Tradition Quotes

For neo-conservatism is a quintessentially Jewish project: a re-sanctification in everyday life of the core values of western civilisation, and the achievement of human potential through virtuous practice. The neo-cons' crucial insight is that public signals through law, custom and tradition are the key to getting people to behave well. And that is a Jewish insight. ~ Melanie Phillips

I think of myself in the oral tradition-as a troubadour, a village tale-teller,
the man in the shadows of the campfire. That's the way I'd like to be remembered-
as a storyteller. A good storyteller. ~ Louis L'Amour

My understanding of God is an experience. God is. That's all I know. In the Biblical tradition, it would be expressed as, "Be still and know that I am God." God is the "I am" energy. Something huge is at play here - cosmic creativity, consciousness, God, whatever you want to call it. I do believe that it's a guided ride. We're on a guided tour of the universe. ~ Elizabeth Lesser

We know from Philo there was already a Jewish tradition of a preexistent being named Jesus who was the Form of God (Element 40). It cannot be claimed Philo came up with this notion on his own, since that would entail a wildly improbable coincidence. So we surely are looking at a derivation from an earlier Divine Logos doctrine. Then we're told this Jesus did not try to seize power from God in heaven (as by some accounts Satan had once done, resulting in his fall to the lower realms), but instead divested himself of all his power and higher being, enslaving himself (either to God's plan or the world of flesh) by 'being made' [genomenos] in the 'likeness' of men (not literally becoming a man, but assuming a human body, and thus wearing human 'flesh'). ~ Richard C. Carrier

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? ~ Hillary DePiano

I think 'The Searcher' is a departure from my first because it's less grounded in religion and is far more rooted in the mythic tradition: more of an existential thriller where the main character is actually the central mystery, and his journey is all about trying to figure himself out. ~ Simon Toyne

Like representative government, soccer has been imported from England and democratized in the United States. It has become the great social and athletic equalizer for suburban America. From kindergarten, girls are placed on equal footing with boys. In the fall, weekend soccer games are a prevalent in suburbia as yard sales. Girls have their own leagues, or they play with boys, and they suffer from no tradition that says that women will grow up professionally to be less successful than men.

'In the United States, not only are girls on equal footing, but the perception now is that American women can be better than American men,' said Donna Shalala, the Secretary of Health and Human Services. 'That's a turning point, a huge breakthrough in perception. ~ Jere Longman

These friends represent an oversimplified "orthodoxy," based on a misreading of the wisdom tradition to the effect that all troubles are punishments for wrongdoing. Their "comfort" consists largely of applying this message to Job, urging him to identify his sin and repent of it. ~ Anonymous

Borrowing other people's culture and adopting other people's way of life does destroy nation's self-respect which is the greatest asset a true citizen can enjoy more than food and clothes, more than all amenities and more than military glory. You can adopt a system of government and a way of life, but can you adopt the past history, travail and tradition out of which that system of government and a way of life were evolved? Can we adopt King Charles, King John, Magna Carta and civil wars and Cromwell as our own? They can always say "We evolved a system and a way of life", but we must always sing in refrain, "We borrowed them". Adopting a culture is not the same as adopting the use of a gadget. It is like tying other peoples' mangoes to your tree, while plucking and throwing away your own. How absurd! ~ Manasa Rao

The truly longstanding tradition in the church is that some are called to celibacy. Some feel called to it. But the church has never supported that celibacy be mandated for someone not called to it. It's never imposed on someone. ~ Gene Robinson

Sir Edward Grey belongs to the class which, through heredity and tradition, expects to find a place on the magisterial bench to sit in judgement upon and above their fellow men, before they ever have any opportunity to make themselves acquainted with the tasks and trials of mankind. ~ Max Hastings

In my opinion, kissing a lady's hand is a fine tradition. After all, a man must start somewhere. ~ Lois Greiman

Golf is game of respect and sportsmanship; we have to respect its traditions and its rules. ~ Jack Nicklaus

