W. Somerset Maugham Quotes

Tradition is a guide and not a jailer.

W. Somerset Maugham

• Tradition
• Guide
• Jailer

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Quotes to Explore

• Indians are marvelous storytellers. In some ways, that oral tradition is stronger than the written tradition.

  

  N. Scott Momaday
  • Tradition
  • Stronger
  • Indians

• One could surely argue that the Buddhist tradition, taken as a whole, represents the richest source of contemplative wisdom that any civilization has produced.

  

  Sam Harris
  • Taken
  • Wisdom
  • Tradition

• I think the tradition of well-written history hasn't been squashed out of the academic world as much in Britain as it has in the United States.

  

  Adam Hochschild
  • World
  • History
  • Tradition

• One of the things that's really, really present in 'Between the World and Me' is, I am in some ways outside of the African-American tradition.

  

  Ta-Nehisi Coates
  • World
  • American
  • Tradition

• My wife and I have a tradition of popcorn and videos with our kids on Friday evenings.

  

  Ozwald Boateng
  • Kids
  • Wife
  • Tradition

• I'm content to stand on tradition. I'm even more content to wipe my feet on it.

  

  Aaron Allston
  • Tradition
  • Feet
  • Stand

• I think the only choice that will enable us to hold to our vision... is one that abandons the concept of naming enemies and adopts a concept familiar to the nonviolent tradition: naming behavior that is oppressive.

  

  Barbara Deming
  • Vision
  • Choice
  • Tradition

• One bipartisan policy tradition is to deny Americans the use of our own resources.

  

  Harold Ford, Jr.
  • Policy
  • Tradition
  • Resources

• In Lebanon, there are completely different opinions and values in one country in terms of religion, modernity, tradition, East and West - which allows for a kind of intellectual development not available anywhere else.

  

  Rabih Alameddine
  • Different
  • Country
  • Religion

• I grew up in a place where everybody was a storyteller, but nobody wrote. It was that kind of Celtic, storytelling tradition: everybody would have a story at the pub or at parties, even at the clubs and raves.

  

  Irvine Welsh
  • Up
  • Kind
  • Story

• The air of the English is down-to-earth. They care about details; there's a tradition, but there's also a counter-culture: the younger generation versus the older generation and so on. But then that's well blended into a happy balance and crystallised into common sense.

  

  Tadashi Yanai
  • Happy
  • Earth
  • Culture

• I think we're very lucky that there is a tradition of British actors working in America and being respected in America, and I've always liked Kate Winslet and her work and respected her.

  

  Felicity Jones
  • Work
  • America
  • Tradition

• I'm Jewish, but not overly religious, and have certainly never formally observed the Fourth Commandment, other than via the tradition of wearing white on Friday nights at summer camp, which never seemed to dovetail with the fact that Fridays were also the night for grape juice.

  

  Rachel Sklar
  • Night
  • Religious
  • Summer

• Events alone rarely provide much guide to the future.

  

  Walter Lord
  • Future
  • Alone
  • Guide

• Even before 9/11 I was gripped by a sense of dread: our lack of criticism about what we were doing in the Middle East - the slagging off of a whole religious tradition.

  

  Karen Armstrong
  • Religious
  • Doing
  • Criticism

• Since St. Augustine announced that Eve - and, hence, collective woman - was responsible for original sin, rabid sexism has been a major pillar of patriarchal religious tradition.

  

  Barbara G. Walker
  • Religious
  • Woman
  • Sin

• Tradition has made women cowardly.

  

  Nance O'Neil
  • Women
  • Made
  • Tradition

• Bolton School has a great tradition in the liberal arts.

  

  Ian Mckellen
  • Great
  • School
  • Tradition

• My real life was when I was just a working guy. You know, it's OK to head out for Wonderful. But on your way to Wonderful, you're gonna have to pass through All Right. And when you get to All Right, take a good look around, and get used to it, because that may be as far as you're gonna go.

  

  Bill Withers
  • Life
  • May
  • Guy

• Yeah, it's an origin story. But you very quickly get into the origin and then it's off to the races. It is an origin story, certainly, but it's not like the movie ends and somebody stretches. It happens pretty quickly and I'm not sure how much I'm allowed to say about it, but I think when people see that first hint, they'll be pretty excited about it.

  

  Nicholas Stoller
  • People
  • Thinking
  • Stories

• I could not separate myself off stage from myself on stage, as so many actors can.

  

  Kate Smith
  • Myself
  • Stage
  • Off

• Is it O.K. that I speak in English? The only thing I know in Dutch is how to order pot.

  

  Eddie Vedder Pearl Jam
  • English
  • Speak
  • Dutch

• “There were good places and bad places to tell stories and there were of course stories that could not be told in any place on earth and these were reserved for heaven.

  

  Gerald Hausman
  • Heaven
  • Stories
  • Places

• Tradition is a guide and not a jailer.

  

  W. Somerset Maugham
  • Tradition
  • Guide
  • Jailer