Quotes about celebration
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“Fiction is art and art is the triumph over chaos… to celebrate a world that lies spread out around us like a bewildering and stupendous dream.”

John Cheever (1912–1982) American novelist and short story writer

World, Dreams, Art

“I thought we were celebrating being richer and cleverer than everyone else!”

Scott Lynch The Lies of Locke Lamora

Variant: To us — richer and cleverer than everyone else!
Source: The Lies of Locke Lamora

“Americans no longer talk to each other, they entertain each other. They do not exchange ideas, they exchange images. They do not argue with propositions; they argue with good looks, celebrities and commercials.”

Neil Postman (1931–2003) American writer and academic

Source: Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

Idea

“Show me a god that does not demand mortal suffering.
Show me a god that celebrates diversity, a celebration that embraces even non-believers, and is not threatened by them.
Show me a god that understands the meaning of peace. In life, not in death.”

Steven Erikson book The Bonehunters

Source: The Bonehunters

Life, Death, God, Peace

“We're consumers. We are by-products of a lifestyle obsession. Murder, crime, poverty, these things don't concern me. What concerns me are celebrity magazines, television with 500 channels, some guy's name on my underwear. Rogaine, Viagra, Olestra…”

Chuck Palahniuk (1962) American novelist, essayist

Guy

“A pastor friend of mine said, "Our problem is that we no longer have martyrs. We only have celebrities.”

Shane Claiborne (1975) American activist

Problem

“I used to think that humor was the only way to appreciate how wonderful and terrible the world is, to celebrate how big life is. But now I think the opposite. Humor is a way of shrinking from that wonderful and terrible world.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Everything Is Illuminated

Source: Everything Is Illuminated (2002)

Life, World, Way, Thinking

“Think, Travel, Celebrate, Charm, Decorate, Dress, Live - colorfully”

Kate Spade (1962–2018) American fashion designer

Source: Becoming Myself: Reflections on Growing Up Female

Travel, Thinking

“So Aphrodite married Hephaestus and the celebrity ship Aphrophaestus completely dominated Olympian tabloid news for like a thousand years. Did they live happily ever after? HAHAHAHAHA. No.”

Rick Riordan (1964) American writer

Source: Percy Jackson's Greek Gods

“To live is to change, to acquire the words of a story, and that is the only celebration we mortals really know.”

Barbara Kingsolver The Poisonwood Bible

Source: The Poisonwood Bible

Change

“There are good sailors. Well, some good sailors. In a way they are ideal as husbands. They drop in every six months for a wild celebration, then they drop out again before one gets bored with their company or annoyed with by their habits.”

Kerry Greenwood (1954) Australian crime writer

Source: Queen of the Flowers

Way

“Claim your space. Draw a circle of light around it. Push back against the dark. Don't just survive. Celebrate.”

Charles Frazier (1950) American writer

Source: Nightwoods

Light, Drawing

“I celebrated Thanksgiving in an old-fashioned way. I invited everyone in my neighborhood to my house, we had an enormous feast, and then I killed them and took their land.”

Jon Stewart (1962) American political satirist, writer, television host, actor, media critic and stand-up comedian

Way, Fashion, Housing

“It is good to dress in fair clothes to dine with friends. It honors your host, if you are a guest; and your guest if you are a host. And both adorn the feast, and so celebrate the gifts of the world.”

Alison Croggon (1962) contemporary Australian poet, playwright and fantasy novelist

World, Clothes

“my youth,
one time,
that time
I knew
even through the
nothingness,
it was a
celebration
of something not to
do
but only
know.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Youth, Time

“The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate.”

Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist

Birthday, For Wife, Motivational, Deep

“Everybody wants to talk about themselves, and everybody wants to hear everybody else's story, so we take turns playing reporter and celebrity.”

Ryū Murakami (1952) Japanese writer

“I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.”

Walt Whitman book Fulles d'herba

Source: Leaves of Grass

Singing

“We looked at the sky. So many stars, it seemed like a celebration, a grand, illicit party the galaxy was holding after the humans had been put to bed.”

E. Lockhart book We Were Liars

Source: We Were Liars

Star

“Why do people give each other flowers? To celebrate various important occasions, they’re killing living creatures? Why restrict it to plants? 'Sweetheart, let’s make up. Have this deceased squirrel.”

Jerry Seinfeld (1954) American comedian and actor

People, Flowers

“Calories don’t count if they’re connected to a celebration. Everyone knows this.”

Janet Evanovich Hard Eight

Source: Hard Eight

“Listen. To live is to be marked. To live is to change, to acquire the words of a story, and that is the only celebration we mortals really know. In perfect stillness, frankly, I've only found sorrow.”

Barbara Kingsolver The Poisonwood Bible

Source: The Poisonwood Bible

Change, Perfection

“Life is what you celebrate. All of it. Even its end.”

