Holidays And Observances

"Dzień pierwszy kwietnia, tak zwany prima aprilis (prima znaczy po łacinie dzień, aprilis — bzdura), jest jedynym dniem w całym roku, kiedy pędzące ku wiośnie żywioły, myśli, słowa i zmysły obchodzą szalony, obłąkany karnawał i korzystając z tradycyjnego przywileju puszczają się na kosmiczne żarty, międzyplanetarne awantury, niespodzianki rozpętanego chaosu i tryumfującą bzdurą zadają na każdym kroku kłam ustalonemu porządkowi rzeczy!"

"The first of April is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year."

"Today, we're here to share an important decision. Our community members have always struggled with English spelling, particularly words spelled with the letter q. So, we will be removing the letter q from the Cambridge Dictionary. words currently spelled with qu will be spelled with k or kw instead - for example, kwiet, ekwipment, and antike. Click the link in the first comment to learn why."

"When you want to fool the world, tell the truth."

"Actually I didn't want to put it on TV. It was sort of a family disgrace, and then my younger brother let it slip that this went on, so the other writers and Jerry said, yeah, "we'd like to give this to America." I said I don't think America wants it at all or should have it, but they prevailed upon me and now the chicken's have come home to roost. … The real symbol of the holiday was a clock my dad put in a bag and nailed to the wall every year … I don't know why, I don't know what it means, he would never tell me. He would always say, "That's not for you to know." So I honestly don’t know what it signifies."

"He was interested in ceremony, ritual, magic and religion … He wanted a holiday mostly that wasn't political or religious in nature, but based on family. … It was very different from the TV holiday … We streamlined it for laughs. … In reality it could happen any damn time of the year, and that's what made it so terrifying."

"In the 13 years since Festivus was introduced on an episode of "Seinfeld," the made-up Dec. 23 "holiday for the rest of us" has moved well beyond the confines of American TV reruns to become globally recognized. While mostly noted today among Americans, Festivus was also inspiring a number of tweets from around the world and for much of the day was a top 10 most-tweeted phrase among tweeters worldwide."

"In its purest form, Festivus is truly the people's holiday, one that they own, unfettered by rules, leaders, miles of wrapping paper, bubble lights and — most of all — the dreaded tinsel. "Festivus is completely flexible. There's no ruling force telling you what to do. Nobody owns it. And, it's cheap," says Allen Salkin, explaining the appeal of a holiday that is intentionally low-key, sarcastic and, well, basically anything else you'd like it to be."

"All I'm saying is, if you celebrate Festivus, you may live a little longer. You are getting back to the essentials, to the days of gods on mountaintops and howling wolves. Because you are saying the holidays are in the heart, a celebration of being alive with our fellow humans. For that purpose, an aluminum pole will do just as well as anything else — as long as it's not stuck in the wrong place."

"For some people the revelation comes too late that life is best kept to the essentials. Some people are given their last rites and that person might say in their last breath, "I should have celebrated Festivus.""

"In the ancient days when gods played their own games, and had their own celebrations, tossing lightning bolts between mountaintops, hurling great boulders — Festivus came out of that. It's a holiday that celebrates being alive at a time when it was hard to be alive. There was no Christ yet, no Yahweh, no Buddha. There were great ruins and raw nature. But there was a kindling spark of hope among men. They celebrated that great thunderous storms hadn't enveloped them in the past year, that landslides hadn't destroyed them. They made wishes that their crops would grow in the fields, that they'd have food the next year and the wild animals wouldn't attack and eat them. There's something pure about Festivus, something primal, raw in the hearts of humans."

"The holiday evolved during the 1970's, when the elder Mr. O'Keefe began doing research for his book "Stolen Lightning" (Vintage 1983), a work of sociology that explores the ways people use cults, astrology and the paranormal as a defense against social pressures. Festivus, with classic rituals like familial gatherings, totemic-but-mysterious objects and respect for ancestors, slouched forth from this milieu. "In the background was Durkheim's Elementary Forms of Religious Life," Mr. O'Keefe recalled, "saying that religion is the unconscious projection of the group. And then the American philosopher Josiah Royce: religion is the worship of the beloved community." If Mr. O'Keefe is the real father of Festivus, Jerry Stiller, the actor who played Frank Costanza, George Costanza's father, is its Santa Claus."

"The actual inventor of Festivus is Dan O'Keefe, 76, whose son Daniel, a writer on "Seinfeld," appropriated a family tradition for the episode. The elder Mr. O'Keefe was stunned to hear that the holiday, which he minted in 1966, is catching on. "Have we accidentally invented a cult?" he wondered. Maybe. To postulate grandly, the rise of Festivus, a bare-bones affair in which even tinsel is forbidden, may mean that Americans are fed up with the commercialism of the December holidays and are yearning for something simpler."

"For this was on seynt Volantynys day Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make."

"Apollo has peeped through the shutter, And awaken'd the witty and fair; The boarding-school belle's in a flutter, The twopenny post's in despair; The breath of the morning is flinging A magic on blossom and spray, And cockneys and sparrows are singing In chorus on Valentine's day."

"Oft have I heard both youths and virgins say, Birds chuse their mates and couple too this day: But by their flight I never can devine When I shall couple with my valentine."

