“Yet if the only form of tradition, of handing down, consisted in following the ways of the immediate generation before us in a blind or timid adherence to its successes, "tradition" should positively be discouraged. We have seen many such simple currents soon lost in the sand; and novelty is better than repetition. Tradition is a matter of much wider significance. It cannot be inherited, and if you want it you must obtain it by great labour. It involves, in the first place, the historical sense, which we may call nearly indispensable to anyone who would continue to be a poet beyond his twenty-fifth year…”

— T.S. Eliot , book Tradition and the Individual Talent

Tradition and the Individual Talent (1919)

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T.S. Eliot 270

20th century English author 1888–1965

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“The student should have enough knowledge of his or her cultural tradition to know how it got to be the way it is. This involves both political and social history, on the one hand, as well as the mastery of some of the great philosophical and literary texts of the culture on the other. It involves reading not only texts that are of great value, like those of Plato, but many less valuable that have been influential, such as the works of Marx. For the United States, the dominant tradition is, and for the foreseeable future, will remain the European tradition. The United States is, after all, a product of the European Enlightenment. However, you do not understand your own tradition if you do not see it in relation to others. Works from other cultural traditions need to be studied as well.”

John Rogers Searle (1932) American philosopher

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“What almost halved the support for the Labour Party was the feeling that it has lost its traditional common sense and its humanity to a new breed of sectarian extremism.”

Denis Healey (1917–2015) British Labour Party politician and Life peer

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“Families don’t follow tradition as much as they used to. Family is still important, but many of the customs have fallen to the wayside. Some families, though, still hold onto tradition. Good, bad, or ugly.”

Jason Tanamor (1975) Filipino-American Author and Writer

Source: Novels, Vampires of Portlandia (2020), Chapter 5

“The general opinion … is that the humanist tradition is primarily of literary and aesthetical significance rather than of philosophical significance. This view has its origin in statements of Descartes.”

Ernesto Grassi (1902–1991) Italian philosopher

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“Sir, you will see that they want to place the word ‘East Pakistan’ instead of ‘East Bengal’. We have demanded so many times that you should use Bengal instead of Pakistan. The world Bengal has a history, has a tradition of its own. You can change it only after the people have been consulted. If you want to change it, then we have to go back to Bengal and see whether Bengalis will accept it.”

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (1920–1975) Bengali revolutionary, founder ("father") of Bangladesh

Speaking to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan in Karachi in 1955 during a debate on whether to adopt the One Unit scheme in Pakistan and divide the country into two provinces- East and West Pakistan. http://www.albd.org/autoalbd/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=111&Itemid=44
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“The worldview of a modern person should be formed based on scientific knowledge and respect for positive rational traditions.”

Zafar Mirzo (1972)

“Our questions and answers are in part determined by the historical tradition in which we find ourselves. We apprehend truth from our own source within the historical tradition.
The content of our truth depends upon our appropriating the historical foundation. Our own power of generation lies in the rebirth of what has been handed down to us. If we do not wish to slip back, nothing must be forgotten; but if philosophising is to be genuine our thoughts must arise from our own source. Hence all appropriation of tradition proceeds from the intentness of our own life. The more determinedly I exist, as myself, within the conditions of the time, the more clearly I shall hear the language of the past, the nearer I shall feel the glow of its life.”

Karl Jaspers (1883–1969) German psychiatrist and philosopher

On My Philosopy (1941)

“Two understandings of tradition as well as their relation to one another need to be distinguished here. On the one hand, the conservative sense of tradition against which the new or the modern is unfailingly opposed, and, on the other, tradition as the mark of a seriousness in which an essential questioning takes place.”

David Ferris

"Truth Is the Death of Intention: Benjamin's Esoteric History of Romanticism," Studies in Romanticism, Vol. 31, No. 4, Winter 1992, p. 458

“Tradition is an important help to history, but its statements should be carefully scrutinized before we rely on them.”

Joseph Addison (1672–1719) politician, writer and playwright

Attributed to "Addison" in A Dictionary of Thoughts : Being a Cyclopedia of Laconic Quotations from the Best Authors of the World, both Ancient and Modern (1908) edited by Tryon Edwards, p. 580, but this might be the later "Mr. Addison" who was credited with publishing Interesting Anecdotes, Memoirs, Allegories, Essays, and Poetical Fragments (1794).
Disputed

“If we follow the traditional way of thought, there will always be traditional enemies. Extremist circles from both sides will find causes to give rise to problems.”

Fatos Nano (1952) Albanian politician

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-RP5McU2WY

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