Holidays And Observances

"Federica Mogherini (2019): On World NGO Day, we celebrate the relentless and invaluable role of civil society organisations in protecting and fighting for fundamental human rights, democracy, and sustainable development for all. Their continuous commitment to these fundamental values makes their contributions indispensable to the construction of resilient, inclusive and diverse societies."

"Federica Mogherini (2018): On World NGO Day, we celebrate the outstanding role civil society plays in ensuring that fundamental human rights are respected, that no one is left behind. Marking this day is more important than ever as we are living in difficult times for NGOs and for civil society around the world, and space for the defenders of human rights is shrinking. Civil society organisations are a voice for those who are too often not heard. They have the courage to stand up against injustices, even if sometimes with risks for themselves."

"World NGO Day's intention is to inspire people to become more actively involved within NGO sector and encourage a greater symbiosis between NGOs and both the public and private sector."

"A vibrant and active civil society is an essential part of any strong democracy. Sweden supports civil society actors globally to curb the trend of its shrinking democratic space"

"Encouraging NGOs and authorities relationship of all levels can give an excellent result."

"The efforts of civil society organisations to hold governments accountable, insist on good governance and promote other democratic values across the globe have promoted more cohesion among different peoples in the world."

"Federica Mogherini (2017): Today we celebrate the World NGO Day, we celebrate the key civil society's contribution to public space and their unique ability to give voice to those who would have gone otherwise unheard. A functioning democracy depends on the right of citizens to exercise freely these rights that are safeguards against conflict and instability as they foster open dialogue and debate in society. NGOs are key drivers of development, conflict prevention and sustainable peace in a world so hard hit by conflict and inequality."

"It is only right that, on just one day, the world should celebrate NGOs and thank them for the tremendous work that they do."

"”(..)We strongly support this important initiative establishing it as an official international calendar day – World NGO Day.""

"(..)Working for the United Nations for many years I have seen the huge contribution NGOs have made to further the development, peacebuilding and humanitarian goals of the international community and, most importantly, to the lives of people in need. Personally, I believe that a World NGO day is an excellent opportunity to recognize and celebrate the successes of the sector, and also to provide a focus for new ideas."

"Today is World NGO Day, I want to thank all Latvian NGOs. NGOs are important partners and support to sustainable Latvia’s future."

"NGOs today are important partners in all works of life(..)"

"World NGO Day is becoming an increasingly significant international day every year. In Moscow, we have already more than 30 thousand non-profit organizations, which are becoming more and more important for Moscow. You take care of large families, children left without parents, take care of disabled people, pensioners and veterans, or take care of all people who got into trouble."

"We celebrate World NGO Day, NGOs help to shape our today’s political environment, develop the economy, provide social service, are involved in environmental conservation, take care of our culture and help people."

"We can remember this reality particularly during the time of Lent, to which the liturgy of the Church brings us today. It is a stern time. In this period, divine truths must speak to our hearts with particular forcefulness. We must meet our human experience, our conscience. The first truth, proclaimed today, reminds man of his transience, recalls death, which is for each of us the end of earthly life. Today the Church lays great stress on this truth, confirmed by the history of every man. Remember that “to dust you shall return”. Remember that your life on earth has a limit! But the message of Ash Wednesday does not end here. The whole of today’s liturgy warns: Remember that limit; and at the same time: do not stop at that limit! Death is not only a “natural” necessity. Death is a mystery. Here we enter the particular time in which the whole Church, more than ever, wishes to meditate on death as the mystery of man in Christ."

"On this day, marked by the austere symbol of ashes, we enter the Season of Lent, beginning a spiritual journey that prepares us for celebrating worthily the Easter Mysteries. The blessed ashes imposed upon our forehead are a sign that reminds us of our condition as creatures, that invites us to repent, and to intensify our commitment to convert, to follow the Lord ever more closely."

"Today, the Church is celebrating her dignity as "Mother of the Saints, an image of the Eternal City," and displays her beauty as the immaculate Bride of Christ, source and model of all holiness. She certainly does not lack contentious or even rebellious children, but it is in the Saints that she recognizes her characteristic features and precisely in them savours her deepest joy."

"Yesterday, on All Saints' Day, we dwelt upon "the heavenly city, Jerusalem, our mother." And today, our souls turn again to these last things as we commemorate all the faithful departed, those "who have gone before us marked with the sign of faith and sleep in peace." It's very important for us Christians to live our relationship with the dead in the truth of faith, and to look at death and the afterlife in the light of Revelation."

