quotations about custom
Such dupes are men to custom, and so prone
To rev'rence what is ancient, and can plead
A course of long observance for its use,
That even servitude, the worst of ills,
Because deliver'd down from sire to son,
Is kept and guarded as a sacred thing!
WILLIAM COWPER
The Task
Cast away the bondage and the fear of rotten custom.
HARTLEY COLERIDGE
Sonnets
Habit or custom, like a complex mathematical scheme, flows from a point, insensibly becomes a line, and unhappily in that which is evil, it may become a curve.
R. ROBINSON
attributed, Laconics
Custom meets us at the cradle and leaves us only at the tomb.
ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
Individuality
Men do more things from custom than from reason.
FABARIA
attributed, Day's Collacon
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?
Those who live not by law would be justified by Custom: but, as common practice is the worst teacher that ever was, so the truth and goodness of things is not to be estimated by the entertainment and acceptance they find in the world.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
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, though never so ancient, without truth, is but an old error.
CYPRIAN
attributed, Day's Collacon
How many unjust and wicked things are sanctioned by custom.
TERENCE
attributed, Day's Collacon
Custom may lead a man into many errors; but it justifies none.
HENRY FIELDING
The Wedding-Day
'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
Just because something is traditional is no reason to do it, of course.
LEMONY SNICKET
The Blank Book
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
When Fashion hath once Established, what Folly or craft began, Custom makes it Sacred, and 'twill be thought impudence or madness, to contradict or question it.
JOHN LOCKE
First Treatise of Government
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
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, that unwritten law,
By which the people keep even kings in awe.
WILLIAM D'AVENANT
Circe
I cannot draw a distinction as to what length of time will render a practice legal.
C. J. DALLAS
Butt v. Conant, 1828
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