Famous quotes containing the words national, holiday and/or observance:
“Our national experience in Americanizing millions of Europeans whose chief wish was to become Americans has been a heady wine which has made us believe, as perhaps no nation before us has ever believed, that, given the slimmest chance, all peoples will pattern themselves upon our model.”
—Ruth Benedict (1887–1948)
“A holiday is when you celebrate something that’s all finished up, that happened a long time ago and now there’s nothing left to celebrate but the dead.”
—Abraham Polonsky (b. 1910)
“Ceremony and ritual spring from our heart of hearts: those who govern us know it well, for they would sooner deny us bread than dare alter the observance of tradition.”
—F. Gonzalez-Crussi, Mexican professor of pathology, author. “On Embalming,” Notes of an Anatomist (1985)