Quotes about Tradition

Every heart that has beat strongly and cheerfully has left a hopeful impulse behind it in the world, and bettered the tradition of mankind.

PART OF THE GENIUS of genuine Christianity is that each generation has to think it through afresh.

The question we need to ask today is this, and this question strikes to the heart of how we read the Bible: Do we seek to retrieve that cultural world and those cultural expressions, or do we live the same gospel in a different way in a different day?

For some it is tempting to use only set prayers, while for others it is almost a solemn requirement to use only spontaneous prayers. We need both,

In the Roman Empire a child's religion was determined not by some choice in the teenage years but by that child's family.

The less there is to justify a traditional custom, the harder it is to get rid of it

It seems manifest, then, that the latter tongue (German) ought to be trimmed down and repaired. If it is to remain as it is, it ought to be gently and reverently set aside among the dead languages, for only the dead have time to learn it.

The church is always trying to get other people to reform; it might not be a bad idea to reform itself a little, by way of example. It is still clinging to one or two things which were useful once, but which are not useful now, neither are they ornamental.

It isn't as it used to be in the old times. Then everybody traveled by steamboat, everybody drank, and everybody treated everybody else. 'Now most everybody goes by railroad, and the rest don't drink.

India is, the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, the grandmother of legend, and the great grandmother of tradition. Our most valuable and most instructive materials in the history of man are treasured ... in India only.

It is a curious thing that in whaling vessels the Church of England Prayer book is always employed, though there is never a member of that Church among officers or crew. Our men are all Roman Catholics or Presbyterians, the former predominating. Since a ritual is used which is foreign to both, neither can complain that the other is preferred to them, and they listen with all attention and devotion, so that the system has something to recommend it.

Moulmein for food, Mandalay for conversation, Rangoon for ostentation