Quotes About Tradition

These pillars, known as Boaz, the pillar of strength, and Jachin, the pillar of wisdom, are normally found side by side in any masonic temple where they are the two basic symbols of craftmasonry.

Christmas is not only where you find it; it's what you make of it.

We sat together as a family for dinner at night. And my mother had a job. My dad had a job. But there was always a meal on the table at 6:00, you know.

at the WI Markets,' I said regretfully.

That and rum and tobacco—and being boys, we were not entitled to the rum. 'Rum, bum and baccy.' And that was why 'bum' was included—that, and not buggery, as the landsmen thought.

A young Tibetan child touches his head to the floor before the altar and recites a prayer, and I am led to a moment of contentment. This too is part of our struggle as Tibetans: to remind our children and ourselves that we are Tibetan.

Coconut," he whispered. "Um. Would you please go hit my grandfather?

Obedience to your elders: the most important thing a young NightWing had to learn.

The event caused a certain amount of ribaldry and a fair number of sentences depriving men of their grog for playing the God-damned fool, an offense that came under Article Thirty-six 'All other crimes not capital, committed by any person or persons in the fleet, which are not mentioned in this act, or for which no punishment is hereby directed to be inflicted, shall be punished according to the laws and customs in such cases used at sea,' also known as the captain's cloak or cover-all.

It was true that a few years ago some wild enthusiast, a Whiggish civilian no doubt, had decreed that day should start at midnight; but Jack, though a scientific, forwardlooking officer, agreed with many of his fellow-captains in giving this foolish innovation no countenance whatsoever: besides, it had taken him years to persuade Stephen that nautical days really did start at noon, and he did not want his imperfect conviction to be shaken in any way at all.

Officially the earliest age was eleven for officers' sons and thirteen for the rest, but no one took much notice of the regulation—seven-year-olds were not unknown.) Before

Sailors were as conservative as cats, as he knew very well: they would put up with incredible labour and hardship, to say nothing of danger, but it had to be what they were used to or they would grow brutish.

or there will be wigs on the green.

What are bashed neeps? Neeps hackit with balmagowry.

The sensation of falling into the past is not unlike that of coming home for the holidays.

When I first came here it was a pure country. There was music and dancing and magic every day in the streets. Now it's finished, everything. Even the religion. In a few more years the whole country will be like all the other Moslem countries, just a huge European slum, full of poverty and hatred.

After all, the English are really too much. One can't live in that constipated fashion forever.

The Hindus are busy letting themselves be seen riding in Cadillacs instead of smearing themselves with sandalwood paste and bowing in front of Ganpati. The Moslems would rather miss evening prayer than the new Disney movie. The Buddhists think it's more important to take over in the name of Stalin and Progress than to meditate on the four basic sorrows. And we don't even have to mention Christianity or Judaism.

Nothing built by man has ever improved on the ancient classic fingertip pushup

Today, the Communist Party in America has rolled out the red carpet for all manners of sexual libertinism, as it happily and ruthlessly criticizes every traditional norm.

Dad determined when the pork lard was hot enough for frying by dropping a match into it; if the match lit, the lard was hot enough.

Culture can be loosely defined as the body of non-genetic information which people pass from generation to generation.

Students and instructors will reinvent the wheel by bringing back old discarded techniques, as new or new and improved.

But what I liked in Aberdeen was what I liked generally in Britain: the bread, the fish, the cheese, the flower gardens, the apples. the clouds, the newspapers, the beer, the wollen cloth, the radio programmes, the parks, the Indian restaurants and amateur dramatics, the postal service, the fresh vegetables, the trains, and the modesty and truthfulness of people.