"Kwanzaa was conceived, created and introduced to the African community as an audacious act of self-determination."

"So have a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Krazy Kwanzaa, a Tip-Top Tet, and a solemn, dignified Ramadan. And now, a word from my god, our sponsor..."

"Just as Hanukkah candles are lighted one by one from a single flame, so the tale of the miracle is passed from one man to another, from one house to another, and to the whole House of Israel throughout the generations."

"The Feast of Lights: Still ours the dance, the feast, the glorious Psalm, The mystic lights of emblem, and the Word. Where is our Judas?Where our-five branched palm? Where are the lion-warriors of the Lord?"

"We thank You also for the miraculous deeds and for the redemption and for the mighty deeds and the saving acts wrought by You, as well as for the wars which You waged for our ancestors in ancient days at this season. In the days of the Hasmonean Mattathias, son of Johanan the high priest, and his sons, when the iniquitous Greco-Syrian kingdom rose up against Your people Israel, to make them forget Your Torah and to turn them away from the ordinances of Your will, then You in your abundant mercy rose up for them in the time of their trouble, pled their cause, executed judgment, avenged their wrong, and delivered the strong into the hands of the weak, the many into the hands of few, the impure into the hands of the pure, the wicked into the hands of the righteous, and insolent ones into the hands of those occupied with Your Torah. Both unto Yourself did you make a great and holy name in Thy world, and unto Your people did You achieve a great deliverance and redemption. Whereupon your children entered the sanctuary of Your house, cleansed Your temple, purified Your sanctuary, kindled lights in Your holy courts, and appointed these eight days of Hanukkah in order to give thanks and praises unto Your holy name.""

"I feel like a spinning top or a Dreidel The spinning don't stop when you leave the cradle You just slow down Round and around this world you go Spinning through the lives of the people you know We all slow down."

"Everyone thinks I'm Jewish. I'm not. Last year I got a call: "Happy Hanukkah." I said "Ma, I'm not Jewish.""

"בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה' אֱ-לֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, שֶׁעָשָׂה נִסִּים לַאֲבוֹתֵֽינוּ בַּיָּמִים הָהֵם בַּזְּמַן הַזֶּה.‬ Barukh Atta Adonay Eloheynu Melekh Ha-olam She-asa Nissim La-avoteynu Ba-yyamim Ha-hem Ba-zzman Ha-zze."

"בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה', אֱ-לֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, אֲשֶׁר קִדְּשָׁנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתָיו, וְצִוָּנוּ לְהַדְלִיק נֵר חֲנֻכָּה. Barukh Atta Adonay Eloheynu Melekh Ha-olam Asher Kiddeshanu Be-mitsvotav Ve-tsivanu Lehadlik Ner Shel khanuka."

"The miracle, of course, was not that the oil for the sacred light in a little cruse - lasted as long as they say; but that the courage of the Maccabees lasted to this day: let that nourish my flickering spirit."

"In the old days, it was not called the Holiday Season; the Christians called it "Christmas" and went to church; the Jews called it "Hanukka" and went to synagogue; the atheists went to parties and drank. People passing each other on the street would say "Merry Christmas!" or "Happy Hanukka!" or (to the atheists) "Look out for the wall!""

"Christmas brings enormous electric bills. Candles are used for Hanukkah. Not only are we spared enormous electric bills, but we get to feel good about not contributing to the energy crisis."

"You can see religion as a battle, a holy war, in which you win a victory for your faith by force or fear. Or you can see it as a candle you light to drive away some of the darkness of the world. The difference is that the first sees other religions as the enemy. The second sees them as other candles, not threatening mine, but adding to the light we share. What Jews remembered from that victory over the Greeks twenty-two centuries ago was not a God of war but the God of light. And it’s only the God of light who can defeat the darkness in the human soul"

"Over time Halloween became an important night for customers, as well; for whereas children of the interwar years constructed their costumes from old clothes in the attic; for or closet and simply blackened their faces with burnt cork or soot, children in the more affluent 1950s and 1960s were more likely to buy Halloween masks and perhaps other articles of their costume from retail stores. By making Halloween consumer-oriented and infantile, civic and industrial promoters hoped to eliminate its anarchic features."

