Quotes About Tradition

Some days the Arashinos' little grandson, Juntaro, cried from hunger—which is when Mr. Arashino usually decided to sell a kimono from his collection. This was what we Japanese called the "onion life"—peeling away a layer at a time and crying all the while.

CAPÍTULO OCHO

his mustache was carefully groomed, unlike the hair on the faces of the men in our village, which grew untended like weeds along a path.

What was decency? A certain form of convention, still bound by the traditions and rules of the knightly jousts. The new conception of honour should be formulated differently: to serve without vanity and unto the last consequence. ...

He plough on Sunday, Sir. Plough on Sunday?!

The schoolmen peer with dulled eyes from amid the heap of precedents and prescriptions about them, and, distracted by seeing a thing sanctioned neither by precedent nor by prescription, dub the man realist, and rail against him for that his work fits none of their pigeon-holes.

Even when a writer seems to be out of touch with the spirit of the age or voluntarily hostile to it, he will usually be found to represent either an underground current of opposition or the rising tide of tomorrow beating on the crumbling cliffs of yesterday.

Humans are animals of habit.

Women are not allowed. Women are not allowed. Women are not allowed. Was it to protect the grave from the women or the women from the grave?

It could be argued that it began long before Christianity arrived in a boat and seeped into Kerala like tea from a teabag.

For the Time Being they had no surname because Ammu was considering reverting to her maiden name, though she said that choosing between her husband's name and her fathers name didn't give a woman much of a choice.

India lives in several centuries at the same time.

Rahel grew up without a brief. Without anybody to arrange a marriage for her. Without anybody who would pay her a dowry and therefore without an obligatory husband looming on her horizon.

choosing between her husband's name and her father's name didn't give a woman much of a choice.

Louisa had been right about one thing. Many gentlemen took mistresses after they were married. It seemed almost expected. Society marriages often occurred because two families wanted to increase their power or wealth. A poor aristocrat married a rich nabob's daughter; the daughter of an impoverished baron married a wealthy merchant. Even better, wealthy nobility married each other.

Culture is the sum total of shared habits and expectations

Modernization did not demote the elderly. It demoted the family.

In the past, surviving into old age was uncommon, and those who did survive served a special purpose as guardians of tradition, knowledge, and history.

Culture has tremendous inertia," he said. "That's why it's culture. It works because it lasts. Culture strangles innovation in the crib." To combat the

Culture has tremendous inertia," he said. "That's why it's culture. It works because it lasts. Culture strangles innovation in the crib." To combat the inertia, he decided they should go up against the resistance directly—"hit it hard," Thomas said.

He was surrounded and supported by family at all times, and he was revered—not in spite of his age but because of it. He was consulted on all important matters—marriages, land disputes, business decisions—and occupied a place of high honor in the family. When we ate, we served him first. When young people came into his home, they bowed and touched his feet in supplication.

doctors can be stubborn about changing the way we do things.

In the past few decades, medical science has rendered obsolete centuries of experience, tradition, and language about our mortality and created a new difficulty for mankind: how to die.

But in my grandfather's premodern world, how he wanted to live was his choice, and the family's role was to make it possible.