Quotes About Tradition

The vast majority of human beings dislike and even actually dread all notions with which they are not familiar... Hence it comes about that at their first appearance innovators have generally been persecuted, and always derided as fools and madmen.

Unorthodoxy threatens more than the life of a mere individual; it strikes at Society itself.

The best that can be said for ritualistic legalism is that it improves conduct. It does little, however, to alter character and nothing of itself to modify consciousness.

Every individual is at once the beneficiary and the victim of the linguistic tradition into which he has been born.

The strange words rolled through his mind; rumbled, like talking thunder; like the drums at the summer dances, if the drums could have spoken; like the men singing the Corn Song, beautiful, beautiful, so that you cried.

Porque es antiguo; ésta es la razón principal. Aquí las cosas antiguas no nos son útiles. —¿Aunque sean bellas? —Especialmente cuando son bellas. La belleza ejerce una atracción, y nosotros no queremos que la gente se sienta atraída por cosas antiguas. Queremos que les gusten las nuevas.

Between every human consciousness and the rest of the world stands an invisible fence, a network of traditional thinking-and-feeling patterns, of secondhand notions that have turned into axioms, of ancient slogans revered as divine revelations.

on Candlemass Day, February 2nd, on Rood Mass Day, May 1st, on Lammas Day, August 1st, and on the eve of All Hallows, October 31st.

History is bunk.

There was much of Henry Wimbush in the long gallery and the library, something of Anne, perhaps, in the morning-room. That was all. Among the accumulations of ten generations the living had left but few traces.

Little Reuben woke up repeating word for word a long lecture by that curious old writer (one of the very few whose works have been permitted to come down to us), George Bernard Shaw, who was speaking, according to a well-authenticated tradition, about his own genius.

F]amiliarity with traditionally hallowed writings tends to breed, not indeed contempt, but something which, for practical purposes, is almost as bad - namely a kind of reverential insensibility, a stupor of the spirit, an inward deafness to the meaning of the sacred words.

I produttori di seta di Lavilledieu erano, chi più chi meno, dei gentiluomini, e mai avrebbero pensato di infrangere una qualsiasi legge del loro Paese. L'ipotesi di farlo dall'altra parte del mondo, tuttavia, risultò loro ragionevolmente sensata.

It was the first time the name had ever been spoken as this child's name, for Omoro's people felt that each human being should be the first to know who he was.

Na Zdrov'nya

Traditional Botswana men like ladies who are more traditionally shaped. You and I, Mma. We remind men of how things used to be in Botswana before these modern-shaped ladies started to get men all confused.

Mma Ramotsew accepted her large slice of cake and looked at the rich fruit within it. There were at least seven hundred calories in that, she thought, but it did not matter; she was a traditionally built lady and she did not have to worry about such things.

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni was not a lazy man, but it was remarkable to reflect how most men imagined that things like tea and food would simply appear if they waited long enough. There would always be a woman in the background--a mother, a girlfriend, a wife--who would ensure that those needs would be met.

It was time for tea as it so often was.

Go to any small village anywhere in the world, and see what they remember. Everything. It's all there -- passed on like a precious piece of information, some secret imparted from one who knew to one who yearns to know. Taken good care of.

A traditional house smelled of wood smoke, the earth, and of thatch; all good smells, the smell of life itself.

Stand on your toe. That is what one said in Setswana if one hoped that something would happen. It was the same as the expression which white people used: cross your fingers.

She saw the picture of idle fishing boats tied up at Peterhead; further gloom for Scotland and for a way of life that had produced such a strong culture. Fishermen had composed their songs; but what culture would a generation of computer operators leave behind them?

She was of traditional build herself, but her figure was largely concealed by the folds of a generously cut shift dress made out of a flecked green fabric. It was like a tent, thought Mma Ramotswe--a camouflage tent of the sort that the Botswana Defence Force might use. But I do not sit in judgement on the dresses of others, she told herself, and a tent was a practical enough garment, if that is what one felt comfortable in.