quotations about custom
There is no tyrant like custom, and no freedom where its edicts are not resisted.
BOVEE
attributed, Day's Collacon
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
Cast away the bondage and the fear of rotten custom.
HARTLEY COLERIDGE
Sonnets
Custom may lead a man into many errors; but it justifies none.
HENRY FIELDING
The Wedding-Day
Custom has furnished the only basis which ethics have ever had.
JOSEPH W. KRUTCH
The Modern Temper
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
Custom meets us at the cradle and leaves us only at the tomb.
ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
Individuality
Nice customs curtsy to great kings.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Henry V
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
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
Just because you have become accustomed to a thing, does not make it right.
BRIAN HERBERT & KEVIN J. ANDERSON
Dune: House Atreides
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
We have brought in the yoke of custom to improve the world, and in the world the custom sticks.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Physics and Politics
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
The deadliest foe to love is custom.
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
Devereux
A bad custom is like a good cake, better broken than kept.
JOHN RAY
English Proverbs
I cannot draw a distinction as to what length of time will render a practice legal.
C. J. DALLAS
Butt v. Conant, 1828
Custom is a violent and deceiving school-mistress.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE
Essays
Custom is the plague of wise men and the idol of fools.
JOHN RAY
English Proverbs
So many countries, so many customs.
JOHN RAY
English Proverbs