«Friends, both the imaginary ones you build for yourself out of phrases taken from a living writer, or real ones from college, and relatives, despite all the waste of ceremony and fakery and the fact that out of an hour of conversation you may have only five minutes in which the old entente reappears, are the only real means for foreign ideas to enter your brain.»

«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.»

«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.»

«DUEL, n. A formal ceremony preliminary to the reconciliation of two enemies. Great skill is necessary to its satisfactory observance; if awkwardly performed the most unexpected and deplorable consequences sometimes ensue. A long time ago a man lost his life in a duel.That dueling's a gentlemanly vice I hold; and wish that it had been my lot To live my life out in some favored spot -- Some country where it is considered nice To split a rival like a fish, or slice A husband like a spud, or with a shot Bring down a debtor doubled in a knot And ready to be put upon the ice. Some miscreants there are, whom I do long To shoot, to stab, or some such way reclaim The scurvy rogues to better lives and manners, I seem to see them now --a mighty throng. It looks as if to challenge _me_ they came, Jauntily marching with brass bands and banners! --Xamba Q. Dar»

«BATH, n. A kind of mystic ceremony substituted for religious worship, with what spiritual efficacy has not been determined.The man who taketh a steam bath He loseth all the skin he hath, And, for he's boiled a brilliant red, Thinketh to cleanliness he's wed, Forgetting that his lungs he's soiling With dirty vapors of the boiling. --Richard Gwow»

«Ceremony is the smoke of friendship.»

«After all the field of battle possesses many advantages over the drawing-room. There at least is no room for pretension or excessive ceremony, no shaking of hands or rubbing of noses, which make one doubt your sincerity, but hearty as well as hard hand-play. It at least exhibits one of the faces of humanity, the former only a mask.»

«Ceremony is necessary as the outwork and defense of manners.»

«And what have kings that privates have not too,Save ceremony, save general ceremony?»

«Ceremony was but devised at first to set a gloss on faint deeds, hollow welcomes, recanting goodness, sorry ere 'Tis shown; but where there is true friendship, there needs none.»