CUSTOM QUOTES III

quotations about custom

The life history of the individual is first and foremost an accomodation to the patterns and standards traditionally handed in his community. From the moment of his birth the customs into which he is born shape his experience and behavior.

RUTH BENEDICT

Patterns of Culture


Such dupes are men to custom, and so prone
To rev'rence what is ancient, and can plead
A course of long observance for its use,
That even servitude, the worst of ills,
Because deliver'd down from sire to son,
Is kept and guarded as a sacred thing!

WILLIAM COWPER

The Task


Everything depends on our customs and on the climates we live in. What is considered a crime here is often a virtue a few hundred leagues away; and the virtues of another hemisphere might, quite conversely, be regarded as crimes among us. There is no atrocity that hasn't been deified, no virtue that hasn't been stigmatized.

MARQUIS DE SADE

Philosophy in the Boudoir


Like those crabs which dress themselves with seaweed, we wear belief and custom.

CYRIL CONNOLLY

The Unquiet Grave


There is no tyrant like custom, and no freedom where its edicts are not resisted.

BOVEE

attributed, Day's Collacon


How many unjust and wicked things are sanctioned by custom.

TERENCE

attributed, Day's Collacon


When Fashion hath once Established, what Folly or craft began, Custom makes it Sacred, and 'twill be thought impudence or madness, to contradict or question it.

JOHN LOCKE

First Treatise of Government


Custom, that unwritten law,
By which the people keep even kings in awe.

WILLIAM D'AVENANT

Circe


Those who live not by law would be justified by Custom: but, as common practice is the worst teacher that ever was, so the truth and goodness of things is not to be estimated by the entertainment and acceptance they find in the world.

BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE

Moral and Religious Aphorisms


No barbarian can bear to see one of his nation deviate from the old barbarous customs and usages of their tribe. Very commonly all the tribe would expect a punishment from the gods if any one of them refrained from what was old, or began what was new.

WALTER BAGEHOT

Physics and Politics


Custom is the first check on tyranny; that fixed routine of social life at which modern innovations chafe, and by which modern improvement is impeded, is the primitive check on base power.

WALTER BAGEHOT

Literary Studies


When a custom is actually proved to exist, the next enquiry is into the legality of it; for if it is not a good custom it ought to be no longer used.

WILLIAM BLACKSTONE

Commentaries on the Laws of England

Tags: William Blackstone


'Tis base,
And argues a low spirit, to be taught
By customs, and to let the vulgar grow
To our example.

ROBERT MEAD

The Combat of Love and Friendship


The constant pressure of custom; the effects of imitation, of education, and of habit; the incalculable influence of man on man, produce a working uniformity of conviction more effectually than the gallows and the stake, though without the cruelty, and with far more than the wisdom that have usually been vouchsafed to official persecutors.

ARTHUR BALFOUR

Essays and Addresses


The customs of the world are so many conventional follies.

EDGAR ALLAN POE

"The Spectacles"


The slaves of custom and established mode,
With pack-horse constancy we keep the road
Crooked or straight, through quags or thorny dells,
True to the jingling of our leader's bells.

WILLIAM COWPER

The Task


What custom hath endeared
We part with sadly, though we prize it not.

JOANNA BAILLIE

Basil


Custom meets us at the cradle and leaves us only at the tomb.

ROBERT G. INGERSOLL

Individuality


My normal isn't your normal, and your normal isn't anyone else's normal. In fact, on this journey called life, normal isn't normal.

TYEISHA BREWER-FIELDS

Normal By Whose Standards?


That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat,
Of habits devil, is angel yet in this,
That to the use of actions fair and good
He likewise gives a frock or livery,
That aptly is put on.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Hamlet