Quotes about tradition
page 18

Rajinikanth photo

“Continues that great tradition that binds reel-life with the larger than life-world as a popular hero.”

Rajinikanth (1950) Indian actor

Harish Naraindas
Decoding Rajinikanth

Ernesto Grassi photo

“According to the traditional interpretation Plato’s attitude against rhetoric is a rejection of the doxa, or opinion, and of the impact of images, upon which the art of rhetoric relies; at the same time his attitude is considered as a defense of the theoretical, rational speech, that is, of episteme.”

Ernesto Grassi (1902–1991) Italian philosopher

The fundamental argument of Plato’s critique of rhetoric usually is exemplified by the thesis, maintained, among other things, in the Gorgias, that only he who "knows" [epistatai] can speak correctly; for what would be the use of the "beautiful," of the rhetorical speech, if it merely sprang from opinions [doxa], hence from not knowing? … Plato’s … rejection of rhetoric, when understood in this manner, assumes that Plato rejects every emotive element in the realm of knowledge. But in several of his dialogues Plato connects the philosophical process, for example, with eros, which would lead to the conclusion that he attributes a decisive role to the emotive, seen even in philosophy as the absolute science.
Source: Rhetoric as Philosophy (1980), p. 28

Robert Pinsky photo

“Craft is something you learn by studying models. When a student asks, what is a good book about traditional iambic verse, The Collected Poems of Ben Jonson. What is an excellent book about free verse? The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams.”

Robert Pinsky (1940) American poet, editor, literary critic, academic.

What is a good book about short line in ballad metre? The Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson.
The Art of Poetry - interview 1995 with Downing & Kunitz

John Hodgman photo

“For Peake, the weight of moral standards comes from their being part of a tradition, and any tradition lies outside the individual’s potential and needs. Thus adherence to a morality impedes development of the whole self and denies real maturity.”

Mervyn Peake (1911–1968) English writer, artist, poet and illustrator

Joseph L. Sanders, “The Passions in Their Clay” Mervyn Peake’s Titus Stories, reprinted in the omnibus edition The Gormenghast Novels published by The Overlook Press, p. 1098

Thomas Merton photo

“This new language of prayer has to come out of something which transcends all our traditions, and comes out of the immediacy of love. We have to part now, aware of the love that unites us, the love that unites us in spite of real differences, real emotional friction… The things on the surface are nothing, what is deep is the Real. We are creatures of Love. Let us therefore join hands, as we did before, and I will try to say something that comes out of the depths of our hearts. I ask you to concentrate on the love that is in you, that is in us all. I have no idea what I am going to say. I am going to be silent a minute, and then I will say something…”

Thomas Merton (1915–1968) Priest and author

'O God, we are one with You. You have made us one with You. You have taught us that if we are open to one another, You dwell in us. Help us to preserve this openness and to fight for it with all our hearts. Help us to realize that there can be no understanding where there is mutual rejection. O God, in accepting one another wholeheartedly, fully, completely, we accept You, and we thank You, and we adore You, and we love You with our whole being, because our being is Your being, our spirit is rooted in Your spirit. Fill us then with love, and let us be bound together with love as we go our diverse ways, united in this one spirit which makes You present in the world, and which makes You witness to the ultimate reality that is love. Love has overcome. Love is victorious. Amen.'
Closing statements and prayer from an informal address delivered in Calcutta, India (October 1968), from The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton (1975); quoted in Thomas Merton, Spiritual Master : The Essential Writings (1992), p. 237.

Pauline Kael photo
Edward R. Murrow photo

“As I plodded back and forth I reflected miserably upon my own political rootlessness, in a world where politics is so important. When I am with Tories I am a violent advocate of reform; when I am with reformers I hold forth on the value of tradition and stability. When I am with communists I become a royalist — almost a Jacobite; when I am with socialists I am an advocate of free trade, private enterprise and laissez-faire.”

The presence of a person who has strong political convictions always sends me flying off in a contrary direction. Inevitably, in the world of today, this will bring me before a firing squad sooner or later. Maybe the fascists will shoot me, and maybe the proletariat, but political contrariness will be the end of me; I feel it in my bones.
The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks (1947)

Norman K. Denzin photo

“A fundamental problem in such studies stems from the long tradition that has regarded artistic productions as social facts.”