The future is a blank wall on which every man can write his own name as large as he likes; the past I find already sovered with scribbles, such as Plato, Isaiah, Shakespeare, Michael Angelo, Napoleon. I can make the future as narrow as myself; the past is obliged to be as broad and turbulant as humanity. ~ G.K. Chesterton

On the contrary, a trust in the staying power and travel-worthiness of such good should encourage us to credit the possibility of a world where respect for the validity of every tradition
will issue in the creation and maintenance of a salubrious political space. ~ Seamus Heaney

Us and them" religion is poison to the soul, and it often takes a lifetime of humiliation to detoxify us from it. In the Christian tradition, those who are ~ Jonathan Martin

In the Catholic tradition, the idea of giving something up on a Friday - the act of self denial - has always been tied with being generous to those in need. ~ Vincent Nichols

How do cultures differ from one another? Above all, in their customs. Tell me how you dress, how you act, what are your habits, which gods you honor, and I will tell you who you are. Man not only creates culture, he carries it around with him. Man is culture. ~ Ryszard Kapuscinski

He rolled her on the bed and turned so he could look at her. 'Are you hurt?' His stomach lurched in the seconds it took her to answer. 'I'm happy.' She opened her eyes and looked at him shyly. 'I'm glad for this. I'm glad that it was you.' Her tiger's eyes glowed in vibrant gold and green. A surge of possessiveness clawed at him, like talons around his heart. He had wild thoughts about taking her with him. They could keep on running, accountable to no one but each other. She'd never have to marry a man she didn't want. But that was what his life had always been. Ailey needed more. She needed honour, tradition and family. Yet she'd chosen him. She'd given herself without reservation. The knowledge stunned him. It made him believe that he could be more. He kissed her. It was the only way to stop thinking. He was never a thinking man anyway. He kissed her again, then released her lips to move his mouth over her breast, sliding his tongue over her nipple, sucking gently until he could feel her squirm beneath him. He ran his hands over her satiny skin until her breath caught and she whispered his name, her breath fanning soft against his ear. He had never gone hard so quickly. When he entered her moments later, she closed around him and he moved within her, lifting and lowering as he waited for the dark pleasure to overcome him. But it wouldn't. Not completely. Through the slick heat and the unbelievable tightness gripping him, Ailey was there. When he shut his eyes, he saw her fa ~ Jeannie Lin

The horses forced into the chuckwagon races die of heart attacks, broken necks, broken legs, and other injuries. It'd be easy to get off on western tradition without this bloody spectacle. Dude, it's the Old West, not ancient Rome! ~ Tommy Lee

Whenever one honestly defies a tradition, one becomes, in reality, the more responsible to it. ~ Glenn Gould

Whatever you may say, genuine emotions are aroused by people. The first smile of a newborn, love confession, hang-loose chatting with friends, weekly meetings with dears, and a lot more other things initiated by two or several individuals trigger the feeling of happiness. There are more specific emotions native to females and males. Whereas the first ones are pleased at hearing sweet words. We live and work in the tradition of love and not hatred. As for us, it is the unconditional acceptance of all people, the scale of our love for them. Let's treat every person as a person in his uniqueness at eye level.
Love is one of the strongest feelings one can ever have. It comes over you all of a sudden and totally absorbs before you manage to realize the fact. Emotions which arise with the feeling require some way of expression. Furtive glances, sweet words, touching, and romantic dates are a usual manifestation of affection. Still, there is a more inventive way to expose oneself – dedicating a special beautiful love quote to your beloved. ~ Oscar Auliq-Ice

However, these communities were also subject to the infusion of the world around them and their notion of tradition became altered in the very act of dissimulation. They 'falsely' believed they were protecting something old when, in fact, they were creating something new. ~ Shaul Magid

I am the East. I have philosophies, I have religions, who would exchange them for airplanes? ~ Ameen Rihani

It's in my blood. My great-grandfather made wine and it's a tradition I want to pass on to my son. ~ Maynard James Keenan

