quotations about custom
A deep meaning often lies in old customs.
FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
Mary Stuart
The customs of your tribe are not laws of nature.
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
Caesar and Cleopatra
The despotism of custom is everywhere the standing hindrance to human advancement, being in unceasing antagonism to that disposition to aim at something better than customary.
JOHN STUART MILL
On Liberty
Be not too rash in the breaking of an inconvenient custom; as it was gotten, so leave it by degrees. Danger attends upon too sudden alterations; he that pulls down a bad building by the bulk, may be ruined by the fall; but he that takes it down brick by brick, may live to build a better.
F. QUARLES
attributed, Day's Collacon
Talk not of custom--'tis the coward's plea.
CHARLES CHURCHILL
Independence
There are not unfrequently substantial reasons underneath for customs that appear to us absurd; and if I were ever again to find myself amongst strangers, I should be solicitous to examine before I condemned.
CHARLOTTE BRONTË
letter, Dec. 28, 1846
Custom without reason is but ancient error.
THOMAS FULLER
Gnomologia
Depraved custom is just a kind of general pestilence in which men perish not the less that they fall in a crowd.
JOHN CALVIN
Institutes of the Christian Religion
Custom is second nature. Be accustomed to a bald head, sufficiently accustomed, and hair on it would seem monstrous.
ISAAC ASIMOV
Prelude to Foundation
Laws are sand, customs are rock. Laws can be evaded and punishment escaped, but an openly transgressed custom brings sure punishment.
MARK TWAIN
The Gorky Incident
Thus you are to keep My charge, that you do not practice any of the abominable customs which have been practiced before you, so as not to defile yourselves with them; I am the LORD your God.
GOD
Leviticus 18:30
Habits and customs are a convenience devised for the support of timid natures who dare not allow their souls free play.
VIRGINIA WOOLF
The Common Reader
Strange customs do not thrive in foreign soil.
FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
Demetrius
Most men live like raisins in a cake of custom.
BRAND BLANSHARD
attributed, How to Think about Weird Things
Certainly custom is most perfect, when it beginneth in young years: this we call education; which is, in effect, but an early custom.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Custom And Education", The Essays or Counsels
Customs tell a man who he is, where he belongs, what he must do. Better illogical customs than none; men cannot live together without them.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN
Citizen of the Galaxy
Customs will often outlive the remembrance of their origin.
THOMAS PAINE
Life and Writings of Thomas Paine
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
Institutes of the Christian Religion
A man's customs are the moulds where his fortune is cast.
FRANCIS BACON
"Formularies and Elegancies"
Custom reconciles us to everything.
EDMUND BURKE
On the Sublime and Beautiful