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
Custom governs the world: it is the tyrant of our feelings and our manners, and rules with a hand of a despot.
J. BARTLETT
attributed, Day's Collacon
Custom has furnished the only basis which ethics have ever had.
JOSEPH W. KRUTCH
The Modern Temper
Just because something is traditional is no reason to do it, of course.
LEMONY SNICKET
The Blank Book
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
Custom may lead a man into many errors; but it justifies none.
HENRY FIELDING
The Wedding-Day
Nice customs curtsy to great kings.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Henry V
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
Custom, that unwritten law,
By which the people keep even kings in awe.
WILLIAM D'AVENANT
Circe
'Tis nothing when you are used to it.
JONATHAN SWIFT
Polite Conversation
We have brought in the yoke of custom to improve the world, and in the world the custom sticks.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Physics and Politics
Think how much better it is to criticize conventional customs if you yourself live up to them, scrupulously.
SINCLAIR LEWIS
Main Street
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
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
A bad custom is like a good cake, better broken than kept.
JOHN RAY
English Proverbs
So many countries, so many customs.
JOHN RAY
English Proverbs
'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
What humanity abhors, custome reconciles and recommends to us.
JOHN LOCKE
On Education
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?
Custom is the plague of wise men and the idol of fools.
JOHN RAY
English Proverbs