Thoughts on Traditions from Daily Inspiration

Thoughts on Traditions

May you find inspiration in these thoughts and quotes on Traditions from my large Daily Inspiration library of inspiring quotes and inspirational words.

I choose to adapt to the circumstances in which I find myself.
I choose to be flexible in my dealings with those around me.
I understand that my way is not the only way -
that inner peace comes from respecting the ways of others,
and that, if I am open, I may gain great insights and happiness
from the ideas and traditions of others.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

In many ways, it is easier to be a good giver than a good receiver.
The giver chooses the gift and the timing.
More important, societal and religious traditions
tend to elevate the status of giver and lower the status of receiver.
When the Bible (Acts 20:32-35) speaks of it being
more blessed to give than to receive,
I believe that a better translation might be
"take" rather than "receive," as the context
of that passage is "coveting."
Certainly there is nothing blessed about coveting,
stealing, begging, or demanding,
however the skill of graciously receiving a freely offered gift
is another matter entirely.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

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- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

All major religious traditions
carry basically the same message,
that is love, compassion and forgiveness.
The important thing is they should
be part of our daily lives.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

Nothing is ever absolutely "wrong."
"Wrong" is in the cultural tradition of the beholder.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

When men are easy in their circumstances,
they are naturally enemies to innovations.
- Joseph Addison

Nothing in all the world is more dangerous
than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Who has fully realized that history
is not contained in thick books
but lives in our very blood?
- Carl Jung

Re-examine all that you have been told...
dismiss that which insults your soul.
- Walt Whitman

The most dangerous phrase in the language is,
"We've always done it this way."
- Grace Hopper

What old people say you cannot do,
you try and find that you can.
Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new.
- Henry David Thoreau

Most people don't CHOOSE their value system -
they simply inherit the beliefs of their parents and community.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Open your arms to change, but don't let go of your values.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie,
deliberate, contrived and dishonest,
but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.
- John F. Kennedy

Decide questions without regard for tradition -
one way or the other.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

No written law has ever been more binding
than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion.
- Carrie Chapman Catt

The most erroneous stories are those
we think we know best -
and therefore never scrutinize or question.
- Stephen Jay Gould

Let reason trump tradition and the opinions of others,
but let your own sense of what is Right trump even reason.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Every generation laughs at the old fashions,
but follows religiously the new.
- Henry David Thoreau

This overcoming of all the usual barriers
between the individual and the Absolute
is the great mystic achievement.
In mystic states we both become one with the Absolute
and we become aware of our oneness.
This is the everlasting and triumphant mystical tradition,
hardly altered by differences of clime or creed.
- William James

Nothing is more dangerous to tradition
than the creative imagination of youth.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

You can't move so fast that you try to change
the mores faster than people can accept it.
That doesn't mean you do nothing,
but it means that you do the things that
need to be done according to priority.
- Eleanor Roosevelt

Hardly a man in the world has an opinion
upon morals, political, or religion
which he got otherwise than
through his associations and sympathies.
- Mark Twain

Tradition is the illusion of permanence.
- the Woody Allen movie Deconstructing Harry

Are creeds such simple things like the clothes
which a man can change at will - and put on at will?
Creeds are such for which people live for ages and ages.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

In this outward and physical ceremony,
we attest once again to the inner
and spiritual strength of our Nation.
As my high school teacher, Miss Julia Coleman, used to say:
"We must adjust to changing times,
and still hold to unchanging principles."
- Jimmy Carter

Customs do not concern themselves
with right or wrong or reason.
But they have to be obeyed;
one reasons all around them until he is tired,
but he must not transgress them, it is sternly forbidden.
- Mark Twain

Laws are sand, customs are rock.
Laws can be evaded and punishment escaped,
but an openly transgressed custom brings sure punishment.
The penalty may be unfair, unrighteous, illogical, and a cruelty;
no matter, it will be inflicted, just the same.
Certainly, then, there can be but one wise thing
for a visiting stranger to do -
find out what the country's customs are,
and refrain from offending against them.
- Mark Twain

Treat the earth well.
It was not given to you by your parents,
it was loaned to you by your children.
We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors,
we borrow it from our Children.
- Native American traditional

I give you this one thought to keep -
I am with you still - I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush,
I am the sweet uplifting rush,
of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft starts that shine at night.
Do not think of me as gone -
I am with you still in each new dawn.
- Traditional Native American Prayer

A son is a son till he takes him a wife,
a daughter is a daughter all of her life.
- Irish Traditional