This is about putting education absolutely in the centre of enterprise and then using the traditions of Birmingham to inspire and grow. If you have knowledge and business linked together you will grow well, you go further down the innovative path and actually you create more and more jobs. Those jobs will only be available for people with skills but they will be real sustainable employments. That is how important innovation is. ~ Digby Jones, Baron Jones Of Birmingham

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. ~ Albert Schweitzer

A young city, Miami lacks the history, the roots, and the traditions of other major metropolitan areas. Everybody here is from someplace else. ~ Edna Buchanan

There's probably more in the American tradition than people give the place credit for. ~ Donald Judd

A love of tradition has never weakened a nation ... ~ Winston Churchill

It is often said that Islam is an egalitarian religion. There is much truth in this assertion. If we compare Islam at the time of its advent with the societies that surrounded it - the stratified feudalism of Iran and the caste system of India to the east, the privileged aristocracies of both Byzantine and Latin Europe to the west - the Islamic dispensation does indeed bring a message of equality. Not only does Islam not endorse such systems of social differentiation; it explicitly and resolutely rejects them. The actions and utterances of the Prophet, the honored precedents of the early rulers of Islam as preserved by tradition, are overwhelmingly against privilege by descent, by birth, by status, by wealth, or even by race, and insist that rank and honor are determined only by piety and merit in Islam. ~ Bernard Lewis

I want to bring back the pride and tradition long associated with the Pittsburgh Steelers, and more importantly, with the people of Pittsburgh. ~ Bill Cowher

The Lowcountry traditionally is a logical place where the big ships stopped and brought new things in from the ocean, and the islands have a mystical tradition. It is such a visual place, too, with these iconic villages with the Spanish moss and the village and historical homes and the coast. ~ Margaret Stohl

Tradition demands that we not speak poorly of the dead. ~ Daniel Barenboim

The struggle between Jews and zombies would drag on, itself zombie-like, unless they found a way to pass beyond Jews and Zombies. The future. She was the future. New blood, and a new beginning. Breaking the old wheel of tradition. Helix and double-helix, and the doubling was a necessary part of the helix. She ~ Rebecca Levene

People need religion. It's a vehicle for a moral tradition. A crucial role. Nothing can take its place. ~ Irving Kristol

The Moon Pie is a bedrock of the country store and rural tradition. It is more than a snack. It is a cultural artifact. ~ William R. Ferris

Those of us raised in the Christian tradition need to choose to either see God in Jesus or to continue to let the Bible define God. Our tradition says that Jesus is God. Maybe we should act as if we think he is instead of worshipping a book. Maybe we should be brave enough to admit that we are compelled to either become blinded ideologues or we need to forthrightly pick and choose what we follow in the Bible. Most Christians do that anyway, many just don't admit it. ~ Frank Schaeffer

Trying to plan for the future without knowing the past is like trying to plant cut flowers. ~ David Boorstin

It would be foolish to despise tradition. But with our growing self-consciousness and increasing intelligence we must begin to control tradition and assume a critical attitude toward it, if human relations are ever to change for the better. ~ Albert Einstein

Now, as it happens, theology is actually a pitilessly demanding discipline concerning an immense, profoundly sophisticated legacy of hermeneutics, dialectics, and logic; it deals in minute detail with a vast variety of concrete historical data; over the centuries, it has incubated speculative systems of extraordinary rigor and intricacy, many of whose questions and methods continue to inform contemporary philosophy; and it does, when all is said and done, constitute the single intellectual, moral, spiritual, and cultural tradition uniting the classical, medieval, and early modern worlds. ~ David Bentley Hart

Certainly the death of Christ has been understood as expiation for human sin through the whole length of church history, and I defer with all possible sincerity to the central tenets of the Christian tradition, but as for myself, I confess that I struggle to understand the phenomenon of ritual sacrifice, and the Crucifixion when explicated in its terms. The concept is so central to the tradition that I have no desire to take issue with it, and so difficult for me that I leave it for others to interpret. If it answered to a deep human need at other times, and it answers now to other spirits than mine, then it is a great kindness of God toward them, and a great proof of God's attentive grace toward his creatures. ~ Marilynne Robinson

