Quotes tagged as "tradition"
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1-30
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73)
“Just because something is traditional is no reason to do it, of course.”
― Lemony Snicket, The Blank Book
― Lemony Snicket, The Blank Book
“It is a fine thing to establish one's own religion in one's
heart, not to be dependent on tradition and second-hand ideals. Life
will seem to you, later, not a lesser, but a greater thing.”
― D.H. Lawrence
― D.H. Lawrence
“Tradition becomes our security, and when the mind is secure it is in decay.”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti
― Jiddu Krishnamurti
“Tradition:' one of those words conservative people use as a shortcut to thinking.”
― Warren Ellis, Transmetropolitan, Vol. 4: The New Scum
― Warren Ellis, Transmetropolitan, Vol. 4: The New Scum
“The less there is to justify a traditional custom, the harder it is to get rid of it”
― Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
― Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
“When men are oppressed, it's a tragedy. When women are oppressed, it's tradition.”
― Letty Cottin Pogrebin, Deborah, Golda, and Me: Being Female and Jewish in America
― Letty Cottin Pogrebin, Deborah, Golda, and Me: Being Female and Jewish in America
“No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone.
His significance, his appreciation is the appreciation of his relation
to the dead poets and artists. You cannot value him alone; you must set
him, for contrast and comparison, among the dead.”
― T.S. Eliot, The Sacred Wood
― T.S. Eliot, The Sacred Wood
“And then it occurs to me. They are frightened. In me, they see
their own daughters, just as ignorant, just as unmindful of all the
truths and hopes they have brought to America. They see daughters who
grow impatient when their mothers talk in Chinese, who think they are
stupid when they explain things in fractured English. They see that joy
and luck do not mean the same to their daughters, that to these closed
American-born minds "joy luck" is not a word, it does not exist. They
see daughters who will bear grandchildren born without any connecting
hope passed from generation to generation.”
― Amy Tan, The Joy Luck Club
― Amy Tan, The Joy Luck Club
“I always encourage them to practice in a way that will help them
go back to their own tradition and get re-rooted. If they succeed at at
becoming reintegrated, they will be an important instrument in
transforming and renewing their tradition.
...
When we respect our blood ancestors and our spiritual ancestors, we feel rooted. If we find ways to cherish and develop our spiritual heritage, we will avoid the kind of alienation that is destroying society, and we will become whole again. ... Learning to touch deeply the jewels of our own tradition will allow us to understand and appreciate the values of other traditions, and this will benefit everyone.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh, Living Buddha, Living Christ
...
When we respect our blood ancestors and our spiritual ancestors, we feel rooted. If we find ways to cherish and develop our spiritual heritage, we will avoid the kind of alienation that is destroying society, and we will become whole again. ... Learning to touch deeply the jewels of our own tradition will allow us to understand and appreciate the values of other traditions, and this will benefit everyone.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh, Living Buddha, Living Christ
“Tradition is the living faith of the dead, traditionalism is the
dead faith of the living. And, I suppose I should add, it is
traditionalism that gives tradition such a bad name.”
― Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, The Vindication of Tradition: The 1983 Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities
― Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, The Vindication of Tradition: The 1983 Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities
“To recognize untruth as a condition of life--that certainly means
resisting accustomed value feelings in a dangerous way; and a
philosophy that risks this would by that token alone place itself beyond
good and evil.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil
“What we have witnessed in our own time is the death of
universities as centres of critique. Since Margaret Thatcher, the role
of academia has been to service the status quo, not challenge it in the
name of justice, tradition, imagination, human welfare, the free play of
the mind or alternative visions of the future. We will not change this
simply by increasing state funding of the humanities as opposed to
slashing it to nothing. We will change it by insisting that a critical
reflection on human values and principles should be central to
everything that goes on in universities, not just to the study of
Rembrandt or Rimbaud.”
― Terry Eagleton
― Terry Eagleton
“We can either emphasize those aspects of our traditions,
religious or secular, that speak of hatred, exclusion, and suspicion or work with those that stress the interdependence and equality of all human beings. The choice is yours. (22)”
― Karen Armstrong, Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life
― Karen Armstrong, Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life
“Those who feel guilty contemplating "betraying" the tradition
they love by acknowledging their disapproval of elements within it
should reflect on the fact that the very tradition to which they are so
loyal—the "eternal" tradition introduced to them in their youth—is in
fact the evolved product of many adjustments firmly but delicately made
by earlier lovers of the same tradition.”
― Daniel C. Dennett, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon
― Daniel C. Dennett, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon
“Touching your cap to the squire may be damn bad for the squire, but it's damn good for you.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien
― J.R.R. Tolkien
“When I observe Gram, I see how fragile the notion of tradition
can be. If I take my eyes off the way she kneads her Easter bread, or if
I fail to study the way she sews a seam in suede, or if I lose the
mental image I have of her when she negotiates a better deal with a
button salesman, somehow, the very essence of her will be lost. When
she goes, the responsibility for carrying on will fall to me. My mother
says I’m the keeper of the flame, because I work here, and because I
choose to live here. A flame is a very fragile thing, too, and there are
times when I wonder if I’m the on who can keep it going.”
