inside because of sniper fire. -- Hillary Clinton
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned. -- William Butler Yeats
Divorce is my generation's coming of age ceremony - a ritual scarring that makes anything that happens afterward seem bearable. -- Erica Jong
It was not certain what significance the ceremony held... but the formality was no less sacred for it being unintelligible -- Mervyn Peake
In Japan, you can learn how to make a bunch of flowers. This is an art. Tea ceremony, it's an art. -- Carine Roitfeld
Introduction - a social ceremony invented by the devil for the gratification of his servants and the plaguing of his enemies. -- Ambrose Bierce
Without the tao, Kindness and compassion are replaced by law and justice; Faith and trust are supplanted by ritual and ceremony. -- Laozi
I don't want a Jennifer Lopez wedding or anything like that. A commitment ceremony would be a nice thing to do. -- Elton John
Because Ernest Lawrence's award came in the war years, I had the unusual opportunity of attending his Nobel Prize presentation ceremony. -- Luis Walter Alvarez
We want to infuse our day with good habits so that we can turn seemingly mundane situations into a ceremony of goodness. -- Sakyong Mipham
Although it may be unused, the front door continues to appeal to our sense arrival. Call it the ceremony of coming home. -- Akiko Busch
Fishing should be a ceremony that reaffirms our place in the natural world and helps us resist further estrangement from our origins. -- Thomas McGuane
People generally despise where they flatter, and cringe to those they would gladly overtop; so that truth and ceremony are two things. -- Marcus Aurelius
Today's concrete-pouring ceremony of Chashma-2 marks yet another landmark in Pak-China relations and a milestone in the history of nuclear technology in Pakistan. -- Shaukat Aziz
In the name of religion, we force widowhood upon our three lakh girl-widows who could not understand the import of the marriage ceremony. -- Mahatma Gandhi
Robert Frost's triumph was not being at John Kennedy's inauguration ceremony, but the day when he put the last period on "West-Running Brook. -- Joseph Brodsky
RITE, n. A religious or semi-religious ceremony fixed by law, precept or custom, with the essential oil of sincerity carefully squeezed out of it. -- Ambrose Bierce
I'm for prayer in the schools because ritual and ceremony are calming and civilizing, and the little fartlings should be tamped down whenever possible. -- Florence King
A wedding is a ceremony at which two persons undertake to become one, one undertakes to become nothing, and nothing undertakes to become supportable. -- Ambrose Bierce
These are days you'll remember. If you recall nothing else from your graduation ceremony, remember you heard the New Jersey Governor quote from 10,000 Maniacs. -- Bill Vaughan
The most important thing about Olympics, of course, is the games and not the opening ceremony. It's weird the way it gets inverted sometimes. -- Danny Boyle
We do not create marriage from scratch. Instead, in the elegant language of the marriage ceremony, we 'enter into the holy estate of matrimony. -- Nancy Pearcey
We do not create marriage from scratch. Instead, in the elegant language of the marriage ceremony, we 'enter into the holy estate of matrimony.' -- Nancy Pearcey
I honor most those to whom I show least honor; and where my soul moves with great alacrity, I forget the proper steps of ceremony. -- Michel de Montaigne
Coronation: The ceremony of investing a sovereign with the outward and visible signs of his divine right to be blown skyhigh with a dynamite bomb. -- Ambrose Bierce
The Way of Tea lies in studying the ceremony, in understanding the principles, and in grasping the reality of things. These are its three rules. -- Hosokawa Tadaoki
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I hate the word 'production'. It's a ceremony, a ritual - you should go out of the theatre more human than when you went in. -- Ariane Mnouchkine
If you behave normally, people treat you normally. It's only when you act as if you're someone special that they feel obliged to stand on ceremony. -- Victoria Wood
Graduation day is tough for adults. They go to the ceremony as parents. They come home as contemporaries. After twenty-two years of child-raising, they are unemployed -- Erma Bombeck
But one should pray in one's heart during a sacred ceremony; this is the purpose of the ceremony, to purify the participants both inside and outside. -- Thomas Yellowtail
Politeness requires this thing; decorum that; ceremony has its forms, and fashion its laws, and these must always follow, never the promptings of our own nature. -- Henri Rousseau
For ritual allows those who cannot will themselves out of the secular to perform the spiritual, as dancing allows the tongue-tied man a ceremony of love. -- Andre Dubus
Like a christening, a wedding, a graduation ceremony, a holy war, a revolutioneven?a fireworksdisplay, agaudy promise of what life ought to be, not life itself. -- Alistair Cooke
It was decided by the university of Coimbre that the sight of several persons being slowly burned in great ceremony is an infallible secret for preventing earthquakes. -- Voltaire
An esoteric or enlightened teacher of Buddhism is someone who has the ability to transfer power to another individual. A real empowerment is not just a ceremony. -- Frederick Lindemann, 1st Viscount Cherwell
New York is full of people . . . with a feeling for the tangential adventure, the risky adventure, the interlude that's not likely to end in any double-ring ceremony. -- Joan Didion
I imagined that the priestly ceremony was perfect sanctification, and that the sin of sins was for either husband or wife to be false to that relation. -- Victoria Woodhull
...this initiation ceremony, known as 'signing the Official Secrets Act', has no legal force; everyone is bound by the Act whether they sign the form or not. -- Clive Ponting
A legal or religious ceremony by which two persons of the opposite sex solemnly agree to harass and spy on each other... until death do them join. -- Elbert Hubbard

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