Quotes about Tradition

To begin with, I hate these new-fangled intermediate meals. Why can't people eat enough at luncheon to last till dinner?

It was amusement enough to be with a group of fearless and talkative girls, who said new things in a new language, who were ignorant of tradition and unimpressed by distinctions of rank; but it was soon clear that their young hostesses must be treated with the same respect, if not with the same ceremony as English girls of good family.

The conventionality of the tribe is far more important than the happiness of the individual. In fact, the happiness of the individual ideally should rest in perpetrating the conventionality of the tribe.

the things that she took for granted gave the measure of those she had rebelled against.

For four or five generations it had been the rule of both houses that a young fellow should go to Columbia or Harvard, read law, and then lapse into more or less cultivated inaction.

It was the old New York way, of taking life 'without effusion of blood''; the way of people who dreaded scandal more than disease, who placed decency about courage, and who considered that nothing was more ill-bred than 'scenes,' except the behavior of those who gave rise to them.

I wished to warn the people against the greatest of all evils,—a blind and furious spirit of innovation, under the name of reform.

The very idea of the fabrication of a new government is enough to fill us with disgust and horror.

People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.

The highest principles for our aspirations and judgements are given to us in the Jewish-Christian religious tradition. It is a very high goal which, with our weak powers, we can reach only very inadequately, but which gives a sure foundation to our aspirations and valuations.

The thinking (person) must oppose all cruel customs, no matter how deeply rooted in tradition and surrounded by a halo. When we have a choice, we must avoid bringing torment and injury into the life of another.

The vast majority of human beings dislike and even dread all notions with which they are not familiar. Hence it comes about that at their first appearance innovators have always been derided as fools and madmen.