Norman K. Denzin (1941) American sociologist

By regarding such productions as social facts the analyst is relieved of the burden of demonstrating what meanings these productions have for the artist and his audience. It is too frequently assumed that such meanings can be identified by a capable analyst, independent of the interpretations brought to such works by the artist or his audiences. In my judgement artist productions must be seen as interactional creations; the meanings of which arise out of the interactions directed to them by the artist and his audience.
[The Sociology of Rock, 1978, Frith, Simon (ed.), ISBN 0094602204]

Douglas MacArthur photo

“The soldier, be he friend or foe, is charged with the protection of the weak and unarmed. It is the very essence and reason for his being. When he violates this sacred trust, he not only profanes his entire cult but threatens the very fabric of international society. The traditions of fighting men are long and honorable. They are based upon the noblest of human traits—sacrifice.”

Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964) U.S. Army general of the army, field marshal of the Army of the Philippines

From a 1946 statement by MacArthur confirming the death sentence imposed by a U. S. military commission on Japanese General Tomoyuki Yamashita, as quoted in MacArthur's Reminscences (McGraw-Hill, 1964) p. 295. Also used as the epigraph to Telford Taylor's Nuremberg and Vietnam: An American Tragedy (New York: Bantam, 1970).
1940s

Jan Assmann photo
Teal Swan photo
Richard Dawkins photo
Richard Dawkins photo

“I agree that it's very difficult to come to an absolute definition of what's moral and what is not. We are on our own, without a god, and we have to get together, sit down together and decide what kind of society do we want to live in. Do we want to live in a society where people steal, where people kill, where people don't pull their weight paying their taxes, doing that kind of thing? Do we want to live in a kind of society where everybody is out for themselves in a dog-eat-dog world? And we decide in conclave together that that's not the kind of world in which we want to live. It's difficult. There is no absolute reason why we should believe that that's true - it's a moral decision which we take as individuals - and we take it collectively as a collection of individuals. If you want to get that sort of value system from religion I want you to ask yourself - whereabouts in religion do you get it? Which religion do you get it from? They're all different. If you get it from the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition then I beg you - don't get it from your holy book! Because the morality you will get from reading your holy book is hideous. Don't get it from your holy book. Don't get it from sucking up to your god. Don't get it from saying “oh, I'm terrified of going to hell so I'd better be good””

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

that's a very ignoble reason to be good. Instead - be good for good reasons. Be good for the reason that's you've decided together with other people the society we want to live in: a decent humane society. Not one based on absolutism, not one based on holy books and not one based on sucking up to.. looking over your shoulder to the divine spy camera in the sky. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roFdPHdhgKQ&t=59m29s
Richard Dawkins vs. Jonathan Sacks - BBC's RE:Think Festival (2012)

Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck photo
Rudyard Kipling photo
Karl Jaspers photo
Marilyn Ferguson photo
Jason Reynolds photo
Benjamin Creme photo
Marilyn Ferguson photo
Dietrich Bonhoeffer photo
David Pearce (philosopher) photo
Arun Shourie photo

“Caste is real. The working class is real. Being a Naga is real. But ‘India is just a geographical expression!’ Similarly, being a Muslim of course is real – Islam must be seen and talked of as one block of granite – ... But Hinduism? Why, there is no such thing: it is just an aggregation, a pile of assorted beliefs and practices – ... And anyone who maintains anything to the contrary is a fascist out to insinuate a unity, indeed to impose a uniformity, where there has been none. That is what our progressive ideologues declaim, as we have seen. In a word, the parts alone are real. The whole is just a construct. India has never been one, these ideologues insist – disparate peoples and regions were knocked together by the Aryans, by the Mughals, by the British for purposes of empire. Anyone who wants to use that construct – India – as the benchmark for determining the sort of structure under which we should live has a secret agenda – of enforcing Hindu hegemony.
This is the continuance of, in a sense the culmination of, the Macaulay-Missionary technique. The British calculated that to subjugate India and hold it, they must undermine the essence of the people: this was Hinduism, and everything which flowed from it. Hence the doggedness with which they set about to undermine the faith and regard of the people for five entities: the gods and goddesses the Hindus revered; the temples and idols in which they were enshrined; the texts they held sacred; the language in which those texts and everything sacred in that tradition was enshrined and which was even in mid-nineteenth-century the lingua franca – that is, Sanskrit; and the group whose special duty it had been over aeons to preserve that way of life – the Brahmins. The other component of the same exercise was to prop up the parts – the non-Hindus, the regional languages, the castes and groups which they calculated would be the most accessible to the missionaries and the empire – the innocent tribals, the untouchables.”

