Anatole France Quotes

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

No written law has ever been more binding than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion.

Competition, or the unimpeded pressure of individual on individual, has been from the beginning a great force in societies ; but of old it was hindered and controlled by custom ; in the future, like the other great physical forces of society, it will be controlled by morality.

Custom determines what is agreeable.

Morals were restrictive, but they were grounded on human experience.

You do what you think is right and let the law catch up.

Moral change still depends on the individual and not on the passage of any law.

Puritan standards have become the public standards of America, and you will find more of New England in Colorado Springs, Boulder, or Greeley than in most towns of Massachusetts.

Where a bad custom has been in existence for any length of time, most people grow to regard it as part of the order of nature.

Nature is seldom in the wrong, custom always.

The empire of custom is most mighty.

In terms of morals there is no such thing as ‘state.’ Just men. Individuals. Each responsible for his own acts.

Do you know what morals are? Morals are an obedience to rules that people laid down to help you live among them.

Customs may not be as wise as laws, but they are always more popular.

A moral person is someone who accepts the consequences of their own morality, not those of others.

Customs change with time, so it isn't fair to permit change only when you happen to approve of it but condemn change citing biblical authority when you don't.

How many things both just and unjust are sanctioned by custom?

Absurdities are great or small in proportion to custom or insuetude.

What is morality but immemorial custom? Conscience is the chief of conservatives.

We make our customs lightly; once made, like our sins, they grip us in bands of steel; we become the creatures of our creation.

Conscience is the guardian in the individual of the rules which the community has evolved for its own preservation.

Nature her custom holds, Let shame say what it will.

To be moral, correct, and virtuous is to be obedient to an old established law and custom.

This party spirit has so ill an effect on our morals, it has likewise a very great one upon our judgments.