“To make everything yield to custom would be to do the greatest injustice. Were the judgments of mankind correct, custom would be regulated by the good. But it is often far otherwise in point of fact; for, whatever the many are seen to do, forthwith obtains the force of custom. But human affairs have scarcely ever been so happily constituted as that the better course pleased the greater number. Hence the private vices of the multitude have generally resulted in public error.”

— John Calvin , book Institutes of the Christian Religion

Prefatory Address, p. 23
Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536; 1559)

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John Calvin 161

French Protestant reformer 1509–1564

Joseph Yates (judge) (1722–1770) English barrister and judge

4 Burr. Part IV., 2368.
Dissenting in Millar v Taylor (1769)

“It was the custom of the Roman emperors, at their triumphal entrance, to cast new coins among the multitudes; so doth Christ, in His triumphal ascension into heaven, throw the greatest gifts for the good of men that were ever given.”

Thomas Goodwin (1600–1680) English clergyman

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 78.

“In order to survive, the organization must have an objective that appeals to its customers, so that they will make the contributions necessary to sustain it. Hence, organization objectives are constantly adapted to conform to the changing values of customers, or to secure new groups of customers in place of customers who have dropped away. The organization may also undertake special activities to induce acceptance of its objectives by customers - advertising, missionary work, and propaganda of all sorts.”

Herbert A. Simon book Administrative Behavior

Source: 1940s-1950s, Administrative Behavior, 1947, p. 114.

“Solve customer problems and make sure that the customer is representative of a large market and then you will have a pretty good formula.”

Melanie Perkins (1987) Australian technology entrepreneur

Source: https://twitter.com/arjunmahadevan/status/1677775875369058304

“Philosophy complains that Custom has hoodwinked us, from the first; that we do everything by Custom, even Believe by it; that our very Axioms, let us boast of Free-thinking as we may, are oftenest simply such Beliefs as we have never heard questioned. Nay, what is Philosophy throughout but a continual battle against Custom; an ever-renewed effort to transcend the sphere of blind Custom, and so become Transcendental?”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

Bk. III, ch. 8.
1830s, Sartor Resartus (1833–1834)

“The best Six Sigma projects begin not inside the business but outside it, focused on answering the question—how can we make the customer more competitive? What is critical to the customer’s success?… One thing we have discovered with certainty is that anything we do that makes the customer more successful inevitably results in a financial return for us.”

Jack Welch (1935) American executive: General Electric CEO

As cited in: Peter S. Pande, Robert P. Neuman, and Roland R. Cavanagh. The six sigma way. McGraw-Hill,, 2000. p. 6

“In each human heart terror survives
The ravin it has gorged: the loftiest fear
All that they would disdain to think were true:
Hypocrisy and custom make their minds
The fanes of many a worship, now outworn.
They dare not devise good for man’s estate,
And yet they know not that they do not dare.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley Prometheus Unbound

Fury, Act I, l. 618–624
Prometheus Unbound (1818–1819; publ. 1820)

“Custom may lead a man into many errors; but it justifies none.”

Henry Fielding (1707–1754) English novelist and dramatist

“It doesn’t matter what business you are in, it is essential that the primary motivation and driving force behind everything you do is based on the impact it will have on your customer.”

Don Soderquist (1934–2016)

Don Soderquist “ The Wal-Mart Way: The Inside Story of the Success of the World's Largest Company https://books.google.com/books?id=mIxwVLXdyjQC&lpg=PR9&dq=Don%20Soderquist&pg=PR9#v=onepage&q=Don%20Soderquist&f=false, Thomas Nelson, April 2005, p. 81.
On working hard

“The force of custom or habits even proverbial; and accordingly we take advantage of the magnified representation in which we have been pleased to paint its effects, to veil our eyes from the sufferings of others, of mankind as well as of brutes; and whatever be their lots, if they suffer from over exertion, from being flogged, from exposure in danger, from want, from cold, from heat, etc., we lull our imagination with the idea that they do not feel those evils: custom we say is second nature.”

Lewis Gompertz (1783–1861) Early animal rights activist

Source: Moral Inquiries on the Situation of Man and of Brutes (1824), Chapter 2, p. 53

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