Arun Shourie (1941) Indian journalist and politician

Eminent Historians: Their Technology, Their Line, Their Fraud (1998)

David Pearce (philosopher) photo
Edward Carson, Baron Carson photo
Romila Thapar photo

“References to what have been interpreted as configurations of stars have been used to suggest dates of about 4000 BC for these hymns”, .... [but] “planetary positions could have been observed in earlier times and such observations been handed down as part of an oral tradition”, [so that they] “do not constitute proof of the chronology of the Vedic hymns.”

Romila Thapar (1931) Indian historian

Romila Thapar: “The Perennial Aryans”, Seminar, December 1992., quoted in Elst, Koenraad (1999). Update on the Aryan invasion debate https://web.archive.org/web/20100412074243/http://www.bharatvani.org/books/ait/ New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan.

“The secular state assumes that the Semitic religions and the Hindu traditions are instances of the same kind”

S. N. Balagangadhara (1952) Indian philosopher

quoted from Koenraad Elst, On Modi Time : Merits And Flaws of Hindu Activism In Its Day Of Incumbency – 2015. Ch. 3. The Lost Honour of India Studies

Koenraad Elst photo
David Pearce (philosopher) photo
Warren Farrell photo
Warren Farrell photo

“The traditional male hero is about self-sacrifice, not self-actualization.”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Source: The Boy Crisis (2018), pp. 97

Warren Farrell photo

“Your son’s heroes didn’t climb traditional ladders—they built their own.”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Source: The Boy Crisis (2018), pp. 53

Helena Roerich photo
Helena Roerich photo
Michel Henry photo
Dorothy Thompson photo
Alberto Manguel photo
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury photo

“The elective principle—government by representation—is not an Eastern idea; it does not fit Eastern traditions or Eastern minds.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) British politician

Source: Speech in the House of Lords (6 March 1890), quoted in The Times (7 March 1890), p. 6

Annie Besant photo
Tom Crean (basketball coach) photo

“We have a responsibility to CARE. Thank God we’re at a place that has the tradition of this program.”

Tom Crean (basketball coach) (1966) American college basketball coach

Using the acronym CARE for "Coach Attitude and Respect Everyday", in "Crean on : rebuilding the tradition of Indiana basketball" by David Burkart in IUplanet Newsletter (7 October 2007)

J. Howard Moore photo
J. Howard Moore photo
William Ewart Gladstone photo
Felix Adler photo
Viet Thanh Nguyen photo
Richard Crossman photo
Parker Palmer photo
Egils Levits photo
Michael J. Sandel photo
Chulpan Khamatova photo

“I was born in Kazan, the capital of Tatarstan, during the Soviet-era when there wasn’t any Tatar language…and without any Muslim tradition. I was a Soviet child without my past, without my family roots, because at the time it was forbidden to explain anything.”

Chulpan Khamatova (1975) Russian actress

As quoted in "Russia’s Chulpan Khamatova on Stalinist Backlash Over ‘Zuleikha’ (EXCLUSIVE)" in Variety (10 June 2020) https://variety.com/2020/tv/news/chulpan-khamatova-communist-backlash-zuleikha-1234627594/

“Philosophers who function within analytic traditions tend to reflect on the self in a way that unwittingly impoverishes and objectifies self.”

Bruce Wilshire (1932–2015) American philosopher

Source: Fashionable Nihilism (2002), p. xiii

Viktor Pinchuk photo

“It is better to watch TV when it is switched off — that is, in the traditional way, but by pulling the plug out of the socket. One of the advantages of the alternative is electricity saving; in addition — the use of this method does not pose a threat to eyesight.”

