Best 530 quotes in «tradition quotes» category

Immorality sanctified by tradition is still immorality.

I'm not fond of a tradition that requires people to open the door for strangers. Or for kids to take candy from strangers.

In 1935, when there were no other programs, the founders of AA, Bill Wilson and Dr. Robert Smith, stepped up to the plate and took action to help a crippled population. All credit for the establishment of their wonderful, life-saving group goes to them and to those who came after them who have continued the tradition. However, there are not among the estimated two or three million who attend twelve-step meetings.

In a world where news of inhumanity bombards our sensibilities, where grasping for things goes so far beyond our needs, where time is squandered in busyness, it is a pleasure and a privilege to pause for a look at handiwork, to see beauty amidst utility, and to know that craft traditions begun so long ago serve us today.

In each generation, there is this certain wisdom of the ages that gets reburied in the fleeting drivelings of modernity; then, like a diamond in the rough, it is yet again unearthed by a very small minority who not only restores it but also polishes it and presents it as something new, something highly valuable and refreshing as understood by the current.

In general the relative value of the various religions is a very difficult thing to discern; it is almost impossible, perhaps quite impossible. For a religion is known only from inside.

In Sri Lanka, the people you lived amongst, the people you went to school with, the people in whose houses you ate, whose jokes you shared: these were not the people you married. Quite possibly they were not your religion. More to the point they were probably not your caste. This word with its fearsome connotations was never, hardly ever used. But it was ever present: it muddied the waters of Sri Lanka's politics, it perfumed the air of her bed-chambers; it lurked, like a particularly noxious relative, behind the poruwa of every wedding ceremony. It was the c-word. People used its synonym, its acronym, its antonym-indeed any other nym that came to mind - in the vain hope its meaning would somehow go away. It didn't. But if the people you chose to associate with were the very ones you could not marry, then the ones you did marry were quite often people you wouldn't dream of associating with if you had any choice in the matter.

In the Timaeus dialogues, these being a record of discussions between the Greek Statesman Solon and an Egyptian priest, Plato reports the following: 'You Greeks are all children... you have no belief rooted in the old tradition and no knowledge hoary with age. And the reason is this. There have been and will be many different calamities to destroy mankind, the greatest of them by fire and water, and lesser one by countless other means... You remember only one deluge, though there have been many.

In the past, people around the world heard the buzzing of bees as voices of the departed, a murmured conveyance from the spirit world. This belief traces back to the cultures of Egypt and Greece, among others, where tradition held that a person's soul appeared in bee form when it left the body, briefly visible (and audible) in its journey to the hereafter...Nobody knows the exact sequence of events that led to the beginning of bees, but everyone can agree on at least one thing: we know what it sounded like.

In the Christian tradition, Christ is identified with the Logos. The Logos is the Word of God. That word transformed chaos into order at the beginning of time. In his human form, Christ sacrificed himself voluntarily to the truth, to the good, to God. In consequence, He died and was reborn. The Word that produced order from Chaos sacrifices everything, even itself, to God. That single sentence, beyond comprehension, sums up Christianity, Every bit of learning is a little death.

… in these new days and in these new pages a philosophical tradition of the spontaneity of speculation kind has been rekindled on the sacred isle of Éire, regardless of its creative custodian never having been taught how to freely speculate, how to profoundly question, and how to playfully define. Spontaneity of speculation being synonymous with the philosophical-poetic, the philosophical-poetic with the rural philosopher-poet, and by roundelay the rural philosopher-poet thee with the spontaneity of speculation be. And by the way of the rural what may we say? A philosopher-poet of illimitable space we say. Iohannes Scottus Ériugena the metaphor of old salutes you; salutes your lyrical ear and your skilful strumming of the rippling harp. (Source: Hearing in the Write, Canto 19, Ivy-muffled)

In the West, people learn through the Socratic tradition. The education system was influenced by Western philosophy and is based on constantly questioning the knowledge that’s handed to you and arriving at the truth through that process of questioning. The Indian system took off from the Guru-Shishyha tradition in which your virtue as a student lay in taking tradition or parampara as it is given to you and passing it on to the next generation in the exact same way.