― Adriana Trigiani
― Adriana Trigiani
“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.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, The English Writings of Rabindranath Tagore, Vol 3: A Miscellany
― Rabindranath Tagore, The English Writings of Rabindranath Tagore, Vol 3: A Miscellany
“Do not believe anything merely because you are told it is so,
because others believe it, because it comes from Tradition, or because
you have imagined it. Do not believe what your teacher tells you merely
out of respect. Believe, take for your doctrine, and hold true to
that, which, after serious investigation, seems to you to further the
welfare of all beings. (47)”
― Jean-Yves Leloup, Compassion and Meditation: The Spiritual Dynamic between Buddhism and Christianity
― Jean-Yves Leloup, Compassion and Meditation: The Spiritual Dynamic between Buddhism and Christianity
“Sometimes tradition and habit are just that, comfortable excuses
to leave things be, even when they are unjust and unworthy.
Sometimes--not often, but sometimes--the cranks and radicals turn out to
be right. Sometimes Everyone is wrong.”
― Matthew Scully, Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy
― Matthew Scully, Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy
“Not everyone believed in marriage then. To marry was to say you
believed in the future and in the past, too - that history and tradition
and hope could stay knit together to hold you up.”
― Paula McLain, The Paris Wife
― Paula McLain, The Paris Wife
“Golden eagles don`t mate with bald eagles, deer don`t mate with
antelope, gray wolves don`t mate with red wolves. Just look at
domesticated animals, at mongrel dogs, and mixed breed horses, and
you`ll know the Great Mystery didn`t intend them to be that way. We
weakened the species and introduced disease by mixing what should be
kept seperate. Among humans, intermarriage weakens the respect people
have for themselves and for their traditions. It undermines clarity of
spirit and mind.”
― Russell Means, Where White Men Fear to Tread: The Autobiography of Russell Means
― Russell Means, Where White Men Fear to Tread: The Autobiography of Russell Means
“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.”
― G.K. Chesterton, What I Saw in America
― G.K. Chesterton, What I Saw in America
“As never before, he understood the vitality of tradition, the
dignity of the worship of what had existed before one's own self had
come into being. There was no shame in awe; there was exaltation.
(“Cafe Endless: Spring Rain”)”
― Nancy Holder, Love in Vein
― Nancy Holder, Love in Vein
“As I wrote 'The Christmas Lamp' I realized that tradition is
priceless, whether you have a small family, a large family, or no
family.
Tradition doesn't have to be logical; it only has to emphasize the light of Christ and his everlasting love.”
― Lori Copeland, The Christmas Lamp
Tradition doesn't have to be logical; it only has to emphasize the light of Christ and his everlasting love.”
― Lori Copeland, The Christmas Lamp
“In actual fact, conventions are the death of real tradition as
they are of all real life. They are parasites which attach themselves to
the living organism of tradition and devour all its reality, turning it
into a hollow formality.
Tradition is living and active, but convention is passive and dead. Tradition does not form us automatically: we have to work to understand it. Convention is accepted passively, as a matter of routine. Therefore, convention easily becomes an evasion of reality. It offers us only pretended ways of solving the problems of living - a system of gestures and formalities. Tradition really teaches us to live and shows us how to take full responsibility for our own lives. Thus tradition is often flatly opposed to what is ordinary, to what is mere routine. But convention, which is a mere repetition of familiar routines, follows the line of least resistance. One goes through an act, without trying to understand the meaning of it all, merely because everyone else does the same. Tradition, which is always old, is at the same time ever new because it is always reviving - born again in each new generation, to be lived and applied in a new and particular way. Convention is simply the ossification of social customs. The activities of conventional people are merely excuses for NOT acting in a more integrally human way. Tradition nourishes the life of the spirit; convention merely disguises its interior decay.”
― Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island
Tradition is living and active, but convention is passive and dead. Tradition does not form us automatically: we have to work to understand it. Convention is accepted passively, as a matter of routine. Therefore, convention easily becomes an evasion of reality. It offers us only pretended ways of solving the problems of living - a system of gestures and formalities. Tradition really teaches us to live and shows us how to take full responsibility for our own lives. Thus tradition is often flatly opposed to what is ordinary, to what is mere routine. But convention, which is a mere repetition of familiar routines, follows the line of least resistance. One goes through an act, without trying to understand the meaning of it all, merely because everyone else does the same. Tradition, which is always old, is at the same time ever new because it is always reviving - born again in each new generation, to be lived and applied in a new and particular way. Convention is simply the ossification of social customs. The activities of conventional people are merely excuses for NOT acting in a more integrally human way. Tradition nourishes the life of the spirit; convention merely disguises its interior decay.”
― Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island
“The Kantian imperative to have the courage to think for oneself
has involved a contemptuous disregard for the resources of tradition and
an infantile view of authority as inherently oppressive.”
― Terry Eagleton, Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate
― Terry Eagleton, Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate
“Accumulating orthodoxy makes it harder year-by-year to be a Christian than it was in Jesus' day.”
― Brian D. McLaren, A Generous Orthodoxy: Why I Am a Missional, Evangelical, Post/Protestant, Liberal/Conservative, Mystical/Poetic, Biblical, Charismatic/Contemplative, Fundamentalist/Calvinist, Anabaptist/Anglican, Metho
― Brian D. McLaren, A Generous Orthodoxy: Why I Am a Missional, Evangelical, Post/Protestant, Liberal/Conservative, Mystical/Poetic, Biblical, Charismatic/Contemplative, Fundamentalist/Calvinist, Anabaptist/Anglican, Metho
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