Customs Quotes - Page 25

• The triumphal-procession-air which, in our manners and customs, is given to marriage at the outset - that singing of Te Deum before the battle has begun.

  Jane Welsh Carlyle

  Air, Singing, Battle

  Jane Welsh Carlyle, Thomas Carlyle, James Anthony Froude (2011). “Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle”, p.2, Cambridge University Press

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• What a vast Traffick is drove, what a variety of Labour is performed in the World to the Maintenance of Thousands of Families that altogether depend on two silly if not odious Customs; the taking of Snuff and smoking of Tobacco; both which it is certain do infinitely more hurt than good to those that are addicted to them!

  Bernard de Mandeville

  Hurt, Silly, Two

  Bernard de Mandeville (1723). “The Fable of the Bees”, p.194, Jazzybee Verlag

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• I reverently believe that the Maker who made us all makes everything in New England but the weather. I don't know who makes that, but I think it must be raw apprentices in the weather clerk's factory who experiment and learn how, in New England, for board and clothes, and then are promoted to make weather for countries that require a good article, and will take their custom elsewhere if they don't get it...

  Mark Twain

  Country, Believe, Humor

  Mark Twain's "New England Weather" speech, www.pbs.org. 1876.

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• On coming to the house, they (the Magi), saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. (Matthew 2:11) [This] adoration, too, was not the same as the worship of God. In my opinion they did not yet recognize him as God, but they acted in keeping with the custom mentioned in Scripture, according to which Kings and important people were worshiped; this did not mean more than falling down before them at their feet and honoring them.

  Martin Luther

  Mother, Kings, Children

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• Custom is second nature. Be accustomed to a bald head, sufficiently accustomed, and hair on it would seem monstrous.

  Isaac Asimov

  Hair, Accustomed, Seems

  Isaac Asimov (2012). “Prelude to Foundation”, p.225, Spectra

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• The supply of good fellows is by no means in excess of the demand. A man has only to hoist the flag of hospitality to insure a very considerable amount of custom.

  Robert Smith Surtees

  Mean, Men, Flags

  Robert Smith Surtees (1930). “The novels of R.S. Surtees”

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• It is one of history's most mocking ironies that the German customs union, which set out to dominate Europe and conquer Britain in the form of Bismarckian or Hitlerian military force, has at last vanquished the victor by drawing Britain into a Zollverein which comprises Western Europe and aspires to comprise the Mediterranean as well. If the ghosts of the Hohenzollerns come back to haunt this planet, they must find a lot to laugh at.

  Enoch Powell

  Military, Europe, Drawing

  "Enoch Powell on 1992". Book by Enoch Powell, p. 93. Speech in Grimsby, 1989.

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• All inferences from experience... are effects of custom, not of reasoning.

  David Hume

  Inference, Effects, Reasoning

  "An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding". Book by David Hume, V: Skeptical Solution of these Doubts, Part I, 1739 - 1740.

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• The worst aspect of dating from the perspective of many men is how dating can feel to a man like robbery by social custom - the social custom of him taking money out of his pocket, giving it to her, and calling it a date. To a young man, the worst dates feel like being robbed and rejected. Boys risk death to avoid rejection (e.g., by joining the Army

  Warren Farrell

  Army, Men, Boys

  Warren Farrell (1993). “The Myth of Male Power: Why Men Are the Disposable Sex”

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• The Jew is contrary to our being. ... He desecrated our people, spit on our ideals, paralyzed the strength of the nation, made our customs rotten, and polluted the morale.

  Joseph Goebbels

  People, Rotten, Spit

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• Custom calls me to 't: What custom wills, in all things should we do't, The dust on antique time would lie unswept, And mountainous error be too highly heap't For truth to o'erpeer.

  Brand Blanshard

  Lying, Errors, Dust

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• What they have implanted here, which is really a 'gringo' custom, is terrorism. They disguise children as witches and wizards, that is contrary to our culture.

  Hugo Chavez

  Children, Culture, Wizards

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• Sport carries on without deviation the mechanical tradition of furnishing relief and distraction to the worker after he has finished his work proper so that he is at no time independent of one technique or another. In sport the citizen of the technical society finds the same spirit, criteria, morality, actions and objectives in short, all the technical laws and customs which he encounters in office or factory.

