Quotes About Customs

Anthropologists

MiÅ'o mi sÅ'ysze?, ?e siÄ™ pan tak uprzejmie zwraca do kota. Nie wiadomo, dlaczego wszyscy mówiÄ… do kotów "ty", cho? jako ?ywo ?aden kot nigdy z nikim nie piÅ' bruderszaftu.

A computer expert with the ability to create a one 100 million dollar empire in his mind could walk up to customs in New York with only the clothes on his back and say: nothing to declare. He could walk into this country or any country with 100 million dollars worth of value between his ears and in terms of capital or goods have nothing to declare

In manned Earth orbital flights, still other problems arise. Consider a religious Muslim or Jew circling the Earth once every ninety minutes. Is he obligated to celebrate the Sabbath every seventh orbit? Spaceflight provides access to environments very different from those in which we and our customs have grown up.

If you left off traditions because you didn't know why they started you'd be no better than a foreigner.

Judaism lives not in an abstract creed, but in its institutions.

Judaism is not just a religion but a people, and the food and customs of one part of the people is connected to the other part of the people. They are part of a larger story.

We call them taxis where I come from. And bookstores." God, he was stuffy. "We call them manners where I come from, Ms. Lane. Have you any?

Pass the raspberry jam, please." "It's called jelly in the States." Zander handed over the tiny jar of compote.

Most of us, it seems, have a strong inclination to accept the peculiarities of our social environment as if they were "natural".... that we live in a charmed circle of unchanging taboos, of laws and customs which are felt to be as inevitable as the rising of the sun.

Native speakers can rarely explain the grammatical rules of their own language. In the same way, those who are most 'fluent' in the rituals, customs and traditions of a particular culture generally lack the detachment necessary to explain the 'grammar' of these practices in an intelligible manner. This is why we have anthropologists.

Many of those who pontificate about "acculturation" are inclined to underestimate this element of choice. Such processes are often described in terms suggesting that the "dominant" culture is simply imposed on unwitting, passive minorities, rather than focusing on the extent to which individuals quite consciously, deliberately, cleverly and even mockingly pick and choose amongst the behaviours and customs of their host culture

but some conventions cannot

or with the nails, in the manner of dogs or cats, and not with a napkin, but with a toothpick of mastic wood, or with a feather, or with small bones taken from the drumsticks of cocks or hens." —Erasmus, "On Good Manners for Boys

As to our baths, there is not much that we can say, for we only bathe twice a year, before Christmas and before Easter." —Ulrich, a monk of Cluny, ca. 1075

In my day you got married and spent one holiday with one set of in-laws and another with the others. None of this bonding business.

Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about.

Social history might be defined negatively as the history of a people with the politics left out.

Most of us do not have incomes large enough to provide both the things we need and the things we want. We are forced to choose between our necessities and our luxuries. And, very foolishly, we choose to offer up the luxuries. Thus our existence becomes dull and monotonous. We can hardly be said really to live: our lives are lived for us--cut out and sewed together by the habits and customs of the class to which we belong.

I thought I was benefiting the Indians as well as the government, by taking them all over the United States, and giving them a correct idea of the customs, life, etc., of the pale faces, so that when they returned to their people they could make known all they had seen.

Speaking of bones recalls an ugly custom of theirs, now obsolete—that of making fish-hooks and gimlets out of those of their enemies. This beats the Scandinavians turning people's skulls into cups and saucers. But

For if one should propose to all men a choice, bidding them select the best customs from all the customs that there are, each race of men, after examining them all, would select those of their own people; thus all think that their own customs are by far the best.

Because of the headwaiter mentality that prevails among customs officials, no commercial shipper of marijuana or anything else illegal would make the mistake of using Hell's Angels for runners. It would be like sending a car up to the border with "Opium Express" painted in red letters on both sides.

Writers are said to have superstitions and little rituals. Readers have them too.