Tradition

“ Tradition reigns, the gospel of the blind adoration of what was and what is—God without a head. Man's destiny is eternally blockaded by two forms of tradition; in time, by hereditary succession; in space, by frontiers, and thus it is crushed and annihilated in detail. It is the truth. I am certain of it, for I am touching it. ”

“ And there springs up a new tradition, and this tradition, worthy of the new times upon the threshold of which we stand, arouses, in its turn, new ambitions, for the influence of great men survives them. ”

“ And as the word is the root out of which the whole stem of man’s transmitted knowledge, or tradition, has grown up, with all its branches and offshoots, so, too, in the eloquent speech, in the elegant composition, and even in all lofty internal meditation—which form, as it were, the leaves, flowers, and fruits of this goodly tree of living tradition—it is again the word by which the whole is carried on and ultimately perfected. ”

“ The sacrifice of Abel marks the era of patriarchal tradition; the sacrifice of Abraham marks the era of Hebrew tradition; the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the final and consummating sacrifice, marks the era of Christian tradition.... Such is the nature of tradition, and such its history. Tradition is the connection of the present with the past, of the past with the future; it is the principle of identity and continuity which forms persons, families, nations, and mankind. ”

“ I invoke a school which will seek the truth of the epoch, not in mere analysis,—always barren and certain to mislead, if undirected by a ruling principle,—but in an earnest study of universal tradition, which is the manifestation of the collective life of humanity; and of conscience, which is the manifestation of the life of the individual. ”

“ Age of Comparison.—The less men are bound by tradition, the greater is the inner activity of motives, the greater, correspondingly, the outer restlessness, the promiscuous flow of humanity, the polyphony of strivings. ”

“ Here is the effect of a tradition that is real, not a mere group of words or a well-fashioned bit of governmental machinery--real because it is ours; it has come out of our life; for the only real traditions a people have are those beliefs that have become a part of them, like the good manners of a gentleman. ”

“ With her conception of tradition, as the legitimate source of the moral and spiritual life in man, and as the influence which builds up all which is truest and purest in our civilization, she can endure to see no contempt put upon its products. ”

“ For, if tradition is worth anything—and we have nothing else to go upon—they are at first few in number. They come as settlers, or even as single sages. It is, in all tradition, not the many who influence the few, but the few who influence the many. ”

“ Two elements constitute that factor which plays such a vital part in our religious life—tradition and environment. Tradition links the past to the present and gives to the soul a certain stability amidst the fluctuations of life. It is made up of details if you wish, but, like the tossing buoy, these details betray where the anchor is hidden. ”

“ In fact, every nation has its traditions, which illumine its history and enrich its life. From tradition springs the flower of culture. On it chiefly depends the cultivation of the character, the customs and manners, of a people. ”

“ But Tradition also is imperfect, ambiguous, full of apparent contradictions, and impossible for the laity to understand, except through the inspired class, who alone could reconcile its several parts. ”

“ Under these two different forms, therefore doth Tradition reveal to us the primitive world, or in other words, these are the two grand conditions of humanity which fill the records of primitive history. ”

“ Tradition,—that perishable, yet ever-renewed monument of the pristine world,—throws no light upon the subject. It is an undoubted fact, however, that in this part of the globe thousands of our fellow-beings had lived. ”

“ I appeal to an established tradition older, wider, nobler far—a tradition not which disregards British interests, but which teaches you to seek the promotion of these interests in obeying the dictates of honour and justice. ”

“ Where tradition is our only guide we must follow implicitly, satisfied that her taper was lighted at the torch of Truth, though it may gleam doubtfully and partially through the mists and errors of succeeding ages. ”

“ Tradition,—which sometimes brings down truth that history has let slip, but is oftener the wild babble of the time, such as was formerly spoken at the fireside and now congeals in newspapers,—tradition is responsible for all contrary averments. ”

“ It is thus that popular tradition, connected with all that is most interesting in human history and human action, upon a national scale—a mirror reflecting the people's past worth and wisdom—invariably possesses so deep a hold upon its affections, and offers so many instructive hints to the man of the world, to the statesman, the citizen, and the peasant. ”

“ The modest assurance, the happy boldness, the extemporaneous logic, all that 'led but to the grave,' exist, like the images of departed actors, only in the recollection of those who witnessed them, till memory shall fade into tradition, and tradition dwindle down to a name. ”

“ But perhaps large minds have been peculiarly liable to this fluctuation concerning the sphere of tradition, because, while they have attacked its misapplications, they have been the more solicited by the vague sense that tradition is really the basis of our best life. ”

“ Tradition will be held forth to you as the originator of them, custom, as their strengthener, and faith, as their observer. That reason will support tradition, and custom, and faith, you will either yourself perceive, or learn from some one who has. ”

