John Wilmot Quotes

Logic is a poor guide compared with custom.

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.

Custom is our nature …

It is not reason which is the guide of life, but custom.

But to my mind, though I am native here, And to the manner born, it is a custom, More honored in the breach than the observance.

Old custom is hard to break and scarce any man will be led otherwise than seemeth good unto himself.

Custom is our nature. What are our natural principles but principles of custom?

Nothing is more powerful than custom or habit.

Nature is seldom in the wrong, custom always.

The empire of custom is most mighty.

Custom is often only the antiquity of error.

Habit had made the custom.

A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.

Custom creates the whole of equity, for the simple reason that it is accepted.

He who does anything because it is the custom, makes no choice.

Custom is almost a second nature.

Humpty had always sat on walls, it was his way.

Montaigne is wrong in declaring that custom ought to be followed simply because it is custom, and not because it is reasonable or just.

Mankind are apt to be strongly prejudiced in favor of whatever is countenanced by antiquity, enforced by authority, and recommended by custom.

The way of the world is to make laws, but follow custom.

Custom is second nature.

The more respect that objects, customs, or laws are given, the more attentively you must question the right these things have to this respect.

Customs do not concern themselves with right or wrong or reason. But they have to be obeyed; one reasons all around them until he is tired, but he must not transgress them, it is sternly forbidden.

… a country's laws are written upon paper, and that its customs are engraved upon brass. One may play with the one, but not with the other. It is less risky for a stranger to dance upon our Constitution in the public square than to affront one of our solidified customs. The one is merely eminently respectable, the other is sacred.

A custom / More honored in the breach than the observance.