Richard Rohr Quotes

In America nothing dies easier than tradition.

It would be foolish to despise tradition. But with our growing self-consciousness and increasing intelligence we must begin to control tradition and assume a critical attitude toward it, if human relations are ever to change for the better.

Tradition is only democracy extended through time; it may be defined as an extension of the franchise. Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who are merely walking about. All democrats object to men being disqualified by accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by accident of death. Democracy tells us not to neglect a good man's opinion, even if he is our father.

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.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century we abandoned tradition, it's at that point that I intend to renew it because the present is built on the past just as the past was built on the times that went before it.

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

Nothing is more difficult, in general, than to make a nation perceive anything as true, or seek its own interest, in any manner but as its forefathers have opined and acted.

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.

We are not primitive. We live differently to you, but we do not live exactly like our grandparents did, nor do you. Were your ancestors 'primitive'? I don't think so. We respect our ancestors. We love our children. This is the same for all people.

Cultures grow on the vine of tradition.

Culture is a slingshot moved by the force of its past

Experience supplies painful proof that traditions once called into being are first called useful, then they become necessary. At last they are too often made idols, and all must bow down to them or be punished.

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

The consciousness of being borne up by a spiritual tradition that goes back for centuries gives one a feeling of confidence and security in the face of all passing strains and stresses.

We celebrate Thanksgiving along with the rest of America, maybe in different ways and for different reasons. Despite everything that's happened to us since we fed the Pilgrims, we still have our language, our culture, our distinct social system. Even in a nuclear age, we still have a tribal people.

The odd thing about tradition is, the longer it's been going, the more people seem to take it seriously - as though sheer passage of time makes something which to begin with was just made up, turns it into what people believe as a fact.

Whenever one honestly defies a tradition, one becomes, in reality, the more responsible to it.

Customs will often outlive the remembrance of their origin.

The people of Iran have been battling against consecutive conflicts between tradition and modernity for over 100 years... some have tried and are trying to see the world through the eyes of their predecessors and to deal with the problems and difficulties of the existing world by virtue of the values of the ancients... many others...seek to go forth in step with world developments and not lag behind the caravan of civilization, development and progress.

Tradition, in its essence, is something simultaneously meta-historical and dynamic: it is an overall ordering force in the service of principles that have the chrism of a superior legitimacy (we may even call them 'principles from above').

But a people unable to reform will not be able to preserve its old culture either.

He who cannot draw on three thousand years is living from hand to mouth.

Just because something is traditional is no reason to do it, of course. Piracy, for example, is a tradition that has been carried on for hundreds of years, but that doesn't mean we should all attack ships and steal their gold.

The wisdom of our parents, grandparents, ancestors. In each individual life, it seems, we must first reject that wisdom, then later come to appreciate it.

As Americans, preserving the best of our traditions, we have the right- nay the duty-to fight for participation in the forward march of humanity