Joanne Harris book Chocolat

Source: Chocolat

Life

“A wedding anniversary is the celebration of love, trust, partnership, tolerance and tenacity. The order varies for any given year.”

Paul Sweeney (1989) Scottish politician

Anniversary, Wedding, Love, Wedding

“Death should be a celebration. Like a birthday. I want to go up like a rocket when my time comes, and fall down in a cloud of stars, and hear everyone go: ahh!”

Joanne Harris (1964) British author

Death, Star, Birthday, Time

“Once upon a time, when women were birds, there was the simple understanding that to sing at dawn and to sing at dusk was to heal the world through joy. The birds still remember what we have forgotten, that the world is meant to be celebrated.”

Terry Tempest Williams (1955) American writer

Source: When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice

Women, World, Understanding, Bird

“I like to know what I'm celebrating before I put on a party hat.”

Margaret Peterson Haddix book Into the Gauntlet

Source: Into the Gauntlet

“the strange ideas we derive today will one day be our celebrated truths”

Dan Brown book The Lost Symbol

Source: The Lost Symbol

Truth, Idea

“He showed the words “chocolate cake” to a group of Americans and recorded their word associations. “Guilt” was the top response. If that strikes you as unexceptional, consider the response of French eaters to the same prompt: “celebration.”

Michael Pollan (1955) American author, journalist, activist, and professor of journalism

Source: In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto

“Readers understand that the books celebrate female power. In the romance novel, the woman always wins. With courage, intelligence and gentleness she brings the most dangerous creature on the earth, the human male, to his knees.”

Jayne Ann Krentz (1948) American novelist

Books, Intelligence, Courage, Understanding

“Forget all the rules. Forget about being published. Write for yourself and celebrate writing.”

Melinda Haynes (1955) American writer

Forgetting

“I guess this means that our conflict is finally over. Perhaps we should celebrate." – Saint Dane
Perhaps you should bite me." Bobby”

D.J. MacHale (1955) American television director and producer

“So you're made of detritus [from exploded stars]. Get over it. Or better yet, celebrate it. After all, what nobler thought can one cherish than that the universe lives within us all?”

Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958) American astrophysicist and science communicator

Source: Death by Black Hole - And Other Cosmic Quandaries

Star, Universe

“Is Hopper celebrating with you?”

“Hopper? Why would—” My mouth snapped shut for a few moments. “Oh. I, uh, kind of forgot about him.”

Richelle Mead book The Fiery Heart

Source: The Fiery Heart

“It is love and friendship, the sanctity and celebration of our relationships, that not only support a good life, but create one. Through friendships, we spark and inspire one another's ambitions.”

Wallace Stegner book Crossing to Safety

Source: Crossing to Safety

Love, Life, Friendship, Support

“What you applaud you encourage, but beware what you celebrate…”

Ravi Zacharias (1946) Indian philosopher

“Fever jumped aside just in time to dodge the shower of urine, and stumbled into the path of a religious procession - celebrants in robes and pointed hats whirling and clapping and chanting the name of some old-world prophet”

Philip Reeve book Fever Crumb

Source: Fever Crumb

World, Time

“Without sound, celebration and grief look nearly the same.”

Ben Marcus (1967) American writer

Source: The Flame Alphabet

“I am not unique in my elegiac sadness at watching reading die, in the era that celebrates Stephen King and J. K. Rowling rather than Charles Dickens and Lewis Carroll.”

Harold Bloom (1930–2019) American literary critic and scholar

Sadness, Reading

“This is where you and I are headed…. Look for us in history books and you'll find us in the margins. Look for us in legends and you might just find us celebrated”

Scott Lynch (1978) American writer

Books, History

“Scientists have invented a new strain of cannabis without the high. They celebrated with non-alcoholic beer and furious dry-humping.”

Stephen Colbert (1964) American political satirist, writer, comedian, television host, and actor

Alcohol, Beer

“The bards sing of love, they celebrate slaughter, they extol kings and flatter queens, but were I a poet I would write in praise of friendship.”

Bernard Cornwell book The Winter King

Source: The Winter King

Love, Friendship, Singing

“History, if it has taught us anything at all, has taught us that the strange ideas we deride today will one day be our celebrated truths.”

Dan Brown book The Lost Symbol

Source: The Lost Symbol

Truth, History, Idea

“Celebrity is the chastisement of merit and the punishment of talent.”

Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) American poet

“Grief was the celebration of love, those who could feel real grief were lucky to have loved.”

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie book Half of a Yellow Sun

Source: Half of a Yellow Sun

Love, Feeling

“That's what falling in love really amounted to, your brain on drugs. Adrenaline and dopamine, oxytocin and serotonin. Chemical insanity, celebrated by poets.”

