Custom Quotes IV

CUSTOM QUOTES IV

quotations about custom

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

Source

Man might be described as a custom-making animal with more justice than by many of the short descriptions. In whatever way a man has done anything once, he has a tendency to do it again: if he has done it several times he has a great tendency so to do it, and what is more, he has a great tendency to make others do it also. He transmits his formed customs to his children by example and by teaching. This is true now of human nature, and will always be true, no doubt. But what is peculiar in early societies is that over most of these customs there grows sooner or later a semi-supernatural sanction. The whole community is possessed with the idea that if the primal usages of the tribe be broken, harm unspeakable will happen in ways you cannot think of, and from sources you cannot imagine.

WALTER BAGEHOT

Physics and Politics

Source

For the customs of the peoples are delusion;
Because it is wood cut from the forest,
The work of the hands of a craftsman with a cutting tool.
They decorate it with silver and with gold;
They fasten it with nails and with hammers
So that it will not totter.
Like a scarecrow in a cucumber field are they,
And they cannot speak;
They must be carried,
Because they cannot walk!
Do not fear them,
For they can do no harm,
Nor can they do any good.

BIBLE

Jeremiah 10:3-5

Source

But to my mind, though I am native here,
And to the manner born, it is a custom
More honour'd in the breach than the observance.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Hamlet

Source

So they cried with a loud voice and cut themselves according to their custom with swords and lances until the blood gushed out on them.

BIBLE

1 Kings 18:28

Source

Nice customs curtsy to great kings.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Henry V

Source

Man is made of the wholly common, and custom is his nurse; woe then to them who lay irreverent hands on his old house-furniture, the dear inheritance from his forefathers: For time consecrates, and what is gray with age becomes religion.

FRIEDRICH SCHILLER

The Death of Wallenstein

Source

Just because you have become accustomed to a thing, does not make it right.

BRIAN HERBERT & KEVIN J. ANDERSON

Dune: House Atreides

Source

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

Source

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

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Custom is the law of one description of fools, and fashion of another; but the two parties often clash; for precedent is the legislator of the first, and novelty of the last. Custom, therefore, looks to things that are past, and fashions to things that are present, but both of them are somewhat purblind as to things that are to come.

CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Lacon

Source

Woe unto you, O torrent of human custom! Who shall stay your course? When will you ever run dry? How long will you carry down the sons of Eve into that vast and hideous ocean.

AUGUSTINE

Confessions

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Think how much better it is to criticize conventional customs if you yourself live up to them, scrupulously.

SINCLAIR LEWIS

Main Street

Source

The deadliest foe to love is custom.

EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON

Devereux

Source

Custom, though never so ancient, without truth, is but an old error.