Henry James Quotes

I do think evolution is an important aspect of keeping a tradition alive. If it freezes and remains very static in its form, it dies, and so a natural evolution has to occur.

When you talk about change, you know what makes it really tough for people is on the one hand you've got tradition, and on the other hand you've got change; in many people's mind, change equals modernization. Tradition, however. I'm a big tradition guy.

Tradition can, to be sure, participate in a creation, but it can no longer be creative itself.

We need to open up the future. We also need to keep everything valuable from the past.

When you have such a huge past, a big background as we have, you can play off that - a lot of people do. But we felt we wouldn't have a legitimate future unless we put something new together.

We live in a changing world … shall we maintain all our theaters in the same traditional box.

You can embrace nostalgia and history and tradition at the same time - it has to progress or it can't survive.

Change does not change tradition, it strengthens it. Change is a challenge and anopportunity, not a threat.

Tradition simply means that we need to end what began well and continue what is worth continuing

Tradition, if not constantly recreated, can be as much a millstone as a mill-wheel.

We must not be hampered by yesterday's myths in concentrating on today's needs.

Change is no threat to culture.

So we have to be careful because if you don't protect your culture you won't have it for very long.

People tend to believe that to be modern you have to disengage from your heritage, but it's not true.

In America nothing dies easier than tradition.

I'm an optimist - that's why I try to invent different systems; otherwise, I may as well stop right now. Sometimes I get the feeling the French cinema holds on tightly to what exists already.

I say it is indispensable to look ahead of and behind oneself in the present. If there is such a thing as tradition, and I believe there is, it can only exist in the sense of the most profound movements of culture.

When a tradition gathers enough strength to go on for centuries, you don't just turn it off one day.

We make the oldest stories new when we succeed, and we are trapped by the old stories when we fail.

If we are to preserve culture we must continue to create it.

You have to modernise; you have to change - you can't just be traditional for the fun of being traditional.

I think in all cultural organizations there has to be renewal. I'm also of a certain age that someone new can come in with a breath of fresh air. Things change, and I think that's important.

Success follows those adept at preserving the substance of the past by clothing it in the forms of the future.

We are a party of innovation. We do not reject our traditions, but we are willing to adapt to changing circumstances, when change we must. We are willing to suffer the discomfort of change in order to achieve a better future.

I like to be buttoned onto tradition. The thing is to improve it, twist it and mold it; to make something new of it; not to deny it. The riches of history can be plucked at any point.