Since custom is the principal magistrate of man's life, let men by all means endeavor to obtain good customs.

Customs represent the experience of mankind.

Custom reconciles us to everything.

Innumerable are the illusions and legerdemain-tricks of custom: but of all of these, perhaps the cleverest is her knack of persuading us that the miraculous, by simple repetition, ceases to be miraculous.

Custom looks to things that are past, and fashion to things that are present, but both of them are somewhat blind as to things that are to come.

At every moment of his life the Shoshone must be careful to observe the complicated folkways of his group, to do reverence to superhuman powers, to remember the courtesies and obligations of family, to pay homage to certain sacred plants, or to avoid particular places.

Despite the theories traditionally taught in high-school social studies, the truth is: the more primitive the society, the more leisured its way of life.

What men call civilization is the condition of present customs; what they call barbarism, the condition of past ones.

Custom makes all things easy.

Most of the things we do, we do for no better reason than that our fathers have done them or our neighbors do them, and the same is true of a larger part than what we suspect of what we think.