Tess Gerritsen (1953) Chinese-American novelist

Source: Last to Die

Love

“Put yourself in a state of mind where you say to yourself, 'Here is an opportunity for me to celebrate like never before, my own power, my own ability to get myself to do whatever is necessary.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

Attitude

“The one I wore to kill Jabba (my favorite moment in my own personal film history), which I highly recommend your doing: find an equivalent of killing a giant space slug in your head and celebrate that.”

Carrie Fisher book The Princess Diarist

Source: The Princess Diarist

History, Personality

“The nice thing about being a celebrity is that if you bore people they think it's their fault.”

Henry Kissinger (1923–2023) United States Secretary of State

People, Thinking

“How important it is for us to recognize and celebrate our heroes and she-roes!”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

Source: Kabir, Hajara Muhammad (2010). Northern women development. [Nigeria]. ISBN 978-978-906-469-4. OCLC 890820657.

“The love between a writer and a reader is never celebrated.”

Patricia Duncker book Hallucinating Foucault

Source: Hallucinating Foucault

Love

“Wednesdays were the best thing about Atlantis. The middle of the week was a traditional holiday there. Everyone stopped work and celebrated the fact that half the week was over.”

Walter Moers The 13½ Lives of Captain Bluebear

Source: The 13½ Lives of Captain Bluebear

Holiday

“I am a lover of truth, a worshipper of freedom, a celebrant at the altar of language and purity and tolerance.”

Stephen Fry (1957) English comedian, actor, writer, presenter, and activist

"Trefusis Blasphemes" radio broadcast, as published in Paperweight (1993)
1990s
Context: I am a lover of truth, a worshipper of freedom, a celebrant at the altar of language and purity and tolerance. That is my religion, and every day I am sorely, grossly, heinously and deeply offended, wounded, mortified and injured by a thousand different blasphemies against it. When the fundamental canons of truth, honesty, compassion and decency are hourly assaulted by fatuous bishops, pompous, illiberal and ignorant priests, politicians and prelates, sanctimonious censors, self-appointed moralists and busy-bodies, what recourse of ancient laws have I? None whatever. Nor would I ask for any. For unlike these blistering imbeciles my belief in my religion is strong and I know that lies will always fail and indecency and intolerance will always perish.

Truth, Lovers, Freedom

“A person's birthday should be a special day, a wonderful day, a day of pure celebration for the luck of being born!”

Elise Broach Masterpiece

Source: Masterpiece

Birthday, Personality

“In India we celebrate the commonality of major differences; we are a land of belonging rather than of blood.”

Shashi Tharoor (1956) Indian politician, diplomat, author

"The Shashi Tharoor column: The creation of India," 2001

“… all his faces were designed to express rage or loathing. Now that something had happened which really deserved a face, he had none to celebrate it with. As a kind of token, he made his Sex Life in Ancient Rome face.”

Kingsley Amis book Lucky Jim

Source: Lucky Jim

Life, Sex, Rage

“For it is my opinion that we enclose and celebrate the freaks of our nation and our civilization. Yellowstone National Park is no more representative of America than is Disneyland.”

John Steinbeck book Travels with Charley: In Search of America

Source: Travels with Charley: In Search of America

“Think of the magic of the foot, comparatively small, upon which your whole weight rests. It's a miracle and the dance is a celebration of that miracle.”

Martha Graham (1894–1991) American dancer and choreographer

Thinking, Dance

“To be ignorant of the lives of the most celebrated men of antiquity is to continue in a state of childhood all our days”

Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

Men, Childhood

“As for one-party rule, it was questioned neither by the Left Opposition nor by the Right [wing of the Communist party]. All were prisoners of their own doctrine and their own past: all had worked with a will to create the apparatus of violence that crushed them. Bukharin’ s hopeless attempt to form a league with Kamenev was no more than a pitiful epilogue to his career. In November 1929 the deviationists performed a public act of penance, but even this did not save them. Stalin’ s victory was complete; the collapse of the Bukharinite opposition meant the triumph of autocracy in the party and in the country. In December 1929 Stalin’ s fiftieth birthday was celebrated as a major historical event, and from this point we may date the "cult of personality". Trotsky’ s prophecy of 1903 had come true: party rule had become Central Committee rule, and this in turn had becorne the personal tyranny of a dictator.”