The Liberal Party is and always has been an amalgam between the conservative and the liberal with a small L traditions. And so from time to time people will see it emphasising one more than the other. I think it is genuinely an amalgam between the two. ~ Malcolm Turnbull

The wood-carver can fashion whatever he will. Yet his products are but toys of the moment, to be glanced at in jest, not fashioned according to any precept or law. When times change, the carver too will change his style and make new trifles to hit the fancy of the passing day. But there is another kind of artist, who sets more soberly about his work, striving to give real beauty to the things which men actually use and to give to them the shape which tradition has ordained. This maker of real things must not for a moment be confused with the maker of idle toys. ~ Murasaki Shikibu

The solitude of women's minds is regrettable, I said to myself, it's a waste to be separated from each other without procedures, without tradition. ~ Elena Ferrante

Some people imagine that by returning to tradition, you will renew it. This is not true, for by returning to tradition, you renew nothing. But by setting out from it and adding to it, you renew its power, because only by addition can you prepare the future path for the living sap within it. ~ Jabra Ibrahim Jabra

After each performance of an Austin Shakespeare production, audiences are invited to stay for a ten-minute discussion of the work. And this tradition continues in our New York run. ~ Jeff Britting

Origen rejected anthropomorphism, not because the scriptures or unanimous Christian tradition specifically rejected it, but because the philosophers "despised" it: "The Jews indeed, but also some of our people, supposed that God should be understood as a man, that is, adorned with human members and human appearance. But the philosophers despise these stories as fabulous and formed in the likeness of poetic fictions. ~ Barry Robert Bickmore

[The Christian story] amounts to a refusal to affirm life. In the biblical tradition we have inherited, life is corrupt, and every natural impulse is sinful unless it has been circumcised or baptized. The serpent was the one who brought sin into the wold. And the woman was the one who handed the apple to man. This identification of the woman with sin, of the serpent with sin, and thus of life with sin, is the twist the has been given to the whole story in the biblical myth and doctrine of the Fall.... I don't know of it [the idea of woman as sinner...in other mythologies] elsewhere. The closest thing to it would be perhaps Pandora with Pandora's box, but that's not sin, that's just trouble. The idea in the biblical tradition of the all is that nature as we know it is corrupt, sex in itself is corrupt, and the female as the epitome of sex is a corrupter. Why was the knowledge of good and evil forbidden to Adam and Eve? Without that knowledge, we'd all be a bunch of babies still Eden, without any participation in life. Woman brings life into the world. Eve is the mother o this temporal wold. Formerly you had a dreamtime paradise there in the Garden of Eden – no time, no birth, no death – no life. The serpent, who dies and is resurrected, shedding its skin and renewing its life, is the lord of the central tree, where time and eternity come together. He is the primary god, actually, in the Garden of Eden. Yahweh, the one who walks there in the cool of the evening, is just a visit ~ Joseph Campbell

It takes an endless amount of history to make even a little tradition. ~ Henry James

Some holiday traditions are sacred. In our house one such tradition is the annual Christmas classic cinema celebration. ~ Sarah Ban Breathnach

I am a twentiethcentury individual. I am working myself up to a point where I can exist beyond guilt, beyond blood, beyond the ridiculous past. Thank goodness for America. In this country there's a chance to accomplish such a thing. I want to look straight ahead. I want to see things clearly. I'd like to become singleminded and straightforward in the most literal sense of those words. History is no more accurate than prophecy. I reject the wrathful God of the Hebrews. I reject the Christian God of love and money, although I don't reject love itself or money itself. I reject heritage, background, tradition and birthright. These things merely slow the progress of the human race. They result in war and insanity, war and insanity, war and insanity. ~ Don DeLillo

