Quotes About Tradition

There is a Russian proverb,' Nepeja said. 'Beat your shuba, and it will be warmer; beat your wife and she shall be sweeter.' There was a brief silence, while his hearers considered the analogy. 'Beat your brother and he shall be deader?' at length Danny said.

Humility is a virtue Scotsmen require to be taught.

It had been a boy's trick, Jerott remembered. Standing bareback on your father's horses; somersaulting, chariot-riding. Francis, buried in books, had never publicly attempted it. What private practice, Jerott wondered fleetingly, had gone into that?

There's something hypnotic about the word tea.

My brother, being an English gentleman, possesses a library in all his houses, though he never opens a book. This is called fidelity to ancient tradition.

Master of Arts; Domina; Senior Member of this University (statutum est quod Juniores Senioribus debitam et congruam reverentiam tum in privato tum in publico exhibeant);

It's a very handsome room, isn't it, madam? But it seems a great shame to keep up this big place just for women to study books in. I can't see what girls want with books. Books won't teach them to be good wives.

Men of science spend much time and effort in the attempt to disentangle words from their metaphorical and traditional associations;

Nine Tailors Make a Man.

From time to time complaints are made about the ringing of church bells. It seems strange that a generation which tolerates the uproar of the internal combustion engine and the wailing of the jazz band should be so sensitive to the one loud noise that is made to the glory of God. England, alone in the world

Well-bred English people never have imagination, Bunter.

LINSCOTT: Well, I don't like it. Man works damn hard, leaves his wife all his money, and some pretty boy comes along and gets it. Sometimes I think those old East Indians had the right idea about widows. Cremate the husbands and burn up the wives along with them. CONNIE: Maybe it would be simpler to burn up the money.

I've seen the way he dances; it looks like something you do on Saint Walpurgis Night.

Humans are not proud of their ancestors, and rarely invite them round to dinner.

Generally, old media don't die. They just have to grow old gracefully. Guess what, we still have stone masons. They haven't been the primary purveyors of the written word for a while now of course, but they still have a role because you wouldn't want a TV screen on your headstone.

The truth of the matter is, that most English people don't know how to make tea anymore either, and most people drink cheap instant coffee instead, which is a pity, and gives Americans the impression that the English are just generally clueless about hot stimulants.

And that's why the American habit of bringing a teacup, a tea bag, and a pot of hot water to the table is merely the perfect way of making a thin, pale, watery cup of tea that nobody in their right mind would want to drink.

The socially correct way of pouring tea is to put the milk in after the tea. Social correctness has traditionally had nothing whatever to do with reason, logic, or physics. In fact, in England it is generally considered socially incorrect to know stuff or think about things. It's worth bearing this in mind when visiting.

There is a feeling which persists in England that making a sandwich interesting, attractive, or in any way pleasant to eat is something sinful that only foreigners do.

A wedding is a ritual which exists in most societies, only at varying levels of involvement, from a simple agreement to meet, say, once a year for dinner, to the mutual exchanging of left limbs.

Deaf people occupy a unique position. They make up the only cultural group where cultural information and language has been predominantly passed down from child to child rather than from adult to child, and the only one in which the native language of the children is different from the language spoken by the parents.

Douglas L. Wilson

Charles backed down. He is reputed to have said, Capon, Capon, vous êtes un mauvais chapon. 'Capon, Capon, you are one evil chicken.' " "Chicken jokes are quite prevalent in the family," the countess said. The count said, "We eat capons at Christmas. It's a little cannibalistic.

It had been presented by his great-grandfather to his great-grandmother on their wedding day. Interesting present, he thought to himself.