Leszek Kolakowski (1927–2009) Philosopher, historian of ideas

Source: Main Currents Of Marxism (1978), Three Volume edition, Volume III: The Breakdown, pp. 42-3

Birthday, Question, Past, Victory

“In these facts we discover the cause of the popular discontent and outbreaks which have so frequently threatened the stability of the British throne and the peace of the English people. As early as 1770 Lord Chatham said, 'By the end of this century, either the Parliament must be reformed from within, or it will be reformed with a vengeance from without.' The disastrous failure of Republicanism in France delayed the fulfillment of his prophecy; but when, in 1832, the people were on the verge of revolt, the government was reluctantly compelled to pass the celebrated Reform Bill, which has taken its place in English history beside Magna Charta and the Bill of Rights. It equalized the basis of representation, and extended the suffrage to the middle class; and though the property qualification practically excluded the workingman, a great step upward had been taken, a concession had been made which must be followed by others. The struggle is again going on. Its omens are not doubtful. The great storm through which American liberty has just passed gave a temporary triumph to the enemies of popular right in England. But our recent glorious triumph is the signal of disaster to tyranny, and victory for the people. The liberal party in England are jubilant, and will never rest until the ballot, that 'silent vindicator of liberty', is in the hand of the workingman, and the temple of English liberty rests on the broad foundation of popular suffrage. Let us learn from this, that suffrage and safety, like liberty and union, are one and inseparable.”

James A. Garfield (1831–1881) American politician, 20th President of the United States (in office in 1881)

1860s, Oration at Ravenna, Ohio (1865)

People, Peace, History, Failure

“We celebrate who we are although we come from different communities. We are one nation, one people. We have differences and these cause problems and tension at times but we are not on the brink of inter ethnic strife.”

Joni Madraiwiwi (1957–2016) Fijian politician

Opening address, Fiji Week celebrations, 7 October 2005.

People, Communication, Problem, Time

“The brave and faithful people of Iran too have many questions and grievances, including: the coup d’etat of 1953 and the subsequent toppling of the legal government of the day, opposition to the Islamic revolution, transformation of an Embassy into a headquarters supporting the activities of those opposing the Islamic Republic (many thousands of pages of documents corroborate this claim), support for Saddam in the war waged against Iran, the shooting down of the Iranian passenger plane, freezing the assets of the Iranian nation, increasing threats, anger and displeasure vis-à-vis the scientific and nuclear progress of the Iranian nation (just when all Iranians are jubilant and celebrating their country’s progress), and many other grievances that I will not refer to in this letter.”

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (1956) 6th President of the Islamic Republic of Iran

Paragraph 23
2006, Letter to George W. Bush, 2006

War, People, Faith, Question

“The reputation of a Don Juan gives to a man the most dangerous power. Wise virgins resist it, but foolish virgins frequently yield to the desire to take a celebrated lover from a rival - even from a friend. This emotion is a complex one, mad up of vanity, respect for another woman's taste, and the need to establish self-assurance by winning a difficult victory. Don Juan chose his first mistresses; later he was chosen. Byron said that he had been raped oftener than anyone since the Trojan War.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Loving

War, Lovers, Victory, Madness

“I am an actively heterosexual woman who celebrates however people want to express their sexuality.”

Gillian Anderson (1968) American-British film, television and theatre actress, activist and writer

On having liberal approach about sex — Evening Standard "Gillian Anderson: Self destruction is my default mode" http://www.standard.co.uk/showbiz/celebrity-news/gillian-anderson-self-destruction-is-my-default-mode-9897489.html/ (December 2, 2014) 2010s

People

“Lying down to sleep on the earthen riverbank, I thought, Vrindavan is attracting my heart like no other place. What is happening to me? Please reveal Your divine will. With this prayer, I drifted off to sleep.
Before dawn, I awoke to the ringing of temple bells, signaling that it was time to begin my journey to Hardwar. But my body lay there like a corpse. Gasping in pain, I couldn’t move. A blazing fever consumed me from within, and under the spell of unbearable nausea, my stomach churned. Like a hostage, I lay on that riverbank. As the sun rose, celebrating a new day, I felt my life force sinking. Death that morning would have been a welcome relief. Hours passed.
At noon, I still lay there. This fever will surely kill me, I thought.
Just when I felt it couldn’t get any worse, I saw in the overcast sky something that chilled my heart. Vultures circled above, their keen sights focused on me. It seemed the fever was cooking me for their lunch, and they were just waiting until I was well done. They hovered lower and lower. One swooped to the ground, a huge black and white bird with a long, curving neck and sloping beak. It stared, sizing up my condition, then jabbed its pointed beak into my ribcage. My body recoiled, my mind screamed, and my eyes stared back at my assailant, seeking pity. The vulture flapped its gigantic wings and rejoined its fellow predators circling above. On the damp soil, I gazed up at the birds as they soared in impatient circles. Suddenly, my vision blurred and I momentarily blacked out. When I came to, I felt I was burning alive from inside out. Perspiring, trembling, and gagging, I gave up all hope.
Suddenly, I heard footsteps approaching. A local farmer herding his cows noticed me and took pity. Pressing the back of his hand to my forehead, he looked skyward toward the vultures and, understanding my predicament, lifted me onto a bullock cart. As we jostled along the muddy paths, the vultures followed overhead. The farmer entrusted me to a charitable hospital where the attendants placed me in the free ward. Eight beds lined each side of the room. The impoverished and sadhu patients alike occupied all sixteen beds. For hours, I lay unattended in a bed near the entrance. Finally that evening the doctor came and, after performing a series of tests, concluded that I was suffering from severe typhoid fever and dehydration. In a matter-of-fact tone, he said, “You will likely die, but we will try to save your life.””