I refuse to believe that Southern pride stems from the pain we’ve inflicted on others. Southern pride comes from what we’ve built together. In our music and art and innovation. In the people who honor us by taking our culture out into the world and celebrating it. It comes from people seeking us out, and flocking here to experience all that we know and love. We are all neighbors. We are all Southerners. This is OUR culture, and it means what WE choose it to mean. So, yes. I’ll say it again—Southern Pride is good collard greens. Death to the flag. Long live the South.

In your message, you told me about your family, how you don’t have any traditions. The first time I read that, it made me sad, but then I thought about it for a while and started to feel jealous. Lois, think about it! No one cares if your restaurant has tables. You can build robots, or bake bread, or do something else entirely. You’re unencumbered by culture. You’re... light!

It is always painful to set one's self against tradition, especially against the conventions & prejudices that hedge about womanhood.

I respect traditional people - they have the eyes which see value in the tarnished. This is a gift in itself. Tradition requires a wealth of discipline in order to be adhered to, hence it is rarely found in youth.

Islamic tradition does not recognize such presumptuous and conceited preoccupation as "reviewing", which is now widely practised among scholars who regard highly this legacy of the Western tradition modern scholarship. a Muslim scholar, with the work of another before him, would either - according to Islamic tradition - refute it (radd), or elaborate it further in commentary (sharh) as the occasion demands. there is no such thing as "reviewing" it, whether the "review" is termed as such or as any other term which describes it. If there are petty mistakes they turn a blind eye to them; if there are obscurities they explain them in commentary - they polish a positive work and make it shine.

It is at least as possible for a Philadelphian to feel the presence of Penn and Franklin as for an Englishman to see the ghosts of Alfred and Becket. Tradition does not mean a dead town; it does not mean that the living are dead but that the dead are alive. It means that it still matters what Penn did two hundred years ago or what Franklin did a hundred years ago; I never could feel in New York that it mattered what anybody did an hour ago.

It is unlikely that many of us will be famous, or even remembered. But not less important than the brilliant few that lead a nation or a literature to fresh achievements, are the unknown many whose patient efforts keep the world from running backward; who guard and maintain the ancient values, even if they do not conquer new; whose inconspicuous triumph it is to pass on what they inherited from their fathers, unimpaired and undiminished, to their sons. Enough, for almost all of us, if we can hand on the torch, and not let it down; content to win the affection, if it may be, of a few who know us and to be forgotten when they in their turn have vanished. The destiny of mankind is not governed wholly by its 'stars'.

It is necessarily so, since every traditional art obeys a particular spiritual economy that limits its themes and means of expression, so that an abandonment of that economy almost immediately releases new and apparently unlimited artistic possibilities.

It is not easy to get rid of weeds; but it is easy, by a process of neglect, to ruin your food crops and let them revert to their primitive state of wildness. [...] In political civilization, the state is an abstraction and the relationship of men utilitarian. Because it has no roots in sentiments, it is so dangerously easy to handle. Half a century has been enough for you to master this machine; and there are men among you, whose fondness for it exceeds their love for the living ideals which were born with the birth of your nation and nursed in your centuries. It is like a child who in the excitement of his play imagines he likes his playthings better than his mother.

It is true that a great statesman is he who knows when to depart from traditions, as well as when to adhere to them. But it is a great mistake to suppose that he will do this better for being ignorant of the traditions.

It (modernization) is just another jungle closing in.

I treat my thoughts like an old person treats their valuables: I cannot for the life of me proceed to throwing them out.

It preoccupies me until it's time to leave. It seems such the right expression of grief. I am sad, so in whatever small way I can, I will tear myself apart. They've taken what's on the inside and made it visible. If I thought it wouldn't be inappropriate I'd do it myself.

It’s not a bad thing, if you’re responsible about it. Just don’t start having boyfriends. Wait until you’ve found your husband.” “And how am I supposed to find a husband if I can’t have a boyfriend until then?” I asked ironically.