My love of storytelling comes from oral tradition, the stories from my grandmother and conversations with [my] mother. The world is full of discussions of condensation, drifts, misunderstanding, repetition. These are the materials I work with. My debt is to these women. ~ Lucrecia Martel

Nations need to understand their own strengths and weaknesses, and India's tradition of dissent and democratic debate is a positive aspect. ~ Rosabeth Moss Kanter

Liberalism is the philosophy for our time, because it does not try to conserve every tradition of the past, because it does not apply to new problems the old doctrinaire solutions, because it is prepared to experiment and innovate and because it knows that the past is less important than the future. ~ Pierre Trudeau

Duty. That was a word I hated as much as tradition. ~ Mary E. Pearson

The question that we need to address is this: What relevance do these ancient traditions have to the experience of a modern adolescent growing up in the Western world? Rather than indulge in idle speculation, I have invited a number of young people to express their views on psychedelics and the effects these substances have had upon their lives and minds. ~ Rick Doblin

A local butcher offered me money to put in my next book a portrayal of a customer he didn't like that would make him ashamed to show his face in the town. It was like the tradition of the Gaelic poets, who were paid money to write in derision about people. ~ John McGahern

I was born in Suzhou, a city not very far from Shanghai. It's a very interesting town - there is a long artist's tradition there, especially during the Ming and Ching dynasties, which produced many, many scholars and painters and so forth. That's where my family lived for 600, 700 years. ~ I.M. Pei

Tradition is the blind witness they use to condemn us, ~ Brandon Sanderson

Tradition kills originality; you keep repeating the same things in tradition! Behave like the sky; always create new and different things; be original! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

People will selectively use "tradition" to justify anything. ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

In the music business I am surrounded by people who don't view music as a sacred voice. They view music as something that they can use and exploit, often times lazily. They have no sense of the tradition, they have no sense of honor about those who came before and charted the path. ~ Billy Corgan

The sense of a spiritual dimension in life is absolutely important, and the religious communities are also important. The question of believing in a set of creedal statements is a lot less important, because I realize the Christian movement thrived then and can now on other elements of the tradition. ~ Elaine Pagels

Whether or not we follow any particular spiritual tradition, the benefits of love and kindness are obvious to anyone. ~ Dalai Lama

There is a long and interesting tradition of really marginal left-field music that becomes commercially successful. And I will, for a brief minute, fit into that tradition. ~ Moby

The Church of Christ, zealous and cautious guardian of the dogmas deposited with it, never changes any phase of them. It does not diminish them or add to them; it neither trims what seems necessary now grafts things superfluous ... but it devotes all its diligence to one aim: To treat tradition faithfully and wisely; to consolidate and to strengthen what already was clear; and to guard what already was confirmed and defined. ~ St. Vincent

Custom is almost a second nature. ~ Plutarch

The culture of a given time and place is a product of inherited tradition, of the recovery of lost or obscured forms of thought, of innovation. Such seeds, fertilized by prosperity, tended by leisure, and warmed by the sun of peace, may produce an abundant bloom. ~ Morris Bishop

If we move away from the American tradition of lawyers defending those with whom they vehemently disagree
as we temporarily did during the McCarthy period
we weaken our commitment to the rule of law ... So beware of an approach which limits advocacy to that which is approved by the standards of political correctness. ~ Alan Dershowitz

I think Guantanamo, has been synonymous with the staining of American values and American legal tradition. ~ Mark Shields

Adam and Eve, placed in the garden of Eden, find themselves forbidden to eat of "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" (Genesis 2:17). Catholic theologians believe this "knowledge" forbidden by Elohim-Yahweh is neither omniscience nor moral discernment, but the ability to decide what is good or evil. Jewish theology is more subtle. The "tree" of the knowledge is interpreted as the representation of a world where good and evil "are in a combined state," where there is no absolute Good and Evil. In other words, the "tree" is a foreshadowing of the real world we live in, a world where nothing is absolutely clear cut, where moral imperatives are tied to human values, and where everything of any greatness and importance always takes place beyond good and evil. Furthermore, in the Hebrew tradition "to eat" means "to assimilate." To eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil is therefore to personally enter this real world where human initiative "combines" good and evil. Adam's transgression, from which all the others are derived, is clearly "that of autonomy," accordingly, as emphasized by Eisenberg and Abecassis, this would be "the desire to conduct his own history alone in according to his own desire and his own word or law. ~ Alain De Benoist

