CUSTOM QUOTES IV

quotations about custom

The slaves of custom and established mode,
With pack-horse constancy we keep the road
Crooked or straight, through quags or thorny dells,
True to the jingling of our leader's bells.

WILLIAM COWPER

The Task


Custom has furnished the only basis which ethics have ever had.

JOSEPH W. KRUTCH

The Modern Temper


What custom hath endeared
We part with sadly, though we prize it not.

JOANNA BAILLIE

Basil


The customs of the world are so many conventional follies.

EDGAR ALLAN POE

"The Spectacles"


Custom calls me to 't:
What custom wills, in all things should we do't,
The dust on antique time would lie unswept,
And mountainous error be too highly heap't
For truth to o'erpeer.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Coriolanus


Cast away the bondage and the fear of rotten custom.

HARTLEY COLERIDGE

Sonnets


For the customs of the peoples are delusion;
Because it is wood cut from the forest,
The work of the hands of a craftsman with a cutting tool.
They decorate it with silver and with gold;
They fasten it with nails and with hammers
So that it will not totter.
Like a scarecrow in a cucumber field are they,
And they cannot speak;
They must be carried,
Because they cannot walk!
Do not fear them,
For they can do no harm,
Nor can they do any good.

BIBLE

Jeremiah 10:3-5


Just because something is traditional is no reason to do it, of course.

LEMONY SNICKET

The Blank Book


I cannot draw a distinction as to what length of time will render a practice legal.

C. J. DALLAS

Butt v. Conant, 1828


Custom, madam, is the law of fools, but it shall never govern me.

JOHN VANBRUGH

The Provoked Husband


Custom is the law of one description of fools, and fashion of another; but the two parties often clash; for precedent is the legislator of the first, and novelty of the last. Custom, therefore, looks to things that are past, and fashions to things that are present, but both of them are somewhat purblind as to things that are to come.

CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Lacon


Just because you have become accustomed to a thing, does not make it right.

BRIAN HERBERT & KEVIN J. ANDERSON

Dune: House Atreides


Woe unto you, O torrent of human custom! Who shall stay your course? When will you ever run dry? How long will you carry down the sons of Eve into that vast and hideous ocean.

AUGUSTINE

Confessions


Think how much better it is to criticize conventional customs if you yourself live up to them, scrupulously.

SINCLAIR LEWIS

Main Street


So they cried with a loud voice and cut themselves according to their custom with swords and lances until the blood gushed out on them.

BIBLE

1 Kings 18:28


Custom governs the world: it is the tyrant of our feelings and our manners, and rules with a hand of a despot.

J. BARTLETT

attributed, Day's Collacon


A bad custom is like a good cake, better broken than kept.

JOHN RAY

English Proverbs


So many countries, so many customs.

JOHN RAY

English Proverbs


The deadliest foe to love is custom.

EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON

Devereux


Custom is another law.

LATIN PROVERB