Press interview quotes
Source: «A Little Journey into the Past» — South Capital. Crimea: newspaper. — 20.08.2021. — № 32 (1504), M. Kiseleva, ru, simadm.ru, 2021-09-02 http://simadm.ru/media/uploads/userfiles/2021/08/23/ЮС32.pdf,

“The true Germany, with its western traditions, must be separated from Prussia, which belongs to the east.”

Friedrich Thyssen (1804–1877) German banker

Source: I Paid Hitler (1941), p. 291

Hugh Gaitskell photo

“I was a witness of two civil wars and their ghastly and tragic consequences, and I learnt, as never before, to value the freedom of British political traditions.”

Hugh Gaitskell (1906–1963) British politician

Chatham News (28 December 1934), quoted in Philip Williams, Hugh Gaitskell: A Political Biography (1979), p. 59

Benjamin Creme photo
John Desmond Bernal photo
Jason Tanamor photo
Eliphas Levi photo

“ALL religions have preserved the remembrance of a primitive book, written in hieroglyphs by the sages of the earliest epoch of the world. [...] The tradition in question rests altogether on the one dogma of Magic: the visible is for us the proportional measure of the invisible.”

Eliphas Levi (1810–1875) French writer

Miscellaneous Quotes On the Subjects of Magic and Magicians
Source: Friedrich Nietzsche, H.L. Mencken (Translator), The Anti-Christ, Chicago, Sharp Press, 1999, p. 144.</

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury photo

“We are in a state of bloodless civil war. No common principles, no respect for common institutions or traditions unite the various groups of politicians, who are struggling for power. To loot somebody or something is the common object under a thick varnish of pious phrases.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) British politician

Letter to W. H. Smith (5 February 1889), quoted in Michael Bentley, Lord Salisbury's World: Conservative Environments in Late-Victorian Britain (2001), p. 65
1880s

Rajiv Malhotra photo
Vera Stanley Alder photo
Roger Scruton photo
Ini Edo photo

“To every woman rising above the tradition of silence, walking tall in a marginalized system…May we be them; may we know them, may we birth them… We’ve got the power?”

Ini Edo (1982) Nollywood actress

Source: https://abtc.ng/actress-ini-edos-motivational-words-to-all-women-will-melt-your-heart/

Ahmed Rashid photo
Scott Adams photo
Ben Aaronovitch photo

“There we continued the time-honored tradition of brazenly lying through our teeth while telling nothing but the truth.”

Source: Rivers of London (2011; American edition title: Midnight Riot), Chapter 10, “The Blind Spot” (p. 210)

Kayla Barron photo

“Even though we'll be up here (in International Space Station) this year (2021), we have our space family. So I think we're going to create some of our own traditions and we'll be able to talk to our family on the ground.”

Kayla Barron (1987) American astronaut

Source: Kayla Barron (2021) cited in " Astronauts on International Space Station send Christmas video message to Earth https://www.space.com/space-station-astronauts-christmas-2021-video" on Space.com, 26 December 2021.

Mikheil Saakashvili photo

“Georgia's character - now and forever - celebrates tolerance, embraces diversity, relishes lively and open debate, and above all, respects liberty and human dignity. Georgia is a democracy, because above all - its national identity is rooted in the traditions of democracy.”

Mikheil Saakashvili (1967) Georgian-Ukrainian politician, President of Georgia and Governor of Odessa

Remarks to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (2005)
Source: As quoted in "Remarks of the President of Georgia H.E. Mikheil Saakashvili to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe" https://reliefweb.int/report/georgia/remarks-president-georgia-he-mikheil-saakashvili-parliamentary-assembly-council (26 January 2005), ReliefWeb

Jeff Fortenberry photo

“In an age of real anxiety, and ever-shifting change, the permanency of the papacy gives people something to cling to that is higher, and everlasting. And it has deep meaning for people even of non-Christian traditions, even people who are just authentically striving for good through goodwill.”

