historical customs Quotes

I'm a history person; I love history. But I am conditioned by the present.

If the Sunday had not been observed as a day of rest during the last three centuries, I have not the slightest doubt that we should have been at this moment a poorer people and less civilized.

I adore tradition. I cannot stand habit. Simply to repeat is nothing, also to destroy is nothing. Tradition is never interrupted, we are always evolving but never interrupted.

What men call civilization is the condition of present customs; what they call barbarism, the condition of past ones.

Ther is no newe gyse that it nas old.

I read it [history] a little as a duty, but it tells me nothing that does not either vex or weary me. The quarrels of popes and kings, with wars or pestilences, in every page; the men all so good for nothing, and hardly any women at all — it is very tiresome: and yet I often think it odd that it should be so dull, for a great deal of it must be invention.

In Biblical times, a man could have as many wives as he could afford. Just like today.

Customs will often outlive the remembrance of their origin.