Tradition Quotes - page 46
I regard it as a duty which I owed, not just to my people, but also to my profession, to the practice of law, and to the justice for all mankind, to cry out against this discrimination which is essentially unjust and opposed to the whole basis of the attitude towards justice which is part of the tradition of legal training in this country. I believed that in taking up a stand against this injustice I was upholding the dignity of what should be an honorable profession.
Nelson Mandela
When Moses walked into the courts of Pharaoh and thundered forth with the call to "Let my people go," he introduced into history the concept of a God who was concerned about the freedom and dignity of all his children and who was willing to turn heaven and earth that freedom might be a realty. Throughout the history of Israel as recorded in the Old Testament, we see God active in the affairs of men, struggling relentlessly against the forces of evil that beset them and seeking to mold a people who will serve as his children, as partners in the building of His kingdom here on earth. The God of our fathers is a God of revolution. He will not be content with anything less than perfection in His children and in their society. It is this strong biblical tradition which has been the foundation of the freedom struggle for the past three centuries.
Martin Luther King Jr.
This war represents the German Revolution, a greater political event than the French Revolution of last century - I don't say a greater, or as great, a social event. What its social consequences may be are in the future. Not a single principle in the management of our foreign affairs, accepted by all statesmen for guidance up to six months ago, any longer exists. There is not a diplomatic tradition which has not been swept away. You have a new world, new influences at work, new and unknown objects and dangers with which to cope. ... The balance of power has been entirely destroyed, and the country which suffers most, and feels the effects of this great change most, is England.
Benjamin Disraeli
A wise Government, allying itself with religion, would, as it were, consecrate society and sanctify the State. But how is this to be done? It is the problem of modern politics which has always most embarrassed statesmen. No solution of the difficulty can be found in salaried priesthoods and complicated concordats. But by the side of the State in England there has gradually arisen a majestic corporation wealthy, powerful, independent with the sanctity of a long tradition, yet sympathising with authority, and full of conciliation, even deference, to the civil power. Broadly and deeply planted in the land, mixed up with all our manners and customs, one of the main guarantees of our local government, and therefore one of the prime securities of our common liberties, the Church of England is part of our history, part of our life, part of England itself.
Benjamin Disraeli
Of these denials of European tradition one is especially important: that is the refutation of the demand that the political and social order and the authority set up under it have to justify themselves as benefiting their subjects. Hardly any other concept or idea of our past is held up to so much ridicule by fascism as that of the justification of power. ‘Power is its own justification' is regarded as self-evident. Nothing shows better how far the totalitarian revolution has already gone than the general acceptance of this new maxim throughout Europe as a matter of course... Not even the most fanatical advocates of absolute monarchy would have dared to justify the sovereign otherwise.
Peter Drucker
There are no conservatives in the United States. The United States does not have a conservative tradition. The people who call themselves conservatives, like the Heritage Foundation or Gingrich, are believers in -- are radical statists. They believe in a powerful state, but a welfare state for the rich.
Noam Chomsky
In every revolution there intrude, at the side of its true agents, men of a different stamp some of them survivors of and devotees to past revolutions, without insight into the present movement, but preserving popular influence by their known honesty and courage, or by the sheer force of tradition others mere brawlers, who, by dint of repeating year after year the same set of stereotyped declamations against the government of the day, have sneaked into the reputation of revolutionists of the first water They are an unavoidable evil with time they are shaken off.
Karl Marx
It must be remembered that in Mark's mind hardly one rag of noble thought, either Christian or Pagan, had a secure lodging. His education had been neither scientific nor classical - merely "Modern.” The severities both of abstraction and of high human tradition had passed him by: and he had neither peasant shrewdness nor aristocratic honour to help him. He was a man of straw, a glib examinee in subjects that require no exact knowledge (he had always done well on Essays and General Papers) and the first hint of a real threat to his bodily life knocked him sprawling.
C. S. Lewis
The process of electing members of Parliament to represent the people is at the heart of western democracy. Fiji courts are also part of an independent judicial system which is firmly rooted in western democracy. The basic civil lesson that our children learn in school is that democracy is a government of the people, by the people, for the people ... Mr Qarase should answer whether he wants the western system of governance which allows him to be prime minister or the Fijian tradition which requires the chiefs to rule by virtue of their birthright and rank. Otherwise, he is just being hypocritical to save face. (4 September 2005, reacting to a speech made by Qarase at the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association on 29 August, claiming that democracy was alien to Fiji).
Epeli Ganilau
I simply state that I'm a product of a versatile mind in a restless generation - with every reason to throw my mind and pen in with the radicals. Even if, deep in my heart, I thought we were all blind atoms in a world as limited as a stroke of a pendulum, I and my sort would struggle against tradition; try, at least, to displace old cants with new ones. I've thought I was right about life at various times, but faith is difficult. One thing I know. If living isn't seeking for the grail it may be a damned amusing game.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