  Jacques Ellul

  Sports, Independent, Law

  "The Technological Society". Book by Jacques Ellul, translated by John Wilkinson, p. 384, 1964.

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• Chilvalry's essential function, Maurice Keen has written, is always to hold up an idealised image of armed conflict in defiance of the harsh realities of actual warfare. By definition, chivalry also reaffirms the paramount importance of custom, hierarchy and inherited rank.

  Linda Colley

  Reality, Essentials, Warfare

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• We are Americans, speaking the same language, adopting the same customs, holding the same general opinions... and shall rise and fall with Americans.

  Frederick Douglass

  War, Fall, History

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• No religion is suddenly rejected by any people; it is rather gradually outgrown. None sees a religion die; dead religions are like dead languages and obsolete customs: the decay is long and - like the glacier march - is perceptible only to the careful watcher by comparisons extending over long periods.

  Charles Bradlaugh

  Long, People, Atheism

  Marsden Gibson, Charles Bradlaugh (1889*). “Has Humanity Gained from Unbelief?: Two Nights Debate Between Marsden Gibson and Charles Bradlaugh at Newcastle-on-Tyne”

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• I was convinced that our beliefs are based much more on custom and example than on any certain knowledge.

  Rene Descartes

  Atheism, Example, Belief

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• The law known as Marchetta, or Marquette, compelled newly married women to a most dishonorable servitude. They were regarded as the rightful prey of the Feudal Lord from one to three days after their marriage, and from this custom the eldest son of the serf was held as the son of the Lord.... Marquette was claimed by the Lord's Spiritual, as well as by the Lord's Temporal. The Church, indeed, was the bulwark of this base feudal claim.

  Matilda Joslyn Gage

  Spiritual, Son, Law

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• Existentialist philosophy recognizes the existence of the individual as the real purpose of human life. The recognition is basically atheistic and it encourages the individual to free himself from the impositions of custom, governmental authority, economic pressures, and cultural inhibitions.

  Goparaju Ramachandra Rao

  Philosophy, Real, Atheism

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• The church has contributed nothing to civilization. It has progressed somewhat, and it has become a little more decent, in reflection of the movements of civilization that have taken place outside of the church and usually in the face of the strong opposition of the church. But the church has always resisted the process of civilization. It has struggled to the last ditch, by fair means and foul, to preserve as long as it could the vestiges of ancient and medieval theology, with all the puerile moralities and harsh customs and medieval styles of belief.

  E. Haldeman-Julius

  Strong, Taken, Mean

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• The daily disappearance and the subsequent rise of the sun appeared to many of the ancients as a true resurrection; thus, while the east came to be regarded as the source of light and warmth, happiness and glory, the west was associated with darkness and chill, decay and death. This led to the custom of burying the dead so as to face the east when they rose again, and of building temples and shrines with an opening toward the east. To effect this, Vitruvius, two thousand years ago, gave precise rules, which are still followed by Christian architects.

  Isaac Newton

  Christian, Light, Years

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• It is only by hearsay (by word of mouth passed down from generation to generation) that whole peoples adore the God of their fathers and of their priests: authority, confidence, submission and custom with them take the place of conviction or of proofs: they prostrate themselves and pray, because their fathers taught them to prostrate themselves and pray: but why did their fathers fall on their knees?

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Father, Fall, Atheism

  Percy Bysshe Shelley (2015). “The Necessity of Atheism”, p.8, Booklassic

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• Custom is custom: it is built of brass, boiler-iron, granite; facts, reasonings, arguments have no more effect upon it than the idle winds have upon Gibraltar.

  Mark Twain

  Wind, Iron, Atheism

  Mark Twain (2012). “Mark Twain at Your Fingertips: A Book of Quotations”, p.74, Courier Corporation

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• In golf, the customs and etiquette and decorum are as important as the rules of play.

  Bobby Jones

  Golf, Play, Important

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• Society having ordained certain customs, men are bound to obey the law of society, and conform to its harmless orders.

  William Makepeace Thackeray

  Men, Order, Law

  William Makepeace Thackeray (1871). “Miscellanies: The book of snobs. Sketches and travels in London. Denis Duval and other stories”, p.4

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