Quotes About Tradition

Il y a des écrivains qui réunissent cent mille personnes à leur enterrement et il y a ceux qui n'ont jamais suscité la ferveur que d'une poignée de passeurs, confrérie clandestine dont les membres se transmettent le flambeau d'une génération à l'autre. (p. 143)

The drumbeat in your blood is the voice of your ancestors. Let the drum speak.

Traditional Native peoples, on the other hand, have been trained to Listen. They place so much importance on Listening that tribal groups have developed the talking circle ceremony in order to share the inner wisdom that comes from Listening. The primary purpose of the talking circle ceremony is to Listen to people's innermost feelings about an issue. Each participant in the talking circle is a reflection of Spirit, so the words spoken in the circle are considered sacred and holy.

Ages ago my gran knitted a sweater for my dad. He wore it and wore it and wore it right out. Then my other gran, who lives with us, unraveled it

All the world is happy when Santa Claus comes.

Even the impetuous Helena Justina was an advocate of traditional family councils. However, every Roman matron knows that domestic councils were devised by our foremothers purely so the views of the matron of a household may prevail.

But too strictly observed, most sacraments grow hollow.

Men have always gotten to name children after themselves, while not doing any of the work.

Even if he doesn't go to college, he could at least learn to make something. Nobody in this country knows how to sink a nail anymore. They're all dependent on the tradesmen their kids are taught not to become.

In the United States at this time liberalism is not only the dominant but even the sole intellectual tradition.

Run against the grain of a nation's genius and see where you get with your laws.

We don't put much stock in genealogy where I'm from [...] It's assumed that you're kind of a loser if you have to sink to boasting about your family in order to impress people.

Imagine," she said, her face turning serious for a moment, "imagine if something happened to one of us and there was no Easter egg hunt next year, imagine if everything stopped being perfect—you would wish so hard that you'd taken part today . . .

no tin of Quality Street or Cadbury's selection boxes.

This is how we court girls in America. We grab them and kiss them. And if they don't like it, we do it again, harder and longer, until they surrender. It saves us hours of witty repartee.

I'm not the marrying kind -" St. Vincent snorted. "No man is. Marriage is a female invention.

Win," Leo said, "you'll burn the house down, just after it's been rebuilt. Give me the bloody matchbox." She shook her head resolutely. Are we starting a new springtime ritual?" Leo demanded. "The annual burning-of-the-manse?" Come to your senses, Win.

Any man," she muttered, "who wanted to marry into the Hathaway family after this should be shut away in an institution." "Marriage is an institution," he said.

I'm from North Wales, where we express ourselves by throwing rocks at trees.

The decline of the Sunday meal is a major concern because it means that family values are being forgotten. Once that creeps into mealtimes, it will begin creeping into other areas.

From this process has emerged a parallel process of translating traditional working and living values into a new political and economic power - a power increasingly based upon the strength of money and those material things money can purchase.

It's not what the rabbis say that defines Jewishness but what we Israelis do every day - our actions and our values.

I love the Betsy Ross flag because it has the thirteen stars and a circle, which represents our thirteen colonies, and I think we need to get closer back to our founding values.

The question we all face is what sort of culture we will live in for the rest of our lives and then hand on to the next generation - one that embraces these most basic of values, or one that collapses because of their absence.