Wise Quotes about Custom

We are strange beings, we seem
to go free, but we go in chains -
chains of training, custom, convention,
association, environment -
in a word, Circumstance -
and against these bonds
the strongest of us struggle in vain.
- 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

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

Riches do not exhilarate us so much with their possession
as they torment us with their loss.
- Epicurus

A bird does not sing because it has an answer.
It sings because it has a song.
- Chinese Proverb

The true meaning of life is to plant trees,
under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
- Nelson Henderson

Stand Tall, Stand Proud.
Know that you are unique and magnificent.
You do not need the approval of others.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.
- Rabindranath Tagore

The world is perfect. It's a mess.
It has always been a mess.
We are not going to change it.
Our job is to straighten out our own lives.
- Joseph Campbell

Don't underestimate the value of Doing Nothing,
of just going along,
listening to all the things you can't hear,
and not bothering.
- A. A. Milne (Winnie-The-Pooh)

To know yet to think that one does not know is best;
Not to know yet to think that one knows
will lead to difficulty.
- Lao Tzu

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our Light, not our Darkness, that most frightens us.
- Marianne Williamson

I am not afraid of storms
for I am learning how to sail my ship.
- Louisa May Alcott

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

One does not discover new lands without consenting
to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.
- Andre Gide

You do not need anyone's permission to be your true self.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

People do not seem to realize that
their opinion of the world
is also a confession of character.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Men are not prisoners of fate,
but only prisoners of their own minds.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt

When dealing with people, remember you are
not dealing with creatures of logic,
but creatures of emotion.
- Dale Carnegie

Feeling sorry for yourself, and your present condition,
is not only a waste of energy
but the worst habit you could possibly have.
- Dale Carnegie

A man should look for what is,
and not for what he thinks should be.
- Albert Einstein

Do not attempt to conquer the world with force,
for force only causes resistance.
- Lao Tzu

The function of prayer is not to influence God,
but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.
- Soren Kierkegaard

To realize that you do not understand is a virtue;
Not to realize that you do not understand is a defect.
- Lao Tzu

True learning is not about facts,
but about conscious appreciation
of the experience of living.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Let us not look back in anger
or forward in fear,
but around in awareness.
- James Thurber

The flower which is single need not envy
the thorns that are numerous.
- Rabindranath Tagore

If you understand, things are just as they are;
if you do not understand, things are just as they are.
- Zen Proverb

There is a secret wisdom-of-the-ages
that holds the key to breaking
our cycle of self-imposed suffering.
The secret wisdom is,
"Life is not supposed to be fair."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Thinkers do not accept the inevitable;
they turn their efforts toward changing it.
- Paramahansa Yogananda

We are not held back by the love we didn't receive in the past,
but by the love we're not extending in the present.
- Marianne Williamson

Wisdom has its root in goodness,
not goodness its root in wisdom.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

It's not what you don't know that kills you,
it's what you know for sure that ain't true.
- Mark Twain

We do not always see what is before our face -
sometimes we see what we hope to see,
or fear we will see.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

A good question is never answered.
It is not a bolt to be tightened into place
but a seed to be planted and to bear more seed
toward the hope of greening the landscape of idea.
- John Ciardi

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself -
and you are the easiest person to fool.
- Richard Feynman

Even the truth, when believed, is a lie.
You must experience the truth, not believe it.
- Werner Erhard

We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors,
we borrow it from our children.
- Native American Proverb

All the suffering, stress, and addiction
comes from not realizing you already are what you are looking for.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

Be an Observer of Life.
Gaining wisdom from carefully observing life
is not a substitute for action -
it is a prerequisite for informed action.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

You got to be careful if you
don't know where you're going,
because you might not get there.
- Yogi Berra

In the confrontation between the stream and the rock,
the stream always wins -
not through strength but by perseverance.
- The Buddha

The world is moved along, not only
by the mighty shoves of its heroes,
but also by the aggregate of tiny pushes
of each honest worker.
- Helen Keller

Hide not your talents,
they for use were made.
What's a sundial in the shade?
- Benjamin Franklin

We must teach our children to resolve
their conflicts with words, not weapons.
- William J. Clinton

Sometimes I think we're alone.
Sometimes I think we're not.
In either case, the thought is staggering.
- R. Buckminster Fuller

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

Does thou love life? Then do not squander time;
for that's the stuff life is made of.
- Benjamin Franklin

Everything that can be counted
does not necessarily count;
everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted.
- Albert Einstein

Lord, grant that I might not so much
seek to be loved as to love.
- St. Francis of Assisi

As soon as man does not take his existence for granted,
but beholds it as something
unfathomably mysterious, thought begins.
- Albert Schweitzer

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Wisdom Quotes