“For if one should propose to all men a choice, bidding them select the best customs from all the customs that there are, each race of men, after examining them all, would select those of his own people; thus all think that their own customs are by far the best”
Book 3, Ch. 38
The Histories
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Herodotus 42
ancient Greek historian, often considered as the first hist… -484–-425 BCRelated quotes
“It is the custom of all men, everywhere, to be obtuse where women are concerned.”
Source: The Pirates of Zan (1959), Chapter 10
Napier, William. (1851) History of General Sir Charles Napier's Administration of Scinde, London: Chapman and Hall p. 35 http://books.google.com/books?id=d84BAAAAMAAJ&vq=suttee&dq=History%20of%20the%20Administration%20of%20Scinde&pg=PA35#v=onepage&q&f=false at books.google.com. Retrieved 11 October 2013
“Men of sense in all ages abhor those customs, which treat us only as the vessels of your sex.”
Cited in: Kabir, Hajara Muhammad (2010). Northern women development. [Nigeria]. ISBN 978-978-906-469-4. OCLC 890820657.
Of Superstition.
Attributed to Heraclitus, Frag. 89
Moralia, Others
Source: The Golden Bough (1890), Chapter 27, Succession to the Soul.
“Of course poets have morals and manners of their own, and custom is no argument with them.”
The Hand of Ethelberta (1876), ch. 2
4 Burr. Part IV., 2368.
Dissenting in Millar v Taylor (1769)
Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Ideal (1896)
Context: All that was an element of progress in the past or an instrument of moral and intellectual improvement of the human race is due to the practice of mutual aid, to the customs that recognized the equality of men and brought them to ally, to unite, to associate for the purpose of producing and consuming, to unite for purpose of defence to federate and to recognize no other judges in fighting out their differences than the arbitrators they took from their own midst.
Each time these institutions, issued from popular genius, when it had reconquered its liberty for a moment, — each time these institutions developed in a new direction, the moral level of society, its material well-being, its liberty, its intellectual progress, and the affirmation of individual originality made a step in advance. And, on the contrary, each time that in the course of history, whether following upon a foreign conquest, or whether by developing authoritarian prejudices men become more and more divided into governors and governed, exploiters and exploited, the moral level fell, the well-being of the masses decreased in order to insure riches to a few, and the spirit of the age declined.