“ And on the other hand, as we shall see when we come to discuss the laws of suggestion and the function of belief, the weight of tradition presses the loyal and humble soul which accepts it, to such an interpretation of its own spiritual intuitions as its Church, its creed, its environment give to it. ”

“ Authority, tradition, and custom are wholly or partially destroyed. And since authority, tradition, and custom are the cement of the social structure, there results a general dissolution of that structure into its component individuals. ”

“ When there is a tradition, and a true historical record as well, the tradition is superfluous. When a tradition stands alone, there is nothing to confirm it. What can we do then? To assume the fact from the truth of the tradition, and the truth of the tradition from the existence of the fact, is to argue in a circle. ”

“ Yet if the only form of tradition, of handing down, consisted in following the ways of the immediate generation before us in a blind or timid adherence to its successes, “tradition” should positively be discouraged. ”

“ Thus, to the historian of letters, the Lives have a special interest, for they afford a standing example of a great dead tradition—a tradition whose characteristics throw more than one curious light upon the literary feelings and ways which have become habitual to ourselves. ”

“ On the tradition, "I was a hidden treasure and I desired to be known, and I created the world in order to be known". ”

“ For the thousands who can perpetuate a tradition, imitate somebody else, or carry on the accepted convention, there will be found but one or two who can synthetise the time-spirit into a new expression. ”

“ To despise this treasure, what is it but to despise life, and that which constitutes its connection, its unity, its light, as we have just seen?... When God spoke to men His Word passed into time ... Happily tradition seized upon it as soon as it left the threshold of eternity; and tradition is neither an ear, nor a mouth, nor an isolated memory, but the ear, the mouth, and the memory of generations united together by tradition itself, and imparting to it an existence superior to the caprices and weakness of individuals. Nevertheless, God would not trust to oral tradition alone ... ”

“ When every parallel to our Grail story is found within the circle of a well-defined, and carefully studied, sequence of belief and practice, when each and all form part of a well-recognized body of tradition the descent of which has been abundantly demonstrated, then I submit such parallels stand on a sound basis, and it is not unreasonable to conclude that the body of tradition containing them belongs to the same family and is to be interpreted on the same principles as the closely analogous rites and ceremonies. ”

“ Traditions are infinitely complex things: there are world traditions, national traditions broad and narrow, class traditions and traditions of profession and trade, traditions of predilection, of art, of religion: and men may be exposed in their development to the combined influence of a number of these. But the net result of the diversity of tradition is an extraordinary diversity of end-result. ”

“ Since the number of ideas which it possesses are but few, and as it hears these will greater frequency, they are the more deeply impressed upon the brain. Tradition is charged with the task of transmitting them from mouth to mouth to future generations; and the actions of its life, regulated, governed, and ruled by these ideas, contributes also to the perpetuating of them in manner, customs, and institutions. ”

“ We should love stability and tradition as well as love adventure and advancement." But the practical labors of his life were directed toward creating means to modify tradition in favor of a larger sort of justice than the past had known. ”

“ For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups; and many other things ye do and he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition. * * * (verse 13) making the word of God of none effect by your tradition. Col. 2: 8 - Beware, lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. ”

“ We haven't any tradition. Oh, not all your traditions are good ones, but many are worth while. You have a more dignified social sense than we have, and a political sense too. And you have a culture we haven't attained yet. ”

“ It is tradition, the oral handing on of oral knowledge, that is the means by which the most of our folklore material has been, and is being, preserved. Tradition as a process deserves examination. We ought to know what are its conditions, its limits, its possibilities. ”

“ But on the other hand if we find a tale, as for instance this now before us, appearing again and again in more than three hundred records from all ends of the world, and we see how curiously constant the tradition is, then just this wonderful tenacity of tradition gives us the right of regarding the material so reliable that we may venture to build a research on them. Surely we cannot expect a firm decision in all details, but on a large scale we can learn from the traditions the development and the ways of the type. ”

“ And we have found among peoples in the most distant parts of the globe similar stories and superstitions. Incidentally, too, we have learned something of the details of archaic practices, and have found the two great divisions of Tradition,—belief and practice,—inseparably interwoven. ”

“ Our sentiments may be called organized traditions; and a large part of our actions gather all their justification, all their attraction and aroma, from the memory of the life lived, of the actions done, before we were born. ”

“ Yet amongst the most sceptical and “enlightened” of moderns there is generally a large residuum of tradition. “Emotionally,” it has been said, “we are hundreds of thousands of years old; rationally we are embryos”{1} ; and many people who deem themselves “emancipated” are willing for once in the year to plunge into the stream of tradition, merge themselves in inherited social custom, and give way to sentiments and impressions which in their more reflective moments they spurn. ”