Quotes About Tradition

In the Bible, women are presented as no less intelligent than men, nor any the less capable of redemption; the question is one of authority, not of humanity or dignity, whereas in the neoplatonist tradition women are seen at times almost as a different species or at best a very inferior form of man.

T. S. Eliot, faced with the glib modern claim that 'we know so much more than our ancestors', riposted, 'Yes; and they are what we know.

People may think of Southern humor in terms of missing teeth and outhouse accidents, but the best of it is a rich vein running through the best of Southern literature.

Oaks are the true conservatives; They hold old leaves till summer gives A green exchange.

His mother was, as they say, of good family, but the father who died before he knew him was a tradesman. And his mother's Catholic family had a trade too, to which he did not feel even the slightest bit drawn, and that trade was martyrdom. Thomas More, beheaded for refusing to condone Henry VIII's schism, was his great-grand-uncle; an uncle was imprisoned and exiled for being a Jesuit; his brother died in jail of plague for harbouring a priest.

Os Natais de hoje ficaram diferentes. Há um ar triste de nostalgia, saudade indefinida, não se sabe de quê.

Lalun is a member of the most ancient profession in the world.

There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays,And every single one of them is right.

Only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the mid-day sun.

I think marriage is ghastly.

When it comes to loving and living and dying, there is no such thing as being modern and fashionable. Some things will never change. For it isn't time that's passing by, my friend; it is you and I.

Ah, those picnics! They seem to be a thing of the past, now that you can drive almost anywhere and find a line of dhabas awaiting you. Few people today bother to prepare those delicate sandwiches or delicious parathas when packets of potato chips and other fast foods are to be found at every bend of the road.

Grandmother had wanted the peepul tree cut down, but Grandfather had said, 'Let it be. We can always build another outhouse.

Tradition is a guide to the permanent qualities in society and thought and private life which need to be preserved in one form or another, throughout the process of inevitable change.

If men are discharged of reverence for ancient usage, they will treat this world, almost certainly, as if it were their private property, to be consumed for their sensual gratification; and thus they will destroy in their lust for enjoyment the property of future generations, of their own contemporaries, and indeed their very own capital:

Conservatives respect the wisdom of their ancestors...they are dubious of wholesale alteration. They think society is a spiritual reality, possessing an eternal life but a delicate constitution: it cannot be scrapped and recast as if it were a machine

Having thus disposed in his merciless way of an incautious adversary, Randolph proceeded to expose the follies of seeking abstract harmony in government, of expecting the great venerable Gothic edifice of society to conform to ideal classical proportions; with Burke, he believed that a state is better governed by the irregular patterns formed by common sense and tradition than by the laws of mathematics and the Procrustean methods of omnipotent majorities.

When an orthodoxy decays, the old dark gods, the savage gods, win back their burnt offerings.

And Burke, could he see our century, never would concede that a consumption-society, so near to suicide, is the end for which Providence has prepared man. If a conservative order is indeed to return, we ought to know the tradition which is attached to it, so that we may rebuild society; if it is not to be restored, still we ought to understand conservative ideas so that we may rake from the ashes what scorched fragments of civilization escape the conflagration of unchecked will and appetite.

Most men and women are good only from habit, or out of deference to the opinions of their neighbors, the friend to tradition argues; and to deprive them of their habits, customs, and precepts, in order to benefit them in some novel way, may leave them morally and socially adrift, more harmed by their loss of ethical sanctions than helped by the fancied new benefit.

Golden eagles don`t mate with bald eagles, deer don`t mate with antelope, gray wolves don`t mate with red wolves. Just look at domesticated animals, at mongrel dogs, and mixed breed horses, and you`ll know the Great Mystery didn`t intend them to be that way. We weakened the species and introduced disease by mixing what should be kept seperate. Among humans, intermarriage weakens the respect people have for themselves and for their traditions. It undermines clarity of spirit and mind.

If the thunder is not loud, the peasant forgets to cross himself.

The life history of the individual is first and foremost an accommodation to the patterns and standards traditionally handed down in his community.

Today evolution of human intelligence has advanced us to the stage where most of us are too smart to invent new gods but are reluctant to give up the old ones.