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"The customs are as formalised as an eighteenth-century minuet, and a child at the race's knee learns the moves and twirls by osmosis and observation."
Standard
Customized
Exlpore more Tradition quotes

"Cultural values change with times, unless they are built on an absolute standard of values and virtues. This standard must be afterwards well-guarded and protected."

"I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round -- apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that -- as a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys."

"Even when she had to make some one a present of the kind called 'useful,' when she had to give an armchair or some table-silver or a walking-stick, she would choose 'antiques,' as though their long desuetude had effaced from them any semblance of utility and fitted them rather to instruct us in the lives of the men of other days than to serve the common requirements of our own."

"There was an honorable tradition of using anonymous sources that was ruined by Jayson Blair."

"I respect traditional people - they have the eyes which see value in the tarnished. This is a gift in itself. Tradition requires a wealth of discipline in order to be adhered to, hence it is rarely found in youth."
Explore more quotes by Maya Angelou

"All great artists draw from the same resource: the human heart, which tells us that we are all more alike than we are unalike."

"Frequently, I have been asked how I got to be this way. How did I, born black in a white country, poor in a society where wealth is adored and sought after at all costs, female in an environment where only large ships and some engines are described favourably by using the female pronoun-how did I get to be Maya Angelou?"

"That's what you want to do? Then nothing beats a trial but a failure. Give it everything you've got. I've told you many times, 'Cant do is like Dont Care.' Neither of them have a home."

"I'm happy to be a writer - of prose, poetry, every kind of writing. Every person in the world who isn't a recluse, hermit or mute uses words. I know of no other art form that we always use."

"I'm interested in women's health because I'm a woman. I'd be a darn fool not to be on my own side."

"What you're supposed to do when you don't like a thing is change it. If you can't change it, change the way you think about it. Don't complain."

"The only thing is, people have to develop courage. It is most important of all the virtues. Because without courage, you can't practice any other virtues consistently."

"I am never proud to participate in violence, yet I know that each of us must care enough for ourselves that we can be ready and able to come to our own defense when and wherever needed."
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