Radhanath Swami (1950) Gaudiya Vaishnava guru

Republished on The Journey Home website.
The Journey Home: Autobiography of an American Swami (Tulsi Books, 2010)

Life, Death, Pain, Hope

“All big cities are the same now. It used to be easier at weekends. Not anymore, you get the white stretch limos everywhere. You see them at first, you think, "Is it a celebrity or a foreign dignitary?" No, its some slags. No one's sure how many slags, cause the windows are tinted. All you can say with any real degree of accuracy is that there is an indescriminate number of slags in said vehicle. There's at least two poking out the sunroof.”

Marcus Brigstocke (1973) comedian

Live At The Apollo (2006)

Thinking

“Ken also identified the corporation, not “the market,” as the defining institution of modern economic activity, developing these and related themes both in his teaching and in such widely celebrated books as American Capitalism (1952) and The New Industrial State (1967). But his interest in these ideas persisted throughout his life. The central importance of the corporation, and the fear that government was no longer able to provide an adequate countervailing force against corporate influence exerted both legally and otherwise, was the subject of his last book, The Economics of Innocent Fraud”

Amartya Sen (1933) Indian economist

2004
Stephen A. Marglin, Richard Parker, Amartya Sen, and Benjamin M. Friedman, “John Kenneth Galbraith”, Harvard Gazette (February 7, 2008)
2000s

Life, Books, Fear, Idea

“For him no silver cressets shed their light,
No eager joy-bells sounded through the night
From city minster, or from village tower;
No loud "hurrahs," sent from deep-chested men,
Lifted the midnight mist from off the glen
In celebration of his natal hour.”

John Stanyan Bigg (1828–1865) British writer

Ode to the Centenary of Burns http://www.gerald-massey.org.uk/massey/dmc_burns_centenary2.htm#7 (1858)

Men, Light, Joy, Night

“(At Foozie’s birthday party on Friday, April 6, 1997) I got to the celebration early and pretty soon some friends pulled me into a back area and said “Perform something!” and there was this wig and dress lying there. I told them “Well, I don’t do that sort of thing. I don’t dress like a woman…” While they were trying to talk me into it another friend ran in and yelled “Do something and I mean fast! There are over four hundred people out there! You’d better hurry up Foozie!” I was dumbfounded, four hundred people!? So, I thought why not and replied, “That’s Miss Foozie to you!””

Miss Foozie (1960) drag queen

and that’s how it all started. [ Terry Oldes http://www.terryoldes.com/, A Barrel Full of Monkeys – OR – More Baggage Than Ann Miller Brought On the Love Boat, 2008-03-28, 2007-08-14, Starbooks Press http://www.starbookspress.com/, Sarasota, Florida, Foozie, http://www.missfoozie.com/terryoldes.htm] [ Terry Oldes http://www.terryoldes.com/, Miss Foozie, http://www.missfoozie.com/terryoldes.htm, "Foozie" by Terry Oldes, MISS FOOZIE http://www.missfoozie.com/, 2009-03-30]

People, Lying, Birthday

“Jahangir, when a prince, at one time intended demolishing some of the Hindu temples at Banaras but desisted there from on Man Singh's intervention. In his reign conversions to Islam were encouraged, conversions back from Islam to Hinduism were punished. When he visited Kangra, he celebrated the Muslim occupation of the fort by desecrating its famous temple. At Pushkar he broke the image of Varaha and a bull was sacrificed to signify the victory of Islam over idolatry.”

Jahangir (1569–1627) 4th Mughal Emperor

Lal, K. S. (1999). Theory and practice of Muslim state in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 2

Time, Victory

“Instead of celebrating my birthday, it would be my proud privilege if 5 September is observed as Teachers' Day.”

Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1888–1975) Indian philosopher and statesman who was the first Vice President and the second President of India

His suggestion to the students who wanted to commemorate his birthday in: Rupal Jain How to be a Good Teacher http://books.google.co.in/books?id=zNCDF7wm8R4C&pg=PA138, Pustak Mahal, p.138.

Teachers' Day, Birthday, Teachers

“Tomorrow, millions of people will gather with loved ones across Canada and around the world to mark the Christmas holiday.
On this day, Christians reflect on their faith and celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. This occasion inspires families and communities to come together, share what they have, and give back to those less fortunate.
May we take this time to reflect on our many blessings, and remind our loved ones how much they mean to us.
On behalf of the Liberal Party of Canada and our entire Liberal Caucus, Sophie and I wish you all a most joyous holiday season. From my family to yours: merry Christmas.”

