Ceremonies are the outworks of manners. [ Chesterfield ]

Friendship should be surrounded with ceremonies and respects, and not crushed into corners. [ Ralph Waldo Emerson ]

The greatest burden in the world is superstition, not only of ceremonies in the church, but of imaginary and scarecrow sins at home. [ Milton ]

The exhaustion of taste, genius, and splendor upon its fables and ceremonies, even to our times, constitute the ancient paganism a marvel of all that was attractive and magnificent. [ R. W. Hamilton ]

Their origin is commonly unknown; for the practice often continues when the cause has ceased, and concerning superstitious ceremonies it is in vain to conjecture; for what reason did not dictate, reason cannot explain. [ Dr. Johnson ]

The king is but a man, as I am; the violet smells to him as it doth to me; the element shows to him as it doth to me; all his senses have but human conditions; his ceremonies laid by, in his nakedness he appears but a man; and though his affections are higher mounted than ours, yet, when they stoop, they stoop with the like wing. [ William Shakespeare ]