"No popular respect will I omit To do the honour on this happy day, When every loyal lover tasks his wit His simple truth in studious rhymes to pay, And to his mistress dear his hopes convey. Rather thou knowest I would still outrun All calendars with Love's whose date alway Thy bright eyes govern better than the Sun,— For with thy favour was my life begun, And still I reckon on from smiles to smiles, And not by summers, for I thrive on none But those thy cheerful countenance compiles; Oh! if it be to choose and call thee mine, Love, thou art every day my Valentine!"

"Oh, cruel heart! ere these posthumous papers Have met thine eyes, I shall be out of breath; Those cruel eyes, like two funereal tapers, Have only lighted me the way to death. Perchance thou wilt extinguish them in vapours, When I am gone, and green grass covereth Thy lover, lost; but it will be in vain— It will not bring the vital spark again."

"Hail to thy returning festival, old Bishop Valentine! Great is thy name in the rubric, Thou venerable arch flamen of Hymen. * * * Like unto thee, assuredly, there is no other mitred father in the calendar."

"Muse, bid the Morn awake! Sad Winter now declines, Each bird doth choose a mate; This day's Saint Valentine's. For that good bishop's sake Get up and let us see What beauty it shall be That Fortune us assigns."

"On paper curiously shaped Scribblers to-day of every sort, In verses Valentines yclep'd, To Venus chime their annual court. I too will swell the motley throng, And greet the all auspicious day, Whose privilege permits my song My love thus secret to convey."

"The rose is red, the violet's blue The honey's sweet, and so are you. Thou are my love and I am thine; I drew thee to my Valentine. The lot was cast and then I drew; And Fortune said it shou'd be you."

"Hayle Bishop Valentine whose day this is All the Ayre is thy Diocese And all the chirping Queristers And other birds ar thy parishioners Thou marryest every yeare The Lyrick Lark, and the graue whispering Doue, The Sparrow that neglects his life for loue, The houshold bird with the redd stomacher Thou makst the Blackbird speede as soone, As doth the Goldfinch, or the Halcyon The Husband Cock lookes out and soone is spedd And meets his wife, which brings her feather-bed. This day more cheerfully than ever shine This day which might inflame thy selfe old Valentine."

"Saint Valentine is past; Begin these wood-birds but to couple now?"

"To-morrow is Saint Valentine's day, All in the morning betime, And I a maid at your window, To be your Valentine. Then up he rose, and donn'd his clothes, And dupp'd the chamber-door; Let in the maid, that out a maid Never departed more."

"The law of the harvest is to reap more than you sow. Sow an act, and you reap a habit; sow a habit, and you reap a character; sow a character, and you reap a destiny."

"Fancy with prophetic glance Sees the teeming months advance; The field, the forest, green and gay; The dappled slope, the tedded hay; Sees the reddening orchard blow, The Harvest wave, the vintage flow."

"Think, oh, grateful think! How good the God of Harvest is to you; Who pours abundance o'er your flowing fields, While those unhappy partners of your kind Wide-hover round you, like the fowls of heaven, And ask their humble dole."

"And thus of all my harvest-hope I have Nought reaped but a weedye crop of care."

"Who eat their corn while yet 'tis green, At the true harvest can but glean."

"For now, the corn house filled, the harvest home, Th' invited neighbors to the husking come; A frolic scene, where work and mirth and play Unite their charms to cheer the hours away."

"Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."

"I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle. And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in thy sickle, and reap: for the time is come for thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe."

"My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work. Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest. And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal: that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together. And herein is that saying true, One soweth, and another reapeth. I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labour: other men laboured, and ye are entered into their labours."

"The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest. Go your ways: behold, I send you forth as lambs among wolves. Carry neither purse, nor scrip, nor shoes: and salute no man by the way. And into whatsoever house ye enter, first say, Peace be to this house. And if the son of peace be there, your peace shall rest upon it: if not, it shall turn to you again."

"Take heed what ye hear: with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you: and unto you that hear shall more be given. For he that hath, to him shall be given: and he that hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he hath. And he said, So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground; And should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how. For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear. But when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come."

"The servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares? He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn."

"The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few; Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest."

"In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand."

"He that observeth the wind shall not sow; and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap."

"Art is recuperation from time. I lie back convalescing upon the prospect of a harvest already at hand."

"To glean the broken ears after the man That the main harvest reaps."

"Friends, the soil is poor, we must sow seeds in plenty for us to garner even modest harvests."

"A harvest is made honorable when it sustains the giver as well as the taker."

"The teachings tell us that a harvest is made honorable by what you give in return for what you take."

"Holy Enten … made appear radiant as a beautiful maiden. The harvest, the great festival of Enlil, rose heavenward."

"Those have a short Lent, who owe money to be paid at Easter."

"The resurrection gives my life meaning and direction and the opportunity to start over no matter what my circumstances."

"Now let the heavens be joyful, Let earth her song begin; Let the round world keep triumph, And all that is therein; Invisible and visible, Their notes let all things blend, For Christ the Lord is risen Our joy that hath no end."

"Easter is the demonstration of God that life is essentially spiritual and timeless."