These innovations in the customs and principles of our forefathers do not please us nor seem proper.

It is absurd to ape our betters.

We live always under the weight of the old and odious customs … of our barbarous ancestors.

I appreciate this quest for national identity," she said, "but it does seem that most traditions were dropped for the good reason that they were revoltingly cruel and stupid.

Our second danger is to associate tradition with the immovable; to think of it as something hostile to all change; to aim to return to some previous condition which we imagine as having been capable of preservation in perpetuity, instead of aiming to stimulate the life which produced that condition in its time. . . . a tradition without intelligence is not worth having . . .

We are what our ancestors have been, and to destroy that destroys the very reason that people fight and die and sacrifice to preserve this country.

Whether we like it or not, modern ways are going to alter and in part destroy traditional customs and values.

A shame on such laws! a SHAME on such men.

La tradición de todas las generaciones muertas oprime como una pesadilla el cerebro de los vivos.

Hereditary succession to the magistracy is absurd, as it tends to make a property of it; it is incompatible with the sovereignty of the people.

To be wealthy and honored in an unjust society is a disgrace.

Perhaps the most surprise, the most shock, should arise when what is said is really most orthodox and ancient, since the tradition is so rarely re-performed in practice today.

It is a shame for anyone
to be well-known for righteousness.
It is a great disgrace to feel
distress at the injustice of
the turning of the wheels of fate.

The very idea of putting a preacher on trial for what he preaches, the very idea, you ought to be ashamed of yourselves!