Jeff Fortenberry (1960) U.S. Representative from Nebraska

Source: How a Catholic congressman agreed to be part of a pope documentary https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/38215/how-a-catholic-congressman-agreed-to-be-part-of-a-pope-documentary (17 April 2018)

Milan Stipić photo
Alan Moore photo

“We don’t have a tradition of masked heroes really anywhere else in the world apart from America.”

Alan Moore (1953) English writer primarily known for his work in comic books

Source: “Fawkes & Robin Hood didn’t wear masks; ‘hero’ anonymity is US shtick going back to KKK – ‘V for Vendetta’ author Alan Moore to RT” https://www.rt.com/usa/537158-alan-moore-rt-interview/, Russia Today, (11 Oct, 2021)
Context: Moore said in an interview with RT’s Sophie Shevardnadze. “I mean, Guy Fawkes, who the ‘V for Vendetta’ mask is based upon – that wasn’t a mask, that was his face,” he said. Ditto for Robin Hood.

“By using the word "dialogue" I hope to be able to believe that the other has something worthwhile to say. Engaging in dialogue does not mean renouncing our own ideas and traditions but rather, renouncing the claim that they alone are valid or absolute.”

Paul Donoghue (1949) Roman Catholic bishop

Source: New Year, New Resolution https://www.cookislandsnews.com/opinion/editorials/new-year-new-resolution/ (7 January 2022)

Winston S. Churchill photo

“No one in England has ever wished to prevent the fullest expression of Scottish or Welsh traditions and customs. Indeed, their manifestation is regarded with pleasure and pride by the English people. We have reaped great advantages from this tolerant mood.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Source: 'Yugoslavia and Europe' (29 October 1937), quoted in Winston Churchill, Step by Step, 1936–1939 (1939; 1947), p. 169

T. E. Hulme photo
Christophe Pierre photo

“Nobody can educated by himself. Education is the transmission of tradition through a witness. And the educator should be a master. Should be someone with enough to authority, not to impose but propose. But if you are not convinced you are unable to propose.”

Christophe Pierre (1946) French nuncio

Source: A Global Perspective: a Conversation With the Apostolic Nuncio, Archbishop Christophe Pierre https://www.thecatholictelegraph.com/a-global-perspective-a-conversation-with-the-apostolic-nuncio-archbishop-christophe-pierre/71427 (3 March 2021)

Kyūichi Tokuda photo
Carolee Schneemann photo

“The female nude is part of a revered tradition, although she is not to take authority over depictions of her nudity. She is just to be available.”

Carolee Schneemann (1939–2019) American photographer, performance artist, and video artist

Source: Carolee Scheenmann quotes, guardian, March 8, 2019 https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/mar/10/carole-schneemann-naked-art-performance,

Alex Webb (photographer) photo
Basílio do Nascimento photo

“We've gone from a traditional system to a modern system that the population needs to learn about, and I believe that the role of the Church today is to educate for democracy.”

Basílio do Nascimento (1950–2021) Roman Catholic bishop of Baucau, East Timor

East Timor bishops prepare for first-ever Ad Limina visit http://www.archivioradiovaticana.va/storico/2014/03/15/east_timor_bishops_prepare_for_first-ever_ad_limina_visit/en1-781767 (15 March 2014)

Jordan Peterson photo

“There's no such thing as being too respectful of other people's traditions.”

Stuart M. Matlins (1940–2019) Religious scholar

"Your guide for proper etiquette at sacred sites" https://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=52701329&itype=cmsid, The Salt Lake Tribune (October 21, 2011)

René Guénon photo
André Breton photo

“Surrealism is only trying to rejoin the most durable traditions of mankind. Among the primitive peoples art always goes beyond what is conventionally and arbitrarily called the 'real.”

André Breton (1896–1966) French writer

The natives of the Northwest Pacific coast, the Pueblos, New Guinea, New Ireland, the Marquesas, among others, have made 'objets' [in the Collections of Max Ernst, C. Levy-Strauss, Andre Breton, Pierre Matisse, Carlbach, Segredakis] which Surrealists particularly appreciate.
Quote of 1942, in the introduction of the Catalog 'First papers of surrealism: hanging by André Breton, his twine Marcel Duchamp'; exhibition at the Coordinating Council of French Relief Societies, Inc., New York, Oct. 14-Nov. 7, 1942
after 1930