CUSTOM QUOTES IV

quotations about custom

How many unjust and wicked things are sanctioned by custom.

TERENCE

attributed, Day's Collacon


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


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

ROBERT G. INGERSOLL

Individuality


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


Custom has furnished the only basis which ethics have ever had.

JOSEPH W. KRUTCH

The Modern Temper


Custom calls me to 't:
What custom wills, in all things should we do't,
The dust on antique time would lie unswept,
And mountainous error be too highly heap't
For truth to o'erpeer.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Coriolanus


Cast away the bondage and the fear of rotten custom.

HARTLEY COLERIDGE

Sonnets


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

BRIAN HERBERT & KEVIN J. ANDERSON

Dune: House Atreides


Just because something is traditional is no reason to do it, of course.

LEMONY SNICKET

The Blank Book


I cannot draw a distinction as to what length of time will render a practice legal.

C. J. DALLAS

Butt v. Conant, 1828


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

SINCLAIR LEWIS

Main Street


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 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, madam, is the law of fools, but it shall never govern me.

JOHN VANBRUGH

The Provoked Husband


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


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


So many countries, so many customs.

JOHN RAY

English Proverbs


The deadliest foe to love is custom.

EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON

Devereux


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

CYPRIAN

attributed, Day's Collacon


Custom is a violent and deceiving school-mistress.

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Essays