I shall borrow two words used for a slightly different purpose by the great demographer Alfred Lotka to distinguish between the two systems of heredity enjoyed by man: endosomatic or internal heredity for the ordinary or genetical heredity we have in common with animals; and exosomatic or external heredity for the non-genetic heredity that is peculiarly our own - the heredity that is mediated through tradition, by which I mean the transfer of information through non-genetic channels from one generation to the next. ~ Peter Medawar

The Latin musical tradition is very rich and gives the singer a lot of freedom to explore a range of. ~ Ednita Nazario

Every great tradition has told you that you were created in the image and the likeness of the creative source. That means that you have God potential and power to create your world. ~ James Arthur Ray

America's freedom of religion, and freedom from religion, offers every wisdom tradition an opportunity to address our soul-deep needs: Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, secular humanism, agnosticism and atheism among others. ~ Parker Palmer

The higher American patriotism, on the other hand, combines loyalty to historical tradition and precedent with the imaginative projection of an ideal national Promise. ~ Herbert Croly

There is one tradition in America I am proud to inherit. It is our first freedom and the truest expression of our Americanism: the ability to dissent without fear. It is our right to utter the words, I disagree. We must feel at liberty to speak those words to our neighbors, our clergy, our educators, our news media, our lawmakers and, above all, to the one among us we elect President. ~ Natalie Merchant

Our temptation now and always is not to trust in God but to trust in our faith tradition of trusting in God. ~ Richard Rohr

When I went to Moscow, I felt I was relearning Swan Lake - which was written for the Bolshoi - and being immersed in a tradition and history I had never experienced. It took a while to adjust to living there and learning the language, but now I have lots of friends. I get the best of two completely different worlds. ~ David Hallberg

There's a tradition in British intellectual life of mocking any non-political force that gets involved in politics, especially within the sphere of the arts and the theatre. ~ Harold Pinter

In the tradition of Julian of Norwich and St. Teresa of Avila and all the other mystics, we can learn to render ourselves vulnerable to the "favors of God" - those indescribable experiences that mock our dualisms and so saturate our imagination with abundance that they transcend our ability to convey joy and wonder. In the tradition of St. John of the Cross, we can learn to survive and derive benefits from the soul's dark night. ~ Brian D. McLaren

Before her it is beautiful. It shows the way
Behind her it is beautiful
It shows the way
This that is beautiful
It shows the way
May she ever walk in beauty. ~ Navajo Tradition

Different cultural and geological references inspire the collection as seen in ancient tribes and tradition, ~ Lubov Azria

The most erroneous stories are those we think we know best - and therefore never scrutinize or question. ~ Stephen Jay Gould

For me, as a writer who comes from quite a naturalistic tradition, British screenwriting is quite delicate, quite small, and rarified in a way. ~ Simon Beaufoy

There is an air of grace and tradition The South takes pride in upholding. When all hell is breaking loose, southerners face the world with a smile. All anger, resentment, and feelings of hierarchy only flutter in bits of passive aggressive, light-hearted gossip. In southern culture, it is a cardinal sin to utter a single word without a sweet layer of sugarcoating. ~ Maggie Young

I'd rather be at the end of a dying tradition, which I admire, than at the beginning of a tradition which I deplore. ~ Margaret Drabble

Einstein has a feeling for the central order of things. He can detect it in the simplicity of natural laws. We may take it that he felt this simplicity very strongly and directly during his discovery of the theory of relativity. Admittedly, this is a far cry from the contents of religion. I don't believe Einstein is tied to any religious tradition, and I rather think the idea of a personal God is entirely foreign to him. ~ Wolfgang Pauli

If there is a gay ghetto, then that's where James Baldwin is, and Thomas Mann is, and Virginia Woolf is, and that's the only place I would ever want to be. And that's not on the margins of the literary tradition: That's right at the heart of it. ~ Garth Greenwell

The history of the Bible is one of perpetual revolution. In that light, we might begin to think about the Bible not so much as a fixed thing but as a dynamic, vital tradition. In light of its history, the Bible looks less like a rock than a river, continually flowing and changing, widening and narrowing, as it moves downstream.

