Celebration

The joy and function of poetry is, and was, the celebration of man, which is also the celebration of God. ~ Dylan Thomas

Celebration can refer to the act of rejoicing or of honoring various things, or to various social gatherings or parties for the observance and participation in particular feast days, holidays, or festivals.

Quotes

• There's a party goin' on right here
  A celebration to last throughout the years
  So bring your good times, and your laughter too
  We gonna celebrate your party with you

  Come on now
  Celebration
  Let's all celebrate and have a good time
  Celebration
  We gonna celebrate and have a good time!

  • Kool & the Gang, in "Celebration" on Celebrate! (1980)

• It's time to come together
  It's up to you, what's your pleasure
  Everyone around the world
  Come on!

  Yahoo! It's a celebration
  Yahoo!
  Celebrate good times, come on!
  It's a celebration
  Celebrate good times, come on!
  Let's celebrate!

  • Kool & the Gang, in "Celebration" on Celebrate! (1980)

• You, masters of the earth – princes, kings, emperors, powerful majesties, invincible conquerors – simply try to make the people go on such-and-such a day each year to a given place to dance. I ask little of you, but I dare give you a solemn challenge to succeed, whereas the humblest missionary will succeed and be obeyed two thousand years after his death. Every year the people gather around some rustic temple in the name of St John, St Martin, St Benedict, etc.; they come, animated by a feverish and yet innocent eagerness; religion sanctifies their joy and the joy embellishes religion; they forget their troubles; on leaving they think of the pleasure that they will have on the same day the following year, and the date is set in their minds.
  • Joseph de Maistre, Considerations on France (1796), ch. V

• No-one should have any trouble finding a party.
  • Alex Salmond, at Glasgow Caledonian University conference on National Days. [1] (November 30, 2007)

• 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.
  • Jerry Stiller, in the Foreword to Festivus: The Holiday for the Rest of Us (2005) by Allen Salkin

• The best craftsmanship always leaves holes and gaps in the works of the poem so that something that is not in the poem can creep, crawl, flash, or thunder in. The joy and function of poetry is, and was, the celebration of man, which is also the celebration of God.
  • Dylan Thomas, in Poetic Manifesto, published in the Texas Quarterly (Winter 1961)