Historical Practices Quotes

Almost always tradition is nothing but a record and a machine-made imitation of the habits that our ancestors created. The average conservative is a slave to the most incidental and trivial part of his forefathers glory - to the archaic formula which happened to express their genius or the eighteenth-century contrivance by which for a time it was served.

Is it a recent occurrence that women have tried to control when and if they reproduced? Absolutely not. By 2000 B.C., there was worldwide use of herbal potions to prevent pregnancy. Condoms were made from animal bladders.

The wearing of fabric head coverings in worship was universally the practice of Christian women until the twentieth century. What happened? Did we suddenly find some biblical truth to which the saints for thousands of years were blind? Or were our biblical views of women gradually eroded by the modern feminist movement that has infiltrated the Church

Raw parsley makes me gag. It's the same for my mum and my sister. Which is funny because apparently parsley was used to suffocate witches, back in the day.

It was an odd situation. For a century and a half, men got rid of their own hair, which was perfectly comfortable, and instead covered their heads with something foreign and uncomfortable. Very often it was actually their own hair made into a wig. People who couldn't afford wigs tried to make their hair look like a wig.

Historians of the future will find it incredible that we mutilated babies by cutting off the end of their penises in the name of medicine. There are now serious concerns this routine procedure may actually deprive adult men of a vital part of their sexual sensitivity.

Stability means respecting precedents.

All tradition is merely the past.

Administrations had come and gone in Pennsylvania Avenue, but many old entertaining traditions had survived - thru habit and not thru merit.

I think our societies - to certain extent, of course, and to different degrees, but almost with no exception - have always been struggling to come to terms with archaic traditions.

Custom is often only the antiquity of error.

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.

Besides prostitution, magic is one of the oldest art forms that exist.

In America nothing dies easier than tradition.

Evergreen decorations were put up throughout the City of London, and the Lord Mayor and the City Marshall had to ride about setting fire to them.

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.

The apostle Paul very seriously advised Timothy to put some wine in his water for health's sake, but not one of the apostles nor any of the holy fathers have ever recommended putting water in wine

It used to happen in villages and towns in China that they would have - I guess you'd call them beauty contests - where all of the women of a particular village or town would be seated behind these screens or curtains with only their feet showing.

Verse 11. (They presented unto Him gifts). The people of the east never approach the presence of kings and great personages, without a present in their hands. The custom is often noticed in the Old Testament, and still prevails in the east, and in some of the newly discovered South Sea Islands.

Tradition is a very powerful force.

There are no witches. The witch text remains; only the practice has changed. Hell fire is gone, but the text remains. Infant damnation is gone, but the text remains. More than two hundred death penalties are gone from the law books, but the texts that authorized them remain.

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.

You did something because it had always been done, and the explanation was, ‘But we’ve always done it this way.’ A million dead people can’t have been wrong, can they?

It's clear all the way through history that practices are primary and beliefs are secondary.

Their armies [the Ottoman Turks] are encumbered with immense baggage, and their camp has all the conveniences of a town, with shops etc. for such was their ancient custom when they wandered with their hordes.