Quotes About Tradition

I would urge us to be not too certain of our accustomed ways of looking at Genesis, and to open ourselves to the wisdom of the God-bearing men of the past who have devoted so much intellectual effort to understanding the text of Genesis as it was meant to be understood. These Holy Fathers are our key to understanding Genesis.

Our culture works hard to prevent change.

Ask?da ekmek: there is bread on the hook. It's an ancient tradition in Turkey. When buying a loaf at the local bakery, you can choose to pay for an extra loaf and, after bagging your purchase, the owner will hang the second loaf on a hook on the wall. If a person in need comes by, he or she can ask if there's anything on the hook. If so, the bread is shared, and the hunger is relieved.

Corporations are traditionally built around the CEO, with all his perks and power. The closer you get to being king/CEO, the more influence and power you have. The goal of the corporation is to enrich the king and to keep him in power. And then, recently, something happened.

In our time women can demonstrate prowess in a thousand ways. Long ago the great Princess Sun of Ping fought for her father, the August Sovereign. At her funeral, His Majesty called for the trumpets and drums to be sounded, an honor reserved for men. My dear, from this day you must dress her as a boy. Give her an education worthy of her own determination.

Gramps said, 'How about a story? Spin us a yarn.

Just because something has always been done a certain way does not make it right.

Marriage was a Sacrament, yet these festivities more often resembled pagan rites than Christian nuptials.

In Indian culture, the woman of the house — the embodiment of the family's honor — treasures her gold jewelry both as her soundest asset and as the symbol of her status.

Those who have no sons rarely attach any importance to the priorities of those who do, but they resent them deeply.)

As Manu S. Pillai acidly observes, 'In other words, there is nothing a quiet ghar wapsi cannot solve when it comes to the building of a good dharmocracy.'90

India has the deepest philosophy still expressed in a vibrant religion, a huge body of literature, amazing art, dance, music, sculpture, architecture, delicious cuisine and yet Indians are in denial mode and wake up only when foreigners treasure India,' wrote Wirth. 'They don't seem to know the value and, therefore, don't take pride in their tradition, unlike Westerners who take a lot of pride in theirs, even if there is little to be proud of.

Hinduism, with its tradition of openness, tolerance and acceptance of the Divine in the most diverse forms imaginable, 'could perhaps more easily than any other faith develop, without loss of continuity with its past, into a universal religion…

They played the things Duff had learned while crouching under Bantam Street windows, the old songs that had been great before some of the boys were born, things never set down on paper but kept alive in places and in memories such as these.

You are holding women to a higher standard than men, he said. Madame used to tell us that this is traditional, for men have usually been the judges, and they put women either in the gutter or on a pedestal. Men have traditionally forgiven one another, for they know and excuse their own failings, but they do not forgive women for falling off the pedestal. (p. 516)

Somebody dies and people eat your food. Funny how that works.

At the halfway point of any drunken night, there is a moment when an Indian realizes he cannot turn back toward tradition and that he has no map to guide him toward the future.

I know only, like, five Indians in our whole tribe who have never drunk alcohol. And my grandmother was one of them. Drinking would shut down my seeing and my hearing and my feeling, she used to say. Why would I want to be in the world if I couldn't touch the world with all of my senses intact? (158)

In the indigenous world, we assign sacred value to circles. But sometimes a circle just means you keep returning to the same shit again and again. This book is a series of circles, sacred and profane.

Of course, ever since white people showed up and brought along their Christianity and their fears of eccentricity, Indians have gradually lost all of their tolerance.

An Indian's wealth   Is determined by what they lose And not by what they save.

she braided my sister's hair with hands that smelled deep roots buried in the earth she told me the old stories how time never mattered when she died they gave me her clock

More and more, he heard his spine playing stick games through his skin, singing old dusty words, the words of all his years.

What is it like to be a Spokane Indian without wild salmon? It is like being a Christian if Jesus had never rolled back the stone and risen from his tomb.