We return thanks to our mother,
the earth, which sustains us.
We return thanks to the rivers and streams
which supply us with water.
We return thanks to all herbs, which furnish medicines
for the cure of our diseases.
We return thanks to the corn, and to her sisters,
the beans and squashes, which give us life.
We return thanks to the bushes and trees,
which provide us with fruit.
We return thanks to the wind,
which, moving the air, has banished diseases.
We return thanks to the moon and the stars,
which have given us their light when the sun was gone.
We return thanks to our grandfather He-no,
that he has protected his grandchildren from witches and reptiles,
and has given us his rain.
We return thanks to the sun,
that he has looked upon the earth with a beneficent eye.
Lastly, we return thanks to the Great Spirit,
in whom is embodied all goodness,
and who directs all things for the good of his children.
- Iroquois traditional

The True Path is the path on which
there is no coming and no going.
- Traditional Zen Koan

Overflowing Cup of Tea:
The Zen Master poured his visitor's teacup full, and then kept pouring.
The visitor watched until he could no longer restrain himself.
"It is overfull. No more will go in!"
"Like this cup," the Zen Master said,
"you are full of your own opinions and assumptions.
How can you learn truth until you first empty your cup?"
- Traditional Zen Koan

The Moon Cannot Be Stolen:
A thief entered the little hut of a Zen Master,
but discovered there was nothing to steal.
The Zen Master discovered the thief.
"You have come a long way to visit me," he told the prowler,
"and you should not return empty-handed.
Please take my clothes as a gift."
The thief was bewildered,
but he took the clothes and slunk away.
The Zen Master sat naked, watching the moon.
"Poor fellow," he mused,
"I wish I could have given him this beautiful moon."
- Traditional Zen Koan

Time to Die:
A Zen teacher had a rare and priceless teacup.
One day, his precocious student accidentally broke the cup.
Hearing the footsteps of his teacher,
the student held the pieces of the cup behind his back.
When the master appeared, he asked: "Why do people have to die?"
"This is natural," explained the teacher.
"Everything has to die and has just so long to live."
The student showed the shattered cup, saying,
"It was time for your cup to die."
- Traditional Zen Koan

Treat those who are good with goodness,
and also treat those who are not good with goodness.
Thus goodness is attained.
Be honest to those who are honest,
and be also honest to those who are not honest.
Thus honesty is attained.
- Lao Tzu

Treat the earth well,
It was not given to you by your parents,
It was loaned to you by your children.
- Native American Proverb

Trust men and they will be true to you;
treat them greatly and they will show themselves great.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The world is incomprehensible.
We won't ever understand it;
we won't ever unravel its secrets.
Thus we must treat the world as it is:
a sheer mystery.
- Carlos Castaneda

You can easily judge the character of others
by how they treat those who can
do nothing for them or to them.
- Malcolm S. Forbes

I am fond of pigs.
Dogs look up to us.
Cats look down on us.
Pigs treat us as equals.
- Winston Churchill

Men kick friendship around like a football,
but it doesn't seem to crack.
Women treat it like glass and it goes to pieces.
- Anne Morrow Lindbergh

We should not let our response to
the people who disagree with us
be dictated by what they say about us
or even how they treat people we care for.
There has to be a chance that we can find love.
- William J. Clinton

Beginning today, treat everyone you meet
as if they were going to be dead by midnight.
Extend to them all the care,
kindness and understanding you can muster,
and do with no thought of any reward.
Your life will never be the same again.
- Og Mandino

I do not wish to treat friendships daintily,
but with roughest courage.
When they are real, they are
not glass threads or frost-work,
but the solidest thing we know.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The formula for achieving a successful relationship is simple:
you should treat all disasters as if they were trivialities
but never treat a triviality as if it were a disaster.
- Quentin Crisp

I, with a deeper instinct,
choose a man who compels my strength,
who makes enormous demands on me,
who does not doubt my courage or my toughness,
who does not believe me naive or innocent,
who has the courage to treat me like a woman.
- Anais Nin

There is beauty and adventure in the commonplace
for those with eyes to see beyond.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

One can not reflect in streaming water.
Only those who know internal peace can give it to others.
- Lao Tzu

Grant That I May Radiate Thy Light, Thy Love,
Thy Healing, Thy Joy, and Thy Peace,
to All Those Around Me
and All Those in My Thoughts
This Day and Ever More.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Those who believe they can do something
and those who believe they can't
are both right.
- Henry Ford

The future belongs to those
who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
- Eleanor Roosevelt

(Jesus on Love)
You have heard that it was said,
"Love your neighbor and hate your enemy."
But I tell you: Love your enemies
and pray for those who persecute you.
- Matthew 5:43-44

We can only be said to be truly alive in those moments
when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.
- Thornton Wilder

Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.
- Robert F. Kennedy

The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy
is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet,
alone with the heavens, nature and God.
Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be.
- Anne Frank

God sometimes does try to the uttermost
those whom he wishes to bless.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

By letting it go it all gets done.
The world is won by those who let it go.
But when you try and try.
The world is beyond the winning.
- Lao Tzu

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May the world be kind to you,
and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Thoughts on Traditions

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