Quotes About Tradition

There lies a paradox for a dedicated lover of art such as David or me: we devote a great deal of time and energy in the pursuit of art, diligently visiting museums, galleries, churches, mosques, temples and ruins where it is to be found. But of course much of what we look at was made for completely different reasons by pious Buddhists, Christians, Hindus and Moslems.

What seems natural to us is probably just something familiar in a long tradition that has forgotten the unfamiliar source from which it arose. And yet this unfamiliar source once struck man as strange and caused him to think and to wonder.

Across many parts of the Western world, salt and pepper shakers take up a prominent space on kitchen and dining room tables. As everyone knows, most are uniform in appearance: three pinprick holes on the saltshaker, and a single one atop the pepper. If you live in Asia, however, the number of holes is reversed, with three on the pepper shaker and one on the saltshaker, thanks to the popularity of pepper in Asian countries and the cultural preference for soy sauce. This

So the bond with the desert had to be renewed in every generation -fresh air for the breast, pure Arabic for the tongue, freedom for the soul; and many of the sons of Quraysh were kept as long as eight years in the desert, so that it might make a lasting impression upon them, though a lesser number of years was enough for that:

People give ear to an upstart astrologer who strove to show that the earth revolves, not the heavens or the firmament, the sun and the moon. Whoever wishes to appear clever must devise some new system, which of all systems is of course the very best. This fool wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy; but the sacred scripture tells us that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, not the earth.

Theories abound about how progressive rock is intrinsically British, whereas in America few bands of this ilk emerged from the late 1960s into the 1970s. One accepted theory is that Europe is the birthplace of classical music, whereas in America, it is the nation's rich blues-based tradition that informs rock history. That supports the theory that 400 years of classical music is in the blood over there

The fact that food plays such an important part in my films has everything to do with my family.

Food tells you everything about the way people live and who they are.

If your mother cooks Italian food, why should you go to a restaurant?

No matter where the cinema goes, we cannot afford to lose sight of its beginnings.

Hindus and Westerners alike see in the meat-eating taboos of India a triumph of morals over appetite. This is a dangerous misrepresentation of cultural processes. Hindu vegetarianism was a victory not of spirit over matter but of reproductive over productive forces.

In view of the frequent occurrence of modern domestic groups that do not consist of, or contain, an exclusive pair-bonded father and mother, I cannot see why anyone should insist that our ancestors were reared in monogamous nuclear families and that pair-bonding is more natural than other arrangements.

Unfortunately, it makes as little sense to offer this kind of explanation as to say that we have become too "civilized " to eat insects or horses.

On a royal birthday every house must fly a flag, or the owner would be dragged to a police station and be fined twenty-five rubles.

Roman culture was marked by a reluctance ever entirely to discard its past practices, tending instead to preserve all kinds of 'fossils' – in religious rituals or politics, or whatever – even when their original significance had been lost.

When we look, for example, at the Parthenon for the first time, we look at it already knowing that generations of architects chose precisely that style of building for the museums, town-halls, and banks of most of our major cities.

Rome was no more conservative than nineteenth-century Britain. In both places, radical innovation thrived in dialogue with all kinds of ostensibly conservative traditions and rhetoric.

Two hundred years later there was little to patrician privilege beyond the right to hold a few ancient priesthoods and to wear a particular form of fancy footwear.

A lighthearted prayer for Thanksgiving: May you have turkey in season Cranberries for squeezin' Gravy (within reason) And leftovers worth freezin'! Amen by Merrill Miller of Scottdale, PA

Generations of families flocked to Pastor Richot's steps to partake in, not only the weekly liturgy, but baptisms, marriages, and funerals—a one-stop shop for the faithful.

All the men in my family were bearded, and most of the women.

I'm desperately trying to figure out why kamikaze pilots wore helmets.

Nowadays men cannot love seven night but they must have all their desires: that love may not endure by reason; for where they be soon accorded and hasty, heat soon it cooleth. Right so fareth love nowadays, soon hot soon cold: this is no stability. But the old love was not so.

We have mistresses for pleasure, concubines to care for our daily bodys needs and wives to bear us legitimate children and to be faithful guardians of our households.