For some, thinking about the Bible as a river and not a rock is liberating. That rock has been a millstone around the neck and a tombstone that won't be rolled away. But for others, seeing it this way can be disorienting. That rock has promised solid foundation in a stormy world. Cling to it or be swept away. ~ Timothy Beal

If there is a main problem in American art today," says critic Tom Piazza, "it is not that we need the new to unshackle us from a suffocating and outmoded tradition. The new is constantly pumped out, by the ton and 24 hours a day, into the esthetic rivers, reservoirs and gullies of our culture, and nobody needs to go looking for it. With all the economic force of corporate profit and advertising behind it, pop culture, with its Billy the Kid ethos, has in fact become the new establishment. In a truly Orwellian irony, the new is the status quo."36 ~ James Bau Graves

The Highland way says it's who you say you love and who you serve, which is of worth. Not some title that is passed down upon you by tradition. That's the English way, and the Lowland way
but who can be born a nobleman? Nobility is earned ... 'Tis our choices that make us. ~ Susan Fletcher

As tradition, the female element clings to the old art and opposes anything new - precisely because each new art moves further away from the natural appearance of things. ~ Piet Mondrian

Authors as diverse as Matthew Arnold and George Orwell have given thought to the serious question: what is to be done about morals and ethics now that religion has so much decayed? Arnold went almost as far as to propose that the study of literature replace the study of religion. I must say that I slightly dread the effect that this might have had on literary pursuit, but as a source of ethical reflection and as a mirror in which to see our human dilemmas reflected, the literary tradition is infinitely superior to the childish parables and morality tales, let alone the sanguinary and sectarian admonitions, of the "holy" books. ~ Christopher Hitchens

While all societies make their own imaginaries (institutions, laws, traditions, beliefs and behaviors), autonomous societies are those that their members are aware of this fact, and explicitly self-institute (αυτο-νομούνται). In contrast, the members of heteronomous societies attribute their imaginaries to some extra-social authority (i.e. God, ancestors, historical necessity) ~ Cornelius Castoriadis

Studies show that the more often families eat together, the less likely kids are to smoke, drink, do drugs, get depressed, develop eating disorders and consider suicide, and the more likely they are to do well in school, delay having sex, eat their vegetables, learn big words and know which fork to use. ~ Nancy Gibbs

Fiction writers are fully ten times more likely to be bipolar than the general population, and poets are an amazing forty times more likely to struggle with the disorder. Based on statistics like these, psychologist Daniel Nettle writes, "It is hard to avoid the conclusion that most of the canon of Western culture was produced by people with a touch of madness." Essayist Brooke Allen does Nettle one better: "The Western literary tradition, it seems, has been dominated by a sorry collection of alcoholics, compulsive gamblers, manic-depressives, sexual predators, and various unfortunate combinations of two, three, or even all of the above. ~ Jonathan Gottschall

Our tradition in this country has not been to deny health information to interested individuals when they claim that they can handle it and are willing to pay for the cost of getting it. ~ Robert Shapiro

When we are going to enter the water ... in the presence of the congregation and under the hand of the president, we solemnly profess that we disown the devil, his pomp, and his angels. After this we are immersed three times, making a somewhat larger pledge than the Lord appointed in the Gospel. Then we are taken up [a reference to the Roman tradition of recognizing a newborn baby as a member of the family]. We first taste a mixture of milk and honey and from that day we refrain from the daily bath for a whole week. ~ Tertullian