Justin Trudeau (1971) 23rd Prime Minister of Canada; eldest son of Pierre Trudeau

Statement by Liberal Party of Canada Leader Justin Trudeau on Christmas http://www.liberal.ca/statement-by-liberal-party-of-canada-leader-justin-trudeau-on-christmas/ (24 December 2014) 2014

Love, People, World, Family

“Rabbi Daniel Lapin: Here's a really blunt question: would the world be a better or a worse place if a billion Muslims became evangelical Christians tomorrow?
Penn: [long pause] Everything else being equal, I think "yes".
Rabbi Daniel Lapin: Then we agree.
Penn: The argument is made by me that the celebration of faith, the glorification of faith, and faith being defined as The Bible kind of does as belief without proof, is not something that I feel is good to celebrate. To answer the question about evil, I always find that evil takes responsibility away. I want to have—whether it’s me or whether it's a criminal—I want to have full responsibility of my mistakes. And I think when you have this image, whether it's the Disney image of devil Pluto and angel Pluto on your shoulders, pulling you one direction or another, I think that idea of evil is an idea that is anti-responsibility.”

Penn Jillette (1955) American magician

The Glenn Beck Program, April 12, 2013. Edited, including omission of some non-germane remarks. YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJk0XFlErTA 2010s

World, Faith, Angels, Feeling

“The Arab world has seen elections before. However, virtually all of them were artificial affairs, their outcomes never in doubt. They were in the end celebrations of one version or another of autocracy, never a repudiation of them. That kind of state-management is not what has just taken place in Iraq. Millions of people actually made choices, and placed claims on those who will lead them in the future. To act upon one's own world like this, and on such a scale, is what politics in the purest sense is all about. It is why we all, once upon a time, became activists. And it is infectious. The taste of freedom is a hard memory to rub out. No wonder the political and intellectual elites of the Arab world are so worried, and no wonder they were so hostile to everything that happened in Iraq since the overthrow of the Saddam regime. They had longed for failure. They trotted out the tired old formulas of anti-Americanism to impart legitimacy to the so-called Iraqi "resistance to American occupation." But the people of Iraq have put an end to all that. En masse, ordinary people took to the streets in the second great Iraqi revolt against the politics of barbarism exemplified by Abu Musab al Zarqawi's immortal words: "We have declared a bitter war against the principle of democracy and all those who seek to enact it."”

Kanan Makiya (1949) American orientalist

"The Shiite Obligation", Wall Street Journal (February 7, 2005)

Hostility, War, People, World

“I was still in Europe at the time. Truman said he had the authority to relieve him and he did it. I have never made up my mind whether he was right or not, but I happened to be with a British unit the night we learned of MacArthur's dismissal. The British had a brigade in Korea at the time and the British officers in the Mess were very anti-MacArthur and celebrating his demise. I think MacArthur was a magnificent general, but he became more and more insulated from the world by his staff, many of whom had been with him since the Bataan days. I think that was part of the problem. He was not a young man at the time of Korea. I think, perhaps, he got too dependent on his staff officers and certain things happened which were not in MacArthur's best interest… Even after MacArthur was relieved by the President of the United States he had a tickertape parade in New York City and he made two great speeches, one to Congress and one about Duty, Honor, Country. The Duty, Honor, Country speech is one of the greatest ever made by a military man, and he made it without a note at the age of seventy-five. I believe Douglas MacArthur in 1945 could have come home and run for president and won going away. He was worshiped at the end of the war.”

George S. Patton IV (1923–2004) U.S. Army general

Source: The Fighting Pattons (1997) by Brian M. Sobel, p. 67

War, Age, World, Home

“Go by reverently, and read with sober care
How a great people, riding with defiant shouts
The centaur of Revolution,
Spurred and whipped to frenzy,
Shook with terror, seeing the mist of the sea
Over the precipice they were nearing,
And fell from his back in precipitate awe
To celebrate the Feast of the Supreme Being.”

Edgar Lee Masters (1868–1950) American writer

" Captain Orlando Killion http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/captain-orlando-killion/'

People, Reading, Sea

“We are here to celebrate secular values, those values which we accept as Americans but have no religious basis: diversity, equality, charity, compassion, and reason, just to name a few.”

David Silverman (1957) American animator and director

“Adjusting my thick glasses and dropping my half-Chinese Austin Powers accent, I futilely try to defend myself (noting there's nothing worse in the world than being screamed at by a bunch of female celebrity impersonators).”

Harmon Leon

An Imposter Impersonator, p. 78.
The American Dream (2008)

World

“I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm a Christian, but you don't need to be in the pew every Sunday to know that there's something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military but our kids can't openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school.”

