Beatrix Potter Quotes

I think religion might throw up a kind of resistance, but I think if one talks about conditioning we can all kind of understand that.

Customs form us all, our thoughts, our morals, our most fixed beliefs; are consequences of our place of birth.

It amazes me that talking about traditional values is controversial, but it seems to be.

We have religious superstitions of the Middle Ages that shape our 21st century social policies.

It is hard to oppose an ideology with a tradition.

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

The people I grew up around, almost all of them had been born and raised in the South. And, you know, they didn't always go to church, but they lived their lives as if God were watching everything they did.

The masses of the people are no lovers of changes which run counter to immemorial custom

… 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.

The old Jew, he is the man.

You have to accept that traditions exist, that people don't change their minds very quickly, that people are scared.

People are saying I am against the chador. I am not. On the contrary. I am for traditional family values.

There's so many strict ideas and rules, whether it's from religion or it's just generations and generations.

Latin American culture is conservative, and the rural areas are tremendously conservative. I don't believe that's just a Chilean thing.

Superstitious." What a strange word. If you believed in Christianity or Islam, it was called "faith". But if you believed in astrology or Friday the thirteenth it was superstition! Who had the right to call other people's belief superstition?

Our prejudices are so deeply rooted that we never think of them as prejudices but call them common sense.

Stereotypes have their roots in truth.

...how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity!

I think that a society cannot live without a certain number of irrational beliefs. They are protected from criticism and analysis because they are irrational.

Traditions are neither good nor bad, they simply are... Rationality is not an arbiter of traditions, it is itself a tradition or an aspect of a tradition.

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

The point is that most of what we currently hold sacred is not sacred for any reason other than that it was thought sacred yesterday.

It is impossible to wait and weigh, in golden scales, the sentiments of prejudice and superstition that have gathered round the priests who are considered to be the custodians of Hinduism.

Prejudice is a product of ignorance that hides behind barriers of tradition.

People forget that stereotypes aren’t bad because they are always untrue. Stereotypes are bad because they are not always true. If we allow ourselves to judge another based on a stereotype, we have allowed a gross generalization to replace our own thinking.