Quotes About Tradition

Our culture and our religions are almost unanimous in upholding the omnipotence of parental authority.

Many of the time-honored [parenting] techniques that have been passed down from generation to generation are, quite simply, bad advice masquerading as wisdom.

For hundreds of years, parental rights were considered inviolate—in the name of discipline, parents could do just about anything to their children, short of killing them.

It was nine-thirty on Christmas Eve. As I crossed the long entrance hall of Monk's Piece on my way from the dining room, where we had just enjoyed the first of the happy, festive meals, toward the drawing room and the fire around which my family were now assembled, I paused and then, as I often do in the course of an evening, went to the front door, opened it and stepped outside.

They are telling ghost stories." "Yes," said Will, his voice unsteady with both excitement and laughter. "Just the thing for Christmas Eve. It's an ancient tradition!

Marriage is more than a tradition. It's an economic necessity. In societies where there are more married couples, there are fewer children in poverty, and less violence.

It is the very essence of art,' she [Hallie Flanagan:] told a group gathered in Washington . . ., 'that it exceed bounds, often including those of tradition, decorum, and that mysterious thing called taste. It is the essence of art that it shatter accepted patterns, advance into unknown territory, challenge the existing order. Art is highly explosive. To be worth its salt it must have in that salt a fair sprinkling of gunpowder.

The rules for raising children had gone out with her parents generation of daughters who had lived as Lucy had, in patient silence, acting by standards which had lasted generations, waiting to grow up to make their decisions, following the patterns of their own lives.

Whoever invented marriage was an ingenious tormentor. It is an institution committed to the dulling of the feelings. The whole point of marriage is repetition. The best it aims for is the creation of strong, mutual dependencies.

We are told we must choose — the old or the new. In fact, we must choose both. What is a life if not a series of negotiations between the old and the new? [ Speech upon being awarded the Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels (Peace Prize of the German Book Trade) , Frankfurt Book Fair, October 12, 2003]

If civilization may be defined as that stage of human life at which, objectively, the body becomes a problem, then our moment of civilization may be described as that stage at which we are subjectively aware of, and feel trapped by, this problem. Now we aspire to the life of the body and we reject the ascetic traditions of Judaism and Christianity, but we are still confined in the generalized sensibility which that religious tradition bequeathed us.

What do I believe? In the private life, in holding up culture, in music, Shakespeare, old buildings…

It was a store-bought sugar cookie. Not as good as Mamma's, of course. Mamma made hers with a secret ingredient- ricotta cheese- and thick, sweet icing. Now that was a cookie.

She passed out plates loaded with her signature melt-away brisket crusted with the smoky candy of the fire, links she'd crafted in partnership with a sustainable ranch up near Point Reyes, butter-dipped smoked portobellos, and impossibly tender ribs smothered in her artisanal sauces. Her best sides were on display---cornbread, moist as pudding, from her mother's private recipe collection, beans and greens, peppery jicama slaw, and her signature hummingbird cake for dessert.

Isabel felt soft and yielding; her blouse felt soft. Everything about her seemed soft, and she smelled of dried flowers, rosemary, fresh baked bread. This whole kitchen seemed alive with a peculiar energy; in the old fixtures and furniture, Tess sensed a place where cooking and eating had happened for decades, where people gathered to sample life's sweetest pleasures.

The handblown glass pickle ornaments from Lauscha in Germany can date back as far as 1847, and are treasured by families everywhere. The first child to spy the ornament on the tree Christmas morning gets an extra gift from Santa, and the first adult enjoys good luck all the year through.

She made them honey butter fried chicken and buttermilk biscuits the way her mother had taught her, with White Lily flour and the butter shredded on a box grater. She served charred eggplant with cilantro pesto, polenta pasticciata, grilled corn, and fried dill pickles.

Let's get lunch at Aunt Carrie's. She looked away, trying to hide her vivid memories of the outdoor café. She and Alex had gone there as kids, sunburnt, their hair stiff with salt and their bare feet, to eat clam cakes and blueberry pie.

She wore almost no jewelry, which Rosa later learned was characteristic of women from the oldest and wealthiest families. Ostentation was for the nouveau riche.

The girls used to play together in Portsmouth Square, surrounded by Chinese grannies sipping their milk tea and playing board games. They'd snack on soft buns filled with sweet coconut, and when it rained, they'd dunk into the curio shops or the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory, their senses dazzled by the delicious, sugary aroma.

lemon-mint monarda, which looks like purple pagodas and makes an effective insect repellent and a tangy tea; brown-eyed Susans, whose root juice the Cherokee used to treat earache;

Mountain Songcatchers. I remembered it from the movie O Brother Where Art Thou.

She spoke the language of the Scottish Highlands (which is like singing).

The President of the York society (whose name was Dr Foxcastle) turned to John Segundus and explained that the question was a wrong one. "It presupposes that magicians have some sort of duty to do magic – which is clearly nonsense. You would not, I imagine, suggest that it is the task of botanists to devise more flowers? Or that astronomers should labour to rearrange the stars? Magicians, Mr Segundus, study magic which was done long ago. Why should any one expect more?