It’s a wonder of human behavior: we build our own handcuffs that trap and harm us. We create the myth, and we honor it. We tell the lie, and we believe it.

It seems [...] that the Native American 'brain smasher' and the ancient Egyptian goddess in the vignette from the Fifth Hour of the Duat both serve exactly the same function, namely, the annihilation and permanent destruction of unworthy souls on the afterlife journey. There are differences in the traditions, to be sure, as one would expect if they descended from a remote common ancestor many millennia ago and then evolved separately, but the fundamental similarities of the role are unmissable. A further point arising from this material has to do with the more general issue of the trials and tribulations faced by the soul on its postmortem journey. That the precise character of these obstacles should vary between ancient Egypt and ancient Native America is only to be expected. Even so, the striking similarities in the core structure of the 'story'--physical death, a journey of the soul on land, a leap to the sky involving Orion followed by a further journey with perils and challenges to be faced, through the valley of the Milky Way--all argue for some as yet unexplained connection.

It’s an old Camorri tradition for when a bunch of people are planning something stupid,” said Locke. “Actually, we have a lot of traditions for that. You’ll find out

I will admit that we as young rebels always wanted fundamentalists to understand our take on their religion, but rarely, if ever, the other way around. The fundamentalists are the real artists. If you saw only a masterpiece of an original painting and someone threw a splash of red across it saying that their version is better, you would be offended too.

Longing for something fresh, for something no one else has said often leads to bad exegesis.

Many things which are called 'secrets' are only things withheld from people until they can understand or effectively experience them.

Men will always create new arenas for honor if traditional rituals fade.

Modernity is kind of a tradition and tradition itself is not a rulebook. It's a dialogue and a dialectical process— just as tradition affects us, we too affect tradition and culture, and we change it.

Mormonism is the house whose walls I know best. It is the story I am not abandoning because it is the story I choose-and in many ways gas chosen me-again and again to grapple with. Mormonism is my native spiritual language and many of the threads with which my life's tapestry is woven.

Mollycoddling was the mother's duty; the father's lay elsewhere. As a consequence, his four older children feared and respected him, as they had been taught to do, and the love the professed to feel, had they been asked and had they answered truthfully or even had access to the truth, was of a duty-bound, obligatory kind too, a love issuing from commandment and tradition and the notion of family, not one from the tides of the heart or the unbridled, inexplicable pull of feelings. If painted, that love would take the form of a polite and manicured wash of pleasant colours, not the hurl-and-splatter of impastoed reds.

Mormonism is the house whose walls I know best. It is the story I am not abandoning because it is the story I choose-and in many ways has chosen me-again and again to grapple with. Mormonism is my native spiritual language and many of the threads with which my life's tapestry is woven.

MURRY: It's not that, it's just… I don't really get it. I usually find myself staring at the midnight deadline filled with regrets both for opportunities and loved ones missed. It's another day closer to the end. The last thing I feel like doing is counting down to some wild celebration. It just seems so sad to say goodbye to a year and know that it’s gone forever and you can’t go back to it. Not to relive, not to correct. NOEL: I've never thought about it that way. MURRY: There's something so final about it. It's the period at the end of the sentence. NOEL: The New Year's resolution.

MOTHER TIME: Life goes by so very fast, my dears, and taking the time to reflect, even once a year, slows things down. We zoom past so many seconds, minutes, hours, killing them with the frantic way we live that it's important we take at least this one collective sigh and stop, take stock, and acknowledge our place in time before diving back into the melee. Midnight on New Year's Eve is a unique kind of magic where, just for a moment, the past and the future exist at once in the present. Whether we're aware of it or not, as we countdown together to it, we're sharing the burden of our history and committing to the promise of tomorrow.

MURRY: Why do we even celebrate the New Year? It's just this arbitrary quirk of how we measure time in years, right? Midnight tonight is the very same transition from day to day that we do every 24 hours. But this thing in my hands, it feels real in a way the numbered calendar box never does. Why? What makes midnight tonight any different?