Rick Perry (1950) 14th and current United States Secretary of Energy

Campaign advertisement, December 2011
2011

School, Christmas, Country

“Forty years ago, when Dylan Thomas read, he spent half the program reciting other poets' work. Hardly a self-effacing man, he was nevertheless humble before his art. Today most readings are celebrations less of poetry than of the author's ego. No wonder the audience for such events usually consists entirely of poets, would-be poets, and friends of the author.”

Dana Gioia (1950) American writer

Essays, Can Poetry Matter? (1991)

Art, Reading

“Friedan: A celebration of women's bodies is all right with me so long as there is no denial of the personhood of women. I suppose sometimes women are sex objects -- and men are too, by the way. It's the definition of women just as sex objects that bothers me. Women can celebrate themselves as sex objects, they can celebrate their own sexuality and can enjoy the sexuality of men as far as I'm concerted. Let's have men centerfolds. [.. ] Playboy's centerfold is fine. It's holding onto your own anachronism and it is not pornographic, though many of my sisters would disagree. It's harmless. […] Playboy strikes me as an odd mixture of sex -- sometimes juvenile --- and forward intellectual thoughts.”

Betty Friedan (1921–2006) American activist

The Playboy Interview (1992)

Women, Men, Sex, Way

“You see, I understand Mr. Khan, that your son and your family are Muslim and Muslims do indeed serve in our armed forces. But in the military I know, we do not celebrate that which divides, but rather that which unites. And what is it that unites us as Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines? It is service above self, commitment to something greater than the individual, and sacrifice for our country and comrades in arms.”

Allen West (politician) (1961) American politician; retired United States Army officer

2010s, Open letter to Khizr M. Khan (31 July 2016)

Family, Understanding, Country

“What is this televisual mastery of Reagan's? It is a celebration of good intentions and unexceptional abilities. His style is one of hammy self-effacement, a wry dismay at his own limited talents and their drastic elevation.”

Martin Amis (1949) Welsh novelist

"Ronald Reagan" (1979)
The Moronic Inferno and Other Visits to America (1986)

“You Westerners simply don't understand the philosophy behind my power. The Iranians think of their sovereign as a father. What you call 'my celebration' was to them the celebration of Iran's father. The monarchy is the cement of our unity. In celebrating our twenty-five hundreth anniversary, all I was doing was celebrating the anniversary of my country, of which I am the father. Now, if to you, a father is inevitably a dictator, that is your problem, not mine.”

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1919–1980) Shah of Iran

As quoted in Gérard de Villiers (1975), The Imperial Shah: An Informal Biography, page 284
Attributed

Understanding, Problem, Thinking, Country

“The whole world was gathered
At the shore of the earth
Holding hands and celebrating
The little girl’s birth.”

Becky Stark (1976) American singer

Hymn composed by Stark, quoted in "North American Songbird" by Zoë Wolff, in The New York Times (3 June 2007) http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/03/fashion/03nite.html?_r=1&ref=fashion

World, Girl, Birth

“It was once said by Abraham Lincoln that this Republic could not long endure half slave and half free; and the same may be said with even more truth of the black citizens of this country. They cannot remain half slave and half free. They must be one thing or the other. And this brings me to consider the alternative now presented between slavery and freedom in this country. From my outlook, I am free to affirm that I see nothing for the negro of the South but a condition of absolute freedom, or of absolute slavery. I see no half-way place for him. One or the other of these conditions is to solve the so-called negro problem. There are forces at work in both of these directions, and for the present that which aims at the re-enslavement of the negro seems to have the advantage. Let it be remembered that the labor of the negro is his only capital. Take this from him, and he dies from starvation. The present mode of obtaining his labor in the South gives the old master-class a complete mastery over him. I showed this in my last annual celebration address, and I need not go into it here. The payment of the negro by orders on stores, where the storekeeper controls price, quality, and quantity, and is subject to no competition, so that the negro must buy there and nowhere else–an arrangement by which the negro never has a dollar to lay by, and can be kept in debt to his employer, year in and year out–puts him completely at the mercy of the old master-class. He who could say to the negro, when a slave, you shall work for me or be whipped to death, can now say to him with equal emphasis, you shall work for me, or I will starve you to death… This is the plain, matter-of-fact, and unexaggerated condition of the plantation negro in the Southern States today.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

Speech http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/the-nations-problem/

Death, Truth, Way, Problem

“They [the true instructors of the people] will accustom children to the vegetable régime. The peoples living on vegetable foods, are, of all men, the handsomest, the most vigorous, the least exposed to diseases and to passions, and they whose lives last longest. Such, in Europe, are a large proportion of the Swiss. The greater part of the peasantry who, in every country, form the most vigorous portion of the people, eat very little flesh-meat. The Russians have multiplied periods of fasting and days of abstinence, from which even the soldiers are not exempt; and yet they resist all kinds of fatigues. The negroes, who undergo so many hard blows in our colonies, live upon manioc, potatoes, and maize alone. The Brahmins of India, who frequently reach the age of one hundred years, eat only vegetable foods. It was from the Pythagorean sect that issued Epaminondas, so celebrated by for his virtues, Archytas, by his genius for mathematics and mechanics; Milo of Crotona, by his strength of body. Pythagoras himself was the finest man of his time, and, without dispute, the most enlightened, since he was the father of philosophy amongst the Greeks. Inasmuch as the non-flesh diet introduces with many virtues and excludes none, it will be well to bring up the young upon it, since it has so happy an influence upon the beauty of the body and upon the tranquillity of the mind. This regimen prolongs childhood, and, by consequence, human life.”

Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre (1737–1814) writer and botanist from France

Vœux d'un solitaire, pour servir de suite aux "Études de la nature", as quoted in The Ethics of Diet by Howard Williams (University of Illinois Press, 2003, p. 175 https://books.google.it/books?id=o9ugCcZ13BMC&pg=PA175)

Life, Men, Children, People

“The dominant mood of contemporary American culture is the self-celebration of the peasantry.”

William A. Henry III (1950–1994) American critic

In Defense of Elitism

Mood

“I love filmmaking when fate is a part of the process and you are dependent on the laws of physics and the elements to get a single moment that transports or in some way creates an illusion even for a moment. I think that is tremendous fun and what I think filmmaking is, catching lightning in a bottle. I feel like we are so used to CGI now and thank god because it is a wonderful tool, but there is an element of everything you are looking at has been created in the comfort of a studio. I want to return to a world where I can celebrate when you are really interacting with the world.”

Larry Fessenden (1963) American actor, producer, writer, director, film editor, and cinematographer

Interview with 'Beneath' director Larry Fessenden https://www.axs.com/interview-with-beneath-director-larry-fessenden-92769 (March 25, 2014)

Love, God, Fate, World

“We meet to celebrate the birthday of America. The coming of a new life always excites our interest. Although we know in the case of the individual that it has been an infinite repetition reaching back beyond our vision, that only makes it the more wonderful. But how our interest and wonder increase when we behold the miracle of the birth of a new nation. It is to pay our tribute of reverence and respect to those who participated in such a mighty event that we annually observe the fourth day of July. Whatever may have been the impression created by the news which went out from this city on that summer day in 1776, there can be no doubt as to the estimate which is now placed upon it. At the end of 150 years the four corners of the earth unite in coming to Philadelphia as to a holy shrine in grateful acknowledgement of a service so great, which a few inspired men here rendered to humanity, that it is still the preeminent support of free government throughout the world.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Speech on the Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence (1926)

Life, Men, World, Birthday

“When you’re a kid, a rural, agriculturally-based colony town is a lot of fun to grow up in. It’s life on a farm, with goats and chickens and fields of wheat and sorghum, harvest celebrations and winter festivals. There’s not an eight- or nine-year-old kid who’s been invented who doesn’t find all of that unspeakably fun. But then you become a teenager and you start thinking about everything you might possibly want to do with your life, and you look at the options available to you. And then all farms, goats and chickens—and all the same people you’ve known all your life and will know all your life—begin to look a little less than optimal for a total life experience. It’s all the same, of course. That’s the point. It’s you who’s changed.”

John Scalzi book Zoe's Tale

Source: Zoe's Tale (2008), Chapter 1 (pp. 27-28)

Life, People, Optimism, Thinking

“Summoning artists to participate
In the august occasions of the state
Seems something artists ought to celebrate.
Today is for my cause a day of days.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

"For John F. Kennedy His Inauguration" (1960), the poem is also known as "Dedication". Frost had planned to read "For John F. Kennedy His Inauguration" at John F. Kennedy's imauguration, but the blinding light from the sun and snow prompted him to recite "The Gift Outright" from memory. Source: Tuten, Nancy Lewis; Zubizarreta, John (2001). The Robert Frost Encyclopedia. Greenwood Publishing Group, ISBN 9780313294648
General sources
Variant: Summoning artists to participate
In the august occasions of the state
Seems something artists ought to celebrate.

“Your culture is different to ours. We're not ready for all this in Brazil because no father would ever take pride in having a gay son. Pride? Happiness? Celebrating if his son turns out gay? No way. Look, you have to have some sort of moral compass bearing in your life. They want to reach our children in order to turn the children into gay adults to satisfy their sexuality in the future. So these are the fundamentalist homosexual groups that are trying to take over society.”

Jair Bolsonaro (1955) Brazilian president elect

Interview to Stephen Fry in October 2013. Jair Bolsonaro provoca polêmica em documentário do ator Stephen Fry sobre homofobia https://vejasp.abril.com.br/blog/pop/jair-bolsonaro-provoca-polemica-em-documentario-do-ator-stephen-fry-sobre-homofobia/. Veja SP (23 October 2013).

Life, Children, Way, Future