“Tradition is a prison with majority opinion the modern jailer.”

Source: Meditations in Wall Street (1940), p. 108

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Tradition is a prison with majority opinion the modern jailer." by Henry S. Haskins?
Henry S. Haskins photo
Henry S. Haskins 84
1875–1957

Related quotes

W. Somerset Maugham photo

“Tradition is a guide and not a jailer.”

Source: The Summing Up (1938), p. 223

Rose Wilder Lane photo
William O. Douglas photo

“The first opinion the Court ever filed has a dissenting opinion. Dissent is a tradition of this Court… When someone is writing for the Court, he hopes to get eight others to agree with him, so many of the majority opinions are rather stultified.”

William O. Douglas (1898–1980) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Interview with the New York Times (29 October 1973)
Other speeches and writings

“Perhaps the best known, and certainly the most vaunted, "discovery" of modern public opinion research is the indifference and ignorance of a majority of the electorate in western democracies.”

Moses I. Finley (1912–1986) American historian

Source: Democracy Ancient And Modern (Second Edition) (1985), Chapter 1, Leaders and Followers, p. 3

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien photo

“Why should a man be scorned if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison-walls?”

On Fairy-Stories (1939)
Context: I have claimed that Escape is one of the main functions of fairy-stories, and since I do not disapprove of them, it is plain that I do not accept the tone of scorn or pity with which 'Escape' is now so often used. Why should a man be scorned if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison-walls? The world outside has not become less real because the prisoner cannot see it.

Eoin Colfer photo

“The deadliest contagion is majority opinion.”

Henry S. Haskins (1875–1957)

Source: Meditations in Wall Street (1940), p. 108

Gore Vidal photo

“Modern Christianity is a encyclopedia of traditional superstition.”

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer

Source: 1960s, Julian (1964), Chapter 5

Barack Obama photo

Related topics