Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Custom
Consuetudo est secunda natura.
Custom is second nature.
St. Augustine.
Vetus consuetudo natunæ vim obtinet.
An ancient custom obtains force of nature.
Cicero—De Inventione.
Only that he may conform
To (Tyrant) customs.
Du Bartas—Divine Weekes and Workes. Second Week. Third Day. Pt. II.
Such dupes are men to custom, and so prone
To rev’rence what is ancient, and can plead
A course of long observance for its use,
That even servitude, the worst of ills,
Because deliver’d down from sire to son,
Is kept and guarded as a sacred thing!
Cowper—Task. Bk. V. L. 298.
The slaves of custom and established mode,
With pack-horse constancy we keep the road
Crooked or straight, through quags or thorny dells,
True to the jingling of our leader’s bells.
Cowper—Tirocinium. L. 251.
Man yields to custom, as he bows to fate,
In all things ruled—mind, body, and estate;
In pain, in sickness, we for cure apply
To them we know not, and we know not why.
Crabbe—Tale III. The Gentleman Farmer. L. 86.
Che l’uso dei mortali è come fronda.
In ramo, che sen va, ed altra viene.
The customs and fashions of men change like leaves on the bough, some of which go and others come.
Dante—Paradiso. XXVI. 137.
Great things astonish us, and small dishearten us. Custom makes both familiar.
La Bruyère—The Characters or Manners of the Present Age. Vol. II. Ch. I. On Judgments.
Consuetudo pro lege servatur.
Custom is held to be as a law.
Law Maxim.
Optimus legum interpres consuetudo.
Custom is the best interpreter of laws.
Law Maxim.
Vetustas pro lege semper habetur.
Ancient custom is always held or regarded as law.
Law Maxim.
The laws of conscience, which we pretend to be derived from nature, proceed from custom.
Montaigne—Of Custom and Law. Ch. XXII.
Choose always the way that seems the best, however rough it may be. Custom will render it easy and agreeable.
Pythagoras—Ethical Sentences from Stobæus.
Nicht fremder Brauch gedeiht in einem Lande.
Strange customs do not thrive in foreign soil.
Schiller—Demetrius. I. 1.
Ein tiefer Sinn wohnt in den alten Bräuchen.
A deep meaning often lies in old customs.
Schiller—Marie Stuart. I. 7. 131.
Custom calls me to ’t:
What custom wills, in all things should we do’t,
The dust on antique time would lie unswept,
And mountainous error be too highly heap’t
For truth to o’erpeer.
Coriolanus. Act II. Sc. 3. L. 124.
But to my mind, though I am native here,
And to the manner born, it is a custom
More honor’d in the breach than the observance.
Hamlet. Act I. Sc. 4. L. 15.
That monster, custom,***is angel yet in this,
That to the use of actions fair and good
He likewise gives a frock or livery,
That aptly is put on.
Hamlet. Act III. Sc. 4. L. 161.
Nice customs curtesy to great kings.
Henry V. Act V. Sc. 2. L. 291.
New customs,
Though they be never so ridiculous,
Nay, let ’em be unmanly, yet are followed.
Henry VIII. Act I. Sc. 3. L. 3.
The tyrant custom, most grave senators,
Hath made the flinty and steel couch of war
My thrice-driven bed of down.
Othello. Act I. Sc. 3. L. 230.
’Tis nothing when you are used to it.
Swift—Polite Conversation. Dialogue III.
The old order changeth, yielding place to new;
And God fulfils himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.
Tennyson—Passing of Arthur. L. 408. First line also in Coming of Arthur. L. 508.