MURRY: Resolutions are a complete waste of time. They're just this meaningless ritual, empty promises we make and break within hours of each other.

Needless to say, what whites now think and say about race has undergone a revolution. In fact, it would be hard to find other opinions broadly held by Americans that have changed so radically. What whites are now expected to think about race can be summarized as follows: Race is an insignificant matter and not a valid criterion for any purpose—except perhaps for redressing wrongs done to non-whites. The races are equal in every respect and are therefore interchangeable. It thus makes no difference if a neighborhood or nation becomes non-white or if white children marry outside their race. Whites have no valid group interests, so it is illegitimate for them to attempt to organize as whites. Given the past crimes of whites, any expression of racial pride is wrong. The displacement of whites by non-whites through immigration will strengthen the United States. These are matters on which there is little ground for disagreement; anyone who holds differing views is not merely mistaken but morally suspect. By these standards, of course, most of the great men of America’s past are morally suspect, and many Americans are embarrassed to discover what our traditional heroes actually said. Some people deliberately conceal this part of our history. For example, the Jefferson Memorial has the following quotation from the third president inscribed on the marble interior: “Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people [the Negroes] shall be free.” Jefferson did not end those words with a period, but with a semicolon, after which he wrote: “nor is it less certain that the two races equally free, cannot live under the same government.” The Jefferson Memorial was completed in 1942. A more contemporary approach to the past is to bring out all the facts and then repudiate historical figures. This is what author Conor Cruise O’Brien did in a 1996 cover story for The Atlantic Monthly. After detailing Jefferson’s views, he concluded: “It follows that there can be no room for a cult of Thomas Jefferson in the civil religion of an effectively multiracial America . . . . Once the facts are known, Jefferson is of necessity abhorrent to people who would not be in America at all if he could have had his way.” Columnist Richard Grenier likened Jefferson to Nazi SS and Gestapo chief Heinrich Himmler, and called for the demolition of the Jefferson Memorial “stone by stone.” It is all very well to wax indignant over Jefferson’s views 170 years after his death, but if we expel Jefferson from the pantheon where do we stop? Clearly Lincoln must go, so his memorial must come down too. Washington owned slaves, so his monument is next. If we repudiate Jefferson, we do not just change the skyline of the nation’s capital, we repudiate practically our entire history. This, in effect, is what some people wish to do. American colonists and Victorian Englishmen saw the expansion of their race as an inspiring triumph. Now it is cause for shame. “The white race is the cancer of human history,” wrote Susan Sontag. The wealth of America used to be attributed to courage, hard work, and even divine providence. Now, it is common to describe it as stolen property. Robin Morgan, a former child actor and feminist, has written, “My white skin disgusts me. My passport disgusts me. They are the marks of an insufferable privilege bought at the price of others’ agony.

Never become a slave to tradition, learn to foresee new things.

No business can continue to shrink. That can only go on for so long before irrelevancy sets in.

NOEL: And even when I don't stay up until midnight, I still enjoy the tradition of New Year's resolutions. What can I say? I like setting personal goals and challenging myself to improve. I suppose I could do it on any day of the year, but the New Year is as good a day as any. It's a fresh start.

No fim perguntei ao avô: Por que é que temos de estar encostados? Depois de o povo de Israel ter saído do Egipto deixou de ser um povo de escravos. Só um povo livre é feliz, só um povo livre tem bem estar e comodidades. É por esta razão que nos encostamos.

Not agreeing with something that happened in history or with another person’s traditions doesn’t provide license to eradicate or vilify entire aspects of the past.

No task is more important than for the Church to take the Bible out of the hands of individual Christians in North America.

Now she has lived long enough to know that cutting up women is a sport older than cricket but just as popular and equally full of obscure rituals and intricate rules that everyone seems to know except her.

Now naturally, like many of us, I have a reluctance to change too much of the old ways. But there is no virtue at all in clinging as some do to tradition merely for its own sake.