"Halloween in the manner it is today. In the days of homemade costumes, revelers did not draw upon the stock characters from the early horror genre, whether Dracula, Frankenstein's monster, the Mummy, or King Kong. They were more likely to emulate Charlie Chaplin or Mae West than Universal pictures monsters."

"Halloween at the end of the millennium has become a major party night for adults, arguably the most important after New Year’s Eve. An estimated 65 percent of American adults take part in Halloween, beyond, that is, simply handing out candy."

"...the rituals surrounding souling, in which supplicants moved from door to door asking for food in return for a prayer for the dead, bear a resemblance to modern Halloween customs, especially since soulers went from house to house with hallowed-out turnip lanterns, whose candle connoted a soul in purgatory...souling customs offer a clue to the survival of Hallowmass in England after the Protestant Reformation."

"...the Day of the Dead was not so very different from Halloween. Both shared a common European legacy as well as a dynamic fusion of pre-Christian and Christian belief. If this is the case, then their differences may be grounded not only in the peculiarities of that syncretism, but also in the ways the two holidays subsequently developed in the New World...By the time Halloween was transported to North America, its links to the Catholic festival of All Souls’ were attenuated, seriously fractured by the Protestant Reformation."

"Eye of newt, and toe of frog, Wool of bat, and tongue of dog, Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting, Lizard's leg, and owlet's wing,— For a charm of powerful trouble, Like a hell-broth boil and bubble. Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and caldron bubble."

"It is as if French society were looking for a kind of civil religion capable of replacing Christian symbolism … At Halloween the dead are imitated and their ‘ghosts’ come back to frighten us and threaten us with death. On All Saints’ Day, in contrast, we affirm that the departed are alive and that we are promised to rejoin them in the City of God."

"The witches fly Across the sky, The owls go,"Who? Who? Who?" And the black cats yowl And the green ghosts howl, Scary Halloween boo!"

"Today, countries from Japan to Ukraine have embraced American Halloween and its customs."

"Halloween (All Hallows Eve) is the Eve of All Saints Day. Therefore All Saints' Day Prayers are the most appropriate prayers. However, while Halloween has many fun customs, it is also a time to challenge and mock evil."

"Boasting a rich, complex history rooted in Celtic and Christian ritual, Halloween has evolved from ethnic celebration to a blend of street festival, fright night, and vast commercial enterprise...Drawing on a fascinating array of sources, from classical history to Hollywood films,... it emerged from the Celtic festival of Samhain (summer's end), picked up elements of the Christian Hallowtide (All Saint's Day and All Soul's Day), arrived in North America as an Irish and Scottish festival, and evolved into an unofficial but large-scale holiday by the early 20th century...Halloween is the definitive history of the most bewitching day of the year, illuminating the intricate history and shifting cultural forces behind this enduring trick-or-treat holiday."

"In Britain, the major public holiday used to be Guy Fawkes Day...that was celebrated on November 5th with things like bonfires and fireworks....I think that made Halloween seem preferable. The idea of having pumpkins and costumes and parties seemed much more appealing than burning down your neighborhood."

"In receiving something in their hands, they establish, on a symbolic level that they do not understand, a brotherly exchange between the visible and the invisible worlds. That is why the Halloween masquerades . . . are in fact sacred ceremonies."

"Toward the end of the nineteenth century, theme Halloween parties became popular. Fairy tales, King Arthur’s Court and Mother-Goose were typical themes."

"In many ways, Halloween is the most American of holidays: secular, irreverent, and unashamedly consumerist. And as with many American cultural products, it has become a wildly successful export."

"Halloween was confusing. All my life my parents said, "Never take candy from strangers." And then they dressed me up and said, "Go beg for it." I didn't know what to do. I'd knock on people's doors and go, "Trick or treat.”"

"It’s [Halloween] not celebrated in any of the countries where Islam is the main religion, but there was an interesting WikiLeaks document that came to light within the last year that said that [a group of wealthy citizens] had broken the taboos with a secret Halloween party in Saudi Arabia, complete with alcohol and costumes."

"I think if human beings had genuine courage, they'd wear their costumes every day of the year, not just on Halloween. Wouldn't life be more interesting that way? And now that I think about it, why the heck don't they? Who made the rule that everybody has to dress like sheep 364 days of the year? Think of all the people you'd meet if they were in costume every day. People would be so much easier to talk to - like talking to dogs."

"Halloween was close, our favorite holiday because it carried none of the pain-in-the-